Draft of Rhetorical Analysis

Draft Day!

Reneman. "DRAFT ICON". 2/24/13 via Wikipedia. CC A-SA 3.0.

This is my draft.. I hope you like it.

I'm having some trouble with coherent thoughts on rhetorical analysis so I'm waiting to write that part until tomorrow once I have time to think on it for a little while longer, so don't be surprised when you reach the blank space.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_jP-erJXXPZ4HMifKSf7KnumnJbBb9MkuBj8HYJhEco/edit?usp=sharing

(I posted the link to the draft again just in case the hyperlink isn't working.)

Project 2 Outline

Sections! It's time for the sections of project 2! :)

Duk. "Conic Sections 3". 7/12/13 via Wikipedia.  GNU Free Documentation.

Introduction

• In the introduction I will introduce the topic and address the fact that many students are unfamiliar with how to take apart arguments in entrepreneurship. This will help to make the readers feel comfortable (hearing how others share their struggle) and then hopefully they will be more inclined to read closely and learn from the piece

Thesis

• In this article, Julie Hall separates the segments of her text clearly to demonstrate that there are different ways for women to make advances in what is viewed as a 'man's' field, and in each section she appeals to our emotions and logic from a new angle.

Body Paragraphs

• author
• audience
• context
• message
• rhetorical strategies

Analytical Claims

• Julie worked in the field that she is talking about, which is important because it makes her more credible and also means she'll probably have better insight than most people
• Her audience is probably to men and women alike, although the advice she gives is specific to women working in startups
• Contextually, she is writing at a time when women are struggling to be taking seriously in the tech/engineering/startup industries and this article is explicitly focused on that phenomenon
• The message is that women should be heard and taken seriously, and that they should also advocate for themselves.
• Julie employs a host of rhetorical strategies, especially appealing to our emotions and her own credibility in order to make her point.

Support For Each Claim

• I will provide examples and analysis from the text to support all of my claims

Conclusion

• I will conclude by summarizing my analytical claims (similar to what I did in this outline) so that they are fresh in my readers' heads. It might even be as concise as a list. And then I will end the piece in a way that makes it clear to them that the deconstruction of any public speech act, regardless of what I just told them, is their own process and they can do with it what they will.

Draft Thesis Statements

Someone once told me that the thesis is the most important part of an essay.. So I'd better pick the best one.

Nenyaki. "Write Til You Drop!". 4/9/08 via Flickr. CC A-ND 2.0.

Thesis 1:
In this article, Julie Hall separates the segments of her text clearly to demonstrate that there are different ways for women to make advances in what is viewed as a 'man's' field, and in each section she appeals to our emotions and logic from a new angle.

Thesis 2:
Julie Hall, in her article Women Entrepreneurs 2.0, works with our emotions and our logic to help make her case about the ways that women entrepreneurs can begin making strides in the startup industry and the reasons why that will be good for everyone.

Sometimes it's hard for me to develop a thesis until the end of my writing, but writing it first has helped me to really consider the direction in which I want to take this piece. And from here I can really start crafting my project around these ideas so that it's all tailored to fit together coherently and fluently. One of the challenges for me is that I've never written specifically about rhetorical analysis, and I'm still not sure what type of thesis would be good for an assignment about explaining rhetorical analysis.

Analyzing My Audience

So now, who am I writing to?

Svan Hamberg. "Finding Your Audience On Facebook". 7/1/14 via Qwaya. CC - NA-SA2.0.

What are their assumptions?
I don't think my audience has many assumptions. I'm sure there are a few but for the most part, I would say that they're all pretty on board with the fact that women should be considered equals. They may, however, share the classic assumption that tech should stay a predominantly male industry but that also may be the product of the environment they've grown up in.

What kind of language is appropriate for them?
Formal conversational language should be appropriate. Because I'm writing in an actual Project format I think it should be a little tighter than my casual writing, however I'm still a believer in the fact that a casual piece is easier to connect with and people will understand my argument better. With that said, and considering my naturally casual tone, I'll try to write a formal piece and it should come out in a tasteful middle ground.

What are their sociopolitical and economic backgrounds?
I don't think they have any specific economic or sociopolitical background. However I don't think that matters much with respect to this article because it isn't a partisan or economic issue. It is true that specific parties and economic groups may have their own presumptions about women being equals, but I don't believe my audience has anybody that would identify so strongly with any group.

What will they want to know?
They will want to know how to rhetorically deconstruct a public speech act about entrepreneurship. Fortunately, I'm now qualified to show them how it's done and that's exactly what I plan to do.

In general, how can they be persuaded?
Since they're already unfamiliar with how to do this, it should be enough just for me to tell them how it's done. However, I think providing examples from the text demonstrating how certain rhetorical strategies accomplish different goals will help illustrate it enough to make my point clear to them. This will definitely be geared more towards logic than to their emotions.

Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in Women Entrepreneurs 2.0

Why does this writing work? That's an interesting question, isnt it?

Fritz Laurvig. "When strategy is not important". 11-3-08 via Flickr. CC A-NC ND 2.0.

