Friday, May 6, 2016

Peer Review for Coby Allred

Here is the link to one of Coby's Production Reports.

  1. I chose to review on of Coby's post because I have never reviewed his work before, at least I'm pretty sure I haven't, and because he completed an essay just like I did and I wanted to see how he incorporated some of the elements of a standard essay into this topic.
  2. Honestly, I thought Coby's final product was very well-written and I did not need to provide much commentary on anything to really fix from it.
  3. I really admired how Coby incorporate his own past work to show he changed through the writing and research process and why and how he learned from what we did in class.
  4. Overall, pretty good project!

Editorial Report B

Original Outro:

So despite the trials and tribulations I faced in this classes, the struggles I overcame, and the complete discontinuity from any other English I have ever taken, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience in Honors English with Mr. Bottai. I feel like I not only learned a lot about writing and the writing experience, but also about how to deal with professionals in the "real world" as us college kids like to call it. I really saw the importance of having strong writing skills both within the academia field and outside of it and how it can be utilized to my greatest advantage. Not only that, but I learned a lot about myself and just what exactly I am capable of as a writer and creator of media. The skills I learned in this class like time management, networking, and analysis will definitely be skills I will be able to apply in future careers and endeavors in my life.


Revised Section:

If I am completely honest with myself, I learned a lot about writing and the process it takes to be a good writer, but it was not easy. I struggled a lot at the beginning with the new technology I was forced to use, I struggled with maintaining the care of myself and what I was eating for a while and getting enough sleep, and I struggled with managing my time at the beginning. So although the process was kind of a rough one for me, I learned a lot of professional life skills I will be able to take with me to future career ventures and life in general. This class made me become okay with being uncomfortable and being under an immense amount of mental stress and I know those things will only benefit me, especially with the career I want to pursue.
    Basically what I am trying to say is that it is okay to be uncomfortable and over-worked and overly stressed, but learning how to deal with that and still thrive is a very important skill to have. This class not only taught me that, but I know beyond a doubt it has made me a much better writer and much more aware of my writing situation and for that, I will be ever grateful. Who knew you could learn all that form a college honors English course?

Changes:
  • Connection to life and what I learned that I will use in future academic endeavors and life in general.
  • Confessed I had plenty of struggles, but that is all part of the learning process
  • How the class has helped me in more than just writing.


Editorial Report A

Original Intro:

Throughout the course of this semester, I have learned many things about writing, creating, time management, and networking within my chosen career field and beyond. My name is Cynthia and I am currently a sophomore here at the University of Arizona. I am studying political science and Arabic and I am currently in the Naval ROTC program with the intention of becoming a Naval officer upon graduation. Although, I want to be a pilot in the Navy, there are many hoops I will have to jump through in order to get there and there will always be a life after the military where I will need to have essential life skills in order to function.

Revised Intro:

Before I get into my progression of the writing process throughout this semester and how I have learned and grown as a writer, I feel it is necessary to introduce myself. My name is Cynthia Morton and I am currently a sophomore at the University of Arizona. I study political science and I am also intending to declare a second major in the Arabic Language. Additionally, I am in the Naval ROTC program here at the UA, so my intended future career will be as a US Naval officer and hopefully, as a pilot. So although, it may seem like a college English class  my sophomore year of college would be little help to that end, I must disagree. I have learned more about myself and working in the professional world that I find invaluable.

Changes:
The biggest things I tried to change within this section was the information I included. Obviously I kept in the info about myself and my future career, but I tried to tie it more into this class and introduce how the class has helped my in not only writing, but in life skills as well.

Open Post to Peer Reviewers

Here is the working link to my current rough cut of my project.

Here's what you need to know:

  • This is still a very rough cut and I am working on reforming what I want to say as my self-reflection. I understand I still need to work on some of the "fluff" and grammar, so just keep that in mind please!
  • I am already aware that it is not long enough and still needs plenty of information, I just want to make sure I'm currently in the right direction.
  • Honestly, I don't think my paper has really good strengths right now, but I know it will shortly.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Peer Review of Ben Barnett

For this peer review, I decided to review one of Ben's production reports with his rough rough draft of the final project. Ben' blog post about this draft and the excerpt can be found here.


  • I chose to review Bens production report, one because I have never reviewed anything before, and two because he is doing a podcast for this project which I found very interesting.
  • Honestly, there was not much for me to say in regards to helping the author because he had a pretty good start to his project, but I did point out his strengths in connecting with the audience to show him that is something he has going for him right now.
  • One thing I really admired about Ben's rough draft of his section was that he was already thinking about and including the genre conventions of a podcast in his draft. I wasn't even thinking about those too much until around the revision process and nice to see him getting a head start!

Production Report B

Section from outline:
Outro:
  • Wrap up my total experience in the class
  • How I feel this class helped me and helped me expand as a writer/creator
  • Reflection on the amount of time I dedicated to the class and how I feel I did overall.
  • Skills I learned from this class that I can use in my future in classes/work/life, etc.

Rough Section:

So despite the trials and tribulations I faced in this classes, the struggles I overcame, and the complete discontinuity from any other English I have ever taken, I thoroughly enjoyed my experience in Honors English with Mr. Bottai. I feel like I not only learned a lot about writing and the writing experience, but also about how to deal with professionals in the "real world" as us college kids like to call it. I really saw the importance of having strong writing skills both within the academia field and outside of it and how it can be utilized to my greatest advantage. Not only that, but I learned a lot about myself and just what exactly I am capable of as a writer and creator of media. The skills I learned in this class like time management, networking, and analysis will definitely be skills I will be able to apply in future careers and endeavors in my life.

