Evaluate
Evaluate how the things you’ve learned about writing in this course can be applied in other contexts and can advance your goals and the goals of your communities.
So far some of the major concepts we've explored are genres and rhetorical analysis. Learning about these concepts and being able to apply them appropriately can be of great use in contexts outside of this course. For example, strong rhetoric and supporting your argument using the appeals (logos, pathos, ethos) can help a scientific grant proposal be more persuasive. Examples of my understanding of these concepts can be seen in the related discussion board posts. In the analysis of "What's a Girl to Read?" I examine Featherstone's use of pathos, even though she doesn't explicitly use the term, "This should cause emotion and unrest in you as these women are not the real ideal of normal, "not scary skinny", women. I think anytime she references publishers she is using pathos to show that these are sources of other publications the public trusts and reads like Time or People." In the Chapter 8 discussion board post I say the following of the use of pathos, " Emotions can be very powerful motivators of opinion and action and so use of pathos can be very effective, as seen in most all advertising."
It is important to learn the different ways and processes of writing in way such that you can apply them outside of the projects we do for this class. Its similar to my math and physics courses. You learn a concept or way(s) of doing something, and then apply that to new situations. For this class, I truly think the concepts I learn with regards to the writing process will be extremely important for writing scientific papers. I worked at Los Alamos National Lab this summer and I have to write a scientific paper (and presentation) this semester to present to the Nuclear Forensics community based on my research I did this summer. There is a definite genre I will be writing within, so understanding genres is important. Just as important is the process and feedback primarily with my lab mentor and UNM advisor to draw on their expertise and experience in completing this paper. Project 2 was yet another way to learn different writing approaches and integration techniques of drawing on sources and organizing information in an interesting way.
Anyone can write a commentary. That's what I enjoy about commentaries is it's like a conversation that you're joining in. You have an opinion or a view and you can express it and support it through a commentary. Anyone can have a blog so it's easy to produce such works. But I think the aspects of the commentary genre can be employed in speech and general conversation as well. For example, its important when making an argument to make sure and point out counter arguments. You can try to discredit them or give examples where their logic falls through, among other strategies. This is a useful skill in research and job interviews as well as in writing a good commentary.