Peer Review 14 for Jianna LoCriccio

I reviewed the excerpt that Jianna posted for her project, so I'll be talking about what I said in this blog post. A link to her excerpt can be found here.

What did I do?

I made a copy-editing suggestion to Jianna about her project. I discussed how she was using phrases that sounded similar, and suggest that she condense them so that it doesn't sound like she's being repetitive. I utilized the portion of Rules for Writers in section 15 on providing some variety. It  has some good points about varying your sentence structure to keep the work flowing and keeping the audience interested.

How do I hope it helped?

I hope my comments helped Jianna to be able to get an outsiders opinion on her word choice. It'll hopefully help keep her paper interesting, remain lively, and avoid repetitiveness.

What did I admire?

I admired how honest Jianna was being with her audience. It invited a sense of vulnerability that makes the audience feel as though they can connect with her more. I personally think it was a great choice to make on her part, and I am optimistic as to how her project is going to turn out. She also utilized a lot of detail that was impressive. She seems to be off to a great start.

Production Report 14b

Now that I've completed another portion of my project, I'm going to also put the text of it on this blog. I have still yet to figure out how to take the project into pieces, so I wasn't sure how else to present it here. I'm going to talk about this portion of my project and discuss the creation of it, after I post where it came from on the content outline.

Outline Item:

-then college happened
-away from home
-own choices
-overwhelmed
-wait, now I have friends?
-new responsibilities from living alone (cook, clean, etc.)
-so many choices and changes

Adaptation of Outline Item:

Third body paragraph:

"I think I've just flown to the opposite end of the spectrum now. Because college has happened. My personality wasn't ready for it. Now I'm away from home, and I have the freedom to make my own choices. I don't have to check in with my parents before I do every little thing. I think I've taken it to the extreme. It's kinda overwhelming to me. I have a whole bunch of new responsibilities. I have chores to do, I have to cook for myself, and I have to do laundry if I want clean clothes to wear. And now all of a sudden I have friends.....what??? There are so many new changes to my life that I find something to distract me at every corner. I sit down to do homework and all of a sudden I have a list of a million other things I could and "should" be doing. All of a sudden, homework is the thing taking the backburner."

How did I use Form and Conventions?

I want my video to have pictures being drawn in the background, and I'm excited about how this portion came about. The conventions for a video essay are much looser than conventions of other genres, so it's been fun for me to create a project that has a voiceover with pictures. I got to play with what I was saying by messing with what's going on on screen.

How did the Production go?

I had a much easier time creating this portion because at this point I had already decided what I wanted to do with my project. It was no longer a shot in the dark. I was ready to be creative and have fun with it. I had a good time coming up with how I was going to mess with the background, and I no longer had any issues with picking the content because it was in the content outline.

Production Report 14a

I haven't quite figured out how to take portions of my project and post them separately, and it's a video. So I just decided to copy the text from my video onto a blog post. But I'll be sharing a portion of my project and talking about it.

Outline Item:

Second Body Paragraph
-I haven't always been like this
-I used to be a huge perfectionist
-I'd pick school over friends and socializing any day
-might be because I'm an introvert
-I'd go above and beyond project requirements (when acceptable

Adaptation of Outline Item:

"I haven't always been a procrastinator. I used to be on top of everything. I was a huge perfectionist. I would do homework from the second I got home until I was finished. I didn't feel the need to stop and do other things, because school work was fun for me. I also didn't have to choose between homework and having a social life. I just would always pick homework. Friends took a backburner. I'm introverted, though, so I enjoyed being by myself. I would do homework until the projects and homework were perfect. It was the complete opposite of what I'm like now."

How did I use Form and Conventions?

You  can't tell from this excerpt, but I'm making my project a video essay, and I've decided to use a program that draws pictures in the background while I'm talking. It's gonna be fun to edit that once it's all together. The only thing I've really done at this point is that section. But I wanted to present it in an entertaining way that would keep the audience's attention after I'd captured it. The conventions for a video essay involve making the information readily available for the audience. The conventions for this genre are more loose than other genres. It let me have more creativity with the presentation.

