According to this website, immediacy allows for a synthetic experience of reality that generated real emotions. For example, a horror film that has its viewers clutching their seats and jumping at the slightest noise has achieved immediacy. The film transcends its status as just that; a staged, planned, and recorded movie. It becomes "real" for the audience. Hypermediacy, on the other hand, calls attention to the medium. This would occur while watching a film and reveling in its special effects created by computer. Here is a good explanation of the relationship between immediacy and hypermediacy: "Immediacy erases that limits of what we are capable of experiencing, while hypermediacy gives us the power and the means by which to experience it."

According to this article, making a video resume can be a challenge. It offers five tips from "pros in the know," plus actually sample video resumes. The first tip is to make sure a video resume is appropriate. A video resume may be acceptable for certain professions and wrong for others. Secondly, do not just read from the resume. The point of a video resume is to  present some additional insight into your character and capabilities. Next, keep the video short, around one minute. Four, don't avoid creativity; let your personality shine through. Finally, if you wouldn't want your family or friends to see the video, then don't submit it.

A formal report, as opposed to an informal one, is usually meant for an external audience. The readers will be someone in another company or organization. A formal report is often longer and requires more extensive research. A formal report can also contain a proposal. This text mentions the four R's of planning: reason, receiver, restrictions, and research. The first step is to consider the reason for writing the report. Another thing to consider is which restrictions are needed. For example, is there a strict deadline for the report? Am I able to make graphs/charts or find appropriate images? Next, decide on research. Is the subject too broad or too narrow? This is where brainstorming can help. Finally, determine how to carry out research. What will my sources be? How easily can I access them? The text offers organization suggestions and provides examples of the set up.

This article provides an additional perspective of the "media revolution."  In its ability to transmit knowledge, a medium is a catalyst to open up new possibilities and perspectives to its audience. The media revolution took place when digitalization became a global and universal process. It is also described here as "irreversible;" it involves a great deal of change at the economic, social, political, and cultural levels of a society. This article also covers the process of shifting into a more computerized state; the first stage, for example, involves adapting traditional tasks from the old medium to the new. From there, the people speculate about the future.

This website offers more information on the phenomenon of "Groupthink," how to spot it, and how to avoid it. This is mainly intended for the workplace, but a lot of it is relevant for school groups, too. The term "Groupthink" was coined by Irving Janis, who pointed out that Groupthink occurs when there is one strong, persuasive group leader, a high level of group cohesion, and intense pressure from an outside source to make a good decision. This site suggests that when a group is in the decision-making process, in order to avoid Groupthink, they should make a point to explore objectives and alternatives, as well as to encourage members to challenge each others' ideas. The "Team Writing" text mentioned using brainstorming as a tactic, in which ideas are allowed to flow freely without any form of evaluation from the group. This site mentions such a tactic, as well as spreading out contribution to include everyone and giving each member a different perspective so that someone will always be playing the "Devil's Advocate."

Includes a "Categories of Works" section discussion the types of works covered by copyright, such as literary works, musical and dramatic works, pantomimes and choreography, pictorial and graphic works, sculptures, films and other audiovisual works, sound recordings, and finally architectural works. Copyrighted works can fall into more than one category (a play is both a literary and dramatic work, for example) and the list is not exhaustive. A work that doesn't seem to fit into any of these categories could still be covered by copyright if it is "an original work of authorship." The chapter then covers each category in more detail. Literature, for example, is defined not just as novels and plays but also movie scripts, letters, email messages, blogs, computer programs, and even souvenir T-shirt messages. It also doesn't have to be tangible; a short story doesn't need to be published in physical format to be copyrighted.

This website offers suggestions made by actual students on "surviving" and "thriving" in a group project environment. One student reiterates Team Writing by suggesting the use of a team charter. A "kick-out" clause is included here, which clear states the consequences if someone does not attend meetings or does his or her work. Other students bring up being open-minded about criticism from other team members and listening to their advice. However, this site recommends assigning roles based on the members' strengths, not on what they would like to learn. I suppose it depends on the deadline and complexity of the project.

This site includes several visuals to supplement the presented material on using flow in page design. The primary elements are most important and are intended to be seen first. Other elements are best viewed after the primary element. This hierarchy can be established through flow. An entry point is something that stands out from everything else so that the audience will look at it first. Obvious directional cues include arrows, people/faces looking in one direction, and perspective. Repetition and space can also be used to create flow.