Credibility and Character

• Julie definitely employs a personal story in her text, which allows us to start empathizing
• Personal stories are also very effective in getting peoples' attention
• Her word choice is also interesting because she uses positive words throughout the text
• "strong", "aware", "creativity", "guidance": words like this get us in a good mood
• There is also some brief information about Julie's expertise because she is an engineer
• These strategies show us that Julie is a credible source for advice on this subject
• They make the entire text more readable and relatable, which makes more of an impact
• There are no obvious biases or presumptions (besides equality) that would affect credibility

Emotion

• Her personal story is also emotionally compelling, and that is how it inspires empathy
• The repetition of key words is also crucial because we start thinking positively
• "don't be afraid to be bold and confident in your abilities, and let womanly intuition and passion guide you"
• This quote definitely appeals to peoples' emotions and gets them in a positive attitude about it
• Her level of formality is low, which is more emotionally open than very formal texts
• These create an emotional response that moves us to make changes
• I think that it achieves the desired result and we're compelled to make things change
• These emotional appeals are effective because people will make change when they're emotionally invested
• If anything, the emotions will help make her logic more believable

Logic

• "a rising tide lifts all boats"
• ^That's the first quote that demonstrates Julie's logic. She argues that good ideas are good for the group regardless of who they come from, which is a big argument for equality.
• This quote doesn't fall into any of the bullet points but it does employ some good logic
• Her own story can also be considered a case study, but there is no direct quote for that
• Julie's article appeals more to emotion than to logic, but it does so to prove equality is logical

Analyzing Message in Women Entrepreneurs 2.0

As with any text, it's important to understand the overall message.

SuPich. "Message Icon Grey". 9-3-13 via Wikipedia. Public Domain.

I think the three most relevant bullet points are 'express an opinion or idea', 'explore a topic', and 'advocate for change'. These are pretty obviously relevant because Julie expresses her opinion about the way things are, then explores the topic in a little more detail, and throughout the article she advocates for change in the way women are viewed in entrepreneurship.

The bullet points that I think are less relevant are 'respond to a particular occasion or text', 'analyze, synthesize, or interpret', and 'persuade readers of something'. There isn't really a specific occasion or text that is being referenced because the article is more about an overarching trend. There isn't anything official to analyze, synthesize, or interpret, but instead she is sharing thoughts about the current situation and providing thoughts about fixing it. Finally, I she isn't trying too hard to persuade the readers of something because the readers should already have an understanding of the situation so instead she focuses on the solution to the problem at hand.

I don't think there are any nuances because we still need to solve the original problem. It's possible to view this as a nuance because it can be considered third wave feminism, which is another adapted wave of feminism. But other than that, I don't think the information is very nuanced because the goal is still to get women a fair shake. I don't know how much more straight forward things can get.

Analyzing My Own Assumptions

It's time to check out my own assumptions. That's probably the most important part of reading any document or controversy: understanding the way that I tailor the information to fit my own world view.

Live Life Happy. "Never Assume...". 11-14-14 via Flickr. CC A-NC-SA 2.0.

What cultural or social values, beliefs, etc., do we share with the society or culture in which the text was written?  Why have they endured?
I'm living in the society in which the text was written so I'm pretty much surrounded by the same values. However I actively focus on a lot of social justice stuff so I think my values are more geared towards equity and I tend to oppose the values that place women on a different level than men. I think my values have endured because everybody, in one sense or another, just wants a fair shake. And my beliefs are that everyone deserves that fair shake.

What cultural or social values, beliefs, etc., do we not share?  Why not?
I think that the values we don't share are the values that would count people out before they even get a chance to prove themselves. For instance, assuming that a woman is less qualified just because not many women work in tech. This belief seems antiquated to me but I think that's exactly why not everybody shares the belief; as new generations grow up people are understanding more and more the idea of equality.

If the text is written in a culture distant or different from our own, what social values, beliefs, etc., connect to or reflect our own culture?  What social values, beliefs, etc., can we not see in our own culture?
The text is written in our own culture so this isn't entirely relevant.

If the text is written in our culture but in a different historical time, how have the social values, beliefs, etc., developed or changed over time?
The text is also written in this historical time so I'm not sure this is entirely relevant either.

All in all, I think reflection on my own assumptions has been helpful because it's allowed me to really consider my predispositions and how that affects the way I approach this discussion.

Analyzing My Audience

Now I will consider questions people should consider when thinking about the context of a text.

What values, ideas, norms, beliefs, even laws of the culture play an important role in the text?
I think the main ideas in the text are equity and meritocracy. Obviously these are two very idealistic constructs but the entire goal of the text is to move us towards actual equity and meritocracy. But if we come back to the real world, then it becomes apparent that a lot of the modernized norms where women are expected to stay in domestic circles are the ones doing the most harm. These play the most important role because we have to break down these norms and these ideologies in order to give women the fighting chance that they deserve. There are even laws geared at equal opportunity in the workplace, but none of them have proven to be very effective.

