Journal Prompt 8

Textual Artifacts

One artifact is an email that the NFL website sends to me every year reminding me when fantasy football starts and when drafts become available. Also, they recommend their own little draft pack that you can choose to buy for a certain amount of money to help you draft your team and draft day. The achieve a sense of intertextuality by saying somethings like about draft day, draft packs, and other essentials to the draft that use specific terms that outsiders wouldn't understand right away. The email is usually very colorful and right in your face with a big yellow rectangle with the words, "Draft now" in big black bold letters. The email does achieve its goal by getting the attention of the reader of the email because when you get the email you usually go right away and sign up for a league. Which is the goal of the email that is sent out.

Another artifact that I saw before the NFL season started was that ESPN was previewing the season then cut to break and present information about the fantasy football league they offer. Telling where to go online and how to set it up. Then they would bring in the fantasy football "expert" and give his opinion on who's going to surprise during the year and who's going to do nothing during the year. But they don't say it like that, they say who's going to have a breakout year and who's going to be a bust, which is terms that some outsiders don't know unless they have played fantasy football. Usually when people see this part of Sportscenter is gets their attention and leads to people signing up to fantasy football, which is the goal of them doing what they did and it is successful.

Then another sign that fantasy football is coming is the magazines that get published to the local grocery stores and convenient stores. Differing from the big companies like CBS who makes their big magazine focusing on the stars of the league all the way to little companies that are make up of geeks who predict what each player is going to do during the season stat-wise based on schedule, last year, etc. I have for sure seen people buy these magazines at the drafts I have gone to because they say it helps pick their team. It's funny though because no one can really predict the season since there are so many changes during the year and between weeks. The magazine gets bought so it definitely achieves its goal of getting the public to buy their predictions for their draft.

First Day Narrative

When I first learned about this discourse community was back maybe in the year 2004, when I first moved here to Florida. This was because my dad was in a league with all of his old friends he still had in California. Everything was new to me except for all the names of the players since I already followed football. My dad taught me all the little terms like free agents, waiver wire, player statuses, etc. but I learned it all pretty quick and wanted to have my own team right there after. The thing I didn't know was that my dad had to pay for the league and I didn't have the money, but he did tell me there were free leagues that I could sign up for and I did. I never knew I could be like a manager of a team and decide who plays and who doesn't based on their opponent. I could pick who ever I wanted as long as the person before didn't pick him before me, and if that happened I got pissed. The draft was my favorite part of the whole thing because it was a thrill waiting for it to be my turn and pick the best player available.

Journal Prompt 7

The discourse community that I chose was fantasy football. It's hard to say how many people actually play fantasy football, but I would say more than a million. But in my league I have eleven other teams including mine. Each league cuts down the community to less people since there is a limit to how many teams are allowed to be in the league. Ranging from six teams to 20 teams. There are also different websites too, including ESPN, Yahoo, NFL, etc. that allow people to create leagues for themselves and their friends. And there's no limit to how many teams someone might have.

To be in a fantasy football league there is a lot of communication that one needs to know. For example words like free agent, waiver wire, trade, add/drop, injury reports, and practice schedules. There's communication between teams for trading players through calls, text messages or even emails through the site. But, also one can send a trade to see if someone will accept it, decline it, or send a trade back. There is also communication when everyone drafts their teams unless the computer does it for the league, but that's uncommon since everyone likes picking the guys they want. While drafting there's always communication where people in the league can voice their opinion of who got drafted where.

All fantasy leagues have a purpose and the purpose to win it all. Everyone is competing for the top spot and have the privilege to brag about how good their team is and how good they picked their team. Some of the times, there is betting involved. Where the winner gets all the money in the pot, so everyone's trying to win the money involved. Also, to pick the best team during the draft is definitely another purpose to fantasy football, but that shouldn't be the case because a team can be made with free agents and trades.

There are many rules to fantasy football. Once a player is on another person's team, the only way he can be picked up is if the player is dropped or traded. If dropped though the team with the worst record has the first say in whether he would like to pick him up, if not then it keeps going until it finally reaches the team with the best record. If not picked up by anyone he then clears waivers and is a free agent, where anyone who pleases can pick him up if wanted. Also, not every team makes the playoffs, so everyone better hope the team that gets picked has a winning record.

This is one discourse community has many hidden terms that many people who are not apart of fantasy people wouldn't know. For example back to the injury reports, which have to looked at very carefully because it determines whether the players that are on a team will play or not. Paying close attention to P for probable, Q for questionable, and D for doubtful. Probable means he most likely will play depending on a set back, questionable is a 50-50 ordeal based on game-time decision, and doubtful is pretty straight forward meaning the player won't play. Each are vital to determine who wins during the week head to head since every point counts. Finally, it's important to keep track of the practice schedule because if a player doesn't practice then it usually means they aren't going to play. So fantasy football owners have to know DNP, did not practice, LP, limited practice, and FP, full practice.

