Here’s the link to my E-Portfolio:
http://thadeusabramowich.weebly.com/
Despite hating a lot of the RCL assignments at the time, looking back, I do feel that they were ultimately very valuable to me and that I learned a lot through these courses. Thanks for a great year!
-Tad
Frankly, I haven’t given the advocacy project too much thought yet. I feel that my civic issue blog/policy essay topic, DC voting rights, could be an appropriate topic. I don’t believe that it would be difficult to get people to agree with extending representation to the people of Washington DC, so the primary purpose would be awareness, as I think that many people may be unaware that so many people are not delegated for. However, I’m not entirely sure how I would achieve this goal. Right now, the audience that I am believe I am leaning toward is the general Penn State community. Students are so inundated with flyers and invitations to participate in their friends’ projects that I think getting attention could be a potential stumbling block with that choice.
The type of project that I choose would have to be a choice made with this in mind. I’ve considered a video, as I really enjoyed the Public Controversy Video project last semester. I’m not set on this though, because I do have concerns about being able to get it out there. Thus, I’m also giving some consideration to a different project that would be a bit more interactive. I don’t really have any ideas for what that project could be yet. Like I said, I haven’t really shifted my focus to the advocacy project just yet.
For my persuasive essay, my initial thought was to write an essay in favor of gun control. I think that the lack of gun control in the United States is a huge issue and one that needs to be rectified. The gun death rate of the United States is astronomically higher than any contemporary nations. Not coincidentally, many other developed nations have strict regulations on who can own a gun and what kind of gun can be owned. For instance, the United States has a gun ownership rate of 88.8 guns per 100 citizens and a firearm homicide rate of 2.97 deaths per 100000 citizens. In the United Kingdom, where assault weapons are banned and the only guns that can be carried are rifles (which can only be carried by shooting club members), there are only 0.7 gun homicides per 100000 citizens. In Japan, where the gun laws are even stricter, there are only 0.1 firearm homicides per 100000 people. There’s no question that the rate of deaths rises with the rate of firearms owned. A primary counter argument to this is that if guns are not an option, murderers will simply begin using other weapons. However, I think that the pure deadliness difference between these weapons invalidates that argument, as few would argue that the potential damage done by a knife is as great as that of an assault rifle.
The policy that I would propose is one that would limit the types of guns that can be owned, with all automatic and semi-automatic weapons certainly being unable to be sold. Beyond this, the policy would involve closing the gun show loophole and implementing a compulsory gun safety course and mental health evaluation for al potential gun owners.
I believe that this policy is one that would greatly benefit our nation. However, I have questions about its feasibility. Gun control is an issue about which many are very sensitive, so it’s near impossible to make much progress with it, as evidenced by President Obama’s post-Newtown struggles. I also am concerned that the gun control topic is too cliché, so I’m considering other topics. I have thought about topics that are somewhat related to this one, such as mental health support and individual privacy and property concerns, as well as ones that have a less obvious tie, including how to handle our military in the nuclearized world and the United States’ higher drinking age (also pretty cliché).
This past summer, I worked at a coffee shop. It was a good job. I didn’t have to be outside in the summer heat, I came to know a lot about coffee, learned to bake some mean scones, and sometimes my friends would stop by and I’d get to hang out with them while working. However, it wasn’t until winter break that I realized that I had gained a lot more than a deep appreciation of pastries from my time at the coffee shop.
My first semester at college, I, like everyone else, had a few late nights. Essays due the next day, big exams, whatever it was, I was forced to run on a few hours of sleep more often than I would have liked. When put in this situation, I reacted in the same way that any other college student would have: I turned to everyone’s favorite caffeine source, coffee. With the help of coffee, I managed to make it past my finals, and had a trip to see some friends in Vienna to look forward to over my break.
While in Austria, I was reminded of a different context that I had once known coffee in. My first night there, I went to a coffee house and over a cup of small, bold European coffee, spent a few hours just chatting. Viennese coffee house culture is an “intangible cultural heritage,” a place where “time and space are consumed, but only the coffee is found on the bill,” according to UNESCO.
This sentiment is one that I was certainly able to relate to after my time spent working at the coffee shop. Oftentimes, coffee shop regulars would come in just to enjoy their coffee, read the newspaper, and chat with whoever was hanging out in the shop or behind the counter if it wasn’t too busy. Therefore, in Sigmund Freud’s favorite Viennese coffee house, I was reminded of my belief that coffee can serve as a great foundation for conversation. It was sad to me, realizing that this fantastic beverage had, in my mind, been reduced to one furiously gulped down by overworked undergrads. However, over the rest of my college career, I’m going to try my best to remember that coffee has capabilities far greater than keeping you awake when you really should be asleep.