Production Report A

Section from outline:
Intro:
  • Introduce who I am
  • What I study
  • What my intended career is after college
Rough Section:

Throughout the course of this semester, I have learned many things about writing, creating, time management, and networking within my chosen career field and beyond. My name is Cynthia and I am currently a sophomore here at the University of Arizona. I am studying political science and Arabic and I am currently in the Naval ROTC program with the intention of becoming a Naval officer upon graduation. Although, I want to be a pilot in the Navy, there are many hoops I will have to jump through in order to get there and there will always be a life after the military where I will need to have essential life skills in order to function.



Production Schedule

Plan for the upcoming week and completing the final project:

  • Monday- Complete rough rough draft of the project including a finalized outline and collection of sources to be used
  • Tuesday to Wednesday- work on the rough draft and completing peer reviews for blog posts
  • Thursday- Complete final draft of my essay, continue blogs for the final deadline
  • Friday morning- Finish global and local revision of the essay, then submit!
-Majority of work to be done at home or in the library.
- My essay will require a computer, sources from previous projects and an open mind



Content Outline

Intro:
  • Introduce who I am
  • What I study
  • What my intended career is after college
Body:
1. Reflection on project 1 and my struggles/accomplishments with it. What I learned that I took to project 2
2. Reflection on project 2. My struggles with the new technology of the genre, struggles with time management and I what I learned to use with project 3.
3. Reflection on project 3. What I liked about the project, struggles/accomplishments I had and why. What I learned from the previous projects that helped me be successful in this project.

Outro:
  • Wrap up my total experience in the class
  • How I feel this class helped me and helped me expand as a writer/creator
  • Reflection on the amount of time I dedicated to the class and how I feel I did overall.
  • Skills I learned from this class that I can use in my future in classes/work/life, etc.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Reflection on Post Production and Final Editing

  1. Honestly, I feel really happy with the video essay I produced. I kind of surprised myself with my video editing skills and how I was able to incorporate a variety of media into my video while still making it look and sound good. I had also compiled all of my video clips last week and started editing and everything, so this week there was not as much to do, so thank you to me last week. *pat shoulder
  2. My biggest challenge this week, as with almost every other week was time. I was very limited on time this week, but I had done enough editing last week to be able to polish up my video this week and just tweak a few things and move around video clips.
  3. Next week, since I will be doing a standard essay for my final project, I expect to be pretty easy honestly. I saved the essay for last because I expected myself to be the most tired and done with creative projects by now, so next week should be fine.
  4. Overall, I am pretty proud with what I submitted, I would totally be fine with that being viewed by millions of people because I think I did a pretty good job of presenting the argument I chose.

Editorial Report B

Topic 1: Celebrity Commentary
  • Voice over images of Jennifer Lawrence and screenshot of her pay gap essay published on Lenny.com “Perhaps the loudest voice on the topic most recently, has been that of Jennifer Lawrence. The movie star has voiced her outrage over the pay disparity she suffered from the movie American Hustle when she learned she made less than all of her male co-stars.”
  • “And she’s not the only big name in the industry making noise. Other stars like Sandra Bullock, Sienna Miller, Anna Kendrick, Salma Hayek, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Oprah are speaking out. Pay disparity is something Oprah has been much too familiar with working in the industry for as long as she has.
  • Video clip of Oprah discussing the pay disparity she faced in 1980 and why she decided to own her own show- She wanted to be the one calling all the shots.

So here's what I changed:
- Well as you can probably tell, the two sections look like they're not even related to each other, and they're not supposed to.
- I ended up deciding to cut this piece entirely. I may end up adding back in some of it, maybe here and there, but it will not have as much time devoted to it and will be more of a background type of reinforcement of what I will be providing as commentary.
- I realized halfway through constructing my rough cut that I had far too many video clips and not enough of me, so I cut a bunch of unnecessary footage.
- I really like the new section and how it ties in big names in Hollywood, especially sharing their personal experience with the pay disparity.




Here's what changed:
- I changed the clips to include a short blurb about Patricia Arquette, Jennifer Lawrence and Sienna Miller only
-I kept the clips of Gwyneth Paltrow because she really gets into there is a pay disparity and she has firsthand experience with it.
-I limited Oprah's time also to only show why it was she was making less, and that those same attitudes persist today.

Editorial Report A

Revised Rough Draft:

Intro:
  • Short clip from the video I found on women fighting for inequality through the years and our accomplishment of getting the Equal Pay Act signed into law by President Kennedy in 1963.
  • Follow with a clip of Patricia Arquette at the Oscars, calling for women’s equality
  • Video Clip of myself: “In the United States, in 2015, the average American woman makes 77 cents to every dollar a man makes. Or at least that’s what we’ve heard for the last ten years or so. Supposedly, after accounting for all differences in paid hours worked, experience, education, and full-time versus part-time work, a woman still makes 92-96 cents for every dollar a man makes.
  • Clip of John Oliver’s talk show sharing his comedic view on the idea of “quantifying” the wage gap and how it can be solved
  • Video of me: “Although the pay disparity for women is said to be improving, the same cannot necessarily be said for women in the entertainment and media industry.

So here's what got better:
- Obviously the revised piece, although about the same length, is more detailed and includes for video clips.
- The new edited version broadens the topic to women in more than just Hollywood.
- I found more videos and clips of the struggle of women through history to really show the evolvement of women and how we have gotten to where we are today.
- Change as far as form is that I have actually added into the rough draft the voice overs and pictures and owned in on an opening video clip.


