PB2B

Majd Kazzaz  

04/26/15

PB2B

            When reading different pieces of literature by different authors, one may be able to notice a difference in the way things are presented or structured. This is mostly due to the fact that every writer has his or her own “moves”. The term moves is a very broad term that can be used to identify a multiple of elements. It can be used to describe the diction a writer uses, the sentence structure, the figurative language, the schemes, and many more. Every writer’s moves are what make that writer unique and distinguishable from the others. While some writers may use some of the same individual moves, they might combine different moves to make the writing even more unique. This can be seen in Janet Boyd’s “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)” and in Laura Bolin Carroll’s “Backpacks vs Briefcases”.

            Janet Boyd implements a combination of unique moves that are not often seen in other pieces of writing. One particular element that I noticed in her piece I that she is extremely conversational and personal in her writing. It is almost to the point where you feel like you might as well be sitting in a coffee shop across the table from her. She floods her paper with uses of the words “I” and “You” in order to create a mood of personal connection. Now one might wonder why Boyd chooses to use this mood, rather than implement an academic tone that would be taken much more seriously. My interpretation led me to believe that she chooses this sort of personal and conversational style in order to strengthen her message and make sure the reader understands what she is attempting to portray. Say perhaps that she chose to barrage the paper with long academic words and a very serious mood; then most of the readers would find themselves lost like a tourist in a foreign country without a map. Another move that Boyd chooses to implement in her writing is the use of questions to get the reader thinking. These rhetorical questions allow for a different way of approaching the reader with new information. Rather than her just throwing information at the reader and hoping that the reader catches something, she puts these questions to get the reader more involved. Speaking of getting the reader more involved, that is something that she does constantly throughout the article. Whether it be her saying, “Take a moment to visualize the five facts” or “Really—go, write, and come back” she takes command of the information and encourages the reader to apply what they are learning. By doing this, she tells the reader to take a moment and step away from the text in order to apply some of the concepts and get an even better understanding. Another move of hers, even though it is minor, is her use of italicized words throughout the paper. She does this in order to emphasize certain concepts and to point out the main ideas of a particular paragraph.

            After analyzing all the moves that Boyd included in her piece, it was time to look at Laura Bolin Carroll’s “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” to determine some similarities and differences. Right off the bat the first thing I noticed is that this piece of writing is more formal and less personal than the other. While it does include some personal pronouns throughout the text, it is not nearly as much as Boyd had in her piece. Even though this might seem like a minor contrast between the two, it ends up creating a completely different mood and effect in both of the pieces. One move that Carroll does, and that Boyd also implements, is the use of small headings and titles throughout the paper in order to signify a change in the subject as well as to provide more structure. While Boyd used many italicized words in her piece, Carroll’s move is to include a lot of parentheses. These parentheses serve a purpose of providing examples of certain elements that she referred to in the text. This can be seen when she says, “What we choose to wear (tennis shoes vs. flip flops), where we shop (Whole Foods Market vs. Wal-Mart), what we eat (organic vs. fast food), or even the way we send information (snail mail vs. text message) can work to persuade others”. One move that both writers have in common, and for the same purpose, is the use of rhetorical questions.

            While there are many different “moves” that each of these articles implemented, some of them were more successful than the others. One particular move is how Janet Boyd made her piece extremely conversational and personal. I feel as if this provides for a very interesting and unique piece that teaches the reader the concepts in a way that they may not normally be used to. Another particular move that I feel was very successful, and that both of the authors used, is the implementation of questions throughout the text. This allows for the reader to be more engaged and involved by thinking on their own and attempting to apply the concepts that they are learning. All in all, every writer has his or her own moves that make him or her unique and different.

PB2A

Majd Kazzaz

04/19/15

PB2A

            The scholarly academic publication that I chose to discuss is “Exploring the influence of race relations and public safety concerns on public support for racial profiling during traffic stops” by George Higgins, Shaun Gabbidon, and Gennaro Vito. While going through and analyzing this document, it became very clear the essential elements of a scholarly academic paper. In fact, each of the conventions that I noticed felt important to the entirety of the paper.

