I think Mirabelli’s research question is aimed at proving
that the service industry is much more complex than the general public and
universities assume. He wants to disprove the myth that serving is only for
“ignorant and stupid (people)…(who) contribute little to society” (540). He even states, “I hope this work will
contribute to the development of understandings and policies that built more
respect and recognition for service work to help ensure it does not become
equated with servitude” (541).
Mirabelli addresses the concept of multiliteracies, or using
communication channels other than text as a literacy. The first item he looks
at is the menu, which he refers to as the “most important printed text.” He
looks at how knowing the terms on the menu can make or break a job at a
restaurant. In order to be successful, you need to know how to read customers
by using verbal and non-verbal communication. You need to be able to know what
kind of interaction they will enjoy most as well as how to appropriately respond
to their questions and comments. Since there are no long or drawn-out
monologues while serving, it is important to be friendly while being brief and
to be able to convey your message accurately and in the shortest manner
possible. This is a technique that is not taught in standard education, but
rather one that is mastered over time and with practice.
Mirabelli ultimately proves his original point that serving
is much more complex than assumed and is a field often taken for granted. In
order to understand the nature of the profession, one would have to be a part
of it, like Mirabelli. This is just one example of a profession that gains
little respect and suffers from prejudice simply because the public doesn’t
understand the complexity required or the “innovate and creative ways in which
such workers use language” (554).
The discourse community that I will be analyzing is an online magazine
that I am a part of: Her Campus. There is a national branch of the magazine as
well as individual branches for different colleges so I will be looking at OU’s
branch.
HC qualifies as a discourse community by exhibiting all six of
Swale’s characteristics. The goal of the magazine is to gain readers and
advertisers. Another less obvious goal is to allow college students and
opportunity to gain writing experience so they can build their resume and
network with other journalism majors from around the country.We communicate
through emails, weekly meetings, social media and, if the message is urgent,
through texting and phone calls. We communicate with the national branch
through weekly email newsletters and through surveys. We provide feedback
through editing articles and voicing our opinions at meetings. During each
meeting, we decide who will write what stories for the upcoming weeks. We then
brainstorm different topics and decide what we like and dislike as a group. We
review the stories to make sure that each person in the organization has at
least one story and the necessary sections of the magazine are complete for the
following week. We also provide feedback on what we did to raise awareness of
the magazine and if we did any PR and/or social media interaction. We also
discuss what other branches are doing and what things we like/dislike about
other branches’ stories during the past week. An example of a genre is the way
in which specific articles are written. A blog post, which is an opinion piece,
is not written the same way a serious feature story is written. Specific lexis
of the magazine are various journalism and PR terms such as press release,
feature, blog, ad revenue, solicitation, etc. Also, social media terms
regarding Twitter and Facebook could be considered lexis. The threshold level ranges
from editors-in-chief to new member. You can move throughout the ranks based on
your participation in the organization. Also, we hold yearly elections for the
positions of editors-in-chief, section editors, business manager and PR
manager. You run for these positions by turning in a resume and brief
explanation on why you would be the best for a certain position. You are then
elected to each position by the editors-in-chief.
I would interview one of our two branch editors, or
editors-in-chief, as well as another general member of the magazine. This would
allow me to look at the community from two different perspectives and roles.
I can analyze various texts from the community. These include
the constitution, or set or rules and explanation of how things occur in the
group, emails, memos and meeting minutes.
An example of a discourse community I belong to is an online
magazine, Her Campus. There is a national branch of the magazine as well as
branches of the magazine at various colleges.
1. The goal of the magazine is to gain readers and
advertisers. Another less obvious goal is to allow college students and
opportunity to gain writing experience so they can build their resume and
network with other journalism majors from around the country.
2. We communicate through emails, weekly meetings, social
media and, if the message is urgent, through texting and phone calls. We
communicate with the national branch through weekly email newsletters and
through surveys.
3. We provide feedback through editing articles and voicing
our opinions at meetings. During each meeting, we decide who will write what
stories for the upcoming weeks. We then brainstorm different topics and decide
what we like and dislike as a group. We review the stories to make sure that
each person in the organization has at least one story and the necessary
sections of the magazine are complete for the following week. We also provide
feedback on what we did to raise awareness of the magazine and if we did any PR
and/or social media interaction. We also discuss what other branches are doing
and what things we like/dislike about other branches’ stories during the past
week.
