This blog post will focus on the research that was done for Project 3. This project will feature a lot of local newspapers or magazines because of the fact that it is a Phoenix-area controversy not a national controversy.
1) Gila River Tribe Sues.., Arizona Republic, azcentral.com
This article is written by Chris Coppola, who has previously worked for the East Valley Tribune. He has much experience in looking over and reporting on Phoenix area issues since he has been there for so long. The source is aimed at informing the phoenix area residents, especially those who live around the South Mountain. We can see that through many of the different passages in the article which interview residents around the new freeway path, specifically residents of the Gila River Community. This source tries to explain why the tribe was suing the Arizona Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, contending they violated review laws. This article is formal and features links to other information and articles.
2) South Mountain Freeway...., Arizona Republic, azcentral.com
This article is written by Joanna Allhands, an opinion writer for the Arizona Republic. She is also the main editor at the newspaper which establishes her credibility. The source is aimed at those who claim the freeway was not studied thoroughly. This is achieved through sarcastic remarks toward those who deny that the freeway was studied. This source tries to debunk the main claim of the anti-freeway people that the freeway was not studied. This is done through reminders of all the constant studies that have been done over the past 10-30 years. The article is labeled an opinion piece because it is clearly biased in one direction. Nevertheless it remains credible because it features working links and facts to back up the opinionated argument.
3) Feds Approve Controversial...., Arizona Republic, azcentral.com
This article is written by Sean Holstege and Connie Sexton. Connie Sexton is the story of the day writer which means she covers about everything and has a well rounded knowledge. Sean Holstege is a writer on transportation and the border so he is well versed in talking about this sort of controversy. This article is aimed to everyone in the Phoenix area but in particular those people who live around the south mountain area. This source tries to inform the reader as to the latest state of the controversy, the approval of the project to be constructed.
4) ADOT starts demolishing..., Cronkite News, cronkitenews.azpbs.org
This article is written by Ty Scholes. Ty is a multi-medial journalist for the Cronkite news who has written many articles about current events and local news stories. This article is aimed at at informing the reader as to what currently is happening in the controversy as well as why it is still controversial. It does this by telling the stories of displaced locals. It also features firsthand video as well. The article is aimed at the people of phoenix and surrounding areas to inform them of what is going on. it does that by talking about first hand accounts that people can relate to and feel for while also reminding people of the traffic problem that exists.
5) Home Demolitions Begin...., Phoenix New Times, phoenixnewtimes.com
This article is written by Miriam Wasser, a main contributor to the Phoenix New Times. She has written many news stories, many about local Phoenix area news stories. This article is aimed at informing the reader about the new demolitions of homes in the Phoenix area to make way for this new freeway. It features a map and a description of what the freeway is supposed to do.
6) Traffic Jam, Phoenix Magazine, phoenixmag.com
This article is written by Keridwen Cornelius, a freelance writer who works with the Phoenix Magazine. He has written many articles for the Phoenix Magazine as well as for Arizona Highways magazine. This article is aimed at telling the entire story of the South Mountain freeway project, as well as telling the story of why this project is so controversial for the native peoples that live in the area. The audience generally can be considered anyone in the Phoenix region who read the Phoenix Magazine. It does that through looking at the first hand account from the native tribes as to what they believe and how it is affecting their daily lives.
7) South Mountain Freeway...., Ahwatukee Foothills News, ahwatukee.com
This article is written by Allision Hurtado, a main writer for the neighborhood paper. This article is aimed at informing the reader about the controversy and about why it is controversial in some parts of the city of phoenix and not in other parts of the city of Phoenix. The audience is anyone who lives in the Ahwahtukee foothills area or around South Mountain. Which can be seen through its use of looking at the people living in the ahwahtukee neighborhoods.
8) Protestors Fight Loop,,,,,.; KJZZ 91.5, kjzz,org
This article is written by Stina Sieg, who is a writer who originally was a writer for a small town but has now worked her way up. The article is aimed at reporting about a series of protesters who were protesting the freeway. The article provides images and firsthand accounts of the protests and why there were protests. The audience is anyone who reads this paper or in general follows local politics which can be seen through the articles mention of the political aspects of city life. The audience is mostly people looking to stay up on the local news.
9) Environmentalist Fighting Against....; Phoenix Business Journal, bizjournals.com
This article is written by Mike Sunnucks, he is a writer about residential issues and local issues. The article focuses on the impact that the freeway will have on the environment. This includes looking at how the freeway will alter the landscape around it. The article mentions how different plants and animal species might be cut off from their natural habitat. The audience of this paper is people who are considering supporting the freeway as well as anyone who is going to fund the freeway. This can been seen through the overarching emotional appeal to people about the destruction of environments.