            One of the most obvious conventions of the scholarly article is at the beginning of the paper in a section called the “Abstract”. In this part of the paper the authors provide a small introduction to the material that is being discussed throughout the paper, as well as allow the reader to know what to expect before they even begin. An example of this in the publication I found is, “The purpose of the present study was to explore hypotheses related to the influence of race relations and perceptions of safety on public opinion regarding racial profiling in traffic stops”. As one can tell, the abstract in this article was plain and straight to the point about the purpose. This is a very common convention among all the academic articles I examined as well as in the “SCIgen” genre generator program.

            After the “Abstract” the paper also has an introduction section that has more information about the topic. This introduction section gives the reader all the background information that is necessary to know. In this particular article the introduction discusses the history of racial profiling and how it has been handled throughout history. It even provides specific examples of particular legal actions that occurred in the past in regards to racial profiling. This demonstrates the importance of the issue at hand and how it has been an ongoing problem even in past years. The introduction is a convention of a scholarly paper and is also included in every paper that I generated through the “SCIgen” genre generator. It is a very important piece to ensure the understanding of the actual problem and to show the audience that there is a problem that needs to be solved.

            It is also very easy to notice how everything is organized and structured to provide very clear and concise information. There are different sections that are bold and contain very specific details, which allows for the reader to know exactly what they are looking for and see exactly where it is. One particular category that is a convention in itself is the method category. This category demonstrates what exactly took place to reach the results and demonstrates all the important pieces of the research. This is where the independent and dependent variables were discussed in the article that I analyzed. The method category is also present in the “SCIgen” genre generator where even though every paper had a different topic, the convention remained present throughout.

            Another very important convention that was present in the genre generator as well as in the particular scholarly paper that I looked at is the use of visual diagrams to represent information. In the paper on Racial Profiling there were two visual tables that represented important data. One table was “Descriptive statistics for the measures” and the other was “Logistic regression of testing the connection between race relations, perceptions of safety and perceptions that racial profiling is justified”. Tables and diagrams are very common conventions in a scholarly academic publication. Another very common convention that was present in the genre generator website and also in this document is the inclusion of references at the very bottom of the article.

            A specific aspect of the scholarly piece that I feel is the most important would have to be the abstract. This part of the article is where everything is simplified and made easy to understand. It allows the writer to portray the main purpose of the piece as well as for the reader to know what to expect. Without an abstract, the reader would have to spend more time trying to understand what the writer is attempting to say and that is why it is very convenient and important to have.

PB1B

Majd Kazzaz  

04/07/2015

PB1B

            Patterns and conventions are both crucial characteristics of a genre. They are the “glue” that brings it together and that distinguishes the genre. These patterns are necessary and essential when trying to identify an element as being a certain type of genre. That is the main idea behind several different “genre generator” websites online. What these websites do is develop a piece of work that falls under a particular genre by making sure that it has the necessary conventions. The different types of genre generators I looked at were a computer science paper generator, then a comic strip generator, and lastly a meme generator. Each of these followed the different conventions of each genre.

            The first one I experimented with was the computer science paper generator. This one was interesting because of the fact that the content of the paper would change each time, however it would still be very similar. This observation is due to the fact that the conventions never changed and it was the conventions that provided the similarity. The first convention that I noticed is the fact that everything is organized into separate paragraphs. The order of the information being presented was demonstrated by using a table of contents. Another convention that I noticed is the large and bold title on the top of each paper followed by a list of the authors. Each of the computer science papers that I generated began with an introduction that introduced what the particular data and research is about. The purpose of this is to show that an introduction is a necessary convention of a computer science paper. Another convention that I noticed about these papers is the fact that they each have a section that discusses the implementation of their resource. Each of these computer science papers has some sort of visual diagram included. Whether it is a graph representing certain data or a diagram demonstrating the research, each of these had some sort of visual element. Another convention of a computer science paper, according to the website, is the inclusion of a references section at the very end. This is where the authors cite their sources.

