Table of Contents

AI, Ethics & Human Agency

Citation

Collaboration

Genre

Information Literacy

Mindset

Research

Rhetoric

Style

Writing Process

Chapter: Genre

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Blogging

What is blogging? How is blogging "academic"? Most importantly, why is my teacher asking me to blog?

It’s likely that some, if not all, of these questions come to mind as your first-year composition professor introduces blogging as a form of academic writing. Yes, blogging can be academic. But how? More importantly, how is blogging a way of connecting lofty, intellectual topics with “real world” arguments?

On the most general level, blogs provide spaces for productive conversations about the relationship between writing and audience. What does this mean? 

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Online Forums: Someone Responding Thoughtfully on a laptop

Online Forums: Responding Thoughtfully

Some instructors assign weekly or biweekly discussion board posts or other regular informal writing assignments, and oftentimes they require you to respond to your peers’ writing. Responding to your classmates can be an awkward or uncomfortable task because  you might not want to offend them or say something silly.

As a result of this pervasive discomfort, students often just respond to a post in one of the following ways:

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Analyzing Ads: Race

Typically, the first thing we look for in a photograph is ourselves. Advertisers recognize this fact and use it to their advantage. Because of this, we can learn a lot about a company’s target customer base by observing the people featured in its advertisements.

The appearance (and, in commercials, the sounds) of the people as well as the setting (location) of an advertisement speaks to both the company’s target audience and its assumptions about that audience.

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Analyzing Ads: Gender

We need to be aware of how advertisers appeal to us, and we should think critically about the persuasive messages we encounter to ensure we are savvy, not passive, consumers. Because consumers purchase products with which they identify, it is important to examine the subtexts of advertisements as well as the role those subtexts play in determining what products men and women choose to associate with their personal identities.

The subtexts of a visual argument are closely associated with both intended audience and meaning. 

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ad analysis

Ad Analysis

Advertisements comprise thirty percent of the material aired on television, and many of us will view more than two million commercials in our lifetimes.  The A. C. Nielson Company reports that, by the age of sixty-five, the average U.S. citizen will have spent nine years of his or her life watching television—twenty-eight hours a week, two months a year. And in one year, the average youth will spend nearly twice as many hours in front of the tube (fifteen hundred hours) as he or she spends at school (nine hundred hours).[1] We may turn the box off eventually, but the advertisements remain. We are surrounded by them: they cover billboards, cereal boxes, food wrappers, bathroom stalls, tee shirts, and tennis shoes. 

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Text-to-Visual Remediation

Another type of remediation occurs when you translate text into either a single image or a series of images (a video or slideshow). These two types of remediations fundamentally involve the same process—translating text into visuals.

There are no strict guidelines by which this translation must be done. However, there are some large-scale suggestions or methods by which you can attempt to symbolically capture in visuals the messages and main ideas promoted in your original text. Moreover, the creation of a visual remediation—much in the same manner as the creation of a text remediation—involves an understanding of rhetorical stance and rhetorical strategies.

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Here Tampa Bay reflects the archive and tributary reflects the writer's perspective

Introductions

In what ways does your opening engage your reader?

Writers who produce engaging openings keep their audience in mind from the very first sentence. They consider the tone, pace, delivery of information, and strategies for getting the reader’s attention. Many teachers generally recommend that students write their introductions last, because oftentimes introductions are the hardest paragraphs to write.

They’re difficult to write first because you have to consider what the reader needs to know about your topic before getting to the thesis.

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Writing Commons, Rogerian Argument

Rogerian Argument

Solving Problems by Negotiating Differences 

How many times have you been in an argument that you knew you couldn't win? Are you reluctant to change your mind about certain social, political, or personal issues? Do you have an unshakable faith in a particular religion or philosophy? For example, are you absolutely certain that abortion is immoral under all circumstances? Are you categorically against animal experimentation for advancements in medicine?

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Subjects & Concepts

Understand why analytical and explanatory writing is one of the most important genres of writing in school and professional careers.

Read a variety of analytical and explanatory reports, noting the diversity of audiences, purposes, contexts, media, voices, tone, and personas. Understand the defining characteristics of texts that analyze or explain concepts.

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Proposals

Learn how to improve your problem-solving and persuasive skills. Employ your writing and reasoning skills to make a difference in the world. View samples and write a proposal to conduct research, develop a Web site, solve a problem, or provide a service. Proposals are persuasive texts that articulate ways to solve a problem, conduct needed research, or provide a service.

Proposals may attempt to persuade readers to act or they may seek funding. Writers of proposals support claims with reasoning, library and Internet research, and original research, including questionnaires, interviews, and ethnographers.