For my group project, my group has created a website promoting safety for students here on USM’s campus. Our website includes a lot of different information concerning safety. We have a section dedicated to safety tips for students to utilize. We also have a section that has contact information if a student has safety issues that they need addressed. I created a map of the campus that has shown the areas that are of safety issues due to the lightning on campus.
In our presentation, I think it is a must that we walk through our website. I think it is a good idea to lead the rest of the class through the website together. It will be important to explain what each section is and the different kinds of information that it contains. It will also be necessary for us to explain why we made the decisions that we did. For instance, why we made the background of our website the way we did. Explaining to the rest of the class the reasons why we made the decisions we did is going to be important in giving the presentation. I think our presentation needs to be very upbeat and attention grabbing. By visually going through our website, I think that will be good to show some of the different clips that we have on there. This will keep our audience’s attention more so than one of us just talking. I also think it may would be a good idea to give a few handouts to students on shocking safety statistics. We could also give handouts that have good safety tips for students to use. This will also help to draw our audience in. I think because we chose to do a website this will make it easier to have visual aids. I believe our presentation will go well.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Blog assignment #8
Editorial:
What does the phrase “locally grown” mean to you? For some it’s a phrase that’s thrown around into free-loving hippy connotations. But the truth is that one does not have to be an earthy bohemian to support local farmers. In fact, the whole community needs to be on the bandwagon. It’s America’s farmers who put the bread on the table for us. Most of us do not have the talent, patience, and will to make our own food. We depend on other people to do it for us. Therefore shouldn’t we be more appreciative for those who literally keep us alive? But supporting local farmers also allows for other benefits as well. Buying from local farms allows for less distance traveled to get to your home. This in turn decreases the amount of carbon emissions that releases into the atmosphere. By shopping locally, your also helping out the environment. That’s two birds with one stone. Why not shop locally? When you shop locally, you are actually knowing where your food comes from. You have access to all kinds of information that can be essential to your health like whether or not your food was treated with hormones or chemicals But if your still not convinced how this can really make a difference or what’s in it for you, how about a monetary incentive? By shopping locally you stimulate the economy which in turn means you get a bigger paycheck. Everybody wins. There is a website called Local Harvest. The link is :
http://www.localharvest.org/events.jsp. This is an excellent site that you can have access to all sorts of information regarding farming events and local farms in your area. There is a newsletter that gives recent information. There is even a blog that you can talk to other people about farming related issues. The bottom line is to get informed. Know who your local farmers are. Support them. Educate others. Do something.
Rhetorical Situation:
The reason I chose the topic of supporting local farmers is because it is something I care about. This wave of the green movement is pretty recent. Shopping locally and living greener has been a hot topic. This helped in deciding what my topic was going to be. I also gave consideration in my tone of my editorial. I wanted to write in a way that would grab the reader and to keep them engaged. I did not want to “bore” them. By asking questions throughout, I kept that connection between the reader and I. This drew them in and presented a greater chance of them being persuaded by my editorial to support local farmers. I think that this editorial may appear in a newspaper. I have seen similar editorials like this. The audience that I will be writing to is a wide range of audience. There will be people of all different backgrounds possibly reading this. This is why I addressed to stereotypic image that shopping locally has created. I wanted to address this so open up a broader range of people. I would hope that people would have a desire to learn more about the local farms around where they live. I would hope that at least people would become more interested even if they did not actually shop locally. The ultimate goal would be though to get people to buying locally home grown products. Not only for the betterment for local farms. But for the betterment for the community and environment.
What does the phrase “locally grown” mean to you? For some it’s a phrase that’s thrown around into free-loving hippy connotations. But the truth is that one does not have to be an earthy bohemian to support local farmers. In fact, the whole community needs to be on the bandwagon. It’s America’s farmers who put the bread on the table for us. Most of us do not have the talent, patience, and will to make our own food. We depend on other people to do it for us. Therefore shouldn’t we be more appreciative for those who literally keep us alive? But supporting local farmers also allows for other benefits as well. Buying from local farms allows for less distance traveled to get to your home. This in turn decreases the amount of carbon emissions that releases into the atmosphere. By shopping locally, your also helping out the environment. That’s two birds with one stone. Why not shop locally? When you shop locally, you are actually knowing where your food comes from. You have access to all kinds of information that can be essential to your health like whether or not your food was treated with hormones or chemicals But if your still not convinced how this can really make a difference or what’s in it for you, how about a monetary incentive? By shopping locally you stimulate the economy which in turn means you get a bigger paycheck. Everybody wins. There is a website called Local Harvest. The link is :
http://www.localharvest.org/events.jsp. This is an excellent site that you can have access to all sorts of information regarding farming events and local farms in your area. There is a newsletter that gives recent information. There is even a blog that you can talk to other people about farming related issues. The bottom line is to get informed. Know who your local farmers are. Support them. Educate others. Do something.