A whole site dedicated to using Wordpress! There are so many themes that it's incredibly difficult to choose!  This site suggests going through the various view options, such as the front page view, single page view, and the comments, and them comparing how each appear. Is the sidebar present in all views or just some? Does the header change, etc.? The author of this site suggests going through and investigating every aspect of the new theme. The site also lists the various layout options and also suggests that content match theme. What impression do I wish my audience to have?

This site offers 110 suggestions made by actual bloggers on how to improve a blog! While a number of them cannot be applied to my course blog (I'm not collaborating with anyone else, for example), there was still plenty of relevant advice. Even though I am given the topics to cover, I can still let my own personality come through. This relates to the course outcome of performance; a blog needs to feel like it was written by a human being and not by a robot.  I could also start adding videos that contribute to my audience's understanding. I know that the sample rhetoric on the town assignment included a video of the advertisement the student had analyzed. Another good suggestion is to break up the paragraphs, which I try to do, or use bullet points. Another blogger suggests using subheads.

This website offers some suggestions of the types of elements that can be repeated. Heading and subheading styles, for example, can be varied bu using different colors, stronger fonts, or larger font sizes. A consistent overall color scheme can also help unify a page; this site suggests selecting a few key colors and then applying that throughout the project. Quote I liked: "Repetitive elements create a sense of organization. The effect is the same as using a consistent unit of measurement - it helps interpret the meaning of the object under consideration, and it helps to identify all elements as part of the same site." (Or page/project).

This website expands on the grid discussion in the textbook. It offers a template called the 960 grid system, which refers to the width of the viewport, which is the area in the browser in which the website is displayed. The height of the example template, the artboard, is three scrolls of the screen height. I found this interesting because according to the author, three is the average number of scrolls a user with an average amount of interest will scroll,

This webpage explores asymmetry in web design. The author mentions that many websites use the technique of balancing a large image on one side with text on the other. He talks about how an image can be directly tied with the text, such as an example of a product, or it could be more decorative in that it plays off an idea presented by the site but doesn't necessarily reflect the product or service. This site also explores the use of backgrounds and how to perhaps make a common two-column design more unique.

This website offers tips for using contrast in web design. The author focuses on three aspects of contrast: color, size, and alignment. He presents some excellent examples of each. Color, for instance, is used in example to differentiate the header, content, and footer sections of the sample webpage. Size can be used to separate elements when the color scheme is limited. This author comments that alignment can be tricky, especially when using multiple alignments.  Centering a large paragraph is a "big typography no-no." However, centering a heading and then left-aligning the content paragraphs can work.

This site offers quizzes to see if I'm understanding the concepts! It also presents some good pointers about avoiding making a joke or overwhelming the reader with technical information that isn't necessary. It also suggests the use of the present tense. Through its examples, this site in particular emphasizes that in writing instructions, keep the audience in mind. This will be important for me to remember when working on my project.

This site is really simple but offers some good points about designing effective logos. The textbook offers an example of logo design, so I wanted to explore some more information. According to this site, there are four main principles: the logo should be simple, versatile, memorable, and relevant. One good point the author made was that most of the top corporate companies use only one or two colors in their logo. A logo must also be expected to appear in many different formats, ranging from a billboard designed to be seen from a distance to a logo etched onto a pencil.

Informative post about how the human brain registers hierarchy naturally and techniques that can be used to achieve effective visual hierarchy in web desgin. The site offers examples of each method: size, color, contrast, alignment, repetition, proximity, density and whitespace, and finally style and texture. I particularly like this quote: "Good visual hierarchy isn't about wild and crazy graphics or the newest photoshop filters, it's about organizing information in a way that's usable, accessible, and logical to the everyday site visitor."

This site describes various ways that a focal point can be established. The focal point could be in some way noticeably different in appearance/ orientation/color than the other elements, or its placement on the page determines its focal point status. This site offers examples of each type.

I looked up more information on copywriting because one of my closest friends recommended it as a career path for me. She told me how much she admired their expertise in the marketing fields. This site will be useful if I decide to pursue this career path. I still have so much to learn!

This site offers a step-by-step process of generating thumbnail sketches. The author of this site echoes the textbook's stress on the importance of this seemingly insignificant step. It can be a real time saver to help develop a composition from its earliest conception when my ideas are still a little fuzzy.