Considering Genre

With the information collected and useful sources found, it is time to end the pre-production stage and begin production. Since day 1, I have felt that the quick reference guide genre is one of the hardest genres to use, but would be most appropriate to use for project 1.

Felipe, "Fear Pity C Purple Lilac Scared", 10/8/2014 via pixabay

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1.What genre are you going to commit to for Project 1? Why?

I will be committing to a quick reference guide as my genre for project 1. I chose this genre for this specific project as I feel it is the most suitable genre for writing about a controversy postmortem. By writing about the recent Istanbul bombing, triggering the Turkish economy to fall, is definitely a topic required for going in depth and presenting readers a succinct explanation about this conflict. Therefore, using a quick reference guide seems appropriate to describe the recent controversy in Turkey’s largest economic based location.

2.What genre conventions from your chosen genre are you planning on developing during next week's Production phase? What do you plan to do with the genre conventions that will help you accomplish the purpose of the project most effectively?

I plan on developing genre conventions, which will be fundamental to exemplifying my chosen genre and creating a successful project 1. As I have chosen to do a quick reference guide, I will need to develop my writing by making it credible, formal and balanced. It needs to be credible by correctly citing trustworthy sources relating to my story. This will be important as this will help accomplish the purpose of my project most effectively by making it sound informative and believable with correctly used evidence. Additionally, as the purpose for my project will be to inform readers about a recent incident in a short and concise manner, I will need to learn how to summarize/shorten ideas. Thus, using short guiding questions within each paragraph will allow readers to understand the story in a concise but detailed approach.

3.How are you feeling about Project 1 going in to the Production phase? What challenges do you anticipate next week as you create content for the project?


As for how I feel for this project, anxiety and exhaustion are two clear senses I get for this coming week. As this is going to be the first time taking a University leveled English course, I am not sure what to expect but I hope my work will be sufficient enough for me to succeed. The challenges I expect to face is keeping track of my project while completing the blog posts consistently and not leaving them all to the last minute. Additionally, being focused enough to complete my project easily will be a important factor for how this week will go.

Cluster of Stakeholders

For my cluster, I divided the situation into 4 different sides that are involved in the recent bombing in Istanbul. This issue is affecting each of these sides in a different way. At the top, there is Germany which has suffered from tourists getting killed and wounded. Turkey has also suffered with the economic loss and fear of further terrorist acts. On the other side, there is ISIS who continues their jihad against the rest of the world, having recently targeted Istanbul by bombing the city.

Cluster here

Golla, Tobias, "Bundestag Government Reichstag" 9/10/2013

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Evaluation of General Sources

The controversy I researched about relates to the recent bombing in Istanbul. This is Turkey’s biggest touristic destination, and has potentially led to great economic loss for all of Turkey because of this chaos. Both articles highlight the outcomes of the recent event in more detail.

Ozgur, Deniz, "Istanbul City Marine". 7/14/2015 via pixabay

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First Article:

This article comes from CNN, explaining the details about the event, what experts and locals have said, and the future outcomes of the horrific event.

URl: The url ends with .com which is the most common domain name. Although this is common among most sites on the internet, this does not stop CNN’s status as being a major news broadcaster which many read from. It would be more credible however for scientific research if a source was .gov or .org, as these sites are government owned or a professional organization.

Author: For this article there are multiple authors who have helped form this report. To learn more about the writer’s credibility, viewers can click on the author’s name and are presented with a new window to read more about the writer. While looking at the author of this article, I learnt that the author (Atika Shubert), is a award winning CNN correspondent who reports in Europe,  the Middle East and Asia.

Last Updated: The website gives information as to when it was last updated. This was at 3:58pm ET, Wednesday, January 13, 2016. The article does not seem out of date and videos relating to the story are still functioning and shared within the article’s page. Not only are these videos working still, there are also other stories shared which relate to this article.

Purpose: The purpose of this text is to inform readers about the bombing in Istanbul’s most popular touristic district. It is clear that the article is trying to provide readers information about the context of the event with detailed facts and figures such as a videos, pictures, number of suspects, number of deaths, number of people wounded and what government officials have stated.

Graphics: Graphics are presented in the article with a image gallery of Istanbul during the bombing. Videos showing live footage from where the event took place, google earth display of where the explosion was located, and a live reporter at the scene of where the chaos took place are also examples of what graphics can be seen in the article.

Position on Subject: There does seem to be some bias as to who CNN writes is the cause of the explosions. CNN focuses greatly on the fact that it was ISIS by using the Turkish government and officials claims that ISIS did these attacks. CNN shows a weakness in the article by not considering that there is other possibles groups behind the bombing.

Links: In terms of links, CNN provides further readings to the story by referring readers to their Turkish version of CNN with the CNN Turk hyperlink. CNN also considered how it’s audience may not be familiar with certain characters, places, sites, organizations, and terms in the story, and have consequently included hyperlinks to help the readers understanding on some terms.

