Weekly Writing Assignment #7

Professor Evans mentioned that composition is only one form of writing. Other forms of composition include photography, video production, and musical composition. Video production is the main form of composition that I feel the most experienced with. The rate at which technology is growing in today's world is outrageous. A new app, Vine, was just released a few weeks ago, and it focuses on video from the social media side of things, while Twitter focuses on word documents and Instagram is based off of photography. I feel like professors at Clemson are trying to adapt to the technology changes the world is going through every year; as a result, more emphasis is placed on video projects. My final project for my Health 203 class last semester was a video about a certain type of public health dilemma. During high school, many teachers gave us video projects where we had to create a video or power point of some sort and present it to the class. The most favorite video I've ever made was one last year of our high school baseball team. I wrote a poem and added music, along with pictures from the season into windows movie maker. It was definitely the most fun I've ever had doing any type of school work. In 8th grade, I also remember making another video summarizing a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, while also making Math videos in 9th grade Algebra. These are just a few of the video compositions that come to mind when I think of the different types of multimedia I have used over my academic career. I'm excited about my final multimedia group project in this class because there's so many different directions you can take the project with. It will be fun to see what everyone does and how creative us Clemson students truly are.

Reflection of English 103 Class

My time in English 103 has been very satisfying thus far heading into spring break. I feel like this class is fairly easy if you are able to keep up the work administered to you, while paying attention in class. It's also important to attend every class because absences tend to sneak up on you fast. I took AP English with a magnificent teacher so heading into the course, I was familiar with the format of how to write a paper, as well as how to go about writing a research paper. Things such as a hook line to begin your paper and a thesis statement coming in the introduction and conclusion were tasks that I was very aware of. Also, I wrote many papers analyzing different books we read in high school so analyzing a youtube video came fairly easy. It took some time to get all the juices flowing again, but it was nice to get back into the swing of things and being able to put pencil to paper. One thing that was new to me was all the information on visual rhetoric that I was previously oblivious to. I knew persuasion existed, but I did not know about all the different types of persuasion that can be used in every advertisement, comic, song, commercial, and billboard. The different ideas integrated into a single advertisement are thought about long and hard, while obviously being planned. The visual rhetoric writing assignment was a new experience, but I was pleased with the overall job I did on the paper. For the current research paper, it is took a little time to get accustomed back to searching for sources and citing them in your paper. After writing two or three research papers in high school, I'm slowly becoming more and more familiar with the job the writer has and the argument he is attempting to make. I feel like this class has the potential to help out in any other English I may take for obvious reasons. First, writing some more papers never hurts your ability to get your brain flowing and becoming a better writer. Next, I feel like you can apply the concepts we have studied so far to your every day life and pick up on things that normal people who did not take this class will not. Overall, this class has been fun, and I'm looking forward to the last few weeks .

Research Log Post II

Our job this week was to create the outline that would guideline our research paper. The point of an outline is to help you get your thoughts together and ideas flowing, so it makes writing your paper that much easier.

I. Introduction
Capture the audience's attention by opening the paper with a quote or rhetorical question
Introduce my topic and briefly state the argument I'm making on the topic and prevalence of concussion in sports

II. Background on Concussions
State the scientific definition of a concussion; talk about what actually happens to your brain during a concussion

III. Move into argument
Use equipment as an example of how the number of concussions can be cut down
Talk about rule changes that have attempted to cut down on helmet-to-helmet contact in football
Long term health effects of concussions; detrimental issues that come with repeatable blows to the head

IV. Look at other side
What is being taken away with the strict rule changes on hitting the QB in professional and college football? competitive edge taken away
Players are beginning to shy away from contact bc they don't want to be fined for doing their job

Research Log Post #1

I chose to research the effect that concussions can have on the life of athletes at every level. 

