Sensationalist

noun

  • the use of shocking details to cause a lot of excitement or interest

Source:http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sensationalist

I came across this word in today’s class when we were making a summary for the reading excerpt, “The Boston Photographs”. This word can be found in the sentence “Although some argue whether it was sensationalist and unethical to do so, purely in newspapers’ own interests, Ephron sides with their value as good photojournalism”. From learning what sensationalist meant, some people believed that the newspaper used the shocking photos to just gain attention for their newspaper.

AP Wire Service

“AP” Abbreviation of Associated Press: Link

American multinational nonprofit news agency headquartered in New York City

Wire Service
noun

A news agency that sends out syndicated news copy to subscribers by wire or by satellite transmission

I encountered this word from our post on OpenLab (Link: Here). From our learning, I learned that AP stands for Associated Press; an organization. However, I decided to add on service at the end of the “Wire” because if someone who hadn’t taken our class to read this site, they would not understand. I did not thought at first that it was two words that describes one thing. So, I searched AP and than Wire. Each words have different meaning that made me very confusing about this organization name.

Extraneous

adjective

“irrelevant or unrelated to the subject being dealt with.”

With any piece of writing, it is important to organize your composition in a manner that  is coherent and stays true to the subject at hand. Adding extraneous details to a composition can mess up that organization, and take away sense from the composition.

Superfluous

adjective

  • 1a :  exceeding what is sufficient or necessary :  extra

1b :  not needed :  unnecessary

  • 2 obsolete:  marked by wastefulness :extravagant

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superfluous

I came across this word in today’s English class. It can be found in the Project #4 peer review post, “what’s superfluous?”. In this case superfluous would be meant for extra or unnecessary. In other words “what’s superfluous?”, means in the post what extra information is unnecessary so that it can be eliminated from the essay.

 

The Boston Photographs and Project #4 peer review

Keywords:

  • controversy
  • journalism
  • mid ’70s
  • morality
  • ethics
  • reality
  • publicity
  • (social) media
  • explicit material
  • censorship
  • AP wire (service)

 

What would you add to the paragraph, particularly where I have left ellipses to indicate where more information is needed?

Nora Ephron’s short essay, “The Boston Photographs” addresses a controversy surrounding the publication of graphic images of a failed rescue attempt… and how they motivate different reactions among editors and readers. Taken by Stanley Forman using a motorized camera that allowed him to take three photos per second… Although some readers argued it was sensationalist and unethical to do publish these photos that they saw as violating the “privacy of death” only to serve the newspapers’ own interests, editors… Ephron challenges… and ultimately sides with their value as good photojournalism because …

Some saw it as very controversial while others saw it as a window into the reality of death.

Supporting points:

  1. photographer was attempting to photograph the rescue–good photojournalism
  2. negative reaction: response against the breach of the privacy of death
  3. “Death is a constant in life, so we shouldn’t shy away from its depiction, [nor] should it be censored”: issues of fire safety, fire escapes, slumlords, ghetto life

For Project #4 peer review:

Comment on two classmates’ projects, giving any of the following feedback:

  • how to make the project the right length
  • thesis statements
  • organization: does the thesis statement offer a plan for organizing the rest of the project (ie, works as a roadmap)?
  • examples: are they the three you wrote didactic panels for?
  • title for the book?
  • what’s missing?
  • what’s extraneous?
  • what’s superfluous?
  • positive feedback: that it fulfills the task, perhaps in an exceptional way; interest in the approach you’ve taken, the style you’ve written about it, the examples you’ve included
  • neutral feedback: reflect back what you understood the project is about

Exhibit Catalogue

The artist Brandy Ortiz was born on 1997 in New York, NY. She currently lives and studies in the city she was born in. She was inspired by the works of Tom Phillips in his A Humument book to create compositions that combined linguistic language and art into three pages of her vision. Tom Phillip was an English artist who purchased a cheap book to use as the basis of an art project known as A Humument. Behind his artwork,  he paints, collages or draws over the pages, leaving some of the text peeking through in serpentine bubble shapes, creating a found text with its own story, different from the original. Ortiz made compositions with themes that juxtapose from the original theme from the novel Brimestone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. While Brimestone theme was thriller, the artist decided that her artwork would have a softer tone. Within her creation of Glass Child contains Ocean Breeze, Picture Perfect Family, and Love Exists, each having their own messages that relate to a gentle tone.

Ortiz used Pigma Micron Pens(0.2, 0.5 and Brush), Faber-Castell Brush Pen, pencils(HB-6B) and a pair of scissors as her materials for her artwork. For her first design, Ocean Breeze, she shows a silhouette of a boy relaxing in a beach setting with the sun rising. She first made outlines of the boy and the waves by using the micron pens. Afterwards she used the Faber-Castell Brush Pen to ink the ocean and the sun. While having the top half of the page not inked and most of the image within the bottom area leave a visual sense of figure and ground. Figure and ground is the relationship between positive and negative space. The revealed message that the artist created says “Cool dawn air. Hear the surf thundering. Smell the salt air of the invisible ocean beyond”. The boy in the image is taking in the soothing sensation of the environment that the text creates.

For her second design, Picture Perfect Family, she first creates an outline of a frame within the margin area of the page with the micron pens. Next she uses the Faber-Castell Brush Pen to black out the rest of the page leaving out the frame and the revealed text. The revealed message that the artist created says “Family and friends perfectly never changed. Countless dinner parties, weekend parties, living room”. The message conveys a family that enjoys getting together for parties in their living room. A frame is a boundary made from either a rectangle, square or circle that is placed on the edges of the paper or the margins drawn within. The concept behind the frame was to transform the text to make it look like a family portrait since the idea behind the message was family gathering.

For her third design, Love exists, she used scissors to cut out pieces of the page to reveal words from other pages. Instead of blacking out the page to show her message, Ortiz creates a message from cutting out certain words from various pages to show all on one page. The revealed message that the artist created says “Love was fantastic to obtain in the vast world”.  The artist made a heart in the lower left corner of the page while everything was shaded by pencil to show low key. Low Key is when the values of an image are predominantly dark. The idea behind the message was that love is a great feeling to have in the world we live in. The heart shows that love will always be there even when surrounded by darkness. With her vision of the humument, Ortiz wanted to show her ideas of different messages of through the language and the art she depicted. Even though each page had its own concept the overall tone was pleasant.

Tawdry

Adjective

having a cheap and ugly appearance

morally low or bad

(source: Merriam-Webster)

This word was used in The Boston Photographs by Nora Ephron. The word is found in the sentence,”A tawdry way to sell newspapers.” From the sentences previous from this one, it was talking about what photographs were used/put in the newspaper. Using the certain photographs in the newspaper was a low/bad way to sell newspapers.