Second Article:

This article is from BBC, explaining, analyzing and discussing the outcomes from the recent chaotic event in Istanbul.

URL: Although the url ends with .com, this does not hide the fact that BBC is a highly credible source. BBC is one of the largest news sources, providing trust worthy information worldwide, which I have always read from daily.

Author: In terms of an author, I could not find a specific writer of the article. However, BBC is arguably the most reliable and credible news source currently.

Last Updated: Although the article was last updated on the 12^th of January 2016, it still provides a good summary about the main important points of the story. It is highly possible that this article will be or is currently out of date and that there are more accurate and newer details revealed about the bombing.

Purpose: It is evident that the purpose of the article is to provide readers a clear and detailed understanding of the recent bombing in Istanbul’s popular touristic destination. Therefore, this BBC article is clearly meant to inform it’s audience, providing images, statements by government officials, google earth images locating the bombing, and other facts and figures. These different forms of information give a greater understanding of the story for readers, which is the intent of a informative article. 

Graphics: There are many different graphics shown throughout that article. This includes images showing the state of Istanbul after the explosions and a geographic image of the district via google earth. Additionally, video footage of Istanbul is shown along with statements made by Turkey’s president Erdogan, who announces his plans to prevent further terrorism occurring.

Position on subject: Compared to CNN, BBC is much more balanced. It strictly provides information about what happened and what others think. BBC does not solemnly consider one side of the conflict as BBC writes towards the end about the speculation of who was behind the bombing. BBC informs readers about other terrorist groups such as the PKK who have grown in power.

Links: The article provides links with further reading, relating to the story. This includes articles discussing about other Middle Eastern groups which Turkey has relations with, as well as the bombing of nearby city Ankara in recent events.

Reddit and What I Found There

I would consider myself a frequent user of Reddit so doing this task sparked a lot interest in me. It introduced me more about the business section of Reddit and what other Redditors have to offer in ideas, suggestions, and views about certain issues relating to business.

Tumisu, "Interview Job Icon Job Interview" 11/30/2015 via pixabay

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1. What kinds of things do people in the Reddit forums seem to be arguing about, debating, disagreeing about or otherwise engaging in meaningful exchanges of ideas about? Give us a descriptive and clear sense of the kinds of stories you're seeing in the Reddit forums.

One of the stories I read from Reddit was about how the internet is being used more for hiring people than any other form of applying for jobs. While reading through the thread I noticed how many people believe how using online applications is a lousy way of hiring with people spamming businesses with false resumes. Instead, one Reddit user writes about how companies should find employees in a more local scale, sending out people to meet and interview nearby potential workers. In another forum, there was a discussion about a news article listing the top ten skills necessary for children to succeed in 2020 from a world economic forum report. One user believed the skills listed in the article are vague and rubbish, as these skills were not useful. The another user writes about how he/she disagrees with the idea of complex problem solving as one of the top skills needed for success in 2020. Similarly, another user disagrees with this point as he/she thinks how education should focus more into complex problem solving skills for the future.

2. In your opinion, what are the two most interesting debates/disagreements you found in the Reddit forums? Hyperlink us to the two different Reddit threads and explain why you found those debates interesting. Be specific and honest and be yourself. I don't want you to blah-blah-blah this. I want you to really engage.

The most interesting debates/disagreements I found was about the U.S economy in 2016 and Halliburton’s $28 million loss. When discussing what is to come of the economy in the United States, many were blaming former presidents irrational spending as the root cause for the ugly economy 2016 has in store for the U.S. One user disagrees with this by stating how it is in fact congress, which spends lavishing amounts of money stubbornly. Another online user writes how that because there is not a significant wage growth, this will lead to a downfall of the U.S economy. Similarly, in another story about Halliburton’s $20 million loss, many were happy to have seen this loss in a company tied with the Dick Cheney. However one user writes how the company is not completely evil, as the user writes on personal account as to how he/she knows many good honest people working for Halliburton.

3. Overall, what impression do you get of your discipline based on what you saw happening in the Reddit forums? Were the people in those forums talking in ways you expected or did not expect, about things you anticipated they'd be talking about or things you had no idea they'd be discussing? Explain in concise specific detail.

I did expect to see a lot of disagreement between users, except, there was a lot more disagreement then I would have anticipated there to be. It seems as though some users argued for such little issues or even for the sake of arguing with people criticizing the news source of an article “Does Your Child Have the Right Skills for the WEF’s “4th Industrial Revolution?” On the other hand I had found that others made detailed and credible arguments to why they believed their opinion was right for debates relating to hiring employees methods or why 2016 will be worse for the United States. I did not expect as much profanity as well in these forums as I would have imagined. Furthermore, some comments in the thread were quick statements without any relevant developed evidence to support their claims. This would include points about how distraught people were about the issues in the business world today with the U.S economy.