10) Sides in Phoenix-area Freeway....; KTAR News, ktar.com
This article is written by ktar.com, there isn't any other author given. This is a bit strange and sketchy but it does seem to be a reputable source despite not having an author. The article's main aim is to focus on reporting the news that some of the local families were given more time to pack up and move out. The audience of this paper is most likely anyone who is closely following the story or anyone who lives in the area's affected. This is is because as a news story, it is closely aimed at those who will affect the most from the issue or story at hand, in this instance it is the people of Southern Phoenix and Ahwahtukee.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Rhetorical Analysis of Project 3
This blog post represents the beginning of project 3. In this post I will address the rhetorical situation of project three. I will look at the context, the audience, the author, and the purpose. This blog post will be a rough outline of what I am thinking about for this project.
This project will require me to connect my interests to the ideas that will be presented in the project. Foremost I must decide what interest I want to focus on. The idea of this project will focus on a controversy of my own choosing. The first place that I looked for controversy ideas was within my major. The controversy from this major that I would look at was the construction of the South Mountain Freeway in Phoenix. This has been a major controversy for years and has people polarized on either side of the argument. Another idea was to look at a controversy in my hobby of music, this would be the controversy of music ownership and music copyrights.
I must be careful of my own biases and opinions. In both these instances I have my own opinions and ideas that could sway my argument from being a neutral stance. Although in many cases this might not actually be a bad thing, if I am trying to refute or support and argument, a little personal bias might not be the worst thing in the entire world. All of these arguments might be persuaded by the ideas that I grew up being taught and the ideas that I have adopted as my own.
When I consider my audience for this project I will consider someone who is personally vested in the controversy that I am writing about, either for or against my argument. I will try to inform them and possibly convince them that my argument is the right one. These could be local stakeholders, national people, and other people. These audience members most likely have their own opinions and will either highly agree with me or highly disagree with me. Some of these people may have strong feelings about the controversies that I might talk about and might respond poorly. The way that I will try to connect with my audience is by looking at what the issues that they hold strongly to are and then comparing them to my views. Mainly I need to do this in the least confrontational way as possible. Specifically if I was doing the piece on the south mountain freeway then I would look at talking to the native american community that has so strongly objected to the freeway for years.
I have a major purpose for this project, I want to inform the general public about the ideas and opinions that are expressed in this controversy and possibly how the controversy can be solved. I want the audience to gain knowledgeable information into the controversy and form their own opinion about the controversy. It is important no matter what the side I choose that all the information and sides of the controversy are presented to the reader. Each side should be reminded of the controversy but then should be presented with a clear stated opinion.
For this project I will be writing in the genre of a standard college essay. The audience usually expects a formal presentation of the ideas and clear citations for the essay. Everything needs to be researched and backed up efficiently. This is the genre that I have worked in the most. Overall this means that I am fairly confident about this genre although I know it will still be a tough task to do. Overall the most effective conventions in this genre are the citations and the overall body structure of an essay.
The time frame of this project centers around the legal challenge for the construction of the South Mountain Freeway. The Gila River Indian Community sued the state government over the construction of the freeway. The federal government did not rule in their favor though and allowed the freeway to begin construction. AZCentral reported on the controversy by breaking the story of the native tribe suing. Local news 12 News also reported on it. AzFamily.com also reported on the story. Finally the phoenix new times also reported on the story. The counter-arguments to building this freeway are seen in the Azcentral story above, a local South Phoenix paper writing about how the freeway was not actually a needed freeway and an opinion piece from a local phoenix radio station.
This project will require me to connect my interests to the ideas that will be presented in the project. Foremost I must decide what interest I want to focus on. The idea of this project will focus on a controversy of my own choosing. The first place that I looked for controversy ideas was within my major. The controversy from this major that I would look at was the construction of the South Mountain Freeway in Phoenix. This has been a major controversy for years and has people polarized on either side of the argument. Another idea was to look at a controversy in my hobby of music, this would be the controversy of music ownership and music copyrights.
I must be careful of my own biases and opinions. In both these instances I have my own opinions and ideas that could sway my argument from being a neutral stance. Although in many cases this might not actually be a bad thing, if I am trying to refute or support and argument, a little personal bias might not be the worst thing in the entire world. All of these arguments might be persuaded by the ideas that I grew up being taught and the ideas that I have adopted as my own.
When I consider my audience for this project I will consider someone who is personally vested in the controversy that I am writing about, either for or against my argument. I will try to inform them and possibly convince them that my argument is the right one. These could be local stakeholders, national people, and other people. These audience members most likely have their own opinions and will either highly agree with me or highly disagree with me. Some of these people may have strong feelings about the controversies that I might talk about and might respond poorly. The way that I will try to connect with my audience is by looking at what the issues that they hold strongly to are and then comparing them to my views. Mainly I need to do this in the least confrontational way as possible. Specifically if I was doing the piece on the south mountain freeway then I would look at talking to the native american community that has so strongly objected to the freeway for years.
