Short Assignment #8:

[Potential Genres Proposal]

Q. What are the characteristics of the obituary as a genre?

A. An obituary is meant to inform relatives and friends of someone’s passing. It  notifies the community with details of the service. Usually obituaries tend not to speak ill of the dead. They are pretty straight forward and normally make the deceased look good in the ''picture'' -it is one's ticket way out, so people are tendentiously nice.

Q. How well does the Jackson obituary meet those characteristics?  Please quote from the source in support of your claim.

A. The obituary meets these characteristics as it was as mentioned, pretty much straight forward. Considering the notorious acts of one MJ, I would say they ''sweetened the pill'' very much. Euphemisms are something you will find a lot in his obituary. ''But soon afterward, his career started a bizarre disintegration.'', and the also speak about the best in him ‘’At the height of his career, he was indisputably the biggest star in the world; he has sold more than 750 million albums. Radio stations across the country reacted to his death with marathon sessions of his songs. MTV, which grew successful in part as a result of Mr. Jackson’s groundbreaking videos, reprised its early days as a music channel by showing his biggest hits.’’

Q. Do you detect any bias?  If so, what kind?  Where?

A. I believe it did show a little bias with the euphemisms (which is natural in a obituary), but did a decent job at trying to state facts without  showing a personal opinion.

‘’His public image wavered between that of the musical naïve, who wanted only to recapture his youth by riding on roller-coasters and having sleepovers with his friends, to the calculated mogul who carefully constructed his persona around his often-baffling public behavior.’’

Q. Who is the intended audience of the Jackson obituary? How do you know? Again, please quote from the source.

A. The intended audience are his fans, friends, family and people who read gossip magazines. “I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news” the music producer Quincy Jones said in a statement. “I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”

considering the following part 2:

My research question is “Can videogames benefit modern society?”

I will compose in three different genres a composition. Such genres will be very opposite to each other, but they will address the same topic and target the same audience. Imagine ‘’Whistler’s Mother’’ but painted by DaVinci, Pablo Juan Ruiz Picasso, and Yoko Ono – three art pieces, all on the same subject but that differ in the manner in which they are seen by the author, the way the author delivers his/hers master piece to the world. Three very different children from a unique mother, like ‘’Rondo Alla Turca’’ played by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as he wrote it (Classical), Fazil Say (Jazz), and Scott Joplin (Ragtime).

Q: Write a proposal outlining the ones you’re thinking about using in your composition (you will be selecting two, while the third will be the required infographic, for the Major Assignment #3)

A: I am thinking about writing a script for a YouTube channel, an article for a newspaper and, as requested an infographic (flyer).

In my earlier research I decided to investigate a subject which has been greatly discussed over the past decades. Do video games benefit modern society or are they destroying us? If they do benefit us, what is the scientific evidence if there is one?

The first genre which is a script for a YouTube channel dedicated to technology was chosen because of the intrinsic relation between videogames and technology. This is a medium through which one can reach the specified target audience.   Also, there is the need to demonstrate the differences when using different genres, so very different media would be ideal.

Newspaper article was the second selected genre. Almost everyone reads newspapers, even if today it is on-line. Again, there is a very specific way to write a newspaper article,  due to the format , space restrictions, and a type of writing that has become a symbol of printed  journalism in the English language.