Evaluation of News Magazine Stories

After looking through many lengthy articles, I found two articles that caught my attention. The first article, which interested me, was about a debate regarding solar energy in the business aspect which I will elaborate on. Secondly, another interesting article I found was about how one man has an idea to make the internet faster, smaller and cheaper, while competing against todays major internet providers.

Unsplash, "Solar Panel Energy Power" 9/30/2015 via pixabay

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 First Article:

1.What is the debate, disagreement or argument in the story about? Explain concisely, but with specificity and precision. Name specific people, places, things, events, dates, times and/or other identifying details.

The argument in the story relates to the business of solar energy. On one side, citizens and SolarCity (a solar panel installation company) are trying to lift a 3% cap on generating solar electricity by NV energy. Specifically, this is a conflict started between Elon Musk, who created SolarCity, and Warren Buffett who owns NV energy in 2013. SolarCity was made in 2006, allowing homes across the United States to install solar panels on rooftops and reduce fossil fuel use. The solar operator also offered employment opportunities to many people in the solar business. Now, Elon Musk is against lifting the 3% limit on energy generation, which Warren Buffett’s company implemented. The debate takes place in Nevada, where SolarCity started off in 2014, while the Nevada Public Utilities Commission is making solar energy installation and maintenance more expensive. This in effect leads to less people wanting solar, as it will not lower energy costs for homeowners in the future, but make them more expensive to use.

2. Who is the most sympathetic character in the story? Who are they? How are they involved? Why do they evoke feelings of sympathy from you?

The most sympathetic character seems to be Elon Musk. Elon Musk is a businessman, most well known for being the CEO of Tesla Motors. Musk came up with the idea of SolarCity in 2006, which would allow U.S. homeowners to install solar panels on rooftops. This solar operator also offers employment opportunities for sales, maintenance and installing these solar systems. Another reason as to why I feel the most sympathy for Elon Musk in this story is that his intent behind SolarCity is to stop using fossil fuel energy and use a more clean energy source.

3. Who is the least sympathetic character in the story? Who are they? How are they involved? Why can't you easily sympathize with them?

The least sympathetic character in the story clearly to me is Warren Buffet, who owns NV energy . Because Buffet is against lifting the 3% cap of generating electricity and giving expensive electrical solar bills, people will use less solar energy. This will damage SolarCity and will increase usage of more fossil fuel energy use. Buffet’s opposition of lifting the limit will cause many residents on Nevada to no longer have any desire to install solar panels since the financial loss of solar energy is so large, homeowners will not be saving any money at all in the future. Solar City CEO Lyndon Rive believes that homeowners might have to pay more than $11,000 in the future because of Buffet’s bills.  It is easy not to sympathize with Buffet as he indirectly goes against solar energy, making it hardly affordable to use and not allowing citizens to have free energy for the future.

Second Article:

1.What is the debate, disagreement or argument in the story about? Explain concisely, but with specificity and precision. Name specific people, places, things, events, dates, times and/or other identifying details.

The disagreement is between Starry and internet providers. Starry Station is a small wireless router, which would be faster and cost less than current internet providers. Chet Konaji the founder of Starry plans to bring faster Wi-Fi and eliminate other internet providers. Chet Konaji and other networks companies have had disputes between each other. This was seen with the idea of Aereo, Chet Konaji came up with recently. Aereo allowed viewers to watch live wireless T.V without having to buy a whole T.V broadcast package. However broadcasters believed that since broadcasters paid for rights for copyrighting the programs then it is equally important for Aereo to purchase them too. Thus the Supreme Court ended this situation, ordering Aereo to shut down. Now, Chet Konaji’s new idea of Starry will be a new business he strives to make a reality.

2. Who is the most sympathetic character in the story? Who are they? How are they involved? Why do they evoke feelings of sympathy from you?

Within this story, the most sympathetic character seems to be Chet Konaji. Chet Konaji’s company has a goal to make the internet more efficient and cost more reasonably than internet providers currently. One cannot help but feel sympathy for a man who’s dream of making the internet faster and cheaper become a reality. He tried doing the same with television, with an idea of making it more accessible and less expensive however the Supreme court did not allow this.

3.Who is the least sympathetic character in the story? Who are they? How are they involved? Why can't you easily sympathize with them?

           The least sympathetic character in the story would most likely be Chet Konaji’s opposition when creating Aereo or Starry. When creating Aereo, T.V broadcast providers immediately took action in stopping Konaji’s Aereo idea, as they took the issue to the Supreme Court and decided to put an end to Aereo. This shows how easily one cannot sympathize with these major television-broadcasting companies, as they are afraid of competition and losing money. Now the same issue takes place with internet providers. With the new idea of Starry to make internet faster, have a smaller router and cheaper, will all in effect greatly impact current major internet providers financially.