Report on my Interviews

Luckily both of my interviews were moved to Monday so I can write this post sooner than I thought! Yay!

1. Three genres that my interviewees talked about are:

• Data Analysis
• Social Writing (I'll elaborate)
• Consideration of Law Enforcement (I'll also elaborate)

2. Data analysis is, while it exists as a writing of its own, was mainly talked about as a method to use to gain information for other writings- a bridge if you will. The data is used to see whether or not certain hypotheses are valid. Social writing was done by both my interviewees, Bambauer with a focus on use of drug sniffing dogs and Barnes on racial profiling and the stigma that surrounds police today. I read papers from each of them, and social writings tend to focus on today's issues, mainly controversy in fields that are considered important. Consideration of Law Enforcement can be it's own genre but was mostly manipulated by my interviewees as an element for their papers, but it's prevalence stems from how relevant it is today. 

3. What seemed challenging for my interviewees was that sometimes you want to write about something that you have a passion for or interest in, but not much research has been conducted about it. This can result in sparse sources or, on rare occasion, the task of doing your own research. 

4. Bambauer in particular seemed to be very rewarded by the fact that many times she has to go into a writing with an open mind and exploratory initiative. She said that sometimes she may think one thing but by doing the research realizes that another is true, which she find very rewarding. 

5. Examples of these can be found on CNN every day. The Black Lives Matter movement has brought to light the injustice of the police force and that is a main focus of Barnes. Their topics are very easily accessed because they both write in relevant categories for today's issues. 

Report on my Interviews

This is anticlimactic, but my interviews are scheduled for next week, so stay tuned!

From Academia to Social Media

In this post I'll be examining the social media presence of one of my chosen authors from the American Journal of International Law. I've chosen Mark Weston Janis.

1. The name again is Mark Weston Janis, and I have found him on:

• Facebook
• Mentioned (in a professional context) on Twitter, but does not have a handle. 

2. Although most of the context he's found in is professional, it's a very small amount. He seems to be one of those people who only have a Facebook to show that they exist and are married (he only has three posts, one of his kids and another showing he is married to his wife). He has no twitter handle, but is talked about professionally and regarding books he's written.

While there's nothing wrong with this, it's a feeble presence. In this day and age to be popular, even in a professional setting, you need a presence online. Mark Weston Janis barely has one. 

3. Their personas are barely different (between internet and his articles) because the only context he is mentioned in online is that of what he's written. Besides the kids and wife, they are practically the same person. 

Academic Discourse and Genre

In this post I'll be evaluating the different genres I found in my academic journal, American Journal of International Law.

1. It would be most efficient for me to start with an article I've already analyzed, so I will use "Genocide as a Crime Under International Law". This article is highly objective with the purpose of informing the reader about a past legal case. I'm going to call this one "History Lesson".  The next article I found that I liked was called "The Legitimacy of International Governance: A Coming Challenge for International Environmental Law?" This article is far longer and shows multiple points of view about a current issue, so I'll call this one "Debate". And finally, I decided to use 'Jeremy Bentham and the Fashioning of "International Law"'. This is an article of medium length which sounds like it might be a history lesson, but it's different. It's a discussion of how something came to be by looking back at the legacy of a certain figure in the field. For these reasons I'll call it "Reflection".

2. I answered most of this portion in number one, but here I'll reiterate in a way that is more pleasing to read. To sum up, we have three genres:

• History Lesson
• Highly objective
• Purpose to inform
• Subject matter has long been resolved
• Debate
• Very long
• Multiple points of view
• Subject matter is very current
• Reflection
• Medium length
• Discussion 
• Looks at past and future through legacy

3. Again, I answered most of these questions in numbers 1 and 2, but I did not specify a target audience so here I will speculate that.

• History Lesson
• Students
• Those who need to cite sources for a paper
• Debate
• Someone with a genuine interest
• Someone who needs to come up with an informed opinion of their own
• Reflection
• Someone with interest in past v future
• Someone who might need to make a decision about the future of a field (CEO, exec, etc)

As a final note, this post was a tad shifted from the questions, but all the information is there and I believe I've gotten my points across. 

Rhetorical Analysis of an Academic Journal

In this post I'll be analyzing the rhetorical situation of the American Journal of International Law, but to keep things specific I've selected a single article from the Journal- "Genocide as a Crime Under International Law".

1. The author of this article is Raphael Lemkin, frequent contributor to the scholarly journal. The author stays objective, giving a detailed summary of Germany's historic genocide, and why the governments at that time had issues establishing genocide as done to a people by it's government as a criminal act.

2. It can be argued that the intended audience is really anyone who is interested. This could be an excellent source for a paper, as it is largely summation of facts depicting a legal case. The audience is really anyone who is interested in the making of this law and the rights of minorities in any country.

3. The context surrounding this particular issue of lawmaking was obviously Hitler's holocaust, and how lawmakers could prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again. It shows that people were frantic as to be sure that this never would be a problem in any other country, but keeps the writing objective as this was a very long time in the past and not necessarily a sore spot for anyone recently.

4. The message here is mainly to put government initiated genocide in a negative light (obviously, because it is a negative thing) and to depict the facts of what happened in Germany and how, after the fact, this type of crime initiated by the very people who makes law for any given country, could become illegal. I decided this because it's very easy to tell, because as I said earlier, the article is very objective.

5.  I think the purpose of this article in particular is to be a good source for anyone who may need it (students, teachers, etc) seeing as this is not really a trigger event any longer. It happened so long ago but is still a very famous event in history that everyone should learn or otherwise be doomed to repeat it.

My Major

In this post I'll be discussing the different ideas surrounding my major.

1. Students in my department can do many things but the main idea is that they go on to law school to learn how to analyze a case and argue for or against a point.

