Ethnography Field 1
The first week of Semester 2, I embarked on my writing journey in Professor Hoskins Writing Course. My writing style has always been somewhat robotic, and some might say dry, but I am working harder to engage more with my writing to show more emotion. It is not necessarily brewed emotion but has more flexibility and movement, possibly using different sentence lengths and structures. I remember writing my first R/W/D in my room. I felt scared as it was one of the first assignments I had to submit for the course, but I read the paper repeatedly, and I was satisfied. I can register that my word choice and structure can be heavily upgraded, but I guess that comes with writing.
Furthermore, the R/W/D 1 was an objective piece, a summary that made it slightly easier for me, as someone who struggles to show emotion by typing words onto a laptop. The use of the template to organize the summary of Fish’s reading made it much easier for me to make a successful and succinct first sentence to make an audience know what the book is about from the one sentence alone. I found this particularly helpful for my other classes as well. Furthermore, the use of “hypothesis” to annotate has aided in writing these summaries because the annotations help me organize the main arguments of the chapters, and I began using the extension on my other courses. Ultimately, the first week of writing in this course has challenged my prior knowledge of writing.
Ethnography Field 1
The first week of Semester 2, I embarked on my writing journey in Professor Hoskins Writing Course. My writing style has always been somewhat robotic, and some might say dry, but I am working harder to engage more with my writing to show more emotion. It is not necessarily brewed emotion but has more flexibility and movement, possibly using different sentence lengths and structures. I remember writing my first R/W/D in my room. I felt scared as it was one of the first assignments I had to submit for the course, but I read the paper repeatedly, and I was satisfied. I can register that my word choice and structure can be heavily upgraded, but I guess that comes with writing.
Furthermore, the R/W/D 1 was an objective piece, a summary that made it slightly easier for me, as someone who struggles to show emotion by typing words onto a laptop. The use of the template to organize the summary of Fish’s reading made it much easier for me to make a successful and succinct first sentence to make an audience know what the book is about from the one sentence alone. I found this particularly helpful for my other classes as well. Furthermore, the use of “hypothesis” to annotate has aided in writing these summaries because the annotations help me organize the main arguments of the chapters, and I began using the extension on my other courses. Ultimately, the first week of writing in this course has challenged my prior knowledge of writing.
Ethnography Field 2
I was asked to write the weekly announcements for my parent’s restaurant back in Puerto Rico. Because they are from an older generation and are not as in tune with younger audiences like me, my parents thought it would be a fitting job. I had never been put in the position to write in the somewhat peppy and compelling tone advertisement speech entails. I figured I was used to writing in an argumentative and rhetorical tone -which is not necessarily the most welcoming to customers- so I put myself to research marketing tactics and rhetorical strategies. I admit it was pretty awkward to use so many exclamation points, but it gave me a new perspective on how powerful words are in advertisements. On some days, I was tasked with making a promo of the daily specials, and on other days I found myself making birthday posts for the chefs. Although many of the posts were fun and lighthearted, some days posed more difficulty for me. I was asked to announce the death of one of our staff members who passed away due to cancer. I had never written of the sorts, and not knowing the worker made it seem all the more distant and cold. At the end of the day, I learned a lot about marketing tactics and advertisements when I worked for the restaurant.
Ethnography Field 3
Social media is an exciting thing to me. For my parents, Facebook “how to do” and family posts consume their feeds. Hearing my mother from the other room complain that her high school friend failed to wish her “happy birthday!” and commenting on her birthday wall always makes me laugh. For my friends and me, Social Media includes more of Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. Out of these, Twitter is the most influential. Politicians, celebrities, and advocates use this platform to persuade and inform their audience of millions of followers of their agendas, products, etc. However, there is a catch. Each post is limited to 280 characters; therefore, influencers must be tactful and concise with what they post. Especially in “Twitter battles,” two accounts go back and forth in posting tweets about the other person, but each word must pack a punch because of the character limit. Ironically, some of the most influential people in the country use Twitter to convey their arguments and policies. It always prompts me to ask: How do these people expect to have meaningful dialogue in a back and forth conversation limited to a small paragraph? I assume it is because of the influence Twitter has on society because most audiences do not want to read a long explanation of policy nor watch the news. This shows a lot about society, which I admit to being a victim of.