4. An example of a genre is the way in which specific
articles are written. A blog post, which is an opinion piece, is not written
the same way a serious feature story is written.
5. Specific lexis of the magazine are various journalism and
PR terms such as press release, feature, blog, ad revenue, solicitation, etc.
Also, social media terms regarding Twitter and Facebook could be considered
lexis.
6. The threshold level of the OU branch ranges from
editors-in-chief to new member. You can move throughout the ranks based on your
participation in the organization. Also, we hold yearly elections for the positions
of editors-in-chief, section editors, business manager and PR manager. You run
for these positions by turning in a resume and brief explanation on why you
would be the best for a certain position. You are then elected to each position
by the editors-in-chief. For the national branch, the founder is the highest
threshold. It is impossible to reach this level.
In From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy
Technologies, Baron argues that all new
technology has a purpose and changes the way society looks at literacy. All
forms of writing are some form of technology, even if we don’t realize it. Even
though we often lose sight of the technological process of writing, we are
reminded of it when “a new technology like the computer comes along and we are
thrown into excitement and confusion as we try it…and adapt it to our lives”
(424).
Before pencils were invented, there really was no simple way
of recording messages. While pencils were invented for woodworkers, they became
mainstream once their uses were realized. While they aren’t as complicated of
an invention as computers, they were very advanced for their time (426). I believe
this is the main point of Baron’s article: all forms of technology create and enhance
literacy, but all will eventually become outdate. However, this is no reason
not to learn and understand the forms. If we don’t use new forms of writing
technology, we will not be able to advance our literacy at the same pace as
society.
At my high school we were required to take two years of computer
skills. However, I’m pretty sure I didn’t learn a single thing in the class
because it was taught for students who had never used Microsoft Word or
Powerpoint before. While it was great that these students were able to learn
these programs that are staples in the average student’s life, it was
unfortunate that the class couldn’t have been of more use to the 90% of the
student body who had been using Word since middle school when we were first
required to begin typing papers. During my junior year, I became involved with the
yearbook and newspaper staffs. We used different design softwares throughout my
two years involved with both to produce these publications and I became
familiar with a variety of skills although I never came close to perfecting any
of them.
Now I consider myself a fairly average computer user.
Advertising requires you to learn Adobe Suite, so I have a refined skill set
when it comes to using design software. But it seems like as soon as I start to
feel like I’m ahead of the game, I end up working next to a Visual
Communications student and suddenly realize I actually know maybe 5% of what you
can do with Adobe. Also, one of my early journalism classes required that we
learn to use Final Cut Pro and produce a news segment with it. Until this
point, I had no idea how difficult video editing software was to understand and
what a refined skill video editing is. While the program itself was easy to
understand, the skill itself was so different from anything else I’ve done that
it was an extremely straining process. I wish that my high school would have had
some sort of broadcast group where I could have learned these skills earlier
because I believe they would be very valuable to my future, I just don’t have
the time to master them now.
My in-school and out of school visual and technical
literacies have blurred together in recent years. Any type of technology I would
use for fun is integrated into my major somehow, such as social media. I think
this has helped me because I get twice as much experience because I am no
longer just using my personal facebook page, but I am also monitoring an
organization’s facebook as well as my job’s page.
All writing includes plagiarism. Whether
it was purposeful plagarism or not, no idea is truly your own. Wikipedia can
help uss understand that plagarism, when cited correctly and used in the proper
manner, isn’t always a bad thing.
In
his article “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” James Porter
addresses the concept that all writing contains traces of intertextuality, that
is “the idea that all texts contain “traces” of other texts and that there can
be no text that does not draw on some ideas from some other texts” (86). This
means that all writing contains some form of plagiarism. Whether it is the use
of the same descriptive words, complete phrases, or just the same thought
written in a different way, all ideas are conceived based on something that
came before. Even the phrase “Once upon a time…” that is often used in fairy
tales could be considered plagiarism because it is an unoriginall thought that “signals
to the youngest reader the opening of a fictional narrative” (89). Porter even
goes as far as to say that “texts not only refer to but in fact contain other texts” (89). By saying
this he is implying that plagiarism exists whether we realize it or not.