Final Cut: Project 3

Here's what changed:
- So in the final video, I decided not to include any clips of myself and I changed the intro to the current level of wage inequality between men and women in the US as discussed by several news outlets and just how bad the wage gap really is.
- I also made the video more about women in several industries rather than just focusing on the entertainment industry in order to include morr information.

Peer Review for Sofia Haserot

Here is the link to Sofia's video essay.

- I chose to focus on the content in Sofia's final cut of her video essay.
- I mentioned that although providing her personal experience with the problem was useful, she could have delved even deeper with that, and made a much stronger emotional appeal to the audience.
I think she did a very good job of incorporating a variety of still images and video clips, so I really liked how she edited the video!


Peer Review for Erin McCabe

Here is the link to Erin's video essay.

- I decided to review the the copy-editing part of Erin's fine cut.
-I made some comments about some video editing errors that made some points difficult for the viewer to see nad difficult to understand due to lack of full context.
- I actually really enjoyed her video overall. I think she did a very good job with the editing, especially considering half of us have never even had to edit a video and she made a pretty solid argument.

Revised Post to Peer Reviewers

What you Need to Know About my Fine Cut:

  • First off, you should know that I will be discussing the gender wage gap in the US, and WHY it still persists.
  • I go over several personal stories of women and I highlight celebrities because they have been the women to speak out the most about their personal experience and find video clips of.
  • I know there may be a few editing mistakes as far as video cuts and everything, I did my best with the software I had and I think I came up with a pretty cool result!
  •  I really like the variety of clips I had and the voice over, video, picture combination I incorporated. Let me know what you think!
  • Here is the Fine Cute of my video essay!


Sunday, April 17, 2016

Reflection on Editing

Where I'm at So Far and Where I'm Headed:

  1. Well my biggest success this week was that I got a lot of video editing done for my rough draft. The only problem is that you can't really see any of it, because I can't save it in a way that doesn't completely publish it and I can't get a link for it. However, I put a lot of work into my rough draft so far, and I am really liking how it is turning out so far.
  2. My biggest challenge this week was that I had to to narrow down my video and cut out a lot of video content because it was just getting to be too much and I wanted to only include the most important and relevant information. Other than that, and finding more video content, I haven't had too many problems just yet. I finally worked out most of the things I couldn't figure out with my editing software.
  3. I think next week should go pretty well, especially considering I got a lot of video, audio, and image collection done this week, in addition to a lot of video editing done. This next week will just be finishing up editing, tweaking a few parts and adding in music, sound,etc.
  4. Overall, I feel pretty good about the project thus far. This is probably my favorite project in this class so far. One, I really like my topic and I actually really enjoy creating and editing videos. I am really excited to see what I can produce at this point.

Peer Review of Fernando Coronado

Here is a link to Fernando's rough script of his project.

  1. I decided to review Fernando's content in his rough draft for this project. I did a podcast for my last project, so I was hoping to be able to provide some commentary on his argument for this project.
  2. I made the suggestion to him to add in some more support for his argument by finding similar cases to the problem he is discussing that have existed with previous video games. I think for a podcast you really need a lot of strong content, especially content you can talk about and that doesn't have to be visual, so that's why I made the suggestion I did.
  3. One thing I really liked about his rough draft thus far is that it actually already has a lot of support for his topic, and he has a very well-written rough draft which is really good to have as of now in the timeline of this project.

Peer Review of Rigo Avila

Here is a selection of Rigo's script from one of his editorial reports.

  1. I decided to review Rigo's content for the intro part of his video on the new F-35 being designed by Lockheed Martin. I chose this because I was a little confused about what he was trying to accomplish in his first cut of the project. However, after seeing his revised rough cut, I better understand it.
  2. I think I helped a little because I am actually pretty knowledgeable about the new F-35 considering I am pursuing a career as a pilot in the Navy, so I reminded him that he needs to be careful with how technical he gets when discussing all of the specs on the new plane, especially to a likely less educated audience on the topic.
  3. I really like how he changed the footage to video from photos because I think that visual change for the viewer will make a big difference in their comprehension of the topic.

Editorial Report B

Rough Rough Draft:

Script of Section 2:
  • Clips from the roundtable of several studio executives discussing the topic of gender pay disparity.
  • "This has become such a problem in the entertainment industry that you have so many women now starting to realize their worth and how much they should be getting paid compared to their male counterparts, that studio executives are willing to pay stars like Jennifer Lawrence much more than they would have originally offered because they see the value of her work and how big of a following she has in the entertainment world."
  • Comment from executive Tom Rothman from Sony, that he was more than happy to pay Jennifer Lawrence $20 million for her upcoming movie with them considering her box office numbers.
    • "Anybody that's lucky enough to have Jennifer Lawrence in a movie, should be more than happy to write the check."
  • Clip of 20th Century Fox CEO, Stacey Snider stating that women "often fall into the pit of wanting to be likeable or nice, whereas men don't seem to have this issue.
  • My own comments and statistics from data collected by writer John Green
    • "The real pay gap, which has no explained economic reasoning is actually around 4-8%. That's just for the average woman. This can be grossly different from women in Hollywood, who may even be paid less than half that of their male counterpart like what Sienna Miller faced, where she actually ended up walking away from a play due to that very reason. No matter how small the percentage may seem however, it still exists, and women lose $240,000,000 every year to gender discrimination. So how small is that 4% difference now?"