2. Generally, people in this field become defense or litigation lawyers.

3. Wow that's a long story. But the general idea is that my whole life I have loved to argue my point and let people know that they're wrong and every reason why they are wrong. I'm incredibly passionate about righting any sort of wrong done to people or groups, especially groups that I tend to be a part of. Recently my increasing rate and intensity of conflict with "brother" Dean Saxton and pursuit of having him removed from campus has led me to realize that this may be what I was made for.

4.  To be honest, lawyers aren't terribly exciting. I can't think of anyone (other than OJ Simpson's not-so-recent trial involving Rob Kardashian) in the field of law who is very interesting, because that's not what excites me. It's the doing what lawyers do that excites me. However, I did find a source which led me to the top ranked lawyers of 2016. Here are three of those lawyers:

• W. Donald Cox (who was additionally named lawyer of the year)
• Katherine C. Donlon
• George L. Guerra

5. Here are three leading scholarly journals in the field of law that I was able to find, most published online. 

• American Journal of International Law (published online)
• Human Rights Quarterly (published in print, however links to almost all issues can be found there)
• European Journal of International Law (published both online and in print)

My Interviewees on Social Media

In this post I'll be analyzing the social media presence that each of my interviewees have.

1. Bambauer: Mentioned on, but no identifiable account on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter.
Barnes: None of the above!

2. As Barnes does not seem to have a social media presence I cannot speak for it. However, Bambauer's was very professional. She was mentioned in professional posts on Facebook mainly about papers she has written and events that she has appeared at. Her twitter contains mainly links to her papers and papers written by others in the field of law. The short introduction tweets just discuss the papers and then link them.

3. Again, I cannot speak for Barnes' social media presence. However, Bambauer's seems to be very congruous with her papers. Her tweets reference her papers, she can be found only in a professional setting on Facebook as well as linkedin (although I could not access her full profile). Her entire social media presence seems to consist only of her career in law.

My Interviewees as Professional Writers

In this post I'll be discussing the different writings that my interviewees have published.

1. Bambauer: Jane Bambauer's publications are largely analytical. Primary factors include data and legal education and careers.
Barnes: Katherine Barne's publications have a theme of considering racial profiling in different aspects of life nowadays. She additionally considers those faced with drug charges, sometimes combining the two elements.

2. Bambauer: Bambauer has written "The Secret of My Success: How Status, Prestige and School Performance Shape Legal Careers" and Tragedy of the Data Commons, both in a professional paper format. They differ mainly in subject matter, one covering her apparent interest of legal education and the other of data.
Barnes: Barnes has published "Is Affirmative Action Responsible for the Achievement Gap Between Black and White Law Students?" and "Against Judgement", also both in a professional paper format. These do not differ in any significant way, as they both cover her main topic of racial profiling.

3. The context comes from today's issues, which relate to Bambauer's papers in the context that we now live in an age where college is very necessary and that prestige of a school is a primary consideration when people pick a college to attend. They relate to Barnes' papers in that now is a time where police especially are under fire for cases of racial profiling, along with other groups (fraternities, etc).

4. The message of Bambauer's paper is that you shouldn't choose a school for prestige, because prestigious schools are more difficult and expensive, and these factors play a pretty insignificant role after graduation.
The message of Barnes' paper is that in a school where a student's peers outmatch them, they may not fare very well- this is known as "mismatch theory"

5. The purpose of Bambauer's paper is to inform both prospective and current students, and debunk myths that surround extremely prestigious law schools.
The purpose of Barnes' paper is to investigate how well minority students perform in states with different affirmative action laws, and how well students perform in universities where their peers outmatch them.

My Interview Subjects

In this post, I'll be describing the people I'm scheduled to interview next week. Oh, and I've changed my desired field to law. Fourth time's the charm.

1. I am scheduled to interview Katherine Barnes and Jane Bambauer.

2. Both of these women work for the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. Bambauer is an Associate Professor of Law and Barnes is a Professor of Law, Director of the Rogers Program on Law and Society, and an Associate Professor of Economics.

3. Barnes has a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, School of Statistics. Bambauer has a J.D. from Yale Law School.

4. Barnes has been working in the field for fifteen years, and Bambauer for nine.

5.

Jane Bambauer

Katherine Barnes

6. My interview with Bambauer is scheduled for 11:15 this Monday morning, and my interview with Barnes for 2:30 this Friday afternoon.

7. Questions for Bambauer

• What's it like working here at the College of Law?
• As a (technically undecided) freshman, I'm curious to know- how/when did you know that law was what you wanted to do? Defining moment?
• How did you decide that you wanted to come to Tucson to work for this University in particular?
• What took you from California to Brooklyn and then to Tucson?
• How do you decide what to write about? Things you find interesting, are passionate about, etc? 
• How do you decide how/when to do a collaborative writing?
• How do you conduct your research, and how do you use the link between data and the relationships that interest you? (education/career)
• Your biography says that you write for the Huffington Post- how did you get started doing that and what do you write about? 

Questions for Barnes

• What's it like working here at the College of Law?
• As a (technically undecided) freshman, I'm curious to know- how/when did you know that law was what you wanted to do? Defining moment?
• How did you decide that you wanted to come to Tucson to work for this University in particular?
• How do you decide what to write about? Things you find interesting, are passionate about, etc? 
• How do you decide how/when to do a collaborative writing?
• What was it like being a law clerk for Sonia Sotomayor? 
• What was it like to be a visiting professor abroad in Chile? 
• Many of your writings seem to consider today's issues of racial profiling and things associated with it. In this way would you say you're incorporating an interest/passion of yours by doing these writings?

