jmichel's posterous http://jmichel.posterous.com Most recent posts at jmichel's posterous posterous.com Wed, 01 Dec 2010 04:29:00 -0800 Revision Plan http://jmichel.posterous.com/revision-plan http://jmichel.posterous.com/revision-plan

            Revisions… revisions. At the moment my news team document is the main thing I need to focus on. I am only at about 3ish pages, and I am somewhat unsure on how to expand upon it. I feel like I’ve talked about all I can. Yet, at the same time, I feel like there should be plenty of information on such a large and expansive topic. I may go into the more political side of things. What kind of progress towards it is being made in Washington, and who is fighting for its establishment.

                The writing source review worried me somewhat as well. I felt that there was not much more I could do to discuss web writing that works as a site. I talked about the content. The site had a lot of good info that was very useful. Navigation was another key point that I valued highly in a site. Web writing definitely had that. They had a large section about genre and several sub tabs on the side of the screen directing you to specialized genre topics.

So believing I had covered my main website I decided to compare it to another highly reputable site. Purdue OWL happened to be that site. I decided to discuss its format and content. OWL seemed to be lacking in both.  

In my Genre Group document you told me, in your review, that I should “talk about source more as commentary.” I had done more of a summary of the article rather than analyzing it as commentary. I am going to take that into consideration, maybe pulling out specific examples that lend its self to commentary.

Other than the problem with the problem about commentary, I felt like the genre group document was the piece I was most confident with. This is mainly because you said you really enjoyed it. You liked my creative example, to quote “The example was good!” You went on to say that it would be somewhat angering if the pricing model I gave was something they had planned on using. It was not any pricing model that companies have put out. I made it up to show an “extreme” that isn’t that far fetched.

I plan on using Wired.com a pretty good bit for my News Team document. They have a pretty decent amount of information on Net Neutrality and the like.

Purdue OWL will be another source I use for correcting any grammar issue I might have. They seem to have a very robust selection of material, and will be very helpful when it comes to proofreading my documents.

This class has made me a far better writer. When I first came into this class I was scared to death of writing. I have never been a strong writer, throughout my years of school. I remember my first issue ever with writing.

In fourth grade, I had to create a picture book/ story about two animals. We had worked on it for 3 days and on the third day I had the pictures all drawn up but I couldn’t figure out how to put my words on the paper in a decent format. I couldn’t seem to make that connection from brain to pen to paper. I lacked the ability to express myself into complete thoughts on the paper. In the end of that class they forced me to stay inside for recess and complete the assignment.

This may seem trivial but from that point on I never felt as though I had a good grip on writing. I couldn’t understand how people couldn’t sit in history class on test day and spit out 3 pages like it was nothing. I remember many times where I would have been writing a paper in class, focusing as hard as possible. I would finally hit one page. I would feel very accomplished, until I looked around the room. Every other person would be well on their way to two pages while I was stuck lagging behind. I just could not figure out the problem, and I am still not sure to this day.

I have improved though, yet I still feel that unless I have several days to work on something I will not produce quality work or it will not meet the length requirements. I am unsure how to improve the speed of my writing aside from finding word prompts and trying to write every day. I just feel that if other people can “just do it”, why can’t I just figure out what they do and mimic them.

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Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:34:00 -0800 News Team Document http://jmichel.posterous.com/news-team-document http://jmichel.posterous.com/news-team-document

Net Neutrality is a hotly debated topic, and has been for years. It is a proposed set of rules designed to prevent Internet Service Providers from creating monopolistic system for customers. Wikipedia defines Net Neutrality as a “principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet Service Providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and no restrictions on the modes of communication allowed.” The people who unwisely campaign against Net Neutrality (i.e. ISP’s and their supporters) think that its implementation will hurt competition and, in the long run, hurt consumers. The more logical position, for people to side with in this debate, would be to support the Federal Communications Commission, as they just want to make sure that ISPs don’t censor the internet, and charge unfair amounts to their customers.

                Marc Oestreich, of New Blaze, has little good to say about net neutrality, oddly enough. He believes that “it opens the door for (politicians) to control the world's single-largest source of information, entertainment, and ideas.” Marc goes on to say that net neutrality is fundamentally anti-consumer, anti-competition, and anti-market. Advocates for the opposition of neutrality say that if the FCC gets its way, the internet will be totally ran by the government and that consumer preferences in the marketplace will matter not. This is completely not the direction the FCC wants to go with their policy. They only wish to safeguard the internet from money mongering ISP’s, so that unwary internet consumers do not get reamed in charges. This is shown in the FCC’s Broadband Policy Statement, which states four points of open internet: To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to:

o   Access the lawful Internet content of their choice.

o   Run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.

o   Connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.

o   Competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.