Rhetorical Situation:
The reason I chose the topic of supporting local farmers is because it is something I care about. This wave of the green movement is pretty recent. Shopping locally and living greener has been a hot topic. This helped in deciding what my topic was going to be. I also gave consideration in my tone of my editorial. I wanted to write in a way that would grab the reader and to keep them engaged. I did not want to “bore” them. By asking questions throughout, I kept that connection between the reader and I. This drew them in and presented a greater chance of them being persuaded by my editorial to support local farmers. I think that this editorial may appear in a newspaper. I have seen similar editorials like this. The audience that I will be writing to is a wide range of audience. There will be people of all different backgrounds possibly reading this. This is why I addressed to stereotypic image that shopping locally has created. I wanted to address this so open up a broader range of people. I would hope that people would have a desire to learn more about the local farms around where they live. I would hope that at least people would become more interested even if they did not actually shop locally. The ultimate goal would be though to get people to buying locally home grown products. Not only for the betterment for local farms. But for the betterment for the community and environment.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Blog Assignment #7
The website I chose to evaluate for this blog assignment is the website for a garden center I work for. It is the Stepping Stone Rock and Garden Center. It is located in Hattiesburg. The link for the website is http://thesteppingstone.net
I like the web design of this site. It is very brightly colored. This is appropriate for the rhetorical situation. The bright colors remind me of brightly colored flowers. The Stepping Stone uses this as a strategy to make people think of flowers, which ultimately brings the hope of selling plants. Also all the major headings are at the top left. This makes it easy to navigate through the website. I like the fact that there are pictures of the different plants and pictures of the store. This makes me familiar with the store before actually going there. I also like how the store hours are posted on the left. This is very easy to find location.
The website, however, does have some downfalls. I would like to see more information about the store and what products we sell. Under the tab “Products”, there is also sections with information about the plants, stone, pottery, applications, and fountains. The page under each one just gives a short description. There is not a lot of detailed information given. For instance, I think that maybe there should be a plant list of exactly what plants we carry available. This may create more work to do this, but I think it will pay off. Customers want to know what we have. They often refer to the internet to see what stores have before they actually visit the store. I think having a product availability sheet will be beneficial to the store.
On the “Services” tab, there are sections with each of the kinds of services that the Stepping Stone offers: Irrigation, Landscape Design, Hardscape Installation, Rock Engraving, and Creative Containers. Each of these tabs just offer an overview of information. I think there should be more detailed information regarding these tabs. This could be accomplished by having pictures of past jobs that the store has done. Also I think there should be a approximate price list for each type of job done. That way customers will know exactly how much it will cost them. By having this kind of information, customers know what to expect and this is good for the growth of the business.
The “Contact us” tab is pretty good. It gives the location and number to reach the Stepping Stone. It is set up in an easy to read format. Under the “Garden Calender” section, it is actually blank. This suggests that it is not finished yet. I think having a garden calendar is a great idea if it were to be completed. Having a calendar that shows when to do certain garden activities is very useful in a garden business. It gives customers useful information. Under the “Home” tab, it gives a link that says “joomla web hosting.” This is pretty confusing and I am not sure what purpose this brings. I think these kind of things need to be cleaned up.
Overall the website looks good. I think more detailed information needs to be given though. Especially in the product line. Since this is a business that is directed at selling plants and services, more information needs to be addressed within these topics. I think by supplying the website with more informaition it will help in boosting sales. I also like the fact that they have a place where one can “like” their page as it links to facebook. This uses the idea of social networking and that is really important for a local business.
I like the web design of this site. It is very brightly colored. This is appropriate for the rhetorical situation. The bright colors remind me of brightly colored flowers. The Stepping Stone uses this as a strategy to make people think of flowers, which ultimately brings the hope of selling plants. Also all the major headings are at the top left. This makes it easy to navigate through the website. I like the fact that there are pictures of the different plants and pictures of the store. This makes me familiar with the store before actually going there. I also like how the store hours are posted on the left. This is very easy to find location.
The website, however, does have some downfalls. I would like to see more information about the store and what products we sell. Under the tab “Products”, there is also sections with information about the plants, stone, pottery, applications, and fountains. The page under each one just gives a short description. There is not a lot of detailed information given. For instance, I think that maybe there should be a plant list of exactly what plants we carry available. This may create more work to do this, but I think it will pay off. Customers want to know what we have. They often refer to the internet to see what stores have before they actually visit the store. I think having a product availability sheet will be beneficial to the store.
On the “Services” tab, there are sections with each of the kinds of services that the Stepping Stone offers: Irrigation, Landscape Design, Hardscape Installation, Rock Engraving, and Creative Containers. Each of these tabs just offer an overview of information. I think there should be more detailed information regarding these tabs. This could be accomplished by having pictures of past jobs that the store has done. Also I think there should be a approximate price list for each type of job done. That way customers will know exactly how much it will cost them. By having this kind of information, customers know what to expect and this is good for the growth of the business.
The “Contact us” tab is pretty good. It gives the location and number to reach the Stepping Stone. It is set up in an easy to read format. Under the “Garden Calender” section, it is actually blank. This suggests that it is not finished yet. I think having a garden calendar is a great idea if it were to be completed. Having a calendar that shows when to do certain garden activities is very useful in a garden business. It gives customers useful information. Under the “Home” tab, it gives a link that says “joomla web hosting.” This is pretty confusing and I am not sure what purpose this brings. I think these kind of things need to be cleaned up.
Overall the website looks good. I think more detailed information needs to be given though. Especially in the product line. Since this is a business that is directed at selling plants and services, more information needs to be addressed within these topics. I think by supplying the website with more informaition it will help in boosting sales. I also like the fact that they have a place where one can “like” their page as it links to facebook. This uses the idea of social networking and that is really important for a local business.
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