I repeated a couple questions, but I did this because they are relevant for both interviewees and these are the sections I want to glean the most information about (for example the writing).                

Brutally Honest Self- Assessment

In this post I'll be honestly evaluating myself and my work on project 1.

1. I feel pretty good about what I've submitted as far as conventions and structure go. I think I made a pretty solid QRG. I worry that I have enough details in all the right places, but I think I had good use of short enough paragraphs with space in between, and that I made it "scannable". I think it's attractive to the eye, but I'm a tad worried that my content is all that it should be- even though I'm inclined to believe that it is.

2. I think the biggest weakness of my project is probably coming to a conclusion, because due to the nature of my controversy we won't really have a conclusion. Everyone will never see the same color. I'm also worried that I didn't spend enough time making sure all the details were in place, and in the right place. I sort of have that feeling that even though I think I did everything right, when I get the grade back I'm going to realize I made a major mistake.

3. My biggest strength is that I have a lot of stakeholders and I think I did a thorough job evaluating all of their points of view. I even included some that I didn't have to, like some incorrect scientific evaluations. But I think that added to my controversy because it showed that everyone, even those not qualified, really wanted an explanation for seeing different colors.

4. My time management was patchy. I think I spent a good amount of time developing the QRG itself and I didn't wait on that, but I think that for some of the deadlines (especially pre-production) I waited until the very last day and spent one very long, sad Sunday doing blog posts. My timing could have been better, but it also could have been worse at times too.

Local Revision: Variety

In this post I'll be evaluating my sentence variety.

1. I don't think my sentences are redundant anywhere, but as far as specific words go I use the word "said" a lot as it pertains to quotes. My lengths and word use vary as a whole- in general I think my sentence variation is in a good solid place.

2. My paragraph structures are all similar but I think that's a good thing- it's standard. It shows I'm offering all of my stakeholders equal time and consideration. My transitions between paragraphs and stakeholders are smooth, in general I think I've done well in this category.

3. My only main weakness as far as vocabulary goes is word variation- as I mentioned earlier, I used the word "said" a lot as it pertains to quotes. Additionally, I use the word "see" many times, but it's relevant. I have to use the word because people "see" different colors in the dress. However, in some of these places I can change my word use to something like "perceive".

Local Revision: Pronoun Usage

In this post I'll be evaluating my use of pronouns.

1. There isn't as much pronoun usage as I thought there would be, which I think is good. It means my language is more direct. The references I made the most are to the people who took the photo, which is fine, but it makes it look like I spent more time talking about them than I did when I made my list of pronouns. As they aren't the most important part of this story, they are only my highest reference because I used a lot of pronouns in that particular paragraph.

2. I didn't use any pronouns referring to my audience, but that does not mean I didn't refer to them. I talked about them as anyone having an internet connection trying to find out the color of the dress, simply without using any pronouns.

My Pronouns

In this post I'll be publishing my list of pronouns and to whom they refer. 

1. she (Cecilia Bleasdale)
2. she (Cecilia)
3. she (family friend of Grace)
4. her (Cecilia)
5. she (Cecilia)
6. her (Cecilia)
7. them (Cecilia and her husband)
8. they (Cecilia and her husband)
9. they (Cecilia and her husband)
10. them (Cecilia and her husband)
11. they (Cecilia and her husband)
12. they (Cecilia and her husband)
13. they (Cecilia and her husband)
14. they (scientists at Mashable)
15. he (Ian Sampling)
16. he (Bevil Conway)
17. he (Jay Nietz)

Local Revision: Passive and Active Voice

In this post I'll be evaluating my verb use.
Active (specific)                                   
snapped
disregarded
attended
profited
interviewed
exposed
studied
changed
based
secure
considering
explain
correct
interviews
contains
exist
argue

Active (general)
were
needed
went
said
sent
saw
see

bought

spent 

wore

posted

turned

wore

posted

turned

became

took 

made

left out

wanted

said

took

given

cared

gone

did

done

found

seen

asking

gain 

go

agree

find

figure out

seeing

using

explain

have

look

throw

be

come

Passive
No passive voice!

1. There are no instances of passive voice, which I don't necessarily think is a bad thing. Although I have lots of specific verbs, I have more vague verbs. Sometimes these are necessary, but to improve I can always changed some general verbs to more specific ones.

2. I use lots of verbs more than once, so in addition to making vague verbs more specific, I could add some variety to my verbs and change the ones that I use many times.

Local Revision: Tense Usage

In this post I'll be evaluating my tenses.

Past

1.  were  
2.  needed
3.  went
4.  snapped
5.  sent
6.  said  
7.  saw
8.  disregarded
9.  bought
10.  spent
11.  wore
12.  attended 
13.  posted 
14.  posted
15. turned
16. born
17. became
18. took
19. made
20. left out
21. saw 
22. wanted
23. said  
24. said  
25. taken
26. profited
27. took
28. given
29. based
30. cared
31. gone
32. did
33. did
34. done
35. looked
36. saw
37. fixed
38. interviewed
39. found
40. were
41. said  
42. exposed
43. studied
44. seen
45. changed

Present

1. asking
2.  agree 
3. gain
4.  go
5. agree 
6. try
7. figure out
8. seeing 
9. using
10. find
11. seems
12. have
13. sell
14. miss out
15. giving
16. thank
17. take
18. secure
19. do
20. agree 
21. have
22. own
23. considering
24. see 
25. explain
26. see 
27. have
28. see 
29. see 
30. say
31. looks
32. correct
33. see 
34. is
35. see 
36. are
37. argues
38. discount
39. are
40. are
41. used to 
42. discounting 
43. see 
44. stay
45. used to
46. have
47. discounting 
48. see 
49. exist 
50. discounts
51. interviews
52. says 
53. throw
54. extract
55. contains
56. says 
57. looking
58. discount
59. discount
60. seeing
61. have
62. have
63. see 
64. be
65. see 
66. see 
67. understand
68. see 
69. come

Future

(0)

1. Present tense is most prevalent in my project. 

2. The effect that this has, I think, merely drives home the point that my controversy was very recent and, in some ways, still going on. I think this is good, because it means it's relevant.