I have a major purpose for this project, I want to inform the general public about the ideas and opinions that are expressed in this controversy and possibly how the controversy can be solved. I want the audience to gain knowledgeable information into the controversy and form their own opinion about the controversy. It is important no matter what the side I choose that all the information and sides of the controversy are presented to the reader. Each side should be reminded of the controversy but then should be presented with a clear stated opinion.
For this project I will be writing in the genre of a standard college essay. The audience usually expects a formal presentation of the ideas and clear citations for the essay. Everything needs to be researched and backed up efficiently. This is the genre that I have worked in the most. Overall this means that I am fairly confident about this genre although I know it will still be a tough task to do. Overall the most effective conventions in this genre are the citations and the overall body structure of an essay.
The time frame of this project centers around the legal challenge for the construction of the South Mountain Freeway. The Gila River Indian Community sued the state government over the construction of the freeway. The federal government did not rule in their favor though and allowed the freeway to begin construction. AZCentral reported on the controversy by breaking the story of the native tribe suing. Local news 12 News also reported on it. AzFamily.com also reported on the story. Finally the phoenix new times also reported on the story. The counter-arguments to building this freeway are seen in the Azcentral story above, a local South Phoenix paper writing about how the freeway was not actually a needed freeway and an opinion piece from a local phoenix radio station.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Reflection on Post-Production
This is the last blog for Project 2. In this blog I will reflect on the process of editing this podcast that I created for project 2. This was a very challenging task overall and I found that I was glad that I had done most of the editing before the draft was published. That made this week of editing a week of being able to look over the little things on the project and make sure that it fit the podcast genre as best as I thought it could.
Some of the successes for this week were accurately being able to look at the project with fresh eyes thanks to the break as well as being able to find the small things such as long breaks or repeated words that needed to be eliminated. Ultimately I kept a good majority of the breaks because I felt that it effectively made it seem more like a natural recording and not something rehearsed.
Some of the challenges for this week were actually finding things that I wanted to delete or clean up from the podcast. I found myself constantly trying to think about whether certain pauses were actually effective or whether they were detrimental to the flow of the podcast. I also struggled with the idea of putting pop-culture pieces into the background of the podcast, I was not sure if this was appropriate for the genre but I thought that there needed to be some sort of piece in the background which would break up the monotony of talking on and on about a topic. That is ultimately why I put them into the podcast.
I think next week will be very interesting considering it is a new project and I only have half a week to get stuff done since I will be at a conference the other half of the week. Otherwise I dont know what to expect from next week.
I feel decent about this project. I think I did my best and I think it will be a decent project considering that this is the first podcast I have ever done. Im not sure what to expect from the grading for this project. My hope is that this podcast will meet all my expectations when I look back at it at the end of the year.
Some of the successes for this week were accurately being able to look at the project with fresh eyes thanks to the break as well as being able to find the small things such as long breaks or repeated words that needed to be eliminated. Ultimately I kept a good majority of the breaks because I felt that it effectively made it seem more like a natural recording and not something rehearsed.
Some of the challenges for this week were actually finding things that I wanted to delete or clean up from the podcast. I found myself constantly trying to think about whether certain pauses were actually effective or whether they were detrimental to the flow of the podcast. I also struggled with the idea of putting pop-culture pieces into the background of the podcast, I was not sure if this was appropriate for the genre but I thought that there needed to be some sort of piece in the background which would break up the monotony of talking on and on about a topic. That is ultimately why I put them into the podcast.
I think next week will be very interesting considering it is a new project and I only have half a week to get stuff done since I will be at a conference the other half of the week. Otherwise I dont know what to expect from next week.
I feel decent about this project. I think I did my best and I think it will be a decent project considering that this is the first podcast I have ever done. Im not sure what to expect from the grading for this project. My hope is that this podcast will meet all my expectations when I look back at it at the end of the year.
Peer Review for AJ Makela
In this blog I will address another peer review that I conducted for a student in another class. This review focused on the form of the podcast as well as a little bit of the content. Mostly I wanted to look at the structure of the podcast and see what went well and what didn't work as well as the author had probably wanted.
I peer reviewed Flawed Transcriptions by A.J. Makela. For this project I focused on looking at the form used in the podcast. I previously focused on the content of a podcast during my last review and as such I felt it would be necessary to go and look at the form of a podcast.
I tried to help the author by giving feedback on the way that the podcast was organized as well as how the way the podcast was structured. The podcast worked well to address an topic then move on. I felt that the way that each genre was described worked well within the form. I really wish that there was some sort different audio techniques that were used, like another speaker or some sound effects etc.
The students guide helped me look at the organization of the podcast which was a key part of the form that I was looking at. The way the organization is done is just a part of the form though, I needed to look at how things were presented. The audio before the music intro really was an interesting idea and I thought it worked really effectively.