How did the production go?

To be honest, it took a while to get even this far. I had NO idea what direction I wanted to go with this project. I knew I wanted to talk about my time management skills, or lack thereof, but other than that, I had nothing. I also didn't want to ask anyone for help, because I have a hard time with that, so I had to rule out any ideas I had with asking roommates for help or any of my other friends. Plus, everyone else is crazy busy with finals coming up. My best friend helped me mold some of my ideas into a working plan though. Which was extremely helpful. I'm super excited about the direction my project is going in now.

Production Schedule

I now need to make a production schedule of what I'm going to do this next week for my project. It'll be fairly simple to complete the project in time if I follow my schedule. I've created a document on Google, and here is the link, but I decided to copy the schedule for what it is right now and place it in this blog post.

Production Schedule:

To Do	Where	When	With What	Actually Finished	Changes
Opening	My house	Monday	-Voice recorder -laptop
1st Body Paragraph	Place of abiding	Tuesday	-Voice recorder -laptop
2nd Body Paragraph	Current lodgings	Tuesday	-Voice recorder -laptop
3rd Body Paragraph	Ye ol’ house	Wednesday	-Voice recorder -laptop
Closing	Where I sleep	Thursday	-Voice recorder -laptop
Edit it all together	home	Thursday	-laptop
Edit	Also home	Friday	-laptop

Content Outline

We're now beginning work on Project 4, aka the Final Project. In order to do that, we have to have an outline of how our projects are going to work. I've been working on my Content Outline and I'm going to put it in this blog post.

Content Outline

Opening

-start with an alarm going off to grab attention
-write the title of the video over the alarm going off

-talk about time during the day
-introduce poor handling of it

Body

-when I have a ton to do, I end up doing none of it
-this makes me stressed
-I shut down
-I think of a million other things I could be doing other than assignments
-show pictures of eating, doing chores, grocery shopping, etc.
-I have to rush to finish projects on time at the last minute
-I'm not allowing myself to fully think through things
-my interest in my project goes way down
-my projects end up living up to a fraction of the potential they had
-ideas collapse
-my writing process is rushed and not fully thought through

-I haven't always been like this
-I used to be a huge perfectionist
-I'd pick school over friends and socializing any day
-might be because I'm an introvert
-I'd go above and beyond project requirements (when acceptable)

-then college happened
-away from home
-own choices
-overwhelmed
-wait, now I have friends?
-new responsibilities from living alone (cook, clean, etc.)
-so many choices and changes

Conclusion

-writing has been harmed
-not very good at time management
-kinda screwed self over

-hoping to grow
-introduce hope
-slight betterment
-not a total wreck
-learned from first year
-if we don't learn from mistakes, we'll keep making them
-ready to start anew

Reflection on Local Revision Process

So we're done. Yay. I think. But either way, project 3 is submitted in the dropbox. We'll see how that goes... Regardless, I'm going to reflect on how the local revision process went this week.

What were my successes?

So I'll be honest, the successes this week were few and far between. Not the brightest point in my life. But I got it turned in, so that counts as a success, right? I just wish I was more proud of it. I am proud of the points I got across, I just feel like I could've done so much better.

What were my challenges?

so..this week my main challenge was time management. I didn't handle the production schedule very well, so that wasn't very fun. I cheated myself of valuable time that I could've used to edit my project. I also struggled with actually going through with putting in a personal experience or not. I was going back and forth all week about the genre conventions, and I still haven't decided if it would've been ok to put in a personal experience.

How do I think next week will go?

I hope next week goes better, but I'm not hopeful. I have two tests next week that I have to study for, so I don't think I'm going to have much time to work on English. On the other hand, this week kinda humbled me. I thought I was going to do better with time management and I didn't.....Like at all. And it broke my heart. I've basically been beat up mercilessly all semester with how much I suck as a student as a person. But I'm ready to move past that. I want to be proud of who I am, and that can't start until I make changes. So next week will be better. I'm determined.