A list of sources I can gather and write about include: 

1. What a concussion is and the medical impact it can have on your life

2. A professional's athlete story of how a concussion may have negatively impacted his career

3. Physical, mental, and emotional side effects concussions can have 

4. Laws made by the NFL, as well as the government in attempt to reduce the amount of concussion seen in athletes.

5. New technology and equipment that reduces the risk of getting a concussion in the first place 

Academic Integrity Blog Post #4

Integrity is often defined as doing the right thing when no one is watching. As teenagers, we are faced everyday with the opportunity to display integrity in the world around us. Being in college, it is quite easy to choose not to show academic integrity. Personally, I believe academic integrity is using your personal work for yourself and yourself only.
I, Lukas Daniel, pledge to show academic integrity in every part of the college academic life. I can display integrity by using my work for myself only and not providing important information to other students. Also, I will not use someone else's work for my own because this obviously is cheating. I feel like academic integrity is important because I want to earn everything I possibly can in this life. Cheating and breaking academic integrity makes it seem like the value of your education is depreciated. I feel like academic integrity is important because Clemson was built from the ground up with integrity as a leading key of its core values. Its foundation is strongly grounded with doing the right thing at all times. Breaking academic integrity makes it seem like you're not only hurting yourself, but also the university overall. You do not want to be the one that gives Clemson a bad reputation because you chose to not display academic integrity. I realize there will be opportunities to not do the right and break the academic integrity; however, I pledge to do my absolute best in achieving true academic integrity.  To have academic integrity in my schoolwork, I must continue to take my work seriously and almost treat it like a job. If you're caught doing something illegal at your job, you will usually get fired 99% of the time. If you choose to do something that breaks academic integrity here at Clemson, you are at the risk of being caught and throwing the rest of your life down the drain. As a student, I pledge to make the right decision and display academic integrity in every piece of work I complete in the future.

Weekly Blog Post #3

Visual Rhetoric Blog Post

            The entire visual rhetoric writing assignment has been interesting for a number of reasons. Because it was the first time I have written a paper since senior year of high school, it was sort of tough to get started. Writing is something you get better at the more you do it. It took a while to focus on what I was going to say in my paper and actually begin writing it. A little writer’s block was present also; however, the words started to flow pretty well after I knew what I wanted to talk about and began typing out the paper.        

            Over the past couple of weeks, I have learned many new things about visual rhetoric and what it consists of. Logos, pathos, and ethos have been a huge new subject to me because my paper contained all three of these topics. I’ve also learned all of the thinking that goes into a commercial, cartoon, or any type of advertisement. Ads are designed to make one elicit a certain emotion, while attempting to persuade them in one way or another. Even though I have learned a lot about visual rhetoric, it has been particularly challenging for me personally. Not only was it my first time writing a paper in long time, but also it was tough for me to settle on an overall theme I would talk about. Because of my love for sports, I decided to settle on the new Nike commercial featuring Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. I feel like this paper has been fun, and it was nice to get the writing side of my brain working again. On the next paper, I definitely feel like I could make a couple of improvements. Some grammatical errors are expected after having such a long time off, so I expect much better grammar the next time around. Also, I think my overall writing will improve that much more after getting this first paper out of the way. And always, I will not procrastinate as much next time! Haha, yeah right. 

Facebook Profile Picture Blog #2

My Facebook profile picture contains me and one of my good friends posted up chilling with our swag on. Haha, I'm just kidding. However, I definitely feel like the default picture demonstrates my personality in just a simple photograph. I believe the picture makes an argument for Allyson and I in a extremely positive manner. It clearly displays that we like to have fun and enjoy just hanging out. Our decision to make a certain face has a huge impact on the overall feel you gather from the picture. The faces we made was a strategy of invention that change the entire outlook of the photo. We could have easily frowned and made it seem like we were having a boring time at the party. Also, having taken the picture close up, one can argue that you get a much better look at our facial expressions; thus, being able to determine that we are having a good time. There is nothing really special about the arrangement of this photo; as a result, a certain argument is not being presented or put forth. I guess you could say that the picture is arranged in a way that makes me and her "precious" because someone commented on the picture replying, "Y'all are just too precious." Also, the decision to zoom in and focus on our faces makes it seem like we are the only people in the room; however, there was a person to her left and two in front of us. I also believe that showing them may have changed the overall mood of the photo but not in a major way. Finally, the canon of style is able to contribute and build a certain persona for myself. The job of style is presenting your idea, whether it be text or image, to an audience. Because Facebook is mostly a group of my younger friends, the argument I am trying to make is clear. When people look at the picture, I would want them to wish they were there and make them feel like they missed out on a good night.