One of the things that I took away from the podcast was that there doesn't need to be an extensive amount of talking about the specific examples to describe an example thoroughly. I think that this will help me not feel like I have to add more to my specific genre examples, all I need to do is define them completely.
I peer reviewed Flawed Transcriptions by A.J. Makela. For this project I focused on looking at the form used in the podcast. I previously focused on the content of a podcast during my last review and as such I felt it would be necessary to go and look at the form of a podcast.
I tried to help the author by giving feedback on the way that the podcast was organized as well as how the way the podcast was structured. The podcast worked well to address an topic then move on. I felt that the way that each genre was described worked well within the form. I really wish that there was some sort different audio techniques that were used, like another speaker or some sound effects etc.
The students guide helped me look at the organization of the podcast which was a key part of the form that I was looking at. The way the organization is done is just a part of the form though, I needed to look at how things were presented. The audio before the music intro really was an interesting idea and I thought it worked really effectively.
One of the things that I took away from the podcast was that there doesn't need to be an extensive amount of talking about the specific examples to describe an example thoroughly. I think that this will help me not feel like I have to add more to my specific genre examples, all I need to do is define them completely.
Peer Review For James Fusaro
In this blog I will peer-review one of my fellow students projects. This project is a podcast from one of my classmates. This blog will hopefully let me look at what I need to do as well to make my project more successful.
I will review the podcast "Medical Marvels" by James Fusaro. I tried to specifically focus on the content of the podcast primarily while also keeping a look at the form structure of the podcast. I was specifically asked to look at the content of the podcast to analyze whether the author accurately answered the prompt question.
I tried to make sure the author knew what I thought about the structure of the podcast, the usage of terms in the podcast and the transitions in the podcast. The author had a tendency to cut off ideas mid sentence in order to get to an audio clip of an interviewer which caused transition problems, but I also thought he did a great job on explaining the genre ideas as well as defining them and their acronyms. I also wanted to point out the way that he used some short stories of the interviewees.
I tried to follow the students guide idea of global revisions. When I wasn't focusing on content I was looking at the overall global content of the podcast. I wanted to make sure that the podcast stayed on topic and addressed the idea of different genres. I thought that it did a good job at that. I didn't focus on any local revisions like grammar or sentence fluency.
I learned to incorporate some small story or sound effect at various times in the podcast just to keep the listener engaged and to break up the monotony of talking for a long time. I also thought that the use of interviews to break up the podcast and give ideas worked very efficiently and could be applied to my own podcast.
I will review the podcast "Medical Marvels" by James Fusaro. I tried to specifically focus on the content of the podcast primarily while also keeping a look at the form structure of the podcast. I was specifically asked to look at the content of the podcast to analyze whether the author accurately answered the prompt question.
I tried to make sure the author knew what I thought about the structure of the podcast, the usage of terms in the podcast and the transitions in the podcast. The author had a tendency to cut off ideas mid sentence in order to get to an audio clip of an interviewer which caused transition problems, but I also thought he did a great job on explaining the genre ideas as well as defining them and their acronyms. I also wanted to point out the way that he used some short stories of the interviewees.
I tried to follow the students guide idea of global revisions. When I wasn't focusing on content I was looking at the overall global content of the podcast. I wanted to make sure that the podcast stayed on topic and addressed the idea of different genres. I thought that it did a good job at that. I didn't focus on any local revisions like grammar or sentence fluency.
I learned to incorporate some small story or sound effect at various times in the podcast just to keep the listener engaged and to break up the monotony of talking for a long time. I also thought that the use of interviews to break up the podcast and give ideas worked very efficiently and could be applied to my own podcast.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Editorial Report 2
This blog is the second and final editorial report for Project 2. Nevertheless there will be more editing to the other sections of the project after this report is written. This edit will focus on the first interview that was put in my project. Since it is the segment immediately following the introduction, I felt like editing it next and thus putting my editing results here. You will not be entertained.
The content section of this segment did not change at all actually. This section, since it is just an interview, could not be redone in any way. The only content changes that could be made are cutting entire sections of the interview out that didn't fit within my topic for this podcast.
The form section of the segment saw the most amount of editing. This section also had a lot of dead space and ums from both myself and my interviewee. In order to get the interview to flow better and get the entire podcast to flow better, I eliminated many of the dead spaces and the quieter parts of the interview as well as any repetitions from the interviewee. Hopefully this will all trim a few seconds off of the interview segment and help the flow and form to work better. Hopefully now the listener can understand that the interviewee was talking about the difference in fact sheets or small reports and the large plans or formal reports. The interviewee did not mention these specifically because these genre categories are not formal categories.
Here is the pre-edit version.
Here is the post-edit version.