3. I also have some past tense, which I think flows just fine as the events happened in the past but their effects still resonate right now.

4. Present tense- check!

My Verbs

Well this is weird. But I'm doing it... So here's a list of my verbs.

1.  were  
2.  needed
3.  went
4.  snapped
5.  sent
6.  said  
7.  saw
8.  disregarded
9.  bought
10.  spent
11.  wore
12.  attended 
13.  posted 
14.  asking
15.  agree 
16.  posted
17.  gain
18.  go
19. turned
20. agree 
21. born
22. became
23. try
24. figure out
25. seeing 
26. using
27. find
28. took
29. seems
30. have
31. made
32. left out
33. saw 
34. sell
35. wanted
36. miss out
37. said  
38. said  
39. taken
40. profited
41. giving
42. thank
43. took
44. given
45. based
46. cared
47. gone
48. did
49. take
50. secure
51. do
52. agree 
53. have
54. own
55. did
56. considering
57. see 
58. done
59. explain
60. see 
61. have
62. see 
63. see 
64. say
65. looks
66. correct
67. looked
68. saw
69. see 
70. fixed
71. is
72. interviewed
73. found
74. were
75. see 
76. are
77. said  
78. argues
79. discount
80. are
81. are
82. used to 
83. discounting 
84. see 
85. stay
86. used to
87. have
88. discounting 
89. see 
90. exist 
91. discounts
92. exposed
93. interviews
94. says 
95. studied
96. seen
97. throw
98. extract
99. contains
100. says 
101. looking
102. discount
103. discount
104. seeing
105. have
106. have
107. see 
108. be
109. see 
110. see 
111. understand
112. see 
113. come
114. changed

Said/ says: 6 times. Saw: 3 times. See: 12 times. Agree: 3 times. Discount:6

Local Revision: Wordiness

In this post I'll be editing for wordiness. 

BEFORE

"Now the author of another scientific article is Ian Sampling, science editor of the Guardian online news. Ian interviewed Bevil Conway, researcher at MIT, and he found something quite interesting. "Women and older people were more likely to see the dress as white and gold. The same group are more likely to be larks, being awake in sunlight hours, rather than owls, who were awake more at night time" said Conway in the interview. In this same interview, he argues that our brains either discount the blue or white chromatic bias in the photo, and people who are exposed to more natural daytime light are more used to discounting blue bias, and therefore see the dress as white and gold. Conversely, people who stay up late and are used to darker light have more experience discounting the lighter side of chromatic bias and see the dress as blue and black. "

AFTER

The author of another article is Ian Sampling, editor of the Guardian. Ian interviewed Bevil Conway, researcher at MIT, and found something interesting. "Women and older people were more likely to see the dress as white and gold. The same group are more likely to be larks, being awake in sunlight hours, rather than owls, who were awake more at night time" said Conway. He adds that the brain either discounts the blue or white chromatic bias, and people who are exposed to more natural daytime light are used to discounting blue bias, and see the dress as white and gold. Conversely, people who are used to darker light have more experience discounting the white side, and see blue and black.

The re-written section is better in that it is more concise and easily understood but I also think that it is easier to understand the details of the story when all of the words are there. My audience will stay better captured with the revised paragraph, but at what cost to understanding? Well, cost to understanding is probably minimal, but I do fear a decrease in my credibility in some places.

Peer Review #2

In this exercise, I peer reviewed Marisa Kubacki and Kelly Reager. You can find my rubrics for Marisa and Kelly here and here, respectively. And in doing so, I learned some things.

Salemme, Isabelle. "Mapping your Process" 4/12/2015 via Pipefy.

1. I learned that QRGs have a specific format that I haven't necessarily been following as closely as I could have, and they contain certain information that I've been either under or over doing. More on that in number two. 

2. Here are my top three issues: 

1. I need to have shorter, more attractive paragraphs
2. I need to add screen caps of the celebrity tweets that contribute to my argument in a pretty important way
3. I want to summarize the arguments of my stakeholders in a more concise and information dense way. 

I'm going to add and subtract accordingly and edit the hell out of my draft this weekend!

3. I do have strengths as well though. Here are my top three:

1. I have a lot of stakeholders. This means that I have lots of points of view to consider and my QRG will be information dense. 
2. Everyone in this particular scenario has a different opinion. This makes my situation unique and good for debating.
3. It's a recent event. Everyone who will read this was alive and well and definitely remember dressgate, which makes it not only good for debating but easy to debate. 

Let's get to work. 

Peer Review 1

I reviewed Cheyenne Garcia and her quick reference guide on the controversy surrounding the affordable care act. You can find her QRG here and my rubric here.

Reviewing her draft made me think more carefully about mine. Two things that I realized I should be doing are firstly, including the views of my stakeholders in a more detailed way. I was not showing their points of view as in-depth as I had on the previous blog posts. Secondly, I want to add more images. They broke up her guide very nicely and made it easy to read.

Two things I realized I should not be doing are, firstly, continuing with the lack of color scheme. QRG's are meant to catch the eye and they can't do that if the headings don't have a small, appealing design. Secondly, I should add more detail. I was under the impression that a QRG had to be short and to the point, but I can do that and still be detailed, which I should.

Draft of Project 1

In this post I'll be assembling a draft of my controversy post mortem in the form of a Quick Reference Guide.