Ethnography Field 4
Instagram and Snapchat are all about recognition. Recognition of one’s “coolness.” Recognition of one’s beauty and attractiveness. Lifestyle. Friendships. The list goes on. Even I, a user of both social platforms, recognize myself falling for this trap of showing the best version of myself. Many “checklist” tasks come to mind when uploading a post. For Snapchat stories, make sure the picture is not too edited because then it might be deemed “cringe.” If the story is of a location or destination, make sure there is a cute geotag to show your peers where you are. If it is a selfie, never post too early nor too late, or else no one will see it. Indeed, I understand how insane this sounds, but trust me, it runs through all our heads. Instagram is a whole different league of tricks. Once the picture is taken, it undergoes a series of exposure, contrast, saturation, highlight, and other editing hacks.
Then, the picture is sent to a close-circle friend group who approves or disapproves the image, with critics suggesting a bit more contrast here and more cropping over here. Following this peer review comes a good caption. Are we going to go with something funny today? How about something inspirational? Not sure? Settle for an emoji; those always seem to do the trick. Now comes the timing of the post. Because Sunday is most friends’ study and family days, I can assume that everyone is at home. Being at home means more traffic on the phone, and therefore more users are scrolling their feeds. This is the best time, at least for me, to post my pictures. Furthermore, unlike Snapchat, Instagram posts last until the user decides to delete or archive them, meaning the post must be immaculate. Now, all the main steps have been completed to post your picture. Overwhelming? Yes. Worth it? I think?
Ethnography Field 5
“Stop using that language with me; I am your mother” or “How do I find that emoji?” are some of the many comments received from my parents through text messages. My parents come from the generation of phone calls, and it took them a while to become accustomed to the culture of text messaging. The writing style depends on my audience, of course. When it comes to communicating with family members -excluding my brothers and cousins- I tend to make the writing as straightforward as possible. I try my best to refrain from using slang such as “brb” and “lmao” because I know these are just weird noises to many adults I know. If anything, it takes me longer to send the abbreviated word, which is almost always followed by explaining what it stands for, then simply writing out the whole phrase.
On the other hand, texting my friends is a whole different story. Abbreviations such as “gtg” and “smh” are nowhere near as advanced as what my friends and I send to each other. I believe the following statement might underscore how “elite” our communication can be: “ilysmbydeuaikylmt.” Furthermore, texts can convey a much more intricate and deep understanding of the message itself, despite the same word being used. For example: “okay” is passive, almost like using the term “alright.” “Kk” in my book is similar to the word “sure thing,” as it depicts a more lighthearted tone. On the other hand, “ok” is much more passive-aggressive, comparable to the word “fine” in its most sarcastic “not fine” sense. The rules of texting are different for each person, but I tend to follow some of the rules.
Ethnography Field 6
Writing poems has never been my strong suit. From a very young age, I was exposed to the typical Dr. Seuss rhymes, where every verse seems to rhyme in the simplest of ways. This was poetry to me. As I grew older, my writing became more advanced as I used more elegant vocabulary and sentence structures. However, for some reason, my level of poetry writing had not elevated since my days of “green eggs and ham.” I was taught that poetry did not need to rhyme, it did not need to have a particular structure, amount of syllables, etc. But it was the strict formula of poems that made it poetry for me. I could not wrap my head around the fact that poems can be written in any way, and I was always wondering, is it even poetry if it does not rhyme?
One day in High School, I remember my class being tasked to write a poem that steered away from any conventional poem we used to. The one rule was: The poem could not rhyme. To many, this was an easy task because finding words that make sense and rhyme was difficult. I can recall my stress of making it sound like a poem without using rhyming words, so I began exploring different verse patterns and structures. I was told to write and not think too hard simply. Simply go. Interestingly, even when I was not trying to rhyme my last words, my brain automatically did it for me. I kept checking myself to stop doing this and remember the task at hand. At the end of class, my poem was written, and to my surprise, I received good reviews from my peers.