How do I feel about the project?

I'm very conflicted about the project, to be honest. I love some things about it, and I loved writing most portions of it. The connection between my points excited me. On the other hand, I really should've spent more time editing it. I was woefully underproductive, and that needs to change. So I'm worried about this project. I am super happy about the last project though. I just got my grade back and it was way higher than I was expecting. So who knows? I could've kicked butt on this one too. I doubt it, but I'm trying to be optimistic;)

Peer Review 13b

I've looked at some of the project 3's from the other sections, and I chose to review James Fusaro's project 3. Here is a link to his project. In this blog post, I am going to talk about what I said on my review of his project.

What did I do?

I made a copy-editing suggestion on James' project. I felt that his opening paragraph made the audience think he was going to argue one way, when he turns it around and argues the opposite. It made the paper hard to follow in the beginning. I used page 228 from the Student's Guide to First-Year Writing in my review of James' project. It talks about establishing your relationship with the reader and making sure to be clear about what you're going to be saying. I thought that was an important concept that I'm not really seeing in James' paper until a few paragraphs in. It was kinda making me feel lost at first.

How do I hope it helped?

I am hoping that my feedback will help James to be more direct with his purpose and get the point he's trying to make to come across sooner. It would be helpful for the format of his project if he were to more accurately portray what direction he's going to be working in.

What do I admire?

I admired how thorough James was with the presentation of his information. It was impressive, and helped prove his point in a much more dramatic manner. I was impressed with how clear and precise he was. The depth to which he dove with his information made me more prone to agree with the points he was making.

Peer Review 13a

I've posted a review on Nicki Escalante's project, HB2, and I'm going to talk about what  I said, and how I hope it helped. Here is a link to her project.

What did I do?

I chose to respond to Nicki's project using a copy-editing approach. I told her that the flow of her project seemed shaky because there were a lot of "this is how I feel", "in my opinion", and "these are my reasons". It takes away the power of her argument. When I wrote the review on her project, I referenced page 84 from the Rules for Writers. It talks about what kind of writing is too passive, and tells the writer to make sure their writing is assertive and confident.

How do I hope it helped?

Well, I feel like tone is a very important component of a paper, especially an argumentative piece. I hope my comments can help her tone become slightly less passive in her approach to her argument. She presents good points, and has very good information, but the strength of it is being undermined. I don't even agree with her argument, but I can see how someone would be able to take her side based on some of the information she presents. It just needs to be less passive.

What do I admire?

I admired Nicki's approach at using an emotional tactic to sway her readers. I definitely don't have enough of that. It brought her argument closer to home, and could lead people to be more likely to take her side of the argument. I also think I could learn from her use of a personal experience. I didn't put one of those in my project, and I think it could be beneficial for me to have.

Editorial Report 13b

Just like in the previous blog post, this one will be me revising a portion of my project. I've selected the second paragraph of my project. I'll be posting the original version, and then the edited version.

Selection from Rough Cut:

Narcissism has been defined as “inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity”(HarperCollins).  This is inherently different than self-esteem, on which our society is deeply predicated. Dr. Lisa Firestone has stated “The distinction between self-esteem and narcissism is of great significance on a personal and societal level. Self-esteem differs from narcissism in that it represents an attitude built on accomplishments we’ve mastered, values we’ve adhered to, and care we’ve shown toward others. Narcissism, conversely, is often based on a fear of failure or weakness, a focus on one’s self, an unhealthy drive to be seen as the best, and a deep-seated insecurity and underlying feeling of inadequacy.” This idea can be hard to conceptualize, but it is seen time and time again. The person often exhibiting a controlling or superior behavior is struggling with the very thing they seem against.