What is "Dressgate"?

In February of 2015, Scottish couple Grace and Kier Johnston were to be married- so naturally Grace's mother needed something to wear to the wedding. She and her husband Paul went shopping at a store called Roman Originals, where she snapped a photo of a blue and black dress made of lace and silk and sent it to her daughter for approval. Grace said that it was lovely- but also that it was gold and white. Cecilia (Grace's mother) also saw it as white and gold in the photo, even though the dress is actually blue and black- but disregarded this and bought it anyway, spent the £50 and wore it to the wedding.

A few days after the wedding, on February 26th, a friend of the couple who attended the wedding posted the picture of the dress on her Facebook and Tumblr (posts which have since been removed) asking what color everyone thought it was, because she and her friends couldn't agree. Later that same day, Buzzfeed posted their first article about the photo, which was when it really started to gain popularity and go viral. And as it turned out, nobody in the rest of the world could agree either. And thus, Dressgate was born.

Ruiz, Marco. "The Dress". 2/27/2015 via Flickr. Attribution -ShareAlike Generic 2.0

Confusion Ensued 

After this dress became a viral sensation, everyone with an internet connection started to try and figure out what color the dress was- blue and black or white and gold. Now, normally the opinions of celebrities aren't very important due to their likely lack of credentials in the matter, but seeing colors of the dress involves no credentials or experience, only a neurological and psychological differentiation that anyone can have. Since celebrities' tweets are very popular and easy to access, using their differences as a model is perfect because it's unrealistic to find every tweet related to #Dressgate. 

(can I insert screen caps of tweets here if they're not public domain photos? Are tweets public domain? I'll find out by my next draft/the polishing of this draft)

What About the Woman who Took the Photo?

Cecilia Bleasdale is the mother of Grace Johnston, who seems pretty pleased to have her fifteen minutes of fame in her interview with Ellen Degeneres, but she has made some statements to the contrary.  "We were completely left out from the story, we had no control...You saw all the companies using the blue and black and white and gold to sell their products and nobody wanted to miss out" said Cecilia in her interview with BBC news. In the same interview, her husband Paul said that "Basically they've taken our property and profited off it without even giving us a credit, a thank you, nothing."

In theory these claims are valid. Cecilia and her husband took the photo, it belongs to them and they should be given credit. However, these claims are based in emotion. They never would have cared if the photo hadn't gone viral. And they did not take any action to secure a copyright to the photo, so it will be hard to do anything about it after the fact. It's hard to not agree with them, they do have a point in that they should own the photo. But the fact is, they did nothing to secure a copyright in time. The same source I've linked above says that they are considering legal action.  

More Importantly- Why do we see Different Colors?

Hendrick, Matt. "The Dress". 3/2/2015 via Flickr. Attribution- NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.

Scientists have done their best to explain why different people see different colors in the dress. Different scientists have different opinions as to why some people see blue and black and others see white and gold. In an article from Mashable, their "scientists" say that the dress looks white and gold because it's overexposed, and that "simple Photoshop techniques to correct overexposure will show you what the dress looked like in the first place." However, this is obviously wrong because I, who saw the dress as white and gold, still see it as white and gold after they've "fixed" the problem in photoshop. 

Now the author of another scientific article is Ian Sampling, science editor of the Guardian online news. Ian interviewed Bevil Conway, researcher at MIT, and he found something quite interesting. "Women and older people were more likely to see the dress as white and gold. The same group are more likely to be larks, being awake in sunlight hours, rather than owls, who were awake more at night time" said Conway in the interview. In this same interview, he argues that our brains either discount the blue or white chromatic bias in the photo, and people who are exposed to more natural daytime light are more used to discounting blue bias, and therefore see the dress as white and gold. Conversely, people who stay up late and are used to darker light have more experience discounting the lighter side of chromatic bias and see the dress as blue and black. 

The third and final scientific opinion that seems to exist is that your brain discounts the chromatic bias automatically, regardless of the kind of light you're exposed to the most. Adam Rogers interviews Jay Neitz, neuroscientist at the University of Washington. He says that "I’ve studied individual differences in color vision for 30 years, and this is one of the biggest individual differences I’ve ever seen...Our visual system is supposed to throw away information about the illuminant and extract information about the actual reflectance." However this same article contains the words of Bevil Conway, who again says that "What’s happening here is your visual system is looking at this thing, and you’re trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis...So people either discount the blue side, in which case they end up seeing white and gold, or discount the gold side, in which case they end up with blue and black."

Do We Have a Conclusion?

The answer is yes and no. There's a general scientific consensus as to why some people see different  colors than others, but there will never be a way for people to see both. People who see white and gold will never be able to understand how people see black and blue and vice versa. This is as close as we will come to an answer on the dress that changed the internet.

NOTE TO PEER EDITORS

There are a few things I'd like you to remember- 

1. I haven't stylized this very much as it's a first draft. I would like to make use of colors and fonts in my headings as I polish it further.

2. I will either at screenshots of celebrity tweets or quote and cite them. Either way, their words will be here. 

3. I am most likely going to add more photos and infographics. The majority of what is here is just my raw information. 

The Time Period

In this post I'll be linking news articles which were published in the time period of my controversy.

"NYTimes-Page1-11-11-1918.jpg". 1/23/2006 via wikimedia commons.  Public Domain.

