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This final week I chose to read the article “Talking Head to Rock Star.” Not gonna lie, I only chose it because the title seemed cool and would probably be an interesting read. I was definitely right on this one. This article talks about the overall aspect of presentation and how to conquer presentations and be a rock star when speaking and performing such presentation.

I chose the above gif because it represents the rockstar you want to be like. It shows that you need to be confident when leading or speaking in front of an audience. Presentations are a clear way to understand how to effectively convey your message through certain types of communication. This topic mainly ties back to my Engineering major as I have many Engineering classes where I have to effectively communicate with my peers to resolve problems and maintain a close relation so no future problems arise. I plan to be making presentations later down my career and reading this article about being prepared, knowing who is going to be there beforehand can all help you to communicate to your audience better. 

I chose to read the article, “The Rhetorician as an Agent of Social Change”. After reading the article the author really conveys his main theme of how the community lacks interest in public discourses. He lists solutions of how we can become better and overall increase participation in such communities. One of his solutions was to “bridge” the universities and communities through activism. “Activism is the action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about social change” (Dictionary G., 2017)  The paper is trying to present alternative methods to create and influence social change. 

Social change to me is the transformation of culture, social institutions, and social structure over time. The reason I chose this image is because it represents the discourse communities within everyone. The social change would combine everyone. 

This week I chose to do my response on the article on blackboard “It wasn’t me, was it?” Plagiarism and the Web by Danielle DeVoss & Annette C. Rosati. I mainly chose this article because I personally have been accused of plagiarizing, falsely accused but still a scary process. The main idea of this article was to inform people about plagiarism and how some people have no clue if they did in fact plagiarize as they are scared if they did something wrong or forgot to cite a part of their work. 

This gif is perfect to my standard because it is showing “homer” as scared showcasing that’s how most students feel when they plagiarize. The content from the article ties back to my major as I currently attend a University. Most universities take plagiarism very serious and can be a daunting thing to hurt your academic record.  I have been on the other end of the dishonesty policy and while I was falsely accused, it’s still a very scary thing to go through. Plagiarism is no joke and everyone should be careful to not commit such foul especially in college like UTEP. The article gave me a better understanding on how people think plagiarism works and how people are not sure if they indeed plagiarized. I feel like professors should take the time to inform kids of what exactly plagiarism is and what does not fall under that category. The major assignment we are currently working on should be taken with caution as we are dealing with lots of writing, from scholarly, open and multimodal sources. We want to make we provide the correct citations and not forget to cite valuable things as that can land us in potential trouble. Even though Ms. Cisneros is the best I have no doubt she won’t hesitate to assign a zero as plagiarism is a very serious offense. 

After reading the Activity theory passage by Klein and Wardle, I now have a better understanding of what activity systems are. An activity system is simply people in a group gathering and sharing their motives and finding a way to get to successfully achieve those motives. Something I thought was quite interesting is that the activity theory is useful because it acknowledges the importance of literacy histories, and they can also act as part of an activity system. A way this article has a connection to me is that most of us are working in groups, and well, it is said that people meet social needs by working and learning together over time to achieve particular goal, which is our case, we were set in groups, with the same major or partially identical majors. We also use tools to make our learning much more efficient, such as Bb, e-books and online quizzes. 

The reading helped me understand more in depth the concept of what an activity system illustrates and how it breaks down an idea into multiple parts and how those parts affect that community. Most parts of an activity system are related, for example, motives include an object and an outcome, which then you need tools, to accomplish that objective, which then leads to an outcome. The correlation is pretty straight forward, it’s like a puzzle, you need to gather the info, connect the pieces, then reach the outcome. Of course, then you have the rules and regulations, the type of community, and the division of labor. The reading helped me understand the assignment by allowing me to understand how to use the activity theory to analyze texts used within a particular system of activity. There are things we should look out for such as the formatting, style, and the organization of the text. 

Some questions that are recommended to ask are, what is the long term purpose (outcome)of using this tool and others like it? Why are the people here doing what they're doing? What is motivating them to take the time to use this tool and achieve their short term objectives and long term outcome? It all ties in with the activity system and the activity theory. 

Happy Spring Everyone! My name is Audrey, I am your instructor and I’m excited to get to know all of you. This Intro Post assignment is the first step in that direction and here’s a chance for you to get to know a little about me as well.

I’m an El Paso native, born and raised in EPT/Ciudad Juarez, and I love it here. I have a son—Daniel, who is the smartest, kindest, sweetest, funniest, most handsome thing to arrive on planet earth. Through him, I’ve also learned that the best kind of entertainment is the kind you get when people think no one is watching. For example…

Much of my life surrounds school and Danny—aka Peanut. (He acts like he hates that I call him that, but I know he loves it). But I try and make space for me: I run regularly and lift often.

I salsa! #Salsera #Dancetilyoudrop

And I love soccer. Liga MX, La Liga, English Premier League, Champions League, Bundesliga, Serie A, MLS, and so on and so on and so on.

I strive to achieve life GOALS, estilo Neymar Jr.

I have a BA in Political Science, an MA in Rhetoric and Writing, a Graduate Certificate in Intelligence and National Security, and I’m wrapping up my PhD in Rhetoric and Composition.

My humanitarian and activists efforts center on freedom and justice for Palestine. #EndTheOccupation #PeaceforPalestine

In my time here as a PhD student, I have focused on rhetoric and resistance. I’m currently researching big data and social impact—think Twitter conversations and what they mean to society, people, governments, and social movements. I argue that the discourse happening on social media gives us the chance to understand real people, real desires, and can offer lots of opportunities for shared knowledge and lead the way to diplomatic, counterinsurgency, and peace building efforts worldwide. So I’m basically trying to be this guy.

I’m also researching issues of diversity and disparity among marginalized populations in various ways, like diversity among minorities and women in Higher Education. I ask questions like who’s in power, where is our voice, our place in our fields, in our jobs, in our societies, and why does it all matter?