Revised Section:

Topic 1: Celebrity Commentary
  • Voice over images of Jennifer Lawrence and screenshot of her pay gap essay published on Lenny.com “Perhaps the loudest voice on the topic most recently, has been that of Jennifer Lawrence. The movie star has voiced her outrage over the pay disparity she suffered from the movie American Hustle when she learned she made less than all of her male co-stars.”
  • “And she’s not the only big name in the industry making noise. Other stars like Sandra Bullock, Sienna Miller, Anna Kendrick, Salma Hayek, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Oprah are speaking out. Pay disparity is something Oprah has been much too familiar with working in the industry for as long as she has.
  • Video clip of Oprah discussing the pay disparity she faced in 1980 and why she decided to own her own show- She wanted to be the one calling all the shots.

So here's what I changed:
- Well as you can probably tell, the two sections look like they're not even related to each other, and they're not supposed to.
- I ended up deciding to cut this piece entirely. I may end up adding back in some of it, maybe here and there, but it will not have as much time devoted to it and will be more of a background type of reinforcement of what I will be providing as commentary.
- I realized halfway through constructing my rough cut that I had far too many video clips and not enough of me, so I cut a bunch of unnecessary footage.
- I really like the new section and how it ties in big names in Hollywood, especially sharing their personal experience with the pay disparity.


Editorial Report A

Rough Rough Draft:

Section 1 Script:
  • Introduce short clip from Patricia Arquette's Oscar's acceptance speech discussing the recent discussion on the gender pay disparity
  • Voice over pictures and short clips of commentary of each of the following mentioned celebrities.
    • "You have probably heard a hundred times, that women make on average 77 cents to every dollar that a man makes, and if you were to say that today, many people would probably tell you you're just plain wrong. But are you really? The place where the majority of this discussion on pay disparity is currently happening is in Hollywood, and it's being discussed by some of the top names in the business. One of most noted voices to speak on this issue in recent months, was actress Jennifer Lawrence, who wrote a piece entitled, 'Why do I make less than my male co-stars?' in  which she discusses the pay disparity she suffered from her recent film American Hustle. But she's not alone in her discussion of the topic. Other big names in Hollywood like Sienna Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek, Anna Kendrick, and Emma Watson are speaking out as well.

Revised Rough Draft:

Intro:
  • Short clip from the video I found on women fighting for inequality through the years and our accomplishment of getting the Equal Pay Act signed into law by President Kennedy in 1963.
  • Follow with a clip of Patricia Arquette at the Oscars, calling for women’s equality
  • Video Clip of myself: “In the United States, in 2015, the average American woman makes 77 cents to every dollar a man makes. Or at least that’s what we’ve heard for the last ten years or so. Supposedly, after accounting for all differences in paid hours worked, experience, education, and full-time versus part-time work, a woman still makes 92-96 cents for every dollar a man makes.
  • Clip of John Oliver’s talk show sharing his comedic view on the idea of “quantifying” the wage gap and how it can be solved
  • Video of me: “Although the pay disparity for women is said to be improving, the same cannot necessarily be said for women in the entertainment and media industry.

So here's what got better:
- Obviously the revised piece, although about the same length, is more detailed and includes for video clips.
- The new edited version broadens the topic to women in more than just Hollywood.
- I found more videos and clips of the struggle of women through history to really show the evolvement of women and how we have gotten to where we are today.
- Change as far as form is that I have actually added into the rough draft the voice overs and pictures and owned in on an opening video clip.

Open Post to Peer Reviewers

Here is what I've got so far: Rough Script

What you Should Know:

- First off, you should know that I am creating a video essay discussing the gender pay disparity, and especially the one that affects women in Hollywood.
- Due to the type of software I am utilizing for drafting my video, I can not unfortunately provide a link of some kind to a rough cut of the video. Instead, I have provided the full "rough script" for video essay that I am working off of, including when I will be speaking and when I will include a video and for what purpose.

Problems I know about:

- First off, I know you would much rather see a rough cut of the video, especially since I think it's pretty good so far if I do say so myself, but I have tried several times to get a clip up to no avail.
- I need to add in some sound effects to the video, still figuring out how to put those in.
- Honestly, I just want to know what you guys think of it so far, is it a good direction to take on the topic? Do I have decent first person commentary so far?

Strengths I believe are somewhere in there:
- Honestly, I really like my intro and my outro so far. I have a really strong intro and outro, which unfortunately is much better to see in the actual video.
- I also have a lot of really good footage I have collected to work with and the studies and sources I am referencing are very sound.





Monday, April 11, 2016

Reflection on the Past Week: Production

Questions:

  1. My biggest success this week was collecting all of the raw footage and video clips that I will need for my video essay. I spent a lot of time surfing the internet, collecting statistical data, articles, video clips, commentary from producers, directors, studio executives, etc on the issue and I feel like I have a really good amount of information to work with now.
  2. The biggest thing that went wrong this week was that I did not manage my time well. Quite frankly, I sucked at managing my time. I recently started a new job and my roommates and I rescued two kittens and that combination has proven to wreak havoc on my academic schedule within the last week. Other than that, video editing and compilation has had little problems thus far.
  3. Next week, now that I have pretty much all of my information gathered and the largest part of the research and compilation behind, should go much smoother. When it comes to video editing, I am actually very good at it and it something I actually enjoy so I expect fewer problems this week.
  4. Overall, I have had some hiccups and made a few mistakes as far as getting everything done on time. However, I am much more focused and everything has settled a little bit, so I should be good to go. I really like the direction my project is going in and I look forward to seeing my final product!