Local:
Arizona Republic
AZ Central

National:
US Magazine (and other current memes)
New York Times (and possibly the most controversial movie yet)

Global:
New York Times
CNN

In February of 2015, many things of varying importance were going on. In Arizona, Jodi Arias was sentenced to life in prison while llamas ran amuck. Katy Perry's left shark at the Super Bowl was questionably nailing his dance moves, while people were arguing about the cinematic trash that was Fifty Shades of Grey. And finally, shortly after Egypt ordered an airstrike on them, ISIS had one hundred and fifty Christians captured, who they were threatening to kill.
Since my story is pretty trivial, I don't think any of these things had an effect on it. The dress has nothing to do with opinion or political lean, only the way your brain works, which is not something anyone can control with any kind of bias. I can say with certainty that my event was not influenced by anything else going on at the time.

The Setting

In this post I'll be describing the setting of this controversy. The setting is the internet which should be hard to describe, so buckle your seat belts, kids.

Lee, Mike. "Classic OPTE Project Map of the Internet 2005". 4/28/2009 via Flickr. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.


 

My chosen controversy takes place in arguably the most popular location in the entire world- the internet. The internet is an amazing place. It has everything- any photo, information, any idea imaginable and yet it has no face. There is no nature, no wind, it's a void full of people who's personas change when they find themselves behind a keyboard. It's full of trolls, self-proclaimed psychiatrists, anonymous experts and people who thought they had stomach cramps but now, thirty seconds later, think they have cancer. If I have a sudden urge to know whether or not Katy Perry has a nose ring, I can find out instantly. If I find myself in a debate with my father as to whether a particular actress was also in another show, we can settle it right then and there. And yet there's no wind there. No trees or sky or people or any particular smell in the air- well there's no air. Only the idea of what air might be like based on the description written by someone who leaves their room occasionally. Only the idea of what a person might be like based on an avatar, a profile picture, or a status update. You can know people, but you can't really know them. You can meet them, but it takes an extra step to actually meet. It's a place of half connections, surface friendships, and deceitful diagnoses. It has no sound, and yet any sound or music you could ever want to hear. It's complicated, but full of twelve year olds who simply know everything. There's nothing quite like the internet.

Stakeholder #3

In this post I'll be analyzing the role of my last category of stakeholders.

"File:Stakeholder (en).svg". 12/11/2008 via Wikimedia Commons. Attribution Share Alike 3.0.

1. My last stakeholder comes in a group, but a smaller group. This is the group of people who are trying to explain why different people see different colors in the dress. They communicate with us primarily online, not through twitter as our last group but through scientific articles. They have different websites with varying credibilities and opinions with varying validity, which I will analyze briefly. They come from Mashable, The Guardian, and Wired online news sources. Mashable seems a lot like Buzzfeed- with some political articles that hold water but also links that say things like "20 potatoes that look like Channing Tatum". The Guardian has more political and intellectual articles, but still contains an article on the same subject of Beyoncé's new single that Mashable had. Wired is a technology and science based online magazine which has less of a Beyoncé focus and more of a focus on things like space and Amazon Echo. It has the best credibility of the three. 

2. The three claims that my three different science sources make are as follows:

1. The dress looks gold and white because it's overexposed -Mashable
2. The kind of light that a person is exposed to the most is a factor in which color combination they see. - The Guardian
3. The color combination depends on which side of the chromatic bias your brain automatically discounts. - Wired

3. I think the level of credibility in each claim varies. Based on the sources, citations and credibilities, I think that the sources are least to most credible from start to finish. Mashable's authors have no credentials or other articles that I could find. The Gaurdian's claims of light exposure don't seem to be as thoroughly rooted in science and the appeal more to emotions than those of Wired. 

4. These claims are both similar and different from each other. Mashable's claim of exposure is completely different from The Guardian or Wired. The latter two are a little similar- The Guardian references chromatic bias, but does not cover it as extensively as Wired. However, they don't have anything in common with other stakeholders, as this is the only group who has offered a reason why different people see different colors. But within the group, they differ. 

Stakeholder #2

In this post I'll be analyzing the position of my second stakeholder, seen as a group in this case.

"File:Stakeholder (en).svg". 12/11/2008 via Wikimedia Commons. Attribution Share Alike 3.0.

1. This second stakeholder is a group- all the people who tried to figure out what color the dress is. While it can be argued that this group contains literally anyone with an internet connection, I'll be looking only at tweets of people musing about the color of the dress, which means this group is made primarily of celebrities and their online presence. Normally the opinions of celebrities aren't very important, but seeing colors of the dress involves no credentials, only a neurological differentiation that anyone can have. Since their tweets are very popular and easy to access, using their differences as a model is perfect because "everyone who had an opinion" is not a realistic stakeholder group. They are represented by their tweets- either they wrote them or their assistants did, so we can be almost completely positive that these are their real opinions. While it's broad, it's important to consider first if we are then to consider why different people see different colors.

2. Different people in this group make different claims, but there are only two main ones which are easy to identify (but different people have said the two claims differently so I will paraphrase). Again, they all come from the same source but I will link them all.

1. The dress is black and blue. -Various celebrities
2. The dress is gold and white. -Other various celebrities
3. I'm confused and scared. -Some of the celebrities who also made one of the two above claims, but mainly Taylor Swift

3. Now, there is really no way to validate these claims. As long as we as humans are physically unable to see the same thing from a different set of eyes, we cannot validate them. But, on another level, it doesn't really matter. We know that these arguments, while they are factual, are only as good as opinions because everyone physically sees different colors. We also know that the only two arguments are white and gold vs. black and blue (except for Lady Gaga who was frankly being a little difficult). So, in this rare case, we can take their word for it. 

4. In a strange paradox, the claims of these stakeholders are both similar and different to other stakeholders in this same group. Any given person sees this dress one way or another, so this group is divided down the middle. They have, simultaneously, the least and most in common with each other. Additionally, this group can contain my other groups of stakeholders. The people who took the photo have a claim in this group. So do the people trying to figure out why we see different colors. Anyone who looks at the picture can be part of this group, whether it be one half or the other. 

