Researching People Day 2

As I read what Austin had said, it made me happy to be able to share my thoughts and experiences with someone I call a good friend. I was able to learn more about myself and others through this process.

I learned that I am acutally a good interviewer, I am good at writing done words, concepts and ideas that the interviewee had perviously stated. It comes to no suprise to me that I would be good at this, I am a people person and out-going. I need no prep to begin myself in a situtation such as what we did in class. Even though I am well aware that I was good at interviewing Austin, I might run into some problems interviewing someone else.

Interviewing can be nerve racking when you do not know the person or any information about who he/she is or what they d0. I believe that if I had a different person, this process wouldn't come so easily. I would first have to get to know them and from there I would be able to to gather the information that I would need to be successful in this interview.

To become a better interviewer, I would first and formost, learn more about the person and their backgroud. I would be able to do this by researchinig and spending time looking at information on them. I am excited to be able to do this process in my ethnographic research project.

Researching People

As we were given this assignment, I knew right away what object I was going to discover.  Being that Austin is one of my good friends, we have time to talk about things.  One Sunday, we went to Panera, we sat and talked for a good hour.  During that time I learned things about him that I did not know before.  One thing we have in common is our liking of tattoos.  Right off the bat, I knew I wanted to find out more about his tattoo he was getting.

This tattoo is of a rose, in black ink next to his first one.  It is of medium size and looks as though the two tattoos were done together at the same time.  He picked his lower ribs, which is one place that hurts the most.  As I sat in class looking at the picture I took of his tattoo, many things came to my mind, many questions arouse and I became eager to learn more about it.

As I pondered about this piece of art, it came clear to me that it wasn't there just for the aesthetic sense, it had to of had meaning.  It made me think of my tattoos and even though there isn't much meaning, they mean something to me.  It also gave me more interest in getting another tattoo, seeing someone so happy about this, like Austin, makes it that much more interesting.  While I was connected to him in this sense, I needed to learn more.

As I interviewed Austin, I had a few questions I wanted to ask.  First off, he told me he got this tattoo in remembrance of his grandfather and his family in general, this shows he cares a lot about his background.  He picked this spot and specific color because he wanted to keep with the theme of his first tattoo, of the name "Thomas".  It also was to make it look as though it was connected instead of two entities.  He mentioned he got this tattoo at Wild Zero Studios, the same place as his first and it was done by the same guy, Eric Carlson.  If he were to get another tattoo, he would go back to him and the same place.  

He had a good experience with this place and artist.  It hurt less than his first time and took about an hour and five minutes.  He wasn't allowed to talk due to the placing of the tattoo but Eric talked to him and told jokes to lighten the mood.  Austin gave me specific details of what was going on, what the room looked like and the positioning of himself as well as Eric.  This tattoo was meaningful to Austin and brought memories back when I asked him to tell me about it.

Austin's grandfather had passed away, he knew he wanted this tattoo to be of a rose.  His earliest memories were of him and his grandfather in this garden working in the flower beds.  While gardening, his grandfather taught him very valuable lessons.  He gave him advice on what type of man he should be, things he should and should not do, advice and taught him morals.  

This experience of learning about Austin and his tattoo shows me that he is a sentimental, caring and family means a lot to him.  I was very interested in getting to interview him, learn more and become informed about why this tattoo and why a tattoo at all.  He was very welcoming and excited to tell me more, you could tell this was very important to him.  All in all, this process was a positive one and I learn a lot.

WWD Activity 1a

The features, functions, and student activity of a textbook for a single field is similar throughout textbooks.  For example, a Spanish textbook.  When you look at a Spanish textbook, you see many different features.  There are pictures to help explain what the activities and sayings mean.  There are pictures are here to help describe things, such as people and places. 

A specific function of this book are the words at the end of each chapter.  They are re-stated in the glossary at the end of the book.  There are highlighted words are in the book, on foot notes and where exercises are.  In the back of the book, there is also highlighted words to help you better learn how to conjugate verbs.

 Another feature in these textbooks are CD-ROMs.  They help you learn to speak the language properly.  Activities and exercises are in the book to help you better yourself with this language.  Along with the exercises in the book, a workbook comes along with it.  This workbook has activities in it for homework, classwork, and to help you practice what you have learned.  

All textbooks are different but are there for the same purpose, to help you better your understanding of a specific subject.  Throughout the reading of a textbook you see the many different things such as features, functions, and student activities.  All these help you and are in every student textbook.

Rhetorical Analysis-Question 3

For this blog assignment, I decided to use the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Service for Loudoun County.  Loudoun County is where I'm from and its an organization that I am apart of.  Though this site is clearly understandable, there are links, drop boxes, and other sorts of information that can help a person better understand all they have to offer.  LCPR website shows a person what is going on now, such as programs from kids, teens, adults, and senior citizens.  There is many different things they offer and through this website, you can see how well the reader will be able to comprehend the many different aspects of LCPR that are offered. 

Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on Other Texts

As I read this article, I clearly thought of Jack Selzer's article about Nelson.  Selzer, as we learned observed and researched Nelson for a period of time.  We came to know about his thought processes, how he writes a texts, and in what way he does so.  Nelson is a technical writer, he uses his past writings to form new ideas, memos, and other writings.  

This article stated many types of intertextual representation.  Nelson uses direct and indirect quotation, mentioning of document, comment or evaluation on a text, uses recognizable phrasing, and uses languages and forms that echo types of documents (Page 89).  All these forms of intertextual representation show us how Nelson relies on other texts.

This article helps us as a reader show us how writers use previous texts they have written or other texts from another author and form new ideas, concepts, and forms.