The prompt is asking me to conduct a 7-10 page inquiry-based research report developing a research question that’s investigating and possibly raising additional questions. It then asks me to conduct extensive research into the potential implications and significance of my question, and make connections between the information I find during my research and the significance to my topic, identified audience and further research. It also asks me to use my sources as evidence to support, contradict or expand on my ideas and include an extensive detailed examination around the question I explore. I’m somewhat familiar with conducting research and writing a research paper just not for English comp and I’ve rarely came up with a research question in the past. to complete this assignment on time and with my best work I know I must work on it sooner rather than later. I believe for me to effectively and efficiently finish this report I must dedicate at least one day a week of my full attention to it, and the only implications I can think of would be finding time to conduct field research.

I define audience as the person or group the author is writing to and it’s important to writing because without an audience the author doesn’t know what to write about an based on my definition I understand who their intended audience is. Wilcha complicated the notion of audience during the documentary, by breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience. Before reading Anzaldua my perception of audience was that the writer accommodates to our needs and wants, but after reading her article I now realize that writing is an authors art and their ability to express themselves in their literature should not be limited to the audiences inability to understand the language they use. The documentary reflects many of the things Anzaldua went over in her writing such as language, culture and identity. In the documentary Wilcha asked coworkers on one floor of their perception of the coworkers on other floors. He explained that the employees all had a fixed idea of the identity of management on the other floor and vise versa. He even was told by another coworker that his personality had changed from being happy and youthful to anxious and stressed. In the documentary he talks about how the culture of the company changed due to all the firings and coworkers quitting. The culture of the company when he first arrived was welcoming and everyone being nice inviting him to lunch which soon turned into a resentful environment and coworkers not liking him because of his position and title. Lastly, in the documentary he talked about how the ad company tried to steal some of the language and slang he and his coworkers used in their version of the magazine and his boss even expressed how the company making a magazine that allowed the employees to express themselves and share their knowledge, language and identity with the reader yielded better sales. He even showed them letters of customers giving positive feedback and being themselves in the letters.Language, identity and culture are three important factors an author has consider when trying to reach his audience. After watching the documentary and reading the text my definition of audience hasn’t changed.

In the article Bitzer defines rhetorical situation as a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence. He further breaks this down into three constituents which are exigence, audience and constraint, and after reading this article and another about rhetorical situation I’ve come up with my own definition. My definition of rhetorical situation is communicating in way that expresses your circumstance. There’s many examples of this that we see but don’t recognize one being the State of the Union address. Many of us know that the State of the Union address is a speech made by the president to the citizens of America about the state of the union. The audience in this case would be us, Americans, and the problems we face as a country and how the president plans to fix them is the exigence. The constraints in this setting can be a number of things including the diversity of the audience, his ability to effectively communicate his topics comprehensively and if people are knowledgeable of his topics. We see examples of rhetorical situation a lot and it connects to other subjects such as genre. Genre is defined as a category or type of writing, however; in rhetorical situations you communicate to express your circumstance and to do so you need a genre that helps to express that circumstance.

The definition of genre to me is the category or description a type writing fits under. I came up with this definition from years of writing and reading. For example, I love to read and to find the type of books I like to read when I go to the library I need to have an idea of what genre it fits under. In the text the author defines genre as following communicative patterns that other people are familiar with and recognize more easily. The texts definition of genre is similar to mine because if multiple texts have similar patterns they can fit in a particular category. The authors definition doesn’t diverge from what I’ve read or learned in class, in fact, it’s very similar to what we talked about and is even similar to my own definition. In our previous class we talked about Collins commencement address and how he formatted it. He go’s on explaining how they work and during all of this he’s following the format for a commencement address by encouraging the students, giving them life advice for the future, and also giving them a thought provoking story and a metaphor. During the speech he talked about the speech itself, which is different than your typical commencement speech, and how commencement speeches all fit the same format. He even jokes about how commencement addresses all start by explaining what a commencement speech is and instead of your typical thought provoking question at the end he gives us a poem. Collins speech was well written and thought out; his speech fits the conventions of a typical commencement address by giving advice, opening students minds and encouraging them to take on the future. I looked up two more examples of commencement addresses online and similarly to Collins they follow the conventions of these type of speeches. They both encourage students to succeed and not being afraid to fail, as well as, giving them helpful advice on life and telling them about their own experiences with success and failure. https://youtu.be/ELC_e2QBQMk ,https://youtu.be/JgUDjixWB5I

What is writing?

Writing to me is a way of expressing or communicating the authors ideas to the reader, but it can also be a form of entertainment to the reader.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.