Stakeholder #1

In this post I'll be describing the role of the woman who first took the photo of the dress, and to a lesser extent, her husband who is also involved.

"File:Stakeholder (en).svg" 12/11/2008 via Wikimedia Commons. Attribution Share Alike 3.0

1.Cecilia Bleasdale is the mother of Grace Johnston, who bought the infamous dress because she needed something to wear to Grace's wedding. She's a larger woman with blonde hair and slightly unconventional teeth who speaks loudly and excitedly with large hand movements. She seems pretty pleased to have her fifteen minutes of fame, but she has made some statements to the contrary that we'll discuss here too. She's only done the one interview with Ellen Degeneres, but on that show she wore the infamous dress that she first photographed. She appeared with her daughter and her daughter's friend, all of whom acted more reserved yet are not the focal point of this story. Cecilia does not now and did not really during the infamous Dressgate have much contact or communication with those trying to decide the color of the dress, as she was not the most important part of this controversy. Her husband did not appear on the Ellen show.

2. In another one of my sources, where Cecilia and her husband were interviewed. They make these claims, which are all from the same interview (but I have linked them all):

1. "We were completely left out from the story, we had no control" -Cecilia
2. "You saw all the companies using the blue and black and white and gold to sell their products and nobody wanted to miss out..." -Cecilia
3. "Basically they've taken our property and profited off it without even giving us a credit, a thank you, nothing." -Paul (Cecilia's husband)

In general, they seem to feel very cheated that they were not given more credit for taking the photo that has been said to have broken the internet. 

3. In theory these claims are valid. Cecilia and her husband took the photo, it belongs to them and they should be given credit. However, these claims are based in emotion. They never would have cared if the photo hadn't gone viral. And they did not take any action to secure a copyright to the photo, so it will be hard to do anything about it after the fact. It's hard to not agree with them, they do have a point in that they should own the photo. But the fact is, they did nothing to secure a copyright in time. The same source I've linked above says that they are considering legal action. 

4. These claims have nothing to do with claims of the other stakeholders, because this is the unique stakeholder who has taken the photo. Lots of other people have tried to figure out the color, and lots of other people have tried to figure out why we see different colors, but only one person actually took the photo and only one person trying to claim rights. 

The Big Event

In this post I'll be talking about the event that kicked off the controversy I'm discussing.

Ruiz, Marco. "The Dress". 2/27/2015 via Flickr. Attribution -ShareAlike Generic 2.0

In February of 2015, Scottish couple Grace and Kier Johnston were to be married- so naturally Grace's mother needed something to wear to the wedding. She and her husband Paul went shopping at a store called Roman Originals, where she snapped a photo of a blue and black dress made of lace and silk and sent it to her daughter for approval. Grace said that it was lovely- but also that it was gold and white. Cecilia (Grace's mother) also saw it as white and gold in the photo, even though the dress is actually blue and black- but disregarded this and bought it anyway, spent the £50 and wore it to the wedding.

A few days after the wedding, on February 26th, a friend of the couple who attended the wedding posted the picture of the dress on her Facebook and Tumblr (posts which have since been removed) asking what color everyone thought it was, because she and her friends couldn't agree. Later that same day, Buzzfeed posted their first article about the photo, which was when it really started to gain popularity and go viral. And as it turned out, nobody in the rest of the world could agree either.

It broke Buzzfeed records with 37 million views and two editorial teams assigned to writing articles only regarding the dress. The photo proceeded to take over every social media facet, primarily Twitter, taking on the hashtag #dressgate. Everyone started weighing in- from everyday citizens to politicians to celebrities to reporters. I can even speak from personal experience- once a whole half of a high school english class was used arguing over what color the dress appeared.

Since then neuroscientists have explained why different people see different colors in this photo, (spoiler alert: it has to do with the discounting of chromatic bias that our brain does automatically- but more on that later) but the fact remains it will always be a debate.

My Sources

In this post I'll be analyzing the credibility of all my sources.

Condesign. "Books". 12/8/2015 via Pixabay. CC0 Public Domain.

First Buzzfeed Post

This source comes from buzzfeed which normally wouldn't be good for credentials, but this is as close as I could get to the original post as it's since been taken down by the user. Here it simply serves to show that the photo has gone viral, because it includes a poll with several million votes. The author is Cates Holderness, Buzzfeed employee and author. Looking at her past articles, many of them have something to do with colors and optical illusions. She is credible enough for the purpose of this article, which is just to prove that the image was viral. The article came out the day after the photo of the dress was posted, and represents the audience of the event- everyone looking at the dress trying to decide what color it is.

People are upset

This source comes from Time Magazine which is a quite reputable source. The author is Rishi Lyengar, writer for Time who writes mostly about relations with and within other countries that are experiencing turmoil. After evaluation I would say that the author is credible, although it's strange that they're writing about something so trivial. The article was published two days after the original photo went viral, which is good because it didn't have much time to be influenced by other sources. But what's important here is the video it includes, which is a series of screenshots of celebrities tweeting about the dress. That's important because many of them are upset. Taylor Swift was "confused and scared". It's a relatively unimportant matter in the grand scheme, but people really cared about it.

Update: Still Upset

This comes from a source called  FanSide, which isn't the most credible but that doesn't matter as much in this case because it's just a series of tweets which will supplement the proof that people got upset as part of the debate. It serves the same purpose as the source above.

