==============================================================================
Table of Contents
===============================================================================
Introduction
This collection of writings is presented to the students and faculty of the University of South Florida for their scrutiny and enjoyment. The purpose of this bundle of writings is to dance randomly from topic to topic with no particular rhyme or reason. In the end, perhaps some order will come from the chaos, although at present, I am having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. During the first part of the semester, I have done plenty of reading and writing, but not much connecting of thoughts, themes and ideas. I wrote about my experience with a serious injury over the summer, including my M.R.I. and my thoughts on the health care system in America.
The funny thing about this kind of class is that a student is given an open canvas of subjects to focus on. What I would've loved to do is spend my time for this class researching my hobbies of wine tasting, gourmet cooking and travel. Honestly, I wanted to focus this whole wiki and "project" on food and gourmet cooking, as a complimentary project to my extensive research on wine and vineyards last semester. However, a fellow student mentioned this as an interest, and so I quickly shied away from this angle. In the end, I've been so consumed with 12 weeks of x-rays and M.R.I.'s and physical therapy that it made sense to talk about these things for a bit. But now that I'm on the mend, I have no desire to explore these subjects further.
Since I was on crutches and in total hibernation for the summer, I decided to spend more time helping the organization that I already work with, the Downtown Residents' Civic Association. This civic group is comprised of the residents and board members from various homeowners' associations in the downtown Saint Petersburg area and has a conservative ideology. Although I consider myself a moderate centrist, lately I've been finding myself leaning a little more right than I used to. Perhaps it is because of the many hours I have spent writing articles that have a conservative spin? I would like to think that I am not THAT influenceable, but maybe I am. Another factor is my extreme disappointment with our current White House Administration, and this might be contributing towards my right slant.
I have been a political "flip-flopper" but I don't use the term condescendingly; I think that a person should be willing and able to change his or her political views upon receiving new information and being made aware of changes and issues in our society. I voted for George W. Bush during his term, mostly because I had a Republican boss and a Republican family. But then he made himself look like an ASS and the country went to HELL and I got out there on my own to pay bills and buy a house.... and then I went left. I had hoped that Hillary Clinton would be our President but, when she didn't win the primary election, I jumped on the Obama bandwagon and even went door-to-door to solicit votes.
Well, don't I feel like an ass now? I feel like the butt of a joke. We're not out of Afghanistan and we don't have universal health care. We don't have jobs and we certainly don't have CHANGE. Yes we can? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
So now I find myself leaning right again, working for several conservative groups and being re-indoctrinated by my father and my uncle who are DIE-HARD REPUBLICANS.
After a brief collection of articles on health care, feminism and travel, the second part of this portfolio is a collection of articles about the political and social affairs of downtown Saint Petersburg, written for the DRCA annual report and newsletters. Note the difference in audiences! The first set of articles is written from a more relaxed, slightly liberal perspective, aimed at an audience of my peers, people that would likely encounter these readings on my blog or on the class wiki. The second set of articles is written for a conservative, demographically-specific audience- namely, homeowners age 35-84 who reside between 14th Ave N & 14th Ave S in the downtown core area of Saint Petersburg, FL and belong to a homeowners' association.
==============================================================================
This is my original wiki page, with many of the writings that are seen in this portfolio. However, I will be posting specific selections on this portfolio for viewing, a combination of my personal essays and my journalistic writing for the DRCA.
===============================================================================
(Click link to view full articles)
==============================================================================
Free form writing is a beautiful and necessary tool for all writers. Whether writing in a narrative or technical capacity, the brainstorming and the outpouring of words onto paper is the first important step in the creative process. But as a writer moves forward into the editing phase, literary elements like grammar and syntax are important not only for technical writers, but also for the novel and essay-writer. The literary Formalists believed that such mastery of the text was ultimately the greatest sign of true artist. I wouldn't go that far, but I certainly agree that a person's entire point or purpose can sometimes get lost in a sea of words, especially if there are punctuation, spelling mistakes and errors in sentence structure. What might otherwise be a fantastic and insightful piece can instead become ambiguous, confusing or tedious to the reader.
On a professional level, it is extremely important to learn the most common mistakes that are made and avoid them at all costs. In this increasingly competitve job market, an employer will give the job or the interview to the person who can spell and write properly. The smallest mistakes on a resume, cover letter, e-mail or application essay (a screening tool that is becoming more popular) can be a deal-breaker for some employers.
The purpose of this page is to note my own grammatical observations and research as I read a variety of texts: the wiki pages here, magazines, newspapers and websites, and even my own documents.
======================================================
***final/current draft that showcases what you want us to look at at length. this can be all the up-'til-now + anything else that comes in during your focused revision/delivery. fit and finish. buff and polish.
***coversheet/metaprogramming: tell us how to respond, tell us what you learned, situate your polished offering and the style of feedback you have cultivated:
2. what is the purpose of the work that you have bundled for our scrutiny and enjoyment?
3. message/medium: what is the relationship between content/form? Between medium/message? You can reflect on the process thus far and speculate about where you might go next.
4. what did you do in this experiment that most pleased you, and how did you do this/how did it happen? What route did you take in your experiment in composition-by-emergence?
5. Talk about tone (molecular): what atmosphere are striving for and what compositional techniques do you employ ? Or, talk about genre: what templates and other available ordering principles to you use to activate audience expectations?
6. When answering #1-5, above, please remember to characterize and reflect upon the mode of feedback that you adopted during the first phase of the semester.
***feedback: show the feedback that you provide for others (3X). Please be sure to reflect on the specific techniques, function, philosophy, dynamic, etc of the diverse modes of engagement and writing we are calling feedback, as per questions 1-5, above.
(under construction)
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.