Does the text address these cultural values, beliefs, etc., directly or indirectly?
The text directly and indirectly addresses these values. Julie states repeatedly that workers should be judged based off of their work ethic and the quality of their work rather than pre-judged based on gender. However she also provides some examples that indirectly address these issues so that they're relevant on an everyday level.

What is the relationship of the text to the values, beliefs, etc.? Is it critical of these aspects of the culture? Is it supportive? Does it seek to modify these aspects of the culture in a certain way?
It is definitely critical, if not directly in opposition, of these aspects of the culture. The goal of the text is to modify these aspects of our culture and make the engineering, tech, and startup fields more accessible for women. Obviously she supports men doing well too, but not if the men are doing well because they are men rather than because they worked for it and added value to their groups. It's important to understand this when reading the text because it means we should be aware that there may be another side to this story that we aren't hearing (although I think the other side would be considered offensive and outdated).


*note: the shark picture is because sharks are viewed tons of different ways based on context and cultural values. for instance, compare this article to this article about a recent shark encounter.

Cultural Analysis of Women Engineers 2.0

Here I will consider "Women Engineers 2.0: What You'll Need To Thrive In A Male-Dominated Startup" in more detail. The process I will follow will be to preview,  skim for cultural references, skim for cultural values, reread with more direct focus and then to answer some questions about the text.

Jason Pratt. "Boy and Girl Hummel Figurines". 12/25/07 via flickr. CC-A2.0.

Finally, looking back at these passages, freewrite for a moment about the connection between the cultural keywords, the passages that you have listed, and the thesis.  How do these keyword help support the argument that the author is making?  Why might an audience be more likely to support this argument if its is connected to these values?

The cultural references I noticed in this piece all related to the way that women tend to be undervalued or even overlooked entirely in tech, engineering and entrepreneurship. The idea that women don't belong in STEM fields has been around for a while and I think it is entirely a cultural problem. The cultural values that I noticed all came in the advice given by Julie: Strength, Awareness, Flexibility and Positivity. All of these values are big in our culture and I think Julie is doing something big by calling women to harness these values because these are the four traits that women are robbed of many times.

After reading through again with a bit more focus, I think I understand a little bit more how everything in this article is connected. The keywords that I noticed were gender, perspective, mentality, and more. Gender is obviously an important one because we are discussing the gender gap and how gender biases play into entrepreneurship. Perspective was a huge one because (almost) every problem can be solved with a new perspective. For example, in the article Julie reminds us that "a rising tide lifts all boats", which is to say that a good idea is a good idea and everyone will benefit from it, regardless of the mind(s) it came from. 'Mentality' was crucial in this article because women being better or worse than men is all just a mentality, and a change in mentality can bring about the change we need in these organizations. Finally, 'more' was a word that appeared over and over again and I think it shows that everything we need is already in play. If we need more of something, that indicates that we already have some of that and we aren't in an entirely horrible position. All of these key words connect to the thesis that women need to start believing in their own abilities and doing everything they know they can, and men need to support the women in taking on the roles that they're capable of taking on. All of the keywords support the thesis because they affirm that change is possible and we have all the tools we need to make it happen. From here, all we need to do is get it done.

Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

I've found three different opinionated public speech acts. Now it's time to think a little more about them!

Geralt. "Thoughts Are Free". via Pixabay. CC0 Public Domain.

Source 1:
Author: Jayson Demers. Founder and CEO, AudienceBloom.
Audience: Anyone that happens to visit his article. But considering it's on entrepreneurship.com, it's likely that he is speaking to young and hopeful entrepreneurs.
Context: Jayson has started his own business and is writing a piece detailing the struggles that entrepreneurs go through on the path to having successful companies.

Source 2:
Author: Jason Fell. Entrepreneur Staff, Managing Editor.
Audience: Readors of the Entrepreneur.com online magazine thing.
Context: Jason is detailing struggles of female entrepreneurs all over the world.

Source 3:
Author: Julie Hall
Audience: Entrepreneur.com, speaking specifically to women in startups
Context: Julie speaks to female entrepreneurs about ways to make it through the gender bias

Reflection on Project #1

Project #1 is done. Now for the most important part..

Richard Outram. "Snowdon reflection". 12/6/08 va Wikipedia. CCA2 Generic.

What challenges did you face dealing with the Quick Reference Guide Project and how did you deal with them?
I think my biggest challenge was honestly just finding something to write about. It takes a good foundation and I'm not sure I put enough time into finding a good controversy, so then when it came time to write about it and really analyze it I'm not sure that I had enough to work with.

What successes did you experience on the project and how did they happen?
Honestly the biggest success was the trajectory change it took to get my project onto a controversy that I could write anything about. In the beginning, I was writing more about a concept than a controversy and it wasn't producing anything for me. Then I was able to find a controversy related to what I had been writing about, so I didn't have to completely start over, but it certainly wasn't the same.

What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find the most effective for your project? Why?
I honestly think I do my best work when I can be candid and casual in my writing. That's definitely what I ended up doing for my QRG and I think that's when the writing really started to flow and become something whole. I'm not sure why exactly this works for me.. It's possible that I'm just that kind of person and so it's actually me writing in my own voice.