Production Report 8b

Content Outline

Second Section:
  • Discussion of articles that have been written on the subject with commentary from writers, producers and directors on the topic
  • My personal commentary on how this affects those entering the work force, even outside of Hollywood.

Comment to Viewers: Again, my video editing software does not allow m to just save and make a link for one part of the video, so I will be providing the script to that part.

Script of Section 2:
  • Clips from the roundtable of several studio executives discussing the topic of gender pay disparity.
  • "This has become such a problem in the entertainment industry that you have so many women now starting to realize their worth and how much they should be getting paid compared to their male counterparts, that studio executives are willing to pay stars like Jennifer Lawrence much more than they would have originally offered because they see the value of her work and how big of a following she has in the entertainment world."
  • Comment from executive Tom Rothman from Sony, that he was more than happy to pay Jennifer Lawrence $20 million for her upcoming movie with them considering her box office numbers.
    • "Anybody that's lucky enough to have Jennifer Lawrence in a movie, should be more than happy to write the check."
  • Clip of 20th Century Fox CEO, Stacey Snider stating that women "often fall into the pit of wanting to be likeable or nice, whereas men don't seem to have this issue.
  • My own comments and statistics from data collected by writer John Green
    • "The real pay gap, which has no explained economic reasoning is actually around 4-8%. That's just for the average woman. This can be grossly different from women in Hollywood, who may even be paid less than half that of their male counterpart like what Sienna Miller faced, where she actually ended up walking away from a play due to that very reason. No matter how small the percentage may seem however, it still exists, and women lose $240,000,000 every year to gender discrimination. So how small is that 4% difference now?"

Production Report 8a

Content Outline

First Section:
  • Clip from the most recent celebrity speech on the topic to show how the issue is still current
  • Include commentary over pictures and short video clips of celebrities discussing the problems with pay in Hollywood and how it still persists
So I am still tweaking with the video editing software, but because the software is actually downloaded onto my computer, it makes it really difficult to get just a clip of the video from this section up for viewing.  I have several video clips and images that I have compiled that I will be including in my video essay, but here is the script of what I have so far.

Section 1 Script:
  • Introduce short clip from Patricia Arquette's Oscar's acceptance speech discussing the recent discussion on the gender pay disparity
  • Voice over pictures and short clips of commentary of each of the following mentioned celebrities.
    • "You have probably heard a hundred times, that women make on average 77 cents to every dollar that a man makes, and if you were to say that today, many people would probably tell you you're just plain wrong. But are you really? The place where the majority of this discussion on pay disparity is currently happening is in Hollywood, and it's being discussed by some of the top names in the business. One of most noted voices to speak on this issue in recent months, was actress Jennifer Lawrence, who wrote a piece entitled, 'Why do I make less than my male co-stars?' in  which she discusses the pay disparity she suffered from her recent film American Hustle. But she's not alone in her discussion of the topic. Other big names in Hollywood like Sienna Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek, Anna Kendrick, and Emma Watson are speaking out as well.

Peer Review for Mariana Chacon

Mariana's Rhetorical Analysis of Project 3

- For this peer review I reviewed Mariana's Rhetorical Analysis of her project. I chose her project because she is doing a video essay like I am and I also found her topic very interesting.
- I think I helped her with recognizing that she should include some more voice from the counter-argument in her project, just to make it more dimensional and also incite some more "anger" from the audience.
- From the reading's I commented on her level of detail in her rhetorical analysis and how well done her contextual situation was analyzed.
- I really admired all of the detail she put in there about herself and the project and the contextual situation she is working within because I really feel I have a holistic sense of what her project is about now.


Peer Review for Shauna Bratton

Shauna's Research Report

- I chose to peer review Shauna's research report since we will both be working in the same genre for this project and I wanted to see some of her ideas and see if I could help with some of my own.
- She had a good start to her research, but she needed some more sources in order to have enough for a really strong video essay so  really emphasized that.
- I really tried to emphasize the importance of multimedia sources, eve though this is a video essay, she can have some non-video sources for discussion
- One thing I learned from her work was that I could probably find more news stories with adjacent videos to cut into my project to add more content, she had a really good amount of those.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Reflection on Pre-Production

My biggest success this week was owning in on a topic I want to discuss and present an argument about for my project 3 video essay. I decided to talk about the gender pay disparity that persists in Hollywood and I am honestly really excited to talk about this because it is something I am actually very interested in.

My biggest challenge, however, this week was finding the time to actually begin research once I decided on my topic. At first, I was having trouble finding something I wanted to talk about, but once I did, I was so busy I had to put it off until the end of the week because of how busy I was.

I think next week will be much better, I got a lot of the things that I needed to get done last week, so I will definitely have more time this week for production. I also think this week will be much smoother with the number of sources I was able to accumulate.

Overall, I am very excited about this project and I am actually looking forward to editing and creating this video project. This is the project I have actually been looking forward t the most and I am very excited to get started on production.

Research Report

So far, the research process is going pretty well. Finding sources for this has actually gone pretty well and there are a fair amount of video sources available for the content I have chosen.

Here are the sources I have gathered thus far:

Link from my google doc- Sources


Sunday, April 3, 2016

Peer Review for Tim Wils

Tim's Content Outline

  1. I chose to review Tim's content outline, mostly because of the fact that we are both working on a video essay and I wanted to see the ideas he had come up with on how to format his video essay.
  2. Tim's post was very word heavy, so I tried to help him step back from all the information he was already providing and really have a picture in his head of how exactly he was going to communicate all of that in the form of a video essay.
  3. I just reminded to make sure he is including the conventions of a video essay ad thinking about those already now, before he has begun the production of his project.
  4. I really liked how I could already tell exactly what Tim's project was going to be about, just from the first line of his outline. he provided a lot of detail and information, which I think I will definitely help him out come time for production.