Re-edited Selection:

Narcissism has been defined as “inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity”(HarperCollins).  A person exhibiting narcissistic traits will think of themselves first in any given situation, and have a grandiose opinion of themselves. This is inherently different than self-esteem, on which our society is deeply predicated. Dr. Lisa Firestone has stated “The distinction between self-esteem and narcissism is of great significance on a personal and societal level. Self-esteem differs from narcissism in that it represents an attitude built on accomplishments we’ve mastered, values we’ve adhered to, and care we’ve shown toward others. Narcissism, conversely, is often based on a fear of failure or weakness, a focus on one’s self, an unhealthy drive to be seen as the best, and a deep-seated insecurity and underlying feeling of inadequacy.” This twist in reality can be hard to conceptualize, but it is seen time and time again. The person often exhibiting a controlling or superior behavior is struggling with the very thing they seem against. The bully in the movie always turns out to have an insecurity that caused him to be the way he is; he’s just trying to hide behind a mask.

How did the content change?

I added a sentence after the definition that talked more about what narcissism means. I felt like it would better bring the idea of the paper into context. I also didn't feel like the actual definition explained the concept of narcissism completely. It felt like it was lacking a little substance. I also changed the word "idea" to "twist in reality". I feel like it gives the paper more variety. It's wordy, so the words need to be different somehow.

How did the form change?

I added a sentence at the end that brought a "feeling" aspect into the paper. It was easier to bring the concept home and have it relate to people. It allowed them to connect with it better, I feel like. I needed  a 'feel' aspect since I didn't have many of those. I have many logical appeals, but it added a feel one.

Editorial Report 13a

I'm finishing up revisions to my project 3, so I'll be taking it apart and editing one of the portions of my project. The before and after will be copied and pasted here. For this particular blog post, I will be editing the intro of my project.

Before: Selection From Rough Cut

Picture yourself taking a trip to the Louvre in 1950. You’re slowly strolling through the museum, and enjoying the artwork as much as you’d hoped. You even take a moment to enjoy the Mona Lisa, wondering just what she was really smiling about. Everyone else in the building seems to be under the same trance caused by the surrounding paintings. It’s a privilege just to be there, surrounded by so much mystery and beauty. Now picture yourself on the same outing, this time in the year 2016. Again, you slowly walk from painting to painting, enjoying the artwork. But this time, when you get to more famous pieces, you pause to take a selfie. Everyone else around you is doing the same thing. You spend the same amount of time walking through the museum, but this time, instead of simply basking in the existence of the artwork, your first thought is to get proof of your trip so that you can post it on social media later that day. Narcissistic tendencies, such as going to a museum in order to post a picture of yourself with the artwork rather than to simply enjoy it, have been exacerbated by social media.
 

After: Re-edited Selection

Picture yourself taking a trip to the Louvre in 1950. You’re slowly strolling through the museum, and enjoying the artwork as much as you’d hoped. You even take a moment to enjoy the Mona Lisa, wondering just what she was really smiling about. Everyone else in the building seems to be under the same trance caused by the surrounding works of art. It’s a privilege just to be there, encompassed by so much mystery, beauty, and culture. Now picture yourself on the same outing, this time in the year 2016. Again, you slowly walk from painting to painting, enjoying the artwork. But this time, when you get to more famous pieces, such as the Mona Lisa, you pause to take a selfie. Everyone else around you is doing the same thing. You spend the same amount of time walking through the museum, but this time, instead of simply basking in the existence of the artwork, your first thought is to get proof of your trip so that you can post it on social media later that day. This is just one situation in which the effects of social media can be seen in today’s generation. Narcissism and narcissistic tendencies, such as going to a museum in order to post a picture of yourself with the artwork rather than to simply enjoy it, have been exacerbated by social media.

How did the content change?

I changed certain words in a lot of it, for example: I changed "paintings" to "works of art" because the Louvre has more than just paintings, so that was an error in statement.  I also changed the word "surrounded" to "encompassed" because I had just used the word "surrounded", and it sounded repetitive to have it in there twice. I put a reference to the Mona Lisa in the second portion of the section because I thought it brought the two scenarios closer together. I also added the word "narcissism" to the end in order to bring the main point of the essay into greater focus. I think it helps to change little words like this because it can have subtle changes to what you're saying that can be important to the perceptions of the reader.