What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find were not effective for your project? Why?
Lots of them. In short, when I tried to be someone I'm not, it just wouldn't work. At first I tried being really formal and serious in the writing but it just didn't sound right and I felt like I was leaving a lot out of the piece.. Then I tried to mimic some of the example QRGs that were available to me, but even then I just wasn't really getting the style right. My honest opinion is that I'm best at being me, and any attempt to do something otherwise was second-rate.

How was the writing process for this project different than other school writing experiences you've had in the past?
In so many ways!!! I'm not used to doing everything online.. like I prefer to make a really messy ugly word scramble monster in pencil/pen on an actual piece of paper and just collect my ideas from there. You know? I'm really just not good at staying super organized and in one place. For the majority of this project I ended up with like 20 tabs open at once and jumping back and forth between web pages trying to make sure everything was correct. It would've been so much easier to have real class time and get clarified lucid directions that I could understand. I think this is just that I'm a visual/auditory learner and so the whole reading and writing and reading and writing and reading and writing thing really just doesn't work for me.

Would any of the skills your practiced in this project be useful in your other coursework? Why or why not?
Definitely. I really do think that I got a lot of value out of this, I just wish I had more time to adjust to this style of instruction instead of just getting thrown right into a project. One of the most useful things is going to be the ways I learned to find sources. That's super useful in pretty much every course when we have to find articles or information about a new subject.

Developing a Research Question

This time I'm going to go at it and try to find something a little juicier than microfinancing.. Let's get digging!

#1
Sexism in Sillicon Valley. Gender issues in startup central.
This is the first article I found.
I've started doing a lot of work in social justice related areas so I think I'd be really interesting in checking out how gender roles and genderism comes into play in Sillicon Valley.


#2
UBER!! There's actually been a number of Uber related controversy's and I'd like to bundle them.
This is the article about it.
The reason this is really pertinent for me is that I work with Vector Marketing, which is the same company that Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber, worked for before eventually starting Uber. I think that's rad because he credits Vector with teaching him a lot of the skills needed for starting his own business.


#3
Gawker media takes down a story that earned them a lot of criticism.
Here's the scoop!
I think this could be a really interesting one because Gawker is a big media company and media has a HUGE influence on our society today. So even though it's not directly related to entrepreneurship, I'd be interested to see what people are saying about Gawker and how that will effect what they publish.

Publishing Project #1

I titled my Project #1 "Mission Accomplished? Not Always a Happy Ending"

I hope you like it!

Identifying Basic Grammar Patterns

I checked out the grammar on one of my paragraphs and it's actually pretty interesting.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O46OXUc-oQ2ZLqWXf3_t06HOuAdVOTyDhZWw58-Eiy4/edit?usp=sharing

Falling Fifth. "Grammar Fan." 10/31/08 via Fallingfifth.com.  CC A-NC-SA.

I think this activity was really eye opening for me because there are a lot of terms in the grammar section of RFW that I've heard in other languages but never in English. It sort of made me realize how complexity of the grammar I use but how at the same time, I'm not sure I fully understand all of it. I'll definitely be reading and re-reading this section in the future just to become a little more familiar with my own grammar and the different ways I can use the English language. I noticed that I use a lot of sentence patterns and structures that I didn't get a good understanding of from the article, so I'm going to do a little research and see if I can find more information about those.

Reflection on Project 1 Draft

I definitely had trouble getting my draft off of the ground..

                  like it was really really bad.

Pdpics. "Eggs Expressions Happy Sad." 2-7-13 via Wikipedia. CC S-AA.

Assuming that my readers are fairly educated when it comes to social entrepreneurship, I think my QRG does well with explaining the controversy with enough detail that they're not bored but not so much that a novice would be overwhelmed and stop reading. With that said, I think I could probably provide some more detail in certain spaces so that the article is interesting and informative for all readers.
I'm not sure if there are really relevant biases when this controversy is in question. Maybe people are against doing good things for the world but other than that, I think the only possible bias is that some people might be opposed to blurring the lines between the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. I don't think I make any strong statements supporting either side of this belief, so I think everyone's opinions are pretty well respected in my writing.
I definitely don't know the readers values or expectations, but I would assume they're expecting to learn more about the Unitus controversy since they're reading my QRG. With that in mind, I'd say I'm definitely meeting their expectations.
I need to give my audience enough information to understand what this controversy is about, but not so much that I confuse them with information that is irrelevant or extra. I think I've provided a tasteful amount of background information because my summary of entrepreneurship (and social entrepreneurship) is brief, and my background of the Unitus situation is pretty minimal. In fact, I should probably provide a bit more background information on Unitus.
I think casual language is suitable. There's no need to dress up my writing when I can explain this controversy to people in a conversational manner.
My tone is fairly conversational, which I think makes reading my piece a little more comfortable for my audience. It seems like my tone stays the same throughout the piece but I really should check on that to make sure it flows.

After the peer review process, I've realized that my writing can be read a lot of different ways. With that in mind, I'm going to work to be more specific with some of my phrasing and examples while still maintaining a conversational tone. I also want to review each sentence and make sure they flow through each other. It's important to me that my piece is easy to read through as well as informative.