Journal Prompt 6

Part Two

Here is some clips from SNL where there is a lot of intertextuality.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/73362/saturday-night-live-jeopardy

http://www.hulu.com/watch/12768/saturday-night-live-celebrity-jeopardy---cruise-sandler-and-connery

http://www.hulu.com/watch/60457/saturday-night-live-celebrity-jeopardy-cosby-osbourne-connery

http://www.hulu.com/watch/12203/saturday-night-live-celebrity-jeopardy---stewart-reynolds-and-connery

The reason that it has intertextuality is because Jeopardy is a show itself and SNL remade the show with their actors playing the part of the game show people. Then instead of the random people playing the game they instead play the parts of celebrities that are playing Jeopardy. Makes reference to people like Bill Cosby, Tom Cruise, Sean Connery, and Adam Sandler, which it relies on to make it funny since it makes fun of them and what they have said in the past. With most importantly Alex Trebek being recreated as the the host of the show by Will Farrell. So by recreating a whole new setting of the Jeopardy it creates this new discourse community that people can laugh about together while still poking fun at the celebrities it is making fun of.

Journal Prompt 6

Part One

Some discourse communities that I belong to are:

• Facebook
• UCF Student
• Alum from Cypress Bay High
• UCF Student section for football and basketball
• Accounting major
• iPhone user
• Playstation 3 user
• MacBook Pro user
• Lightning Lunatic
• Fantasy Football
• Dorm
• Kelapire-Barksdale Family
• 49ers fan
• Male

Core II Reflection

I actually liked this essay a lot even though I had some problems with it. I kind of got stuck with a few things like about what to write about and to stay on topic. It seemed so easy to get off topic and write about something that has nothing to do with the topic or what I was trying to prove, but I thought I did a good job. But, I liked having to analyze something and be able to say my opinion on it, without being wrong or write. Again, I felt like I could put myself in the essay very easily and tell my reader's how I felt about the magazine through my eyes. So, it was successful.

Journal Prompt 5

Part Three (Article)

The article that I chose was the main one about Ryan Reynolds, which is written from the writer's perspective and include some quotes from Ryan himself. The sentence structure is very simple, not of high level. The word choice is interesting because it is simple in some instances and intense in others. One of the best examples of this is in the writing I found was in the introduction to the article, "Trepidation." What in the world does this word mean? According to Dictionary.com, the word means tremulous fear, alarm, or agitation; perturbation. If I didn't look it up, I would have no clue what it means and I'm guessing a lot of other people don't know what it means either since I have never heard it before. Then the arrangement is in chronological order of his life from when he grew up to where he is now, since it first talks about his parents and where he was born. To when he first began to act and when his first gigs were.

Compared to the letter from the editor is a little out of nowhere. The whole letter is about quotes from other people and what not. But, it is different because there is a different style of writing. The letter uses curse words and other strong words that would never be found in the article that I read because it wouldn't be inappropriate. The advertisements I consider to be more edgy like the letter from the editor so they match more than the article, which is more informational and proper.

My initial observation is that the article is very simple and easy to read. No big deal. The letter from the editor was different and didn't understand where they were coming from because I didn't read any other articles before then. Maybe if they would have explained the reason to where they were writing it would have been better, but they didn't. The writers keep it easy on the audience since they don't use big words and don't have much writing, it's mostly pictures and advertisements. Then they try to connect to the audience of men by including pictures of women or well dressed men that some guys aspire to look like when they have the money to spend on clothes. But keeps it easy, so people don't give up on reading after one sentence. The purpose of the article is to give a background about Ryan Reynolds and what he wants to do in the future with his acting career. The author wants the audience to feel like they can accomplish their dreams like how Ryan Reynolds did, since he did it and everything is possible.

Based on the article it tells us that the author wants to encourage its reader that they can accomplish whatever they put their mind to and to not give up their dreams if it hasn't come easy. Because you have to work for what you want. GQ wants guys to get their dreams so they can buy all of the stuff that they advertise, so that it makes us feel better about ourselves and to gain confidence.

Journal Prompt 5

Part Three

The table of contents of GQ is broken down into four different segments. Black is for the different departments, red for intelligence, blue for fashion, and green for features. What is weird about the table of contents is that the features part is on a different page with a picture of Ryan Reynolds on it. Then, the others are on the other page together with some advertisements that have been shrunk to fit on the page, which also include the page that you can find the whole page that it is on. The one part of the table of contents that I think is funny is the little picture of the cover in the lower right hand part of the page that tells the prices of each article of clothing that Ryan Reynolds is wearing.

There isn't much text involved, mostly just the title of the article in bold then a very brief description of what the article is about and where you can find it. To me, the fonts are very small and if someone were to have a problem with their eyes, they would find it difficult to read and probably need glasses. So, when someone wants to read about new ways to dress, 25 sexiest women in rock, or the punch list, they might need to get their reading glasses before opening the magazine. Based on the table of contents the magazine wants me to look at the different articles that they wrote, but mostly they want me to just look at the advertisements and buy the products. This is because the table of contents is 65 pages into the magazine, with all advertisements before. Money, money, money! The advertisements make up a big portion of the magazine because that's how the magazine stays in business even if people don't buy the magazine, and that's why the table of contents is that far from the cover. It's far from a regular book or magazine that has their table of contents on the first page because of the money factor.