How did the form change?

I pulled the first sentence from my next paragraph into the end of the introduction paragraph. This brings my thesis statement to the beginning and helps get my point across. I think it was a better choice when considering form and genre conventions. It brings the essay together better, and adds more meaning to the first paragraph. If I had left that last sentence out in the final draft of the introductory paragraph, the paragraph itself would have served little purpose.

Revised Post to Peer Reviewers

Seems like we've finished the last draft of our projects, so I'm gonna be posting a link to that. I'll also be talking about what I hope the peer reviewers keep in mind...so without further ado: the fine cut of my project.

What my reviewers should know:

I really struggled with figuring out the voice of my project. I didn't know how strictly we had to follow the Standard College Essay genre conventions, since I thought they had to be without first-person accounts entirely. A lot of the examples I've read from the class website and the ones we've read in class have portions where the author talked about an experience from their past. I ended up not doing that, since I was struggling to have my personal experience work with the flow of my project. If anyone decides to review my project at this point, I'd appreciate it if they could comment on that aspect. If I needed to put a personal experience in it, I'd still like to know that I should have done that, even though it's too late at this point. But I am already aware that my 'voice' in the project is lacking depth.

What are the weaknesses of said project?

I honestly think there are a ton of weaknesses in my project. Unlike when I did the podcast, I didn't feel like I reached my full potential with this project. I didn't know I liked working with audio as much as I did, so I think this project just went back to the monotony of school for me. It shouldn't have, because I have more creative freedom than most professors would give me, but I still felt that way. I couldn't help it. I think my project also is really struggling in the voice area, as previously mentioned. It could've been written with more of a lack of firm control over the sentence structure. I have always liked writing papers because I like that I can use a more extensive vocabulary than is socially acceptable in vocal conversation. I don't feel like that's what we're supposed to be aiming toward in this class though. So I struggled to find a balance. I have struggled with that balance since the first project. It also could have been longer and gotten into more detail on some fronts.

What strengths does my project have?

I honestly love the main points of my project. I feel like it just makes logical sense. I used a few different approaches in how I presented my information, but the information I was presenting was exciting to me. I loved the points I had. I think the logic in my paper flowed really well and made sense. I don't think there was much more I could have done in that arena. I also think my intro is very strong. I feel like it captures the reader's attention fairly quickly.

Peer Review 12a for Sarah Moskowitz

I took a gander at Sarah's project and hopefully gave her some feedback that was helpful in the editing of her project this time around. I'll be discussing that right about now.

Wait, what?

I reviewed Sarah Moskowitz's project, which can be found here. She called it A Standing Ovation for Those Limiting Screen Time for Toddlers. I made a copy-editing suggestion on her post about how design elements could be used more effectively in the project.

How'd I hopefully help?

I talked to Sarah about how she'd presented her information and gave suggestions on how to make it easier to follow. It was very opinion-based, so I don't know if she'll even want to do any of it, but I felt like it would be more helpful than most peer reviews are because I've found that most people don't give suggestions. I talked about the speed of her delivery, and the presentation of her statistics and information.

How did I incorporate Student's Guide?

On page 224 there's a tab that talks about "Creating Your Own Video Public Argument" that talks about grabbing and keeping your audience's  attention. It talks about choosing your images and text with that in mind. I touched on that during my review of Sarah's project. I talked about how she was keeping the attention of her audience. I gave input on the visuals she's been using, and how she can keep audience attention for a longer period of time.

What did I learn?

I learned a couple things from Sarah's project. I am not doing a video essay, however, so there was a lot that I didn't learn for my specific genre. I did learn, however, that I need to work on my content a little more. I have the genre conventions down, I feel like, but that's about it. I also learned that I can be more direct with my opinions. I hadn't realized how direct we can be, and it was nice to see a project that was extremely opinionated. Now I know I can do so.