Integrating a Quote

I chose one quote from the Harvard Business Review that helps sum up my controversy.

The red part of the text represents the section in which I reference who said it and where they said it, otherwise known as the signal phrase. The light blue part is the actual quote that I am referencing. Together this is my whole quotation.

My Discipline

I plan on majoring in Accounting, Finance, and Entrepreneurship.

I think that out of those three fields of study, entrepreneurship definitely has the most interesting conversations because it's the new thing that everyone is getting fired up about.

The students in the entrepreneurship program all learn about starting a business, and the program actually requires that you start your own business as a capstone project. Learning how to start a business involves coming up with a good idea, rallying people around the idea, and then finding a way to make it profitable. Each of these three steps takes a significant about of skill because it's hard to come up with good ideas that nobody has thought of before, and it's even harder to rally people around things that they may not be sure about, and finally it takes a lot of careful planning to make any idea profitable.

The coolest thing to me about the entrepreneurship program is that students graduate as business owners, and so many of them go on to cultivate and grow their business but they also go to work in other fields because they don't allow people to major only in entrepreneurship.

Draft of Quick Reference Guide

Hi all,

"STOP!". artisticXexpressions. 7/18/15 via Flickr. Noncommercial reuse.

This is a pretty rough first draft of my Quick Reference Guide. My initial topic was Entrepreneurship but I'm not sure if Social Entrepreneurship is really a controversy/debate that's big enough to do a project on? The whole reason its a controversy at all is because nobody really gives it enough attention. Please comment because I'll take all the help I can get in developing this and creating something worth reading, for now it feels like a decent idea in need of a better format. Thanks!

https://docs.google.com/a/email.arizona.edu/document/d/1TKfOgFObK0lbSyjj6UENnRyVrXMS59TAoTZCpLiq8Lc/edit?usp=sharing

Cluster of Entrepreneurship

In my cluster, I went through everything I've read so far and fulled out words or phrases that captured the main themes. Then I added them to the cluster in a way that is supposed to represent how each individual item relates back to the central theme of entrepreneurship or to any of the other smaller themes that I found during my readings. You can see my cluster here, enjoy!

Summary of Creating a Personal Leadership Strategy

One of the sources I read for my research was "Creating a Personal Leadership Strategy" by Derek Lidow. I thought this piece was interesting because it provides an outline for developing the skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur.

"Idea Plan Action." geralt via Pixabay. Free for commercial use.

Paragraph Summaries:
1. A personal leadership strategy is required for mastering the basic skills needed to lead an enterprise to success.
2. Start the process by examining yourself and your goals.
3. Evaluate your core motivations.
4. Selfish motivation will get you nowhere.
5. Brian O'Kelley didn't reach his biggest achievements until he was more motivated.
6. The next step is finding a mentor.
7. A mentor is objective; a friend is biased.
8. A board of advisors also works well, but you may have to pay them.
9. Virtually every successful leader has at least one mentor.
10. Next make a list of your traits, it's important to understand your own characteristics.
11. Make a list of how each trait helps/hinders you on the pass to your goals.
12. Consider how each of these will affect you in the future.
13. Assess your skills as basic, competent, master, or best in class.
14. If you're frustrated with your level of proficiency at any task, ask for help from your mentor(s).
15. Make sure you can convince an objective third party of your proficiency.
16. Characterize in a couple sentences your behavior relative to each skill.
17. It's important to recognize that intelligence and common sense is not a substitute for skills.
18. A personal leadership strategy is designed to keep you accountable on your track to success.
19. Your PLS is based on your motivations, traits, and skills.
20. There is no right or wrong format for your PLS.
21. Entrepreneurs who are open to seeking advice and creating a PLS do very well.

One to Two Sentences:
Objective self-assessment is crucial for figuring out where and who you are, which are both necessary for figuring out the best way to get to where you want to be.

Revised Sentences:
The first step is to figure out what your motivations are. Then you have to determine what traits and skills you have that will either help or hinder you on your path. After you've figured all of this out, you can develop your personal leadership strategy. The PLS is important because it's like a roadmap for how you can go out and achieve your goals. Some won't admit that they need help, but the most successful people all have mentors and written goals that they keep track of.

Compare the summary:
I compared my summary with Jason Wittler's, and it seems like we did most of the work in a similar fashion. His summary revision was more concise than mine but other than that it really does look like we have a similar style.

QRGs: The Genre

Quick Reference Guides were the lifeblood of my freshman year. The ability to find useful information about a topic I wasn't familiar with and quickly have a decent understanding of it was invaluable. But I never really thought about what it takes to make a quick reference guide..

Sharon Pruitt. "Student Sleeping Creative Commons". 5-3-11 via Flickr. CC A 2.0.