I think that I’m not too clear on what a This I Believe topic should be. I listened to several of the essays and had a difficult time figuring out what their “point” was. That said, two topics that I am considering are something pertaining to coffee and family traditions. Over the summer, I worked at a coffee shop, so I saw many people come in and have a conversation over a few cups of it. It almost seemed as if it was bringing people together. Now at college, it’s a bit sad to see it reduced to a beverage which is furiously chugged by students hustling to finish an assignment. I think that I am thinking about this because of the recent Christmas holiday. During this time in particular, it seems that people really come together in a way that they wouldn’t were they not participating in these traditions.
For the Civic Issues blog, the area that it could be in that is of the most interest to me is politics. I think that the electoral process is really interesting, so both of the topics that I am considering are related to that. First, I believe that a blog on modern day disenfranchisement would be very interesting. We’ve all learned about literacy tests and poll taxes in school, and obviously these practices have been abolished, but that does not mean that every one is able to vote with the same ease. Second, I am considering a blog examining potential candidates for the 2016 presidential election. Even though it is only January 2014, presidential hopefuls are starting to gear up, due in part to the long primary season of our presidential elections. I think that I would enjoy writing this blog, but I feel that it may not qualify as an “issue,” despite fitting in to the politics category.
For passion blogs, I’m certainly considering sticking with my former topic of discussing indie and alternative albums, but I’m also thinking about switching to one of two other topics. First, I would potentially have interest in doing a blog on the MLB, primarily focused on transactions made. The offseason, when most of these moves happen, is winding down, but there are still plenty of potential impact players out there, so I think that it could certainly be sustained until the season starts. Once the season begins, perhaps the focus would shift from building a team to that team’s actual performance. Second, I would like to do a blog on traveling. Traveling is something that I enjoy greatly, so I think that I would really have a good time writing this blog. I think that it could be neat to look back on places I have been and/or examine future destinations.
In general, I don’t think that I want to deviate too much from the format of my first semester blogs. I believe that they worked. I feel that I included sufficient media in each post so that I could avoid my blog becoming just a wall of text. I also made sure to break up paragraphs whenever possible to achieve this goal. I think that from the first post to the last, my blog did not change too drastically because it didn’t need to.
The Vimeo Video School’s videos on how to create a video of relatively high quality offer many tips. It suggests using a camera with a clean lens, appropriate lighting, and for the most stable possible shot, a tripod. It warns against using panning, tilting, and zooming too extensively and teaches the rule of thirds. For editing, the video suggests using cuts of a suitable length and transitions between them. All of these tactics together can be used to implement a clean-looking video. The air of professionalism that goes along with this clean appearance will allow your video to be more respected and trusted by its viewers. We’ve all seen videos that struggle with this, and generally just dismiss them as laughable.
When you see a shoddily put together video it’s obvious that the people filming it or editing it simply didn’t know what they were doing. A lot of the things that Vimeo covers are probably mistakes made in the video. Another thing indicative of this inexperience is a drastic over usage of iMovie’s features. Most of the time, anything but the basics will look like too much, but for someone who doesn’t have much experience with the program it can be fun playing with all of the different animations, transitions, and text options. For your video to be rhetorically sound it is important to keep this in check.
Establishing reputability is very closely tied to having a video that has strong ethos. If your video looks like you don’t know what you’re doing, the chances that you will be viewed as reputable become significantly slimmer and the impact that your video will have on its viewers is likewise dramatically reduced. A rhetorically sound video must be created with smart filming and editing techniques.
I’ve never been much of a basketball player, but I always thought that the sport was pretty fun to watch. I’m from the Pittsburgh area, so if I wanted to go to a basketball game it was always the University of Pittsburgh Panthers, who I guess I’m supposed to hate now. Since I’ve been old enough to really follow sports, Pitt has just about always been good at basketball. They participated in NCAA March Madness every year but one between 2004-2013. Penn State on the other hand, has only one tournament appearance in that time. As one would expect, this has had a significant impact on the degree of basketball enthusiasm at each school. Pitt sells out nearly all of their games, whereas empty seats abound on game day at Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center.
