Posted on by Greyson Young

New Audience, New Problems

When Mrs. Forgette told our class that we were going to be making a website about our research paper I knew that there was a catch. Unfortunately for me, I was right. The research paper was ten pages of sophisticated writing directed toward an academic audience but our website was supposed to be aimed at 18 year olds. You wouldn’t think that this would be that big of a problem, but boy would you be wrong. By simply changing the audience I had to rethink my entire paper. I could not simply transfer references, rhetoric, or language from my research paper over to the website. Well, I could but I’m pretty sure that I would have failed the assignment. The real problem with this change wasn’t the age difference, it was the fine print of the audience which I don’t think a lot of the other students noticed. Our research paper was supposed to be an academic audience who was somewhat familiar with the topic at hand. The college students didn’t have a clue about our subjects. This meant that I had to explain more basics in my website than I did in my research paper. I went in with the mindset of teaching chemistry to a toddler; explain the basics in the simplest way you can, and include pictures.

As I started thinking of my new audience, I wondered how I was going to discuss failing schools in a way that not only intrigued them, but made them want to read more. My first draft was AWFUL. I wrote it and it made me bored to read it. I realized that I needed a complete overhaul. I rewrote my articles a couple more times and saw a drastic improvement. I had included anecdotes and several pop cultural references. I do hope that I never have to mention the Kardashians in a college paper again. I felt confident, but when I looked at the site as a whole it was still very bland. It was just text, good text, but nothing else. The first article that I started on was the racial inclusion piece. This text was not great compared to the others and I was having a lot of trouble finding anything to make this particular subject POP to a college audience. While I was watching TV one night, TNT played a commercial for “The Help” and a million ideas came to head. After finding what I believe to be the most perfect gifs for that text, I felt on top of the world. I finished the racial inclusion article around 9 at night and continued working until my entire homepage was done. I used that one idea throughout the whole homepage and was shocked at how great it came together. Now, I might have gotten a little gif heavy, but I doubt that I will ever do something so academically-creative again so I decided to go all out.

I really thought that I would despise this multimodal, maybe because of Powtoon’s looming presence, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Posted on by Greyson Young

Weekly Artifact

My artifact for this week is Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed is a website famous for its wacky quizzes and funny posts that are usually found being shared on social media sites. On Thursday I was taking a break from studying and was looking at Facebook on my computer. I came across a Buzzfeed article as I usually do, and decided to check it out. About half way through the article, I lightbulb popped up above my head. I realized that this format would be perfect for my website design. Buzzfeed does a great job at creating visual elements intertwined with their text. They like to use gifs, pictures, videos, quizzes, etc to make their audience interested in whatever subject they’re discussing. I immediately closed the Buzzfeed window and went to my website. I rewrote every post so that they would flow with pictures and gifs that I had found on the internet. I still feel uneasy about my site. I think that I may be pushing it on the college audience content, but I think that what I did might pay off big time. I did include a lot of gifs and funny references, but I still think that my message is still there.

Posted on by Greyson Young

Website Influence

When I think of websites that I have used so far in college, all I can remember is The New York Times. We used this website EVERY SINGLE DAY during writing last semester so I believe it’s fair to say that I am accustomed to that website. There wasn’t one particular way that we used The New York Times; we pretty much did everything imaginable. This was my first time to really dive into a website of this magnitude and search for hours until I could find the perfect article. When I was doing all of this research I started to notice a trend. In every article, there was no works cited page. The writers didn’t use parenthetical like we were learning how to do; they used hyperlinks. When an article had a piece of information from another author that would need a citation that would make it to where we could click on a small piece of the text and be sent to the original piece. On our multimodal project this will be key to creating a sleek, hip website that can still maintain credibility. And the whole not getting caught for plagiarism is a plus too!

Posted on by Greyson Young

Weekly Artifact

This week’s artifact for me is my computer. More particularly, Quizlet on my computer. For those who don’t know, Quizlet is a website or app that lets you create flashcards to study or search for already created study sets. As I had three tests this week and not near enough time to make the necessary amount of flashcards, I was lucky to find a few already created sets of Quizlet flashcards that saved me a lot of time. I can say without a doubt that I would not have been able to study for all of my tests this week if it weren’t for Quizlet. I love how convenient the Quizlet app is. Actual flashcards are hard to use when you’re standing in a line or in a car but using your phone to study in those conditions is very doable. I even used the app of my computer while I was in my political science class. This app probably saved me from a mild panic attack before my big bio test on Thursday.