It seems like all of the QRGs have either images that detail the subject and provide a good visual representation of the most basic information, or short blurbs that have all of the vital information. The stem cell QRG is a good example of one that utilizes images to make its point, whereas the rest of the QRGs provided to more with blurbs to make their case. Most of the formatting is conducive to this because it allows you to simply scroll through the page one time and get everything you need out of it. This is easy to do either with images or with the blurbs. It seems like the purpose of the QRGs is to give readers a basic understand of the subject so that they can recognize it and maybe even hold conversations about it with other people. They don't have to know everything but they will know something. From what I can tell, the intended audience is anyone who is interested in learning more about that particular subject. QRGs don't require any prior knowledge and they don't do into too much detail.

Annotated Bibliography in MLA Style

I'm not sure if entrepreneurship can have it's own standard citation style but I looked it up and it said it was MLA. So I've included the MLA bibliography for all six sources. I used the "Annotated Bibliography" in the Student's Guide as an example.

#1
Buford, Bob. "Peter Drucker An Amazing Grasp Of Context." Leader To Leader 2015.75 (2015): 7-11.Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 July 2015.

• I think this is a really valuable source because it has a lot of content from Peter Drucker, who is one of the biggest names in entrepreneurship
• This gives insight into the role of a mentor, which is a big theme in entrepreneurship

#2
Lidow, Derek. "Creating A Personal Leadership Strategy." Leader To Leader 2015.75 (2015): 37-42.Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 July 2015.

• This article is useful because it's almost like a recipe for young entrepreneurs
• I can compare the advice given in this article with thoughts from some of the best, Peter Drucker, Elon Musk, Tai Lopez, Jim Rohn

#3
Garlick, Saul. "ThinkImpact: Evolution of Social Entrepreneurship."YouTube. YouTube, 7 Feb. 2014. Web. 18 July 2015.

• Explains the origins and nuances of social entrepreneurship
• Good working definition and explanation of concepts behind it

#4
Pallotta, Dan. "The Way We Think about Charity Is Dead Wrong." TED: Ideas Worth Sharing. TED, Mar. 2013. Web. 18 July 2015.

• Good depiction of the advantages/disadvantages of being in the non-profit sector
• Paradigm shift for overhead
• Getting paid for doing good things should be a good thing

#5
Palmer, Kimberly. "A Side Business as a Way to Gain Financial Security."The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Mar. 2014. Web. 18 July 2015.

• Sheds new light on the idea of entrepreneurship
• Some people do it because they really really need the money and there's no other way

#6

Afshar, Vala. "The Most Important Entrepreneurship Advice From a Serial Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 Feb. 2015. Web. 18 July 2015.

#7

Manzi, Jim. "Contrary to Success." The Weekly Standard. N.p., 20 Oct. 2014. Web. 18 July 2015.

#8

Moffett, Matt. "New Entrepreneurs Find Pain in Spain." Wall Street Journal. N.p., 27 Nov. 2014. Web. 18 July 2015.

Ideology in my Controversy

After doing a bit of research into entrepreneurship and specifically social entrepreneurship, I've started to see some trends in the ideologies of the people that are posting about entrepreneurship. It's interesting how like-minded this individuals are. Maybe that has something to do with their successes.

"Great Minds Think Alike." Richard Matthew Smith via Flickr. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Most of the individuals involved in entrepreneurship and the articles that I've read are successful businessmen. Their experiences seem to range across all disciplines and areas of interest, but they all have fairly similar ideas about entrepreneurship. A few of the biggest names in entrepreneurship right now are Jim Rohn, Peter Drucker, and Elon Musk. These men aren't necessarily the best or the mosst known, but they are the names that I've come across the most over the last few days. They all have substantial economic power, although some were born into those circumstances and others are self-made millionaires. I think the social power that these individuals exhibit is the most impressive because people (mostly people that aspire to reach comparable levels of success) listen to what they have to say. One central ideology that I've noticed is they all have a set of core values: hard work, discipline, and having a clear vision. This seems to be the secret to their success and they repeat this values almost religiously when asked for advice. I'm sure between these icons there is some sort of power differential, but I can't really tell to what extent because they all seem super powerful and we regarded.

Evaluation of Social Media Sources

I've found that a lot of people on social media want to talk about entrepreneurship and how it relates to them. It's definitely in style. But how much useful information is there about social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general? I found a couple cool videos that I added to by Entrepreneurship Mix in Storify.


The first video was published by the Stanford Business School and it pretty much explains how social entrepreneurship got started and the different ways it has developed over the years. I definitely think this guy is pretty credible, given that he graduated from the Stanford Business School and now he's the CEO of a company. I can't really tell where he is location wise but I don't think that matters to much because he's making a video about a concept so that doesn't have any definite location either. Because I found this video on Storify, I couldn't see anything about their network or how many people follow them but again, I'll credit the Stanford Business School and assume that it's a pretty substantial amount. The information in the video is definitely reliable and I have no problem basing my analysis on what he's provided me.

The second video is a TED talk given be Dan Pallotta. Because it's a TED talk, and he's led a number of non-profits, I'm going to consider him credible source and assume that the content in the talk is all pretty good. Because I"m not getting this information from his posts on social media, I don't really have access to contextual updates or the age of his account, but I'm sure that the information is reliable because it's associated with TED. The location of this talk is in Long Beach, California, and his network is everyone that watches TED talks plus all of the people that work with or benefit from his non-profit work. This talk really opened my eyes to the way non-profits are viewed differently than for-profits and the ways that non-profits are actually at a huge disadvantage when you consider the different market conditions.