Peer Review for Cheyenne Garcia

Cheyenne's Research Report

  1. I peer reviewed her research report, mainly because I wanted to see how she formatted her report and what kind of information she included.
  2. Honestly, she seemed to have a pretty good grasp on her research and what she was doing, so I just told her good work, especially with including the number of hyperlinks that she did.
  3. She had a clear idea on how to verify her sources and provide relevant contextual information.
  4. I really admired the way she formatted her report and included valid information, as well as hyperlinks for access to additional information for her own reference.

Production Schedule

Here is how I plan on completing my project within the next week:

To do:
Film and record my bits of audio
Piece together the video and image sources I have accumulated

Location:
Home and library

Planned Date and Time:
Recording to take place Tuesday afternoon- intro and section 1
Editing and video recording Thursday through Saturday- add in section 2 and outro
Finalize editing On Sunday- add in any music or final video clips

Resources Required:
Microphone
Video Editing Software
Recording device

Date Completed:
Recording and accumulation of sources- Friday 4/9
Final Editing completed- Sunday 4/11

Changes made after completion:
Re-watch completed video after final editing
Add in more conventions of the video essay, i.e. music, sound effects, transitions

Content Outline

Below is the current rough outline for my project:

Intro:
  • Open with music and intro of who I am
  • What the project will about (Gender pay gap in Hollywood)
First Section:
  • Clip from the most recent celebrity speech on the topic to show how the issue is still current
  • Include commentary over pictures and short video clips of celebrities discussing the problems with pay in Hollywood and how it still persists
Second Section:
  • Discussion of articles that have been written on the subject with commentary from writers, producers and directors on the topic
  • My personal commentary on how this affects those entering the work force, even outside of Hollywood.
Outro:
  • Final closing remarks from some celebrities on the topic, my personal commentary
  • Include source from how this problem can be fixed
  • How this impacts females entering the work force in general and what to be aware of

Rhetorical Analysis of Project 3

A rhetorical investigation in the pre-production of project 3.

Author:
  1. For this project, there are a number of different topics I could potentially delve into. For one, my area of study is political science and Middle Eastern studies, so I could always pick from a number of controversial topics out of those. Additionally, I am currently in ROTC on track to become a Naval officer in the next two years, so topics and controversies concerning the military always peak my interest.
    1. Within these interest areas, here are a few topics I could focus on:
      1. Gender wage gap- private vs. public sector
      2. Women in combat
      3. US involvement in the Middle East
  2. I was raised in your average white American, middle-class family. I pretty much grew up in the suburbs and attended good public schools. I come from a large family of six kids in total and we were all raised with pretty sound, maybe a little school-type set of values.
Audience:
  1. I want my audience to be young men and women that are just coming into the work force and will be most impacted by the present political climate and current issues in the US and around the world.
  2. Unfortunately, this audience may know some about one of my topics, but probably not all. Young people typically like to have an opinion without having all of the information, and that is becoming increasingly more common. So currently, they may have a skewed idea of what's happening.
  3. Some may be surprised by my argument, especially if I choose the topic about women in combat since I hold a different opinion on the topic than the majority of young women.
  4. My biggest way of relating to my audience will be identifying myself with them as just another young adult, concerned with the present state of the world we will be entering upon graduation.
  5. A perfect target audience of mine could be those in ROTC with me, or those that I study Arabic and the Middle East with. For them, I would argue the presence of the US in the Middle East and the world impact it has.
Purpose/Message:
  1. I want my audience to consider the political and social climate they will be entering into upon graduation and joining as young new assets to the work force. I especially want young women to pay attention to this that may be considering a career in Hollywood, or something similar.
  2. The biggest thing that needs to be pointed out and explained about this issue is that this issue persists especially in Hollywood. It has essentially been removed from the public sector, and is slowly waning out of the private sector, though it still persists in some professions. The largest presence of this issue persists in Hollywood.
    1. The main info I still need to gather is the opinion from the producers of Hollywood and those in charge of pay for actors and actresses and get their perspectives.
Context:
  1. I will be working with the video essay for this project. I decided on this one because a lot of my sources are coming from video sources and therefore making a video essay just makes sense.
    1. I actually pretty confident with this genre as I have had to make a lot of video projects in the past and I some how always ended up being the one that had to edit at the end.
    2. Since this project will be related to Hollywood, I think it will also be fun to include the conventions of music and video sources/gifs into my video.
  2. This problem has persisted throughout history, so it will definitely be important to include how this problem has evolved over the years and when and where it started if possible.
  3. Especially recently, this problem has been all over the media and there have been a lot of celebrities talking about this:
    1. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/02/23/gender_wage_gap_in_hollywood_it_s_very_very_wide.html
    2. http://thefederalist.com/2015/02/23/we-dont-have-a-wage-gap-problem-but-hollywood-and-the-white-house-do/
    3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1qk_Be5yRw
    4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA2MhigYsRw
  4. Major counter-arguments:
    1. Wage gap is a thing of the past
    2. Actors get paid based on ability
    3. Certain actors are worth more based on poularity
    4. They were paid more "for a bigger role"


Monday, March 28, 2016

Editorial Report 9a

Selection from Rough Cut (Intro 1)

Re-edited Section (First 30 seconds)

  1. The content changed just slightly with my wording and I added in intro music to make the intro more playful and to catch the audience in a bit more.
  2. The form changed a little with adding in the music and I also identified myself with the UA, something I heard in another podcast which I really liked.