Plagarism is evident through
Wikipedia writing. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia comprised of over 3
million articles that is edited by the general public. Because it is an
encyclopedia that requires all material be cited, all writing could potentially
be considered plagiarized. By citing a reference source, you are saying that
what is in this article is not your own thoughts, by merely a compilation of
others thoughts placed in an orderly manner.
Wikipedia
writing, as well as all other encyclopedia writing, requires the writer to
remain objective. In order to remain objective, the writer must include opinions
from all viewpoints on the matter. For example, the abortion page on Wikipedia
includes opinions from all sides in the “society and culture” section. Since
abortion is such a controversial topic, it would be nearly impossible for a
single writer to support both sides in his or her writing. Outside sources must
be used in this case to support one or both sides, thus resulting in plagiarism
of some kind. In order to remain objective, the writer must consult outside
sources so as not to lean a certain way in writing.
My experience with Wikipedia writing
includes some forms of plagiarism. Prior to writing my article on the Bolognese
dog breed I had never even heard of the breed. Because of this lack of
experience, all of the information in the article is based on someone else’s
thoughts, or the thoughts of a discourse community. A discourse community is “a
group of individuals bound by a common inerest who communication through
approved channels” (91). The discourse community I consulted were owners and
breeders of Bolognese dogs. I
plagiarized the majority of my information from this community. While I rarely
wrote something wrote something word for word, and when I did I cited it
correctly with quotes, all of my facts are their information. The sentence
structure is the only thing on the article that I can credit as my own thoughts
and even then I learned how to form sentences from someone else during
elementary school so even those aren’t technically my own. Even though I used
subjective sources I found it easy to stay objective in my writing. Journalism
requires that you stay as objective as possible when writing, even though
sometimes that is nearly impossible. Because this is how I’ve been writing for the
past three years, I was able to balance the article with pros and cons about
the breed as well as I could based on the information I received from the
discourse community. The only thing I found difficult about this project was that
I am used to writing press releases where the style of writing is short, sweet
and to the point. You write short sentences that address your point and sell
your organization in a way the general public could understand. Wikipedia
writing, as well as the majority of writing in this class, requires you to
include intricate details and to basically bullshit most of your writing you do
by just restating the same thing in different forms. I rarely write anything
over one page in PR so writing with minor details has been very difficult for
me to remember how to do.
In
my opinion, Wikipedia is an excellent source for gaining information on a
certain topic, especially if the topic is something that is not mainstream.
However, it is important to remember that most of the information on the
website is plagiarized in some form. One of the best uses of Wikipedia is the
reference section at the bottom of each topic. This tells where the author initially
derived his or her information from, thus giving you .org and .edu websites
that are typically considered “better” reference sources. It is also important
to remember that no matter what sources you are using to gain information,
chances are the information they present has been plagiarized many time before.
According to Brandt, sponsors “enter a reciprocal
relationship with those they underwrite” (3). They do this by lending their
resources and credibility to those they sponsor and by doing this gain benefits
from the sponsored’s success. This can be through direct payment or indirectly
through credit or association. This sponsorship doesn’t necessarily have to
occur between a teacher and student; it can occur through coworkers, friends,
advertising, etc. Brandt spends the majority of her article arguing about the relationships
between sponsors, literacy and socioeconomic status.
I have had many experiences with sponsors during my life but
the main example that comes to mind is internships, specifically unpaid
internships. For example, my internship at O’Bleness this past summer was
unpaid. I only worked 24 hours a week but with three interns there was never
enough work to go around. But because they weren’t paying any of us, we all got
to stay later than necessary so we could fulfill a 200-hour internship requirement.
In payment for O’Bleness signing off on our internship, they got a large public
relations staff that they didn’t have to pay a salary. Both sides benefited:
the intern in the form of a fulfilled requirement and O’Bleness in the form of
free work.
Another example of sponsorship is networking in general. In today’s
society, who you know is typically more important than what you know. If you sponsor
someone now, you never know what kind of favor they can repay you with in 10
years.
