Over the course of this semester I learned a lot through the blogging process. I was able to write weekly and discuss rhetoric and the rhetoric of risk. It broadened my mind to the world of rhetoric and how important speaking correctly about things is to ensure that there are no huge risks in the world. Because the blog posts were on the readings for the day, I was able to apply what I was reading and formulate ideas about these topics afterwards. This contributed to my learning significantly, and dramatically changed the way I read and interpreted text, specifically rhetoric. This will change the way I interpret other readings in my other courses and throughout my life. I learned the importance of ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos. Using these tools, I have not only become a more educated reader, but a more educated writer. I think that from now on I will be able to read documents more efficiently and find the importance in what each author is saying and then feel confident in how I interpret and write about these topics.  The blog assignments allowed for me to express my ideas in a way where others could comment, and I could learn from my peers’ interpretations and become more knowledgeable on a wide array of topics.  I think that blogging was really important for me to do in this class because it allowed for me to see if I was on the right track with how I had to interpret the pieces I was reading. In turn, writing weekly changed how sophisticated my writing became in essays and projects.  Having the weekly requirement of analyzing a text in depth made me more disciplined and more aware of what I was reading and writing. Overall, the blog assignments will help me in the future to analyze texts and write within limits to get a clear point across. 

I learned a lot from project 3. I learned a lot more about risks in society, and I really enjoyed connecting risk to social psychology. A lot of the risks in culture influence our social behavior, and music is something that is very prevalent in society. Seeing how the music industry is promoting a risk like misogyny is something that all people need to recognize and have the music industry correct.  I learned all of this from analyzing music that the industry has produced and allowed to be massed produced to all people all over the world. Doing research on songs really opened my eyes to how many songs there really are that objectify, sexualize, and place women into stereotypical roles. This contributes to my learning in that it allows me to see risks that we don’t necessarily view as risks. For this course it helps me to evaluate how risks are often downplayed or put into scenarios where people can’t really see the true risks that it is posing on our society.  I think that this project really opened my eyes to the various ways in which risks circulate society. We see articles, newspapers, commentators, podcasts, and even music that convey risk and downplay its effects. Every day new pop culture artifacts arise that evaluate a risk but don’t get the full picture. Going forward I need to continue to see the ways in which risks are conveyed and be more aware of how this is effecting society. 

I really enjoyed being an audience member of the class’s presentations. I liked how I could hear people talking about risks that they found interesting and how they related those things back to their own lives and experiences. I found it crazy how much pop culture participates in risks, some of which we aren’t even consciously aware of.  After seeing all the members of the class’s presentations, I learned to appreciate being an audience member.  Through class discussions on keeping eye contact and maintaining non-verbal cues, such as nodding to show that I was interested, I saw the importance of a supportive audience. When I was presenting and looked up at my audience from my note cards, I found it comforting that people were nodding and keeping eye contact. I think I succeeded in keeping eye contact and making sure that the presenter felt supported in what they were talking about.  One thing I experienced as an audience was that when a presenter became monotone or was speaking too low I found it hard to remain engaged. For presenter’s emotion and showing that you truly care about what you are speaking about is vital in order to gain the attention of the audience.  We had a guest professor who spoke to us about connecting values to our presentation, and I think that when presenters did this, it kept me more interested because I related more to the content, even if I hadn’t explicitly dealt with the risk. We also had another guest professor who spoke about confidence in presentations, and for a presenter to get their point across to their audience it is important that they appear to be confident and sure of what they are speaking about to their audience. 

I decided to do my project on misogyny in music. I decided to pick a country song “God Made Girls” by RaeLynn, this song takes the approach that God made girls to sit and look pretty for boys and to teach them stereotypical tasks.  I wanted to stress the importance of these songs influencing how girls see themselves and how boys are taught to view women. We see the typical sexist songs in rap music the most, and I was honestly shocked to find a country song written by a female in 2018 that had to talk about women so negatively.  I then wanted to compare this song to “God is a Woman” by Ariana Grande. This song is full empowerment, yet when you compare the ratio of people who liked and disliked both songs, “God is a Woman” came out to a stronger ratio of dislikes. The music industry has desensitized people of treating women like objects and punishes people who stand up for feminist movements.  I think that it is important to address the growing number of misogynistic songs that the music industry is producing because it is counteractive to the amount of movements going on now such as the 
“Me Too movement.”  This drafting process was completely different than the other drafting processes. It had less writing and I had to think about what I wanted to say exactly with the presentation because of the time limit.  I wanted to show some of the parts of the music video, because the music video is just as damaging, if not worse than the lyrics of the song, so I had to find a good place to stop that. I also had to make sure that my slides weren’t as text heavy and had to connect something from pop culture to documents that didn’t have much to do with what I was speaking with, which was also difficult.