The content section of this segment did not change at all actually. This section, since it is just an interview, could not be redone in any way. The only content changes that could be made are cutting entire sections of the interview out that didn't fit within my topic for this podcast.
The form section of the segment saw the most amount of editing. This section also had a lot of dead space and ums from both myself and my interviewee. In order to get the interview to flow better and get the entire podcast to flow better, I eliminated many of the dead spaces and the quieter parts of the interview as well as any repetitions from the interviewee. Hopefully this will all trim a few seconds off of the interview segment and help the flow and form to work better. Hopefully now the listener can understand that the interviewee was talking about the difference in fact sheets or small reports and the large plans or formal reports. The interviewee did not mention these specifically because these genre categories are not formal categories.
Here is the pre-edit version.
Here is the post-edit version.
Editorial Report
This blog will focus on the task of editing the podcast that I made for this project. This is probably the most tedious and yet interesting thing that I have to do on this project considering that editing a podcast is essentially deleting material or having to re-record everything. My goal is to not need to re-record anything except for the conclusion.
The content of this introduction section of the podcast only changed slightly. In this aspect, I deleted parts of sentences making them mean a different thing than before. This was done in hopes of clarifying the content of the rest of the podcast. The content revision was only marginal though, in total probably only 20 words were deleted from the original piece. Otherwise the content remained the same as I felt that the introduction did a sufficient job at presenting the ideas of the podcast.
The form portion of the review process had the most review work. This came mostly in small editorial snips of dead space and repeated words. Countless times I had to shorten a natural pause or clip a series of umms to get a smoother presentation of the information. This not only shortened the intro section but also hopefully made it easier for the listener to follow my thoughts. Again in summary the editorial process here for form and content was actually fairly small because many edits had been done before rough draft publishing.
Here is the pre-edited rough section.
Here is the new version of the section.
The content of this introduction section of the podcast only changed slightly. In this aspect, I deleted parts of sentences making them mean a different thing than before. This was done in hopes of clarifying the content of the rest of the podcast. The content revision was only marginal though, in total probably only 20 words were deleted from the original piece. Otherwise the content remained the same as I felt that the introduction did a sufficient job at presenting the ideas of the podcast.
The form portion of the review process had the most review work. This came mostly in small editorial snips of dead space and repeated words. Countless times I had to shorten a natural pause or clip a series of umms to get a smoother presentation of the information. This not only shortened the intro section but also hopefully made it easier for the listener to follow my thoughts. Again in summary the editorial process here for form and content was actually fairly small because many edits had been done before rough draft publishing.
Here is the pre-edited rough section.
Here is the new version of the section.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Open Post to Peer-Reviewers
In this blog post I will be addressing you, the reader. I know that you are reading this to find out more information about my podcast. You know what you want and you have your own ideas about what a podcast should have.
This project has been very informative to me, ironically I've found it to be very challenging to limit myself to the specific project topic that we are talking about. I have learned much about the civil engineering field and I hope that you as the viewer can see some of that displayed in the little bit of the interviews that I present in the podcast. Anyone reviewing this project should know that this is the very first podcast that I've ever created so it can be expected to be a little rough.
Some of the major weaknesses of this podcast are the large amounts of dead space between words occasionally as well as a large number of umms. There is also potentially an issue with the organization of the podcast, I may have gotten out of organization occasionally because of the free flowing nature that I tried to institute in this podcast. If there is an organization issue, I fear that it could compromise the entire project. Please if your are a reviewer, let me know if you think any of these issues are a major problem or if there are issues that I am not aware of.
The project also had some strengths. I was able to effectively incorporate the interviews with the civil engineers that I talked to as part of my genre descriptions. I think that this gives some credibility to my made up genres because my interviewees also described the same genre ideas. I also think that I was able to emphasize and focus on the audience very adequately.
Without further ado, here is my rough cut of project 2.
This project has been very informative to me, ironically I've found it to be very challenging to limit myself to the specific project topic that we are talking about. I have learned much about the civil engineering field and I hope that you as the viewer can see some of that displayed in the little bit of the interviews that I present in the podcast. Anyone reviewing this project should know that this is the very first podcast that I've ever created so it can be expected to be a little rough.
Some of the major weaknesses of this podcast are the large amounts of dead space between words occasionally as well as a large number of umms. There is also potentially an issue with the organization of the podcast, I may have gotten out of organization occasionally because of the free flowing nature that I tried to institute in this podcast. If there is an organization issue, I fear that it could compromise the entire project. Please if your are a reviewer, let me know if you think any of these issues are a major problem or if there are issues that I am not aware of.
The project also had some strengths. I was able to effectively incorporate the interviews with the civil engineers that I talked to as part of my genre descriptions. I think that this gives some credibility to my made up genres because my interviewees also described the same genre ideas. I also think that I was able to emphasize and focus on the audience very adequately.