Supporters of the FCC think that without government intervention ISP’s, eventually, will try to do several harmful things. The first would be censorship of the internet, in the form of not allowing consumers to view certain websites the internet provider finds “distasteful”. Wired, a popular news site and blog, provides a very good example of how an ISP could take advantage of consumers in the lack of Net Neutrality: “A broadband company could, for instance, ink a deal with Microsoft to transfer all attempts to reach Google.com to Bing.com. The only recourse a user would have, under the ruling, would be to switch to a different provider -- assuming, of course, they had an alternative to switch to.” If there was no alternative for said user then he or she would be forced into paying for a service they do not want.

To avoid such a situation Congress and the FCC should work together on creating laws that would help prevent internet censorship. The Atlantic wrote that these new laws could guarantee that any discrimination on the part of ISPs would only be for controlling costs so that they actually benefit the average internet user. If an ISP tried to discriminate information for reasons based on payoffs, political gain, anti-competitiveness, they would not be allowed to follow through with their plans.

Secondly, ISP’s could attempt to transform the internet into something very similar to Television. Sarah Kessler, a writer on Mashable.com, says that, “If the FCC doesn’t regulate net neutrality, there’s still a chance that the Internet will increasingly end up functioning like television. At the moment consumers have infinite choices of Internet content that loads the same way, but Sarah fears that if priority access becomes available, only massive companies will be able to purchase it, and they will severely limit sites available that will enjoy superior access.

 

 

Citation:

Marc Oestreich. "The Absurdity of Net Neutrality."

News Blaze. June 24, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://newsblaze.com/story/20100624101708zzzz.nb/topstory.html >.

Todd Shields. " Net Neutrality Compromise Being Weighed by U.S. Lawmakers."

Bloomberg. Sep 23, 2010.  Web. September 26, 2010.

< http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-22/congress-said-to-seek-net-neutrality...>.

Focus Editors. "Which Types of Businesses Will Be Affected by Net Neutrality (And How)."

Focus. Aug 11, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://www.focus.com/fyi/information-technology/which-types-businesses-will-b... >.

Atlantic Editors. "How Will Striking Down Net Neutrality Affect Consumers?"

The Atlantic. Apr 7, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/how-will-striking-down-ne... >.

Ryan Singel. "Court Drives FCC Towards Nuclear Option to Regulate Broadband."

Wired. Apr 6, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/fcc-next/ >.

Mashable. Aug 27, 2010.  Web. Oct 18, 2010.

< http://mashable.com/2010/08/27/net-neutrality-worst-case/ >.

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/ZtpCnnWZ71L jmichel jmichel
Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:06:00 -0800 News Team Presentation Review http://jmichel.posterous.com/news-team-presentation-review http://jmichel.posterous.com/news-team-presentation-review

            I felt pretty good about the news team presentation. I thought the actual presentation to the class went well. We all knew our topics pretty well. Our method of presentation was in the form of a magazine. We included each of our topics with pictures relating to each.

               

As far as the appearance goes, if given another chance, we could have probably made it more aesthetically pleasing maybe a boarder on each page. We possibly could have used special text colors and formats in the body in the separate papers. Occasionally the words seemed to take too much precedence.

 

We had added some ads in-between each of the articles. We could have taken a little more time to make those look decent. We also wanted to add a fake “letter to the editors” but we never got around to it. I would definitely add that next time. There was also going to be a collage, on one page, that would have been of the readers’ comments about our magazine, positive of course. In the center it could have had large text that said something like “WHAT YOU GUYS THINK!”. And then surround it by the comments.

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Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:05:00 -0800 Peer Reviews http://jmichel.posterous.com/peer-reviews http://jmichel.posterous.com/peer-reviews

Alexis Roberts - I really like your topic. I have heard a little bit about net neutrality, so I am looking forward to reading your paper. If you want to expand, you could start by explaining what net neutrality is, and how it will affect people. You could also talk mention that the Verizon Company and Google are for net neutrality. You should mention if any politicians have talked about it, and if it is on any political agendas.

Christa Murray - You have a great start to your paper. Really, there isn't much to comment on considering no one really wrote that much on their rough drafts but I think you have the right idea so far. I also wanted to tell you since you weren't in class yesterday that he said we can rearrange the format of our paper and in what order we put things, just as long as it makes sense. Be sure to put your citation before you explain what is being talked about in the site. Also, just a reminder to talk about the audience that would be most interested in your topic and to create an example of your own (I'm sure you knew that, but just reminding you!) Like I said, great start! It's due Friday at midnight, just so you know.