A typical Pitt crowd…
and one at Penn State
This week I saw all these empty seats firsthand. When basketball season tickets went on sale, I snatched them up. At a mere $35 for the whole season I didn’t see a reason not to. The only issue is that it’s not quite as easy to find someone to go to a basketball game with you as it is for football games here. This week, however, I really wanted to check it out, so I took on the task of talking my roommate into it.
First, I utilized logos to lay out a logical argument for why the game would be fun. I told him that it was free t-shirt night and that student tickets cost only five dollars, so a five dollar t shirt is a pretty good deal as it is. Adding to the value of the ticket, there is a promotion that when Penn State scores 70 points (not too steep a challenge in basketball), everyone can turn in their ticket for a free Big Mac.
Mmmmmmmmm
This had already done a pretty good job of convincing him, but he did have some concerns still. “Yeah but don’t we suck?” he asked me. He wanted to see a winner. So, to appeal to his desire to feel good about his team, I used pathos in my response. I explained that, although we do suck, the school that we’re playing (LaSalle) is pretty small and thus sucks even more. At this point, he was convinced, and agreed to go to the game with me. The team scored the necessary 70 points, got the win, and my roommate and I both had a really good time. If you’re ever looking for something to do, I’d definitely head over to the BJC to check out a game. Though the crowd may be small, the atmosphere is still good and the $5 ticket can turn out to be really good value!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx__Y06VfjB9TmR6WjYwa3VHQmM/edit?usp=sharing
The preparation for my TED Talk probably could have been better. I ran through the talk a few times and wrote out what I planned to say. However, when I went to actually deliver it, I was nervous, and this made me less able to effectively convey what I wanted to. I actually even forgot where I was at different points, which I think is a mistake that could have been avoidable. In future talks, I think that this error could be remedied by giving equal attention to the later parts of the talk. I think that I knew what I wanted to say at the beginning and end of my speech pretty well, but in the middle it became a little bit of a blur. Making sure that in my practice I give equal attention to each segment will be important in future presentations. I also think that more concrete outlining could help, as I only wrote out a rough outline and an actual word-for-word speech that I (obviously) did not even attempt to memorize.
Going along with the impact of nerves, it seemed like I was talking far too fast throughout the presentation. Obviously, I was in a big hurry to get it done. I hated this project, and after I started to speak I just wanted to stop. For this reason, I think that I ran through my presentation at a slightly breakneck pace and even left out some things that I intended to talk about.
I also think that it might have helped to pay more attention to the strengths of the speakers in the example TED Talks, as I made some mistakes that I shouldn’t have. For example, in my TED Talk I looked at the slides an awful lot, probably because I was not really too comfortable with the space. At the time, I didn’t even realize that I was doing this, but watching the video now it is clearly a recurring thing. My visual aid seemed like it wasn’t distracting or anything because of its design, but my staring at the screen probably contributed to making this more of an issue.
All that said, there are some aspects of my TED Talk that I liked as well. I think that I tried to employ ethos, pathos, and logos with my topic in an appropriate manner. I think that some of the statements that I made intending to be convincing could be categorized in at least one of these three rhetorical styles. I avoided memorizing statistics that likely would have been uninteresting and thus unconvincing, which I think was a good choice. Nobody wants to hear numbers rattled off at them, so I think that by skipping this I made a good choice.
While I generally hated watching my video, another positive that I saw in my performance was my voice inflection. I think that are didn’t sound disinterested or overly repetitive. I also think that I did an alright job looking natural while presenting and fighting the urges to either stand completely still or pace.
On the whole, there are plenty of improvements to be made upon my TED Talk performance, but I do not think that every aspect of it was as horrible as I might make it out to be.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z0UYUl3VOQsbY8ZPFbKcE6zZYOeWL38QH3VkzSoDhgY/edit
I found the topic of my paradigm shift paper itself to be pretty interesting. However, I’m a little bit confused about the TED genre on the whole, so I’m not entirely certain that it would work for a TED talk. If it does, then I definitely think that I would be interested int discussing the manner in which homosexuality is portrayed in television, and in particular, point out the attempt at turning it into humor so often. I believe that we are generally not even cognizant of the poking fun at homosexuality that is occurring. If people were actively aware of it, there would likely be more outrage, as discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation is considered very amoral, especially among the younger generation of Americans. I think that illuminating how sexual orientation is frequently the butt of jokes– and why that’s wrong– would be an intriguing TED talk topic.