Without further ado, here is my rough cut of project 2.
Reflection on Production
This blog will function as a look back on the past week's work, the production of Project 2. This week featured quite a lot of work overall and thus there is a lot of things to potentially reflect upon. This blog will address many different aspects of this week's work.
This week featured many successes, the most important of which was getting the project draft completed early in the week allowing me to focus on other classes and reset my mind. Hopefully in a week I can come back and take a reasonable look at the editing process. Another thing that was done well this week was set up process, I was able to script a general layout idea for my podcast before recording which allowed me to keep in mind where my ideas were supposed to go and what sort of information I needed to cover.
The week also featured many different challenges, the largest challenge presented this week was trying to shorten all the material that I had collected or produced down into a reasonable podcast length. This would prove to be a very tedious task. I had to decrease almost an hour of material down to under 20 minutes of material. Another large challenge was just trying to get all the different ideas for the genres clearly specified without taking up too much time and making the podcast boring.
I anticipate next week will go very well because it is spring break and I dont plan to work on this project at all. Although my suspicions are that that isnt what you were talking about with this question. I anticipate that review week will go very well, hopefully the week off will allow me to have a fresh perspective on the project. I think I will have a lot of work to do with regards to taking out the dead spaces and many of the umms or and repeated words. Theoretically there will be a lot of small local revisions.
At this point in time I feel fairly positive about the way the project is going. I think that I was able to actually produce a decent project which accounts for many different factors and yet still addresses the prompt. Im excited to see what new ideas I will have about this project when I return to it in a week.
This week featured many successes, the most important of which was getting the project draft completed early in the week allowing me to focus on other classes and reset my mind. Hopefully in a week I can come back and take a reasonable look at the editing process. Another thing that was done well this week was set up process, I was able to script a general layout idea for my podcast before recording which allowed me to keep in mind where my ideas were supposed to go and what sort of information I needed to cover.
The week also featured many different challenges, the largest challenge presented this week was trying to shorten all the material that I had collected or produced down into a reasonable podcast length. This would prove to be a very tedious task. I had to decrease almost an hour of material down to under 20 minutes of material. Another large challenge was just trying to get all the different ideas for the genres clearly specified without taking up too much time and making the podcast boring.
I anticipate next week will go very well because it is spring break and I dont plan to work on this project at all. Although my suspicions are that that isnt what you were talking about with this question. I anticipate that review week will go very well, hopefully the week off will allow me to have a fresh perspective on the project. I think I will have a lot of work to do with regards to taking out the dead spaces and many of the umms or and repeated words. Theoretically there will be a lot of small local revisions.
At this point in time I feel fairly positive about the way the project is going. I think that I was able to actually produce a decent project which accounts for many different factors and yet still addresses the prompt. Im excited to see what new ideas I will have about this project when I return to it in a week.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Production Report 2
This is the second of the production report blogs. This blog will follow up on the progress of the production of project 2, which will be a podcast. Last time I chose to share one of the major interview sections, which has now been shrunk down quite a lot to fit into the podcast. This update will focus on a different area of the project.
I will talk about the introduction section of my podcast and why it is radically different from other types of introductions. Not only do I try to introduce the interviewees, I also talk about my genre types and make a thesis statement. This introduction begins with a personal introduction, dictated by the fact that this entire project is done through auditory needs, thus many things need to be explained that would otherwise be visually explained. Thus the form of explaining the background of myself and my interviewees helps set up the legitimacy of the genres that I was forced to create. Having a professor and a professional civil engineer back up my ideas on genres gives the introduction a powerful legitimacy.
The production of this material went fairly smoothly. I did however need to do two takes of the introduction because originally I misspoke and had organized my entire podcast the wrong way. The second take also had to be shorter due to time constraints yet include more information than before. I also was battling a dry throat the entire time and I needed to try to keep myself from coughing the entire time I was recording.
Here is my introduction.
I will talk about the introduction section of my podcast and why it is radically different from other types of introductions. Not only do I try to introduce the interviewees, I also talk about my genre types and make a thesis statement. This introduction begins with a personal introduction, dictated by the fact that this entire project is done through auditory needs, thus many things need to be explained that would otherwise be visually explained. Thus the form of explaining the background of myself and my interviewees helps set up the legitimacy of the genres that I was forced to create. Having a professor and a professional civil engineer back up my ideas on genres gives the introduction a powerful legitimacy.
The production of this material went fairly smoothly. I did however need to do two takes of the introduction because originally I misspoke and had organized my entire podcast the wrong way. The second take also had to be shorter due to time constraints yet include more information than before. I also was battling a dry throat the entire time and I needed to try to keep myself from coughing the entire time I was recording.