Rebecca McCall - That's an interesting topic. I didn't see an actual citation in there, but you have time to fix that. Christa already commented on the missing creative example (so our whole group is missing examples!). We'll fix it... eventually. Uh, what are the FCC and ISP? I mean, I have no idea what an/the ISP is, and the directive for the FCC isn't always clearly explained as it could be.

Christa Murray - This is definitely a great start to your paper. I liked the criquiting of the wesbite itself as well. I would suggest maybe even narrowing the topic of your paper down to one of the things you listed that the website provides about genre, like the tone of genre or something. Therefore, you can focus on that one aspect and perhaps give examples of that topic. Also, if you don't want to narrow down your topic, you could possibly give examples of different types of genres and when each should be used in certain situations. You could also provide links to other websites or different parts of your website that you chose that would help people looking at the website find other information about your specific and broader topic. If your audience is students, then remember to keep it short, which was another thing I liked about your paper. Also, I liked how the language in your paper is simple and easy to understand. Just think of what you would like and not like about a website about this topic if you were doing research on the subject. Also, if your audience is students, then you could try structuring your sentences where it seems that you are talking directly to the reader themselves and telling them the information instead of just in general.

Rebecca McCall - I like that you commented on how easy the page is to navigate. You could walk us through navigation of the page, so that readers don't have to waste time figuring it out. You could also tell us what the website looks like. It was nice to include that they are brief in explaining things, and you could give an example or two. I think that the first and second lines of the second paragraph could use a grammatical touch-up, which would also lengthen it. Or not. It made sense earlier. What are some of the personas that an author assumes, and what genres do they correspond with? What is there is well-written.

Joseph Michel - I think this is a really great start to your paper. I like the fact that it’s about Christen O’Donnell. It’s always fun to read about her and Sarah Palin. I generally get a good laugh out of those two. It would be nice if you maybe explained more about the Tea Party itself, like what their goals are and who their main representatives are. You could also talk about the pros and cons between Coon and O’Donnell. All in all I think this will be really good to read when it’s done!

 

 

 

Peer Reviews Review?

 

                I really liked the whole peer review thing on buzz. It was very helpful as I think most of my classmates would agree. It was a nice way to get a lot of input quickly on your papers.

                Christa Murray did a great job on both of the reviews she gave me. On almost all of the reviews she did, for other people included, she seemed to want to write a whole other paper about the other persons’ paper. Well not quite but she wrote a very large paragraph per. This was very helpful. One very good tip she gave me was:

“I would suggest maybe even narrowing the topic of your paper down to one of the things you listed that the website provides about genre, like the tone of genre or something. Therefore, you can focus on that one aspect and perhaps give examples of that topic. Also, if you don't want to narrow down your topic, you could possibly give examples of different types of genres and when each should be used in certain situations.”

She gave me two distinct paths to help me work down and focus my paper more. Rebecca McCall gave very helpful information also. She said “Uh, what are the FCC and ISP? I mean, I have no idea what an/the ISP is, and the directive for the FCC isn't always clearly explained as it could be.” I didn’t realize but I had forgotten to tell the reader who the Federal Communications Bureau was, along with Internet Service Providers. I quickly changed that, to include it, in my paper.

Alexis Roberts said, “If you want to expand, you could start by explaining what net neutrality is, and how it will affect people. You should mention if any politicians have talked about it, and if it is on any political agendas.”  I thought it was a really good idea to talk about how the everyday person would be affected.  I was already trying to integrate the whole political agenda thing, so it was nice to see that someone else thought it was a good idea too.

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Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:03:00 -0800 Writer's Plan http://jmichel.posterous.com/writers-plan http://jmichel.posterous.com/writers-plan

Sources:

Marc Oestreich. "The Absurdity of Net Neutrality."

News Blaze. June 24, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://newsblaze.com/story/20100624101708zzzz.nb/topstory.html >.

NewsBlaze is trying to break into the mainstream news scene to give people an unbiased view of the world. The founder NewsBlaze, Alan Gray, says, "We try to show the news as-is, without spin. Opinions writers are not allowed all-out attacks on their opponents - anger and displeasure can be shown without resorting to that." eWorldwire  says that “In the age of international media conglomerates, massive Internet search engines and unreliable blog sites, it can be difficult to find credible and unbiased news online. Relevant stories often receive little or no press attention because they conflict with the overall agenda of a large corporation.” NewsBlaze hopes to be the cure for the our populace.