Evaluation of Scholarly Sources

Generally, I don't look for scholarly articles that have to do with entrepreneurship because I assume that scholarly articles would be more of a "study" of entrepreneurs rather than actionable advice. These two articles definitely changed my mind though and reading them gave me some valuable insight.

Source #1: An Amazing Grasp of Context

Purpose: Describe Peter Drucker's thoughts on entrepreneurship

Published: Wiley

Cited Sources: Peter Drucker

Author: Bob Buford

Audience: Students/Budding entrepreneurs reading Wiley

Source #2: Creating a Personal Leadership Strategy

Purpose: Detail what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur

Published: Wiley

Cited Sources:

Author: Derek Lidow

Audience: Students/Budding entrepreneurs reading Wiley

So.. is context really everything?

Evaluation of General Sources

I've always been interested in being an entrepreneur and getting the chance to do my own thing, but I also love to support other people. Recently I've been learning more and more about the concept of keeping the people within your business safe and the ways that that will improve performance. Then I discovered social entrepreneurship, which was the exact thing that I wanted to do but I didn't have the words for it.

"Richard Branson." Widjaya Ivan. 3/18/15 via Flickr. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike.

Source #1: Forbes.com; "People over profit"

URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/evankirkpatrick/2015/05/08/entrepreneur-dale-partridge-launches-controversial-book-about-socially-focused-business/

Author: Evan Kirkpatrick

Last Updated: 5/08/15 @ 9:00am

Purpose: Discuss book on People Over Profit philosophy

Graphics: http://blogs-images.forbes.com/evankirkpatrick/files/2015/05/11216300_1601368456770575_1897177694_n-e1431080742554.jpg

Position on Subject: He supports the philosophy

Links: http://peopleoverprofit.com/

Source #2: Harvard Business Review; "Social Entrepreneurship Raises Thorny Questions"

URL: https://hbr.org/2010/08/social-entrepreneurship-success-raises-thorny-questions

Author: Timothy Ogden

Last Updated: August 30, 2010

Purpose: Discuss controversy around social entrepreneurship

Graphics: none

Position on subject: Questioning

Links: lots of them

So what do you think.. is it better to be in the for-profit sector and be a good person or to enter the not-for-profit sector and risk those conflicts of interest in an attempt to help more people?

Entrepreneurship

I plan on majoring in Accounting, Finance, and Entrepreneurship.

I think that out of those three fields of study, entrepreneurship definitely has the most interesting conversations because it's the new thing that everyone is getting fired up about.

The students in the entrepreneurship program all learn about starting a business, and the program actually requires that you start your own business as a capstone project. Learning how to start a business involves coming up with a good idea, rallying people around the idea, and then finding a way to make it profitable. Each of these three steps takes a significant about of skill because it's hard to come up with good ideas that nobody has thought of before, and it's even harder to rally people around things that they may not be sure about, and finally it takes a lot of careful planning to make any idea profitable.

The coolest thing to me about the entrepreneurship program is that students graduate as business owners, and so many of them go on to cultivate and grow their business but they also go to work in other fields because they don't allow people to major only in entrepreneurship.

With that said, I think entrepreneurship is valuable because it gives me the opportunity to figure out what I love and then pursue that on my own terms. The freedom to decide what I'll do with my life is really important to me and that's honestly one of the biggest things that has drawn me to entrepreneurship.

Two entrepreneurs that I look up to are Tai Lopez and Elon Musk. Tai Lopez is a self-made millionaire that also acts as a consultant and investor to other multi-million dollar businesses. I got really into Tai when I watched his TED talk, "The Law of 33%", which talks about the benefits of mentors, reading, and learning from those that are better than you. Elon Musk is a super successful serial entrepreneur. He started PayPal, Tesla, Solar City, and SpaceX. One man created all for of these giant tech based companies and, for me at least, he's the best example of modern entrepreneurship. I think Tai is most exciting to me because his talks provide me with insight and direction for how I might be able to replicate the work of some of the greatest minds the world has ever seen. This is actionable whereas Elon is exciting because he is the metaphorical finish line for me, and knowing about his accomplishments lets me know that I can always keep climbing.

I don't actually know of any major journals that focus exclusively on entrepreneurship, which may be a factor in why it's so appealing to me. It seems like everybody wants to write about it and glorify entrepreneurs but nobody has really jumped in and dedicated themselves to discussing entrepreneurship besides www.entrepreneurship.org.

Learning Reflection

Now I'll reflect on the Weekly Calendar activity.

Eusebius. "Loch Alsh". 8-1-09 via Wikipedia. CC A 3.0.