Editorial Report 9b

Selection from Rough Cut (Rough Cut #1)

Re-edited Section (First section on conferences)

  1. The content was greatly expanded and I even added in a few short clips from real-world examples to provide a background for my audience.
  2. The form changed with this new cut because I recorded on a better platform, slowed down my speech and added more sources.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Reflection on the Past Week

  1. The biggest thing that went right this week was that I finally found a good editing software for my podcast, which was recommended to me by one of my group members. Once I found that, everything as far as production went pretty smoothly. However, I was slammed with a lot of work from other classes this week, and didn't have much time to do much revision during the week so it was unfortunately left to this weekend.
  2. Well I kind of already answered this in the last question, but like I said, one of the things that I struggled with was trying to edit my podcast with such little time to do it. I was eventually able to get it done and to a level which I do actually like, more than I thought I would honestly, but it took me longer than I had hoped.
  3. Next week, I am actually really excited to get started on a new project, especially because I am most excited for this public argument. I find myself to be pretty good at arguing a good case, so I am looking forward to this week. My biggest challenge with this next project will be the video editing. I have done some in the past, but not with many special effects.
  4. Overall, I feel pretty good about this project. Honestly, this wasn't the most interesting project to work on, but at this point, I do feel like I have gained some insight into writing within my field.

Peer Review for Gabrielle Dietrich

For this second peer review, I chose to review a standard college essay. I feel like these usually contain the most content with the best explanations, so I wanted to see how that was incorporated for this project. I have also already looked at A LOT of podcasts, so I wanted to look at something different.

Gabby's Project- Journals versus Blog Posting: The Rhetoric World of Environmentalism

To review her project, I focused in on the copy-editing aspect after reading through her paper, because her content was well-organized and she didn't need much work on it.

The biggest thing I commented on was incorporating more in-text citations for her paper, since that is definitely a big convention of the standard college essay, and although she had sources she did not have many incorporated into the essay. I just incorporated some of the conventions of a standard essay into my review.

I really like that I felt like I actually got a sense of writing within the field of environmentalism from her paper. I really admired her content and how much information she provided.



Peer Review for Diego Alcantara

For this first peer review, I chose to review a member of my group who is working on the genre I did for Project 1 and I am hoping to provide some valuable feedback for his project, specifically on the form.

Diego's Project- Computer Engineering: A Comprehensive Guide to Writing in the Field

After reviewing his project and looking over the general form of the QRG, I had just a few comments:
  • Add more white space and cut out the large paragraph portions or shorten them
  • Try making it look less like a paper with pictures, and more like an article with imagery
  • Add more images and hyperlinks
I talked with Diego in class before I even peer reviewed his project to give him some tips on editing the format, so I think I definitely helped him out in the sense that I was able to describe to him hot to lessen the visual impact on the reader.

The rough cut provided all the needed information, it just needed some fine tuning on the form.

Overall, I could really tell that he put a lot of time and effort into his project, and I really admired that he took the time to really explain the differences between writing in his field versus other fields.







Sunday, March 13, 2016

Open Post to Peer Reviewers

What you need to know:
  1. First off, as we all know, this is a very rough cut. I have not yet added in all of the sound effect or music that I will be adding into my final, so this is purely information. I am focusing more on getting the raw material out first and then making it sound better after. I am also still fiddling with inserting clips within my voice clips, so there will be more than just me talking throughout.
  2. I am already aware that at some points I kind of pause or tangle my words, but for me getting the information I wanted out first was the most important, so I am aware that as of right now I sound like I am kind of fumbling for words at points and taking pauses and saying "um".
  3. At this point, I feel like I know what I'm talking about, but I am honestly not positive about what it is in here that is really my strength just yet. I don't really like my project all that much right now, but I know I will as I continue to edit and make my speech more refined. If you could just help me identify some, if any strengths, I have so I can really amplify those and use those to my advantage that would be great!

Here is my first rough cut! It is broken into sections right now, but I will edit them together shortly.


Reflection on Production Part 1

Questions:
  1. One of the biggest things that went right this week was me gathering the rest of the material and genre examples for the project. I had several in mind that I was thinking of using, but I able to narrow it down to the three main examples I wanted to use this week. I also started playing with the podcast software I found and made a few rough cuts of audio.
  2. My biggest challenge to this point has been trying to figure out how to make the podcast interesting enough for someone to listen to for a prolonged period of time, and actually stay interested in the topic. The second biggest challenge I have face is figuring out how to make and edit a podcast successfully. I'm not sure if I may need to just find a new software or something, but so far the process is just okay.
  3. I am definitely feeling more confident about next week, but I am not completely sure of how I want to go about finishing making the rest of the podcast at this point.
  4. Overall, I am feeling pretty good about this project. The only thing I still feel kind of unsure about is how to actually edit my podcast and make it sound like a legitimate podcast that I would be comfortable sharing with the public.

Production Report 2

Audience Questions:
  1. Like I stated in my last bog post, I kind of created this podcast like a radio show. I chose to do the intro and outro to my podcast for these first two posts, mainly because I am still trying to get the hang of this whole podcast thing and these two pieces are the easiest to edit.
  2. Out of the two pieces I have recorded thus far, this was probably the easiest one, besides the fact that I'm not exactly sure how to add in music pieces yet.