========

Todd Shields. " Net Neutrality Compromise Being Weighed by U.S. Lawmakers."

Bloomberg. Sep 23, 2010.  Web. September 26, 2010.

< http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-22/congress-said-to-seek-net-neutrality...>.

Bloomberg is a highly reputable news organization that discusses a wide array of topics. The Bloomberg team says “ We enjoy what we do and like discussing the issues at the intersection of business news, data and technology.”

========

Focus Editors. "Which Types of Businesses Will Be Affected by Net Neutrality (And How)."

Focus. Aug 11, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://www.focus.com/fyi/information-technology/which-types-businesses-will-b... >.

                Focus is a news site that “provides millions of professionals with the expertise they need to make better business decisions.” They also have a very innovative Q&A section where they answer peoples questions about business and the like.

========

Atlantic Editors. "How Will Striking Down Net Neutrality Affect Consumers?"

The Atlantic. Apr 7, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/how-will-striking-down-ne... >.

                The Atlantic is a highly regarded news site, it was once connected to the Atlantic news paper but it is no longer. They provided real time, unbiased news to the public. They provided great incite for me when writing my news team document. The website discusses a wide variety of topics as well. Everything from business and politics  to culture and food. 

========

Ryan Singel. "Court Drives FCC Towards Nuclear Option to Regulate Broadband."

Wired. Apr 6, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/fcc-next/ >.

                Wired is an extremely good site for finding information on just about anything. They also have a magazine you can subscribe to.  The site itself has many sections: 6 main sections, and upwards of 15 sub sections. They are overflowing with useful material.

========

Sarah Kessler. "Net Neutrality: 7 Worst Case Scenarios”

Mashable. Aug 27, 2010.  Web. Oct 18, 2010.

< http://mashable.com/2010/08/27/net-neutrality-worst-case/ >.

Mashable, like Wired, provides the user with a wide array of material to view. They have an equal number, possibly more, of sections on their website. They gave me a view on both sides of the net neutrality argument.

========

 Thesis:

Net Neutrality is a necessity to the survival and positive progression of the internet.

Without at least some form of Net Neutrality ISP’s will run rampant through the streets of the internet charging fees left and right. The internet will transform into what TV is now. People will have to pay extremely high prices for every “extra” thing they want to view: be that Hulu, Youtube, and many other highly trafficked sites.

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Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:54:00 -0800 Genre Group Presentation http://jmichel.posterous.com/politicaltechnological-position-papers http://jmichel.posterous.com/politicaltechnological-position-papers

In recent news there has been a lot of commotion about ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) and the FCC(Federal Communications Commission). After having read a few articles on the topic there were really only 2 sides to the argument.

 The FCC sees the ISP's recent actions as somewhat scary. They think ISP’s ( e.g. Comcast, Charter, etc.) are beginning to head down a treacherous route that could lead to the censorship of certain content from their viewers. They could restrict your access to websites they (or their stock holders) find disagreeable. One very good example of this would be Comcast’s decision to limit the bandwidth allotted to people using BitTorrent (a file sharing application). Although this client does tend to facilitate piracy, there is a large majority of users that utilize it for sharing completely legal files.

The people who side with ISP’s, believe that the internet should not be controlled in any way be the government. There is a mentality of "If it aint broke, dont fix it.” They believe government intervention will actually harm the market. The problem is letting the companies reign free may harm consumers much more than they realize.

Rules and Audience of this Genre:

1. The commentary must discuss a current topic that has multiple sides to the argument. It should present all sides of the discussion to the audience in as fair a manner as possible. It will, although, take a particular side and explain why it seems to be better in the author’s opinion.      

2. Your paper should provide examples to why one side of the case is more beneficial, in comparison, to the other.  

Audience – The type of discussion would be very interesting to the somewhat tech-savvy group of people. It would also attract attention from politicians who disagree with a certain ISP’s political standing (I will go deeper into this with the example).

Example (This is completely untrue… for right now):

Comcast president Neil Smit released the outlines for the new premium internet bundles, earlier today. It entailed that there would be large changes from their previous packages. There would be two main bundles for Comcast users to choose from.