Here is my introduction.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Production Report 1
This blog will focus on the ongoing production of Project 2, which is currently just a bunch of unconnected audio pieces. Nevertheless, even though it is early in the production phase I am confident the production will come together fairly effortlessly.
Outline Item: The body sections of this podcast will be centered around the recorded interviews from the professors and the workers in the Civil Engineering field. The first section will be the interview with Professor Wu, a Transportation Engineer at the University of Arizona.
For this update to the project, I chose to share one of my "body sections" or interview pieces. This piece will be shrunk down even more than it already is and will be more fluent and concise but it will retain its "live" formatting. This pure raw form of an interview is exactly what I want for my podcast. Thus if I was working in any other genre I would probably change how the information is presented, but since live interviews are an integral part to any podcast, I found it fitting to incorporate the actual interview itself. Podcast actually encourage this, thus the genre conventions dictate the conventions heavily.
The production of this raw material went very well; I was able to have an engaging conversation with a Professor/ Researcher and maintain a constant flow. Hopefully this interview will be informational. During this production I had to deal with making sure that the dead space is at a minimum, something that still will need to be worked on in greater detail, but that there is still some natural pauses. There is so much good material between the two interviews that I conducted that I will have to cut out so much of the interviews themselves in order to get the podcast down to a reasonable 15 min piece. Thus this is the largest challenge of the production of this raw material, trying to save the best parts and scrap the good parts and bad parts.
Here is the raw audio from the interview with Professor Wu.
Outline Item: The body sections of this podcast will be centered around the recorded interviews from the professors and the workers in the Civil Engineering field. The first section will be the interview with Professor Wu, a Transportation Engineer at the University of Arizona.
For this update to the project, I chose to share one of my "body sections" or interview pieces. This piece will be shrunk down even more than it already is and will be more fluent and concise but it will retain its "live" formatting. This pure raw form of an interview is exactly what I want for my podcast. Thus if I was working in any other genre I would probably change how the information is presented, but since live interviews are an integral part to any podcast, I found it fitting to incorporate the actual interview itself. Podcast actually encourage this, thus the genre conventions dictate the conventions heavily.
The production of this raw material went very well; I was able to have an engaging conversation with a Professor/ Researcher and maintain a constant flow. Hopefully this interview will be informational. During this production I had to deal with making sure that the dead space is at a minimum, something that still will need to be worked on in greater detail, but that there is still some natural pauses. There is so much good material between the two interviews that I conducted that I will have to cut out so much of the interviews themselves in order to get the podcast down to a reasonable 15 min piece. Thus this is the largest challenge of the production of this raw material, trying to save the best parts and scrap the good parts and bad parts.
Here is the raw audio from the interview with Professor Wu.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Reflection on Pre-Production
This blog will focus on looking back at the past two weeks of pre-production which have included interviews and project brainstorming. This blog will also address the occurrence of a changing strategy behind blog posts to become more project oriented.
This week (and last) had many successes. The most important is that I was able to get all the interviews done within half a week. The people that I interviewed were quite cooperative and were very helpful. In fact I wound up interviewing three different people for this project then having to decide which two of the three to use. I was able to get the interviews recorded and some example genres located. All total this means that all the research and the evidence that will be used in this project have been found.
The challenges for this weeks work was ironically a very good challenge to have. I had to choose which two of the three people that I interviewed to include in the project. This was extremely challenging because all three of the interviewers were very interesting and gave very useful and insightful information. Nothing explicitly went wrong with this past two weeks work.
Next week, I anticipate will go really smoothly. I intend to get a head start on next weeks work, specifically the production of the project. I hope that once I get to next week there is much less in the way of work than otherwise, hopefully this will let me produce the best possible project.
So far I am feeling really good about this project, but I have yet to make any of the podcast itself besides the interviews. This may mean I have a false positive outlook about this project. Nevertheless, I intend to try to get as much of this project done before the scheduled date as possible in order to try to maintain a positive outlook about it and maintain a low stress level.
This week (and last) had many successes. The most important is that I was able to get all the interviews done within half a week. The people that I interviewed were quite cooperative and were very helpful. In fact I wound up interviewing three different people for this project then having to decide which two of the three to use. I was able to get the interviews recorded and some example genres located. All total this means that all the research and the evidence that will be used in this project have been found.
The challenges for this weeks work was ironically a very good challenge to have. I had to choose which two of the three people that I interviewed to include in the project. This was extremely challenging because all three of the interviewers were very interesting and gave very useful and insightful information. Nothing explicitly went wrong with this past two weeks work.
Next week, I anticipate will go really smoothly. I intend to get a head start on next weeks work, specifically the production of the project. I hope that once I get to next week there is much less in the way of work than otherwise, hopefully this will let me produce the best possible project.