Project Outline:
Closing-
  • End with a wrap-up of the major genres
    • How they are used
    • How they are communicated
    • To what audience
  • How genres in this field have evolved due to technology, what their main purpose is now
  • How these new genres are expanding because of technology
  • What we may see in the future

Clip- Outro

Production Report

Audience Questions:
  1. I decided on a podcast for this project, so I basically made it into an open analysis of the genres used within my field, while inserting clips from the interviews I conducted to branch into those genres. I tried to format it almost like a radio talk show where I discuss my research and used other people's input to back it up.
  2. Creating this podcast was a little difficult in all honesty, especially since I have never had to create a podcast before. The hardest part I feel will be editing the podcast and really adding all of the part that make it a viable podcast.
Project Outline:
Intro-
  • Open with music, fade into an introduction of myself and my field of study
  • Follow with description of why communicating within my field is so important and the impact it can actually have.
  • Provide one to two very short clips of audio from each interview that exemplify the types of genres used the most in this field as a supplement to the entire investigation of genres in this field  
  • Introduce investigation into genres within Political Science and how they are utilized by professionals
    • Introduce investigation conducted and where
      • Social media
      • News, online journals, etc.
      • Interviews
Clips-  Intro 1 Intro 2




Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Reflection on Project 2 Pre-Production

Audience Questions:
  1. I was really able to hone in on what I wanted to discuss in my project and get a better idea of what I am really supposed to do for this. I completed my content outline which I was kind of afraid of at first, because I didn't really feel like I had a firm grasp of what exactly it was I was supposed to include in my project as far as content. Now I definitely understand it much better, with my content outline, and I feel much more confident about this project.
  2. Like I kind of already discussed, I had some challenges with getting my content outline started because I really wasn't sure about the content of my podcast. With that completed now, and having already received some feedback on it, I really feel like I know what I'm doing now.
  3. Next week should be fine, content-wise, but I have never recorded a podcast before, or edited one, so that should be interesting. Honestly, I am most concerned about being able to make a good and not boring podcast that incudes all the conventions of a podcast.
  4. Overall, I am feeling pretty good about this project so far. I definitely feel a lot better about this project than I did at this point for project 1. I feel like I know a lot more what I am discussing and how to communicate it.

Production Schedule

Schedule for Production:
  1. To be done-
    1. Locate a few more genre examples and select the best three from those selected.
    2. Locate a solid podcast creation and editing software
    3. Create script from content outline
    4. Record podcast segment "rough draft"
      1. Record intro and main body pieces
      2. Edit intro, add segments from interviews where needed
      3. Add music and sound effects
  2. Majority of work to be done at home, so as to have a quiet space to record podcast
    1. Research to be done in the library
  3. Date and Time:
    1. Research to be done between tomorrow and completed by Friday night
    2. Beginning of recording and completing project information, Saturday and Sunday
  4. Resources required:
    1. Genre examples
    2. Recorder
    3. Podcast editor software
  5. Date completed:
    1. Content outline completed today
    2. Research and background to be completed by Sunday evening at the latest
    3. Beginning stages of recording and cutting started Saturday
  6. Changes to be made after completion:
    1. Editing and cutting of recorded segments
    2. Making sure the focus of the project is on the examples and they provide ample support of those represented in my field.
    3. Add/edit the sound and music effects in the podcast



Content Outline


Here is the link to my document on Google Docs!

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Report on My Interviews

Humphrey Bogart, Jack Brown, Lauren Bacall, Actor
Skeeze. Humphrey Bogart Jack Brown Lauren Bacall Actor. 7/20/2014 via Pixabay. Public Domain License.






Note: I have only been able to conduct one interview thus far with Associate Professor Alex Braithwaite from the School of Government and Public Policy. The next one is scheduled for Monday at 10am with Professor Polakowski.


Genres:
-Journal Articles
-Books
-Public speeches/ conference discussions
I found the public conference talks the most interesting, mostly because I would love to be able to attend one of these major conferences to see what these political scientists have to say and see how much it greatly differs from what policy makers actually think/do.

Differences:
-Even though each of these genres is different in terms of medium of publication and formatting, they all still hold essentially the same purpose and end up being written/spoken for the same audience. Most readers of academic journals are other professionals within that field, most readers of these type of research and theory-based books are professional within the field and the only people that really attend these conferences are other political scientists or academia from a university/research type background.
-Journals may be used more for research, books for reference, and conferences for discussion and thought on the subject.


Difficulties:
-The basic feeling I got from my interview on the difficulties in writing for this subject is getting the people you actually want to read and listen to the research to do so. The majority of writing in this field tends to stay in this field, even though it is intended for real-world application.

Mass Media:
-In the mass media, some examples of these pieces can be found in newspapers, popular magazines outside of just academic journals, or even broadcast across social media like Facebook and Twitter. Fortunately, politics is everywhere, but unfortunately the nitty gritty research that actually studies the effects of government policy is often overlooked by the majority of the population.


Interview #2 with Michael Polakowski, Professor on Public Policy and Criminal Justice:

Genres:
-Journal Articles
-Conferences
-Emails
This professor really only discussed these three main genres that he typically writes in as of now. The one I found the most interesting was the journal articles he discussed, and how those articles can be sent to actual policy makers, and because of those articles discussed, the theories that can turn into policy.

Differences:
-Main audience of these genres nd mediums is other professionals within the academic field and policy makers who may potentially make these theories into policy.

Difficulties:
-Pretty much the same difficulty as getting people to actually listen to and understand what is being said, especially if they come from outside of the profession.

Mass Media:
- This professor avoids mass media at pretty much all costs. He stays up to date with the news and everything, but pretty much shies away from anything like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. He is what I would say is more "old school" and relies more on real publications rather than virtual ones.