The first is a very limited version of the internet. When it comes to news, in this bundle, you have one choice, Fox News channel. The ISP has recently signed a contract with Fox News stating they will be the main choice of news for Comcast customers. This package also doesn’t allow users to access Hulu, a very popular TV show site. If you wish to watch your favorite TV shows you’ll have to head over to Apple’s new Apple TV. Also, if there are any gamers out there, you won’t be able to use this package as it has very limited bandwidth, in order to prevent you from slowing down internet speed for other users. Along with many other restrictions, I don’t know if many people will be opting to pay for this deal. If you do end up choosing this, it will cost right around $100.

The premium version, although, does allow for far more leniency when it comes to your browsing options. One option that is not available in any Comcast package is the use of any applications that utilize torrent files. Record companies have recently convinced Comcast to help crack down on torrent users in an effort to prevent piracy from taking place. It doesn’t matter if you only use torrents to download legal items, they have cut download speeds for torrents so drastically that it is almost impossible to transfer files via P2P file sharing. That being said you can get this bundle for $180 per month.

All in all, this seems to be somewhat unreasonable, especially when it comes to censorship of different sides of the news. When you add in the $180 price tag for a decent service, you may want to cringe.


Citation:


Marguerite Reardon. "FCC details plan to reassert authority over Internet. "

CNet News. May 6, 2010.  Web. September 9, 2010.

< http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20004313-266.html >

Focus Editors. "Which Types of Businesses Will Be Affected by Net Neutrality (And How)."

Focus. Aug 11, 2010.  Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://www.focus.com/fyi/information-technology/which-types-businesses-will-b... >.

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Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:53:00 -0800 Writing Source Review http://jmichel.posterous.com/35019217 http://jmichel.posterous.com/35019217

Genre is a subject that is tightly intertwined with a target audience and this audience completely dictates almost every aspect of an author’s writing. These aspects include everything from your tone, your structure, to even the persona with which you write.  Jonathan and Lisa Price, the operators of 'webwritingthatworks.com', state that authors are not the people that start different classes of genre. They state that "a genre is born as a response to an audience's questions, needs, wishes, fantasies." New genres are created when as a particular type of text begins to grow in bulk. The Prices declare that genres are a “response to real or imagined requests from a group, attempting to resolve some of their anticipated problems, to address their needs, or to appeal to some of their passions.”

Web Writing That Works contains an abundance of information pertaining genre and the like. It discusses many things genre besides audience, this includes: the common structural appearance of genres, the tone of different brands of genre, and the personas you have to come into when writing to a particular group of people. Structurally, all genres are similar in that they try to answer some basic question created by the desired audience. If you were writing a biography your question would be, “Who was ‘Important Person’, and what did he do that was special?” When it comes to the tone of your writing you have to follow a specific style that caters to your audience. Web Writing That Works presents an example of a writer for a web magazine that is creating an opinion piece. The Prices state that, “you may feel obliged to include some embarrassingly intimate personal details, a strong emotional appeal, and a sprinkling of intriguingly irrational exclamations. You're adapting your tone to the genre.” When it comes to personas, a genre will generally have certain types already prescribed to it. They provide a very good example for procedures, they allot that “you can give friendly explanations, or you can act as an arrogant geek; you can be expansive or tight-lipped, generous or nasty.”

In comparison to other sites on the web, in terms of genre, Web Writing That Works seems to be far ahead on quality and abundance of material given. Purdue Owl for instance gives very, very little information on their site for genre in writing. The only section to be found, about genre, seems to be two paragraphs in the section “Starting the Writing Process”. It briefly discusses how to incorporate genre and your target audience into your growing paper. The information is very thin though, and is hard to find. The navigation on the site seems to be somewhat disorganized. I felt lost and had to do a word search just to find the paragraph about genre. If I had to choose a website , to learn how to use genre and my audience in my writing it would definitely be Web Writing That Works. They took the cake on ease of use and information delivered.

Covering so many aspects of genre, the web site as a whole is a great resource for improving many varied types of writing, from poems to speeches for large crowds. Navigating the back and forth between web pages is a breeze and the reading is just about as easy. The different sections are very concise and brief yet still seem to have some meat on its bones. Jonathan and Lisa Price really deliver when it comes to the important subject of genre.

Sources:

Lisa and Jonathan Price. "A genre responds to an audience.”

Web Writing That Works. N/A. Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://webwritingthatworks.com/DPatternGENRE01.htm>.

Stacy Weida, Karl Stolley. "Starting the Writing Process.”

Purdue OWL. April 17, 2010. Web. September 27, 2010.

< http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/587/01/>.

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Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:47:00 -0800 Untitled http://jmichel.posterous.com/35018892 http://jmichel.posterous.com/35018892

Hi! Todays my birthday! ...too bad im still awake.

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