The way Pop culture artifacts speak about risks in society is detrimental to how society views these risks. Without proper information or misinformation on a risk, society remains unknowledgeable, unaware, and at serious risk of falling victim to these things. All of the artifacts for this assignment dealt with nuclear energy and how it effects the people around us. Whereas the New Vegas Debut Trailer, and Edwards “Fallout,” take a darker approach to assessing the risks of nuclear testing, the Simpson’s episode attempts to mock the politics behind nuclear waste and show the risks of the environment. The evolution of the radioactive spider bite and the Bruce Banner video on nuclear radiation takes a twisted approach in assessing the risk by showing that nuclear things can provide super powers.  Although the New Vegas Debut Trailer was short it had a detailed message. It provided viewers with a look as to how a few miles from Las Vegas there is no possible way for human life to survive, as seen with the robot trying to pick up the waste. The ominous person at the end of the video leaves an impression on viewers that he or she is going to move closer and closer with the testing range. In Edward’s “Fallout,” the personal story of how “Miss Atomic Bomb” was advertised as something beautiful and something wonderful had an impact on people who lost family to the testing. In the piece Edward states that it was “rejoicing the black plague.” When it was found out that the grandmother had passed away from being a “downwinder” the story became very more personal and it made readers feel a sense of “this could have happened to me,” causing them to think about how they would have felt about “Miss Atomic Bomb.” In the Simpson’s episode, Blinky, the three eyed fish had been used to show the effects of nuclear testing in a more sarcastic way. The episode aimed to denounce politicians for running for office just so they could keep their facilities up and running to make money. In the radioactive videos of Peter Parker and Bruce Banner, there seems to be a lack of information provided to viewers. Being exposed to radiation won’t provide powers, yet, in the case of the two super heroes that come out of this exposure, radioactive exposure proves to be safe. By promoting this ideal, especially in an artifact that millions are familiar with, misguides the public into believing that exposure is safe. 

In Project 2 I learned a lot about lead in water and how it contaminates people.  I learned that lead is a dangerous substance and that pollution and improper maintenance of water supplies by the government is what is causing this issue in many places in the country. I learned this by using the technical document found on the EPA website and using that information to find cases where lead contamination has occurred. It shocked me that after the first major water crisis in Woburn Massachusetts occurred, that nearly three decades later people were still not properly maintaining water supplies in Flint Michigan. Clean drinking water is a right that all people should have access to. This knowledge is so significant to my learning in this course because all of our discussions run around risk.  I truly don’t believe that the public is knowledgeable and understands the full risk of not having water supplies properly maintained.  The expression of this risk is under spoken about. People are not sure about the full effects because not many people speak of the risk it poses.  Next I need to research a new artifact for project three, and I think that I would like to do it on clean drinking water, possibly, if I find something interesting that I could talk about. 

The revision process for project two was much different than project one. It was different because I had to use more visual components than actual writing and narrow down what I had and wanted to write about much more.  For today’s workshop I brought in a draft of what the final product will look like. I used a word document with the newsletter option because I thought that would be the best format for our topic of lead in the drinking water. I personally thought that newspapers are a good form of media to get across important information to a general audience.  We decided to narrow down the information of what we wanted to write about to the effects of lead in general, the effects of lead on children specifically, and the effects of lead on adults and pregnant women specifically. To reach the audience more emotionally, we brought in real life events where lead has caused major issues in the United States. We brought up pollution and contaminants in Woburn Massachusetts that took place in 1982, and the Flint Michigan Water Crisis. I think that it was important to not only take a logistical approach in getting the general public to understand the dangers of lead in water, but emotionally to make them feel as if this could happen to them if their government, town, city, state, or country doesn’t take proper measures in ensuring that drinking water is safe. Working in pairs definitely made the process easier because it cut the work load in half and made It easier to figure out which pieces of information would get the message across most effectively.  Composing in new media also made the process much easier.   We were able to utilize charts and pictures to make a logical and emotional argument and get our message across. 