            The next “genre generator” website that I experimented with was a comic strip generator. This website just randomly created comic strips using certain conventions. One convention that I observed is the fact that there is a very limited amount of words. The words that are present in a comic strip are usually either dialog or a thought bubble. A lot of the communication in a comic strip is demonstrated through the facial expressions and actions of the actual characters, which is why the use of words is not as important. Another convention that I noticed is that the comic strips are all fairly simple and not very sophisticated. In other words, they presented a small encounter or conversation between two characters. Simplicity is an important convention of a comic strip because it is what can separate it from several other genres. The thought bubbles themselves are also a convention of comic strips because almost all comic strips include at least one and it is mainly only found within comics.

            The last genre generating website I encountered is a meme generator. Memes are essentially pictures with words on them that convey a particular message. One necessary convention of a meme is a picture in the background. Every meme has some sort of picture or illustration in the background that provide context for the words. Another convention of a meme is that there is not much room for a lot of words; therefore the creators of a meme must portray their message with minimal amount of words. After playing around with the generator for quite a while, it was easy to notice that choosing the right words to use is not an easy task.

            Everything that’s happening with these different websites can help clarify what exactly a genre is. A genre is a specific element that contains certain conventions. Each genre has its own different conventions similar to how each of these websites generated different pieces of literature. The facts that the computer science papers each had a specific pattern that they followed and the comic strips were each fairly short and simple even the memes that each had a picture behind words, demonstrates how important conventions are to genres.

PB1A- Majd Kazzaz

Majd Kazzaz

April 4, 2015

PB1A

            There are many different genres present in the world today. Different forms of writing or speaking are used under different circumstances and in different situations. There are many discrepancies that distinguish each genre from the other such as diction, tone, and mood. One genre that is extremely important to society and is used by many powerful leaders or politicians is a speech. Speeches have the power to persuade people, to control people, and to be a sign of authority. They can be used to address certain specific topics or issues as well as a call to action. There are many different conventions that define a speech, making it a unique genre of its own. Also, there are several rhetorical features involved in creating a speech. Rhetoric is the way a certain person chooses to portray his/her message. In fact, Janet Boyd says in “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)”, “[C]hoosing how to express your meaning is every bit as important as the message itself, which is really what rhetoric is”(Boyd). Typically, a speech needs to be catered towards the audience and towards what they want to hear. That is why the audience of a speech is a very crucial part of its effectiveness because it is essentially the group of people who will be listening to what you have to say. One rhetorical feature of a speech is its purpose. Some speeches are made to convince people to have a different perspective or opinion, which can be seen in events such as a presidential race where each candidate makes speeches to earn more votes. The purpose of a speech is different than that of other genres such as fictional stories, research papers, or college admission essays. It doesn’t necessarily have a purpose of entertainment, nor does it have a purpose of research and development. Its purpose is to directly address an audience because a speech is presented in front a group of people. That is also why speeches are normally composed of attention grabbing hooks and a lot of emotion-filled remarks. The context of a speech is also different than that of many other genres. A speech is a piece of literature that is presented to an audience who is gathered to hear the speech. A convention of a speech is that it has arguments and evidence to persuade the audience. Similar to an argumentative essay, a speech must use elements such as data, examples, and specifics to support a certain standpoint.  Another convention of a speech, which is often used by speechwriters, is repetition. Repetition is used in order to emphasize a particular idea or standpoint that is extremely important to the purpose of the speech. These are the reasons why a speech is a unique genre of its own, different than many other genres. It can only be used in particular situations and under certain circumstances. For example, a leader of a social activism group would use a speech to convince society for a call to action rather than using other genres such as poems or letters.

About Me

My name is Majd Kazzaz, an arabic name meaning, "The Glorious". I am a Palestinian American born and raised in Orange County, California. I love the sport of basketball, whether I'm be playing it or watching. Throughout the years I have developed a unique passion for the game in which it became more than just a sport, more than just a competition between two opponents, even more than just a game. I found that playing basketball was my way of coping with personal issues or stress and it was one of the few places where I would go to calm myself down. I also enjoy learning new things and watching new movies.