 

Posted on by Greyson Young · 1 Comment

Connect 10 Website Design

The website that I find myself always coming back to is definitely Facebook. I never post anything but I am fascinated by the ease at which I can see what my friends and family are doing or thinking at the exact moment. I would say that the Facebook executives that design the website have put a lot of effort into making the site so user friendly and addictive. One thing that I love about Facebook is the opening page. As soon as you enter the site you are greeted with so much information that your senses are overloaded. In the middle, where your eyes look first, is a timeline of posts and shared videos from your friends and family. On the right of the page there is a column of trending topics that always interests me. The left column has a ton of links to everything from your home page to pages you’ve liked or created to favorite posts or videos that you have saved. Everything that you could possible want out of Facebook is available on the home page. At the top of the page is a search bar so that people can find someone or something that they can’t find on their home page. There is also a notifications button that alerts you whenever someone has communicated with you, whether that be a post on your wall or a like on your recent shared video. It also tells you whenever one of your friends has a birthday so that you never have to experience the awkwardness of forgetting your aunts 46th birthday. Facebook was the first chapter in our social media age for a reason. The whole point of the website is to connect with your friends, so having a website that is easy to express opinions and browse through other posts is very necessary. Additions like trending topics, search bars, and notifications make Facebook that much more user-friendly.

Posted on by Greyson Young

Weekly Artifact

This week’s artifact is definitely the cause and effect research paper. I have worked on this paper so much this week! I can honestly say that I have never worked harder on any paper than I have on this one. This paper has showed me a new sense of dedication that was required to finished this paper. First off, I had put off starting my paper until last weekend because I assumed that 2000 wouldn’t take me too longer to write. Then, after I had two body paragraphs written, I accidentally deleted my paper and all of my work. So, after a brief moment of aggravation and several minutes yelling into a pillow, I began working again. I set a goal on Sunday that each day of this week I would write a minimum of 400 words a day. I can say that I bested that goal everyday by a pretty good bit. I had 7 pretty good sources from the annotated bibliographies and could have probably gotten by with just using those, but I pushed through the awfulness of citations and added about of dozen more sources. This paper literally made me scream. I wanted to quit this paper more than I have ever wanted to quit before. I have learned a lot about education in Mississippi as well as the writing process. I also learned a few more reasons not to procrastinate including that once you finally get started, you might have to start all over again due to an act of God, so start early in case that happens.

Posted on by Greyson Young · 1 Comment

God’s Intervention: The Cause and its Effects

Well, as of yesterday I was on track with the Cause and Effect research paper, but I am utterly behind right now. I feel like a complete idiot because yesterday as I had finished my second paragraph I went to close the document and did so without saving. For over an hour I searched for my work but it was gone forever. I wanted to quit, seriously. So, I am furiously trying to remember what I had previously written and catch up with the parts of the paper that I hadn’t yet written. If I am completely honest with myself, I have to admit that what I had written wasn’t my greatest work ever. I’m just going to tell myself that God got rid of the draft because it was awful and He knew that I could write better. I wish He would have done so about a week ago, but being pessimistic isn’t going to help me now. My plan is to finish the first draft by Wednesday and then start going back over it and writing draft 2. Conference on Thursday and Peer Review on Friday should help me realize what I need to fix over the weekend.

Posted on by Greyson Young

Weekly Artifact

This week, my weekly artifact is my biology lab. I cannot tell you how many times I have cursed that class. Every time that I thought that I was getting the hang of things, I got another dose of reality. We are required to know so much material in a very little amount of time while still managing our other classes, which is basically impossible. I had a BIG test Tuesday. To sum everything up, I bombed the first test so the importance of this one could not be understated. Last week I was so consumed in my other classes that I pushed off studying for this test. It wasn’t until Sunday (two days before the test) that I was able to START studying. Talk about procrastination! I sat in my room and studied, for what seemed like eternity. On Tuesday, I was basically brain dead, but I knew the majority of the information. When the dust cleared, I had made an 81! I know that doesn’t sound spectacular, but if you knew my first grade an 81 would sound like a miracle from God. With only a month left in the semester, it’s very easy to forget our school work. I can start thinking about May 11th and immediately forget about an assignment due the next day, it’s just human nature. I needed this week to show me that the semester is not over; it’s actually at a very important part. The next month deserves all of the effort that I can put into it, not a half-a** effort that will merely get me through the semester. I don’t want to just get through the semester, I want to get through these classes with flying colors!