Research can be defined as, “the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.” As a psychology major I tend to focus more on empirical research. Empirical research can be defined as “the collection and analysis of primary data based on direct observation or experiences in the ‘field’.” Research can be on a variety of different things. In English, specifically this class, it is finding a document that will support what we are trying to get across to readers. In the case of project two it is finding a technical document and attempting to translate it for a general audience. The Research process has to be conducted correct in order to achieve the best possible arguments and prove to the audience that you understand what you are talking about. In addition to conducting good research on the said topic, it is important to analyze what you have found and interpret it correctly so that you can get across the right information to your audience as well.  Primary Research is conducted by the person and it is their own questions and their own data collected. Secondary Research is conducted when people use books, documents, and websites to collect their information and expand upon it.  So far, I have only conducted secondary research. I have only looked for documents that explain events, and not conducted my own research. In class we have seen multiple examples of each types of research method, and both have advantages and disadvantages.  Sometimes research confuses me when finding a reliable source. It is sometimes hard to distinguish between a document that is good and one that is not reaching the level it has to be reaching.  

For the Project 2 draft it was a lot less synthesizing than my project 1 draft. Although less documents were being used, I found it hard to try and figure out how I could take these technical terms in the document and translate them into something for a common audience without seeming condescending.  Since this project is more on visual effects, I thought that a video would suit the project. The video uses a lot of pathos, and if we enter that into our own website that we create on the Flint Water Crisis, I think it will allow for more common people to relate and see importance in the issue.  The video discusses a little girl fighting for environmental changes to help the drinking water in her community, and I think that by using this it will resonate a lot with viewers.  I think that project two overall will be a little more difficult than project one because it requires us to take into not only what we are thinking, but what our partner is thinking. Trying to strike a good balance between the ideas that I have and the ideas that my partner has will be harder when it comes to putting the entire project together.  I think if there is anything different I could do with drafting and brainstorming for project two it would be to take more time on focusing on the visual aspects. I solely focused on trying to understand the technical document and failed to remember that the project has to be something visually interesting to viewers. I think that for the next draft, the website will help solidify the ideas we have and put them into a form that is more interesting for readers to view. To start the revisions on this, the webpage must be designed, and my partner and I have to figure out what pieces of information we want to include and which ones we can get rid of. We also need to decide on what types of colors and designs we will use to get the page to be appealing to readers. 

In these assignment’s reading. “Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science,” author, Dave Levitan, an American science journalist, researches the many faults within the rhetoric and logistics in prominent politician’s discussion of science. In order for the public to fully understand the world around them, listening to the people we are supposed to trust in most, seems to be the most logical answer; however, this same government is telling us that they are “not scientists” and minimize the full effects of the dangers and hazards that surround our daily lives.  Levitan exemplifies how for years, specifically in the GOP, politicians have used many approaches such as the “certain uncertainty” (139) of science and upright “conspicuous silence” (201) when it comes to science.  It is important for people to realize that when politicians say that they aren’t scientists, or ignore important scientific facts, they are in outright denial of what is right in front of them.  Levitan supports his argument that politics have “rhetorical and logical errors” (206) when he introduces the IPCC and the various data charts and graphs that prove science considers all aspects of the situation. On pages 142-143, Levitan effectively reaches the readers sense of logic and ethicality when they see the numbers that prove that most scientists minimize the effects that we as a human race have on the environment and in the world, we live. Levitan attempts to make readers see the dangers in falling for the “not a scientist line” dished out by various prominent politicians. Whether or not there is a malicious intent behind the politician’s words is unimportant. Levitan warns, “the point is that intent doesn’t matter: getting science wrong has a whole host of effects, from eroding public trust in both politics and the scientific community, to actively harming people today and in the future” (6). Levitan effectively gets readers to see the dangers in the way politicians respond to scientific information.  There needs to be a smarter, and more knowledgeable approach for politicians to use, so that the general public can come to a stronger understanding of the world they live in.