So far I am feeling really good about this project, but I have yet to make any of the podcast itself besides the interviews. This may mean I have a false positive outlook about this project. Nevertheless, I intend to try to get as much of this project done before the scheduled date as possible in order to try to maintain a positive outlook about it and maintain a low stress level.
Production Schedule
This blog post will focus on answering the time management question in the project. The goal of this blog is to create a manageable schedule of which to follow and produce a project that is of high quality.
I have created a schedule via Microsoft OneNote to guide my thoughts and actions throughout this project. This project appears to have more flexibility than that last one, especially when it comes to time management. This schedule will address what things need to be done based off the content organizer, where and with what they will be created, when these things should generally occur, and an idea of when they should be done by in order to keep the project working on time. Without further ado, here is my Production Schedule.
I have created a schedule via Microsoft OneNote to guide my thoughts and actions throughout this project. This project appears to have more flexibility than that last one, especially when it comes to time management. This schedule will address what things need to be done based off the content organizer, where and with what they will be created, when these things should generally occur, and an idea of when they should be done by in order to keep the project working on time. Without further ado, here is my Production Schedule.
Content Outline
In this blog post I will address the structure of project 2, in essence this post will outline what I hope this project will consist of and how it will address the topic at hand. This will be a very rough outline and may be subject to change as the project gets developed more and more.
The opening section of this project will consist of a voice-over entrance introducing myself and my interviewees as well as a little of the project goals themselves. This introduction will be done in audio contexts because I am planning to make this project as a podcast. Thus the intro will be fairly informal but will not deviate from genre conventions.
The body sections of this podcast will be centered around the recorded interviews from the professors and the workers in the Civil Engineering field. The first section will be the interview with Professor Wu, a Transportation Engineer at the University of Arizona. The second section will be centered primarily around an interview with Professor Papajohn, who until this year was a practicing Civil Engineer with the Pima County Department of Transportation. The last major section will cover an informational interview with Professor Fleishman and talk about the way that ideas are communicated in the professional and the private lives of Civil Engineers.
The closing section will be composed of a rehashing of the covered ideas in the interviews as well as a thank you to all those people who contributed time and effort to this project. The section will be brief but necessary.
Again the major piece of evidence for each section will be the firsthand accounts from each one of the interviewees. Since each section will not be structured by topic but rather by ideas from each professor, there will be much evidence pilled into one segment of each section. This evidence is plainly presented to the reader in each segment through audio splices of the interview.
All of this evidence is based off the questions that I, the author, composed and asked each interviewee with the final project in mind. Thus each bit of evidence is geared to answer the main question of the project, how is writing or communication used in the Civil Engineering field? The evidence will prove that communication and specifically writing is absolutely pivotal in the Civil Engineering field, without it the field could not function.
This evidence is important because it answers the major question at hand. Each question was written with a specific interest into the project, with all the interviews total I anticipate that there will be enough evidence to answer the question sufficiently.
The conclusion will also cover the concept of why the idea of communication matters in the field of civil engineering. This will cover the several genre examples that I researched and explain how writing was used in each example. Specifically an explanation of a powerpoint and an example of a technical guide.
The opening section of this project will consist of a voice-over entrance introducing myself and my interviewees as well as a little of the project goals themselves. This introduction will be done in audio contexts because I am planning to make this project as a podcast. Thus the intro will be fairly informal but will not deviate from genre conventions.
The body sections of this podcast will be centered around the recorded interviews from the professors and the workers in the Civil Engineering field. The first section will be the interview with Professor Wu, a Transportation Engineer at the University of Arizona. The second section will be centered primarily around an interview with Professor Papajohn, who until this year was a practicing Civil Engineer with the Pima County Department of Transportation. The last major section will cover an informational interview with Professor Fleishman and talk about the way that ideas are communicated in the professional and the private lives of Civil Engineers.
The closing section will be composed of a rehashing of the covered ideas in the interviews as well as a thank you to all those people who contributed time and effort to this project. The section will be brief but necessary.
Again the major piece of evidence for each section will be the firsthand accounts from each one of the interviewees. Since each section will not be structured by topic but rather by ideas from each professor, there will be much evidence pilled into one segment of each section. This evidence is plainly presented to the reader in each segment through audio splices of the interview.
All of this evidence is based off the questions that I, the author, composed and asked each interviewee with the final project in mind. Thus each bit of evidence is geared to answer the main question of the project, how is writing or communication used in the Civil Engineering field? The evidence will prove that communication and specifically writing is absolutely pivotal in the Civil Engineering field, without it the field could not function.
This evidence is important because it answers the major question at hand. Each question was written with a specific interest into the project, with all the interviews total I anticipate that there will be enough evidence to answer the question sufficiently.
The conclusion will also cover the concept of why the idea of communication matters in the field of civil engineering. This will cover the several genre examples that I researched and explain how writing was used in each example. Specifically an explanation of a powerpoint and an example of a technical guide.
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