Multiple Opinions- #1

This is a source from Mashable, a news/entertainment source that seems to be a mix of Time and Buzzfeed (I swear I'm not saying that because of my last two sources) which makes the credibility just okay- but that's exactly what I need for the purpose of this source. The authors are Jonathan Ellis & Dustin Drankoski, but there are no links to other articles they've written or any social media accounts they hold. This slightly worsens their credibility because now I'm doubtful of their work. But this still hasn't destroyed this article for the intended purpose. This came out the day after the dress went viral, which could mean they didn't really do much research on what they were writing. The purpose of this article is for me to show that there was debate on another level- this article says the dress looks white and gold because of a reason that's wrong (and I know because they remedied the issue in photoshop and I still see white and gold). I want to show this view in contrast with others to disprove it and show the debate.

Opinion #2

This article come from the Guardian, an online news source. The author is Ian Sampling, science editor of the guardian. But before he became editor, he was a journalist at New Scientist and he also hold a PhD in biomedical materials from Queen Mary's, London. His credibility is very strong. This article came out a few months after the dress went viral, which could mean he had more time to debate the science behind his explanation. This source offers the view of someone with better credentials than the first, and someone proposing an alternate opinion which I can evaluate and consider. He represents the science side of the stakeholders, the people trying to explain what is going on.

Opinion #3- the best so far

This is the source that everyone is quoting in their articles regarding why we see different colors. It comes from Wired, another online news source. It publishes articles on design, culture, science and travel. It's written by Adam Rogers, and editor for Wired and author of other scientific novels. The article was published the day after the dress picture went viral, right along with the timeline.The information that it offers is the third and final scientific explanation that I want to toy with, additionally it seems to be the most quoted in other articles about the dress. This is an important scientific opinion, and the most researched, therefore an important element to my controversy post mortem.

This is important I Swear 

This article comes from a website called Pascal's Pensées, which I have never heard of but seems to be a science magazine- it's self described as "Contemplations from the trenches of Neuroscience, Psychology, Metaphysics and Life". It's written by a user by the name of Lascap, who has written many scientific articles for the website, mostly regarding neuroscience. Based on this, I give the website fairly good credibility. The article was published three days after the original photo went viral, which means the user had enough time to think about the reason people see different colors, but not so long that he could have taken ideas from other scientists. This source offers a new perspective- why it's important that we care about the dress. He also offers another reason as to why we see the colors we see, but when many people (including myself) are guilty of saying that the debate doesn't matter, this is an important perspective to consider.

No Really It's Important

This article, also from the Guardian (an online news source) is written by Bevil Conway, a regular author for the Guardian. It was published two days after the photo went viral, which seems at this point to be the article-publishing window for things like this. This article represents why we should care about the dress from a different perspective- that which color we see could have something to do with out emotional build and who we are as a person. While I don't personally think that's the reason,
the article doesn't actually make an argument for that side- it simply presents what we know to be true and why that might have something to do with color corresponding to emotions. It represents the point of view of someone with another opinion, but with an added dimension as to why we should care.

For an Emotional Reason?

This article comes from CNN, written by Mel Robbins, a legal analyst for CNN online. It was published three days after the dress post, and makes an important point as to why we care about such trivial things on the internet. She's got an analytic stakeholder position, but for yet another reason which covers every facet imaginable. I want to make sure I've covered all opinions- why we care, what we see, and why this happens- and this article is the last piece in that puzzle.

Context!

Who doesn't love a little context? This article provides the background story. It comes from BBC, which is a credible source already. It's written by Mukul Devichand, who is an editor for BBC News. He interviewed the people at the heart of the color controversy- the mother of a bride who bought the dress to wear it to a wedding and sent the famous photo to her daughter for approval. This article was actually published almost a year after the fact, when everyone had stopped caring about the dress. This is fine though, it only means he had time to reach out and speak to the woman and gather information. And it represents a unique stakeholder which cannot be part of a group- the woman who actually took the photo. This is a valuable perspective to have as far as this story goes.

Analysis of my Rhetorical Situation

In this post I'll be analyzing the rhetorical situation of my controversy post mortem- which I have changed (for a multitude of reasons) to the dispute that occurred about a year ago as to whether, based on a photo, a particular dress was white and gold or black and blue.

Hendrick, Matt. "The Dress". 3/2/2015 via Flickr. Attribution- NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.

1. The people concerned with this issue were primarily young (under 25) although the debate could be accessed by anyone in the world with an internet connection. Even if you didn't, you had probably heard about it because it had gone so viral. But I say they were young because the first discussion of the dress took place on tumblr, where young people were likely to see it. The debate then spread to Buzzfeed, then Twitter, then to every social media facet one could imagine. Since young people spend the most time on social media, they had the most exposure to it. Based on this, I can infer that they probably get their news from online sources, and they are probably middle/upper class because they have the means to access information on the dress. Additionally, while they may care about things that are worthwhile, this is definitely not one of them. Some people got very passionate about how they felt, so some of the things this generation really feels strongly about may not be worth the amount of time and energy they are giving it. They probably value things that are popular in the moment, things that have gone viral- without really considering that in a couple months it won't be anything more than a played-out meme.

2. This issue was eventually resolved with a scientific reason as to why different people see different colors, but it's a little complicated so either this demographic didn't take the time to find out, or by the time the reason became public, they simply didn't care any more. So what I want to do is make the reason more accessible- to condense it into layman's terms. I want the readers to be aware of the scientists that have pondered this, and who first opened the debate. The time period does pose a dilemma though, because anyone who still cares about the dress probably already knows why different people see different colors. Many people are probably just done worrying about this dress.

3. I want to bring the scientific reality of the different colors to the generation that cared about why we see different colors in a way that makes it relatively easy to understand. I'm interested in this story because first of all, I seemed to be the minority in seeing white and gold. Secondly, it's a part of both pop culture and psychology/neuroscience, which are my interests being a young person in the pre-med psychology major. I'm perfect to write about this because my area of expertise and desired area of expertise coincide in this one issue.