The Weekly Calendar activity was actually pretty easy to do because I already have a schedule that I keep so I can keep track of all of my appointments, office hours, and other engagements over the summer. My plan for completing the coursework over the next few weeks is to get everything done in the morning. I wake up every day at 4:56am and instead of reading personal growth books or exercising or whatever, I'll be working on assignments for this class. The goal is to work on English from 5am to 7am every day and be done for the day no later than 8am. With this schedule I should be able to complete between 14-21 hours of work every week without ever taking out time during the day. With this system, I should be able to allocate an hour or two in the middle of the day so that I can get above 26 hours for the week. Given the expectations for this course, this time management setup should lead to success over the next five weeks. We'll see!

My Thoughts on Public Comments

• How would you describe the fears and anxieties being expressed in these comments? What are these commenters afraid of, specifically?
• What kinds beliefs and values are represented in these comments? How would you characterize the kinds of values and beliefs being expressed in the comments?
• Which commenters came across as the most reasonable? What made them seem reasonable?
• Which commenters came across as lacking credibility or trustworthiness? Why didn’t they seem trustworthy?

I think there are two distinct fears present throughout this string of comments: fear of ignorance, and fear of 'them'. A good amount of the comments talk about how Donald Trump is a racist or a bigot or any number of other negative things. But another section of them agree with Trump, and express a fear of the immigrants. This is a classic 'us vs. them' conflict where people have a clear fear of what they don't understand, and obviously most of these people don't understand Mexico's situation or its culture or its people. Fear of the unknown has been around since day one, hence the nightlight.

Similarly to the two opposing fears, there are three distinct sets of beliefs and values that I noticed. The first set that I noticed were those people that agree with Donald Trump and believe that Mexican immigrants are a problem and they are ruining our country. I would characterize these beliefs as racist or ignorant. Then there are the people directly opposed to Trump, and they express the belief that Trump himself is a racist or ignorant and that his ideas have no place in American politics. I think it's interesting to note that instead of voicing support for immigrants, they chose to speak out against Trump. Finally, the third subset of beliefs that I noticed are those people on either side (generally agreeing or disagreeing with Trump) that chose to recognize deeper, more fundamental issues that could be at the root of the more superficial conflicts that Trump is harping on. Instead of worrying about immigrants and murders, we should be worrying about why these people are doing what they do.

I think the most reasonable arguments were the ones that acknowledged both sides of the issue. For me personally, it's much easier to listen to people that don't take on some of the extreme viewpoints expressed in some of the comments. For instance, Jake doesn't sound like a radical in his comment, and even though he states strong support for Trump he comments on both sides and that gives him a lot of credibility in my book.

"Give my your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" This is the quote on the Statue of Liberty.

Most of the commenters came across as lacking credibility. For one, if you can't use 'to' vs. 'too' correctly, I'm not going to consider your opinion on an issue as complex as whether or not to deny access to people who are willing to risk their lives trying to gain access to our country in hopes of a better life when THE STATUE OF LIBERTY says that we should take the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But regardless, I also don't believe in extreme ideologies and the people that claim to be 100% in support of either side without fully considering the alternatives are obviously missing the big picture. 

Black Life Matters

Gabrielle Union Discusses Police and Blacks. via Wall Street Journal Video

Here, Actress Gabrielle Union discusses how she raises her children in a world where she knows they're not necessarily safe in their own skin. Many times people associate police brutality with hoodrats and thugs, but the truth is that any black person could be seen as such and then attacked without good reason. So when teaching your children to be upstanding members of society won't keep them safe, what do you teach them? This is a question my mom and my grandmother have struggled with for the past 19 years.

@SpotJSO. "Surviving a Police Encounter." 7/11/15 via Twitter. Public Domain.

My Writing Process

What type of writer do you consider yourself to be?

• I'm definitely a procrastinator, but I also think I'm a pretty heavy planner. Usually I take a lot of time thinking about what I'll say, writing and rewriting the paper in my head, but won't actually write anything concrete until the last couple days before a deadline.

Does your writing process include several of the above approaches? If so, which ones?

• Yeah. Procrastinator and heavy planner. Sometimes when I'm writing the paper, if I can't think of what I'd planned to say next I'll take a break and come back to it later once I remember what I decided what would come next so I suppose that makes me a Sequential Composer too.

Does your writing process seem to be successful? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your approach?

• I'd say so. But I've only taken one writing/composition class in college so I really can't say that the process works extraordinarily well. However I do feel like one of its strengths is that it gives me a good chance to flesh out my thoughts and explore some interesting ideas since I take so long to think about the paper before writing it. I think once you actually start writing something, it's a lot harder to erase what you just wrote and go in another direction. But since most of that experimentation happens in my head, I have free reign to take it wherever I want and come up with some really cool stuff. A weakness would be that I usually don't start writing until the last day or two so if I end up with a paper I'm not happy with, there's really not a lot of time for me to change that.

Do you think it might be beneficial for you to try a different approach? Why or why not?

• Definitely. I'm always down for trying new things. I think that's really always the goal because when you try new things it opens your eyes to different ways of getting things done. It's an opportunity to take what you like and add it to your repertoire, which is always a good way to improve your habits and processes. 

Feraliminal. "Turtle-Thinking." 11/7/2010 via openclipart. Public domain.