Author: mgolsen

A presentation from module 2 that I enjoyed was Justin’s. In his presentation, Justin talked about the topic of mechanical doping, something that I had never heard of until his presentation. During his presentation, Justin was able to clearly articulate what mechanical doping is, a history of how long mechanical doping has been present in professional cycling and most importantly an analysis of how mechanical doping affects the integrity of professional cycling. One thing that Justin did in this presentation that I wish I could’ve done in mine was tying his topic into a larger picture; I feel that a lot of my presentations would give some sort of analysis in a structured format, then fail to explain why what I’m talking about is important.

If I remember correctly, class 7 was the class we biked to the Embarcadero to get ice cream from Humphrey Slocombe. I remember this bike ride being fairly long, but we still got to the ferry building much faster than if we took the bus or even ubered. This proved to me that biking could be an effective form of transportation for trips across the city when rush hour traffic is hectic. This is speedy form of transportation does not come without a tradeoff though, during this class both Olivia and Kyle had accidents where they were thrown off their bikes. I wasn’t present of Olivia’s but I did see Kyle’s and even though he did not collide with a car, his accident was still a product of biking in rush hour. When we were biking down market street I got the feeling of stress because I was concerned I did not have proper knowledge of bicycle road laws or a solid grasp of my surroundings which made for a paranoid, higher risk trip. I found myself wondering  how people actually commuted everyday amidst the lanes of taxis and MUNI buses. My largest takeaway from this class was that if you’re going to make the most out of biking in the city, you’ll need to be comfortable biking in high pressure situations.

For my second presentation I compared two videos for their use of evidence; Rodney Mullen’s TED talk at USC ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GVO-MfIl1Q ) and Al Gore’s TED talk about optimism surrounding climate change ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7E1v24Dllk ). I referenced these videos throughout my presentation to give examples of how evidence can be used and how an audience affects the presentation of various forms of evidence. I was able to formulate these ideas about effective use of evidence through discussions led by Prof. Hunt in class as well as in my first individual conference with Professor Hunt. Another reference I used to help gain a better understanding of how evidence is presented in public speaking was Joseph Zompetti’s “Using and Citing Evidence to Construct and Support Arguments” which I found in the files link of our class canvas page.

I think that I’ve achieved some of what I wanted to do over the course of this semester. My confidence as a public speaker definitely went up because I believed in the research I had done and the material I was presenting, but I did not become as avid of a public speaker as I initially wanted to become.

Evaluates effectiveness of communication using rhetorical concepts and principles

Over the course of this semester, we definitely worked as a class to improve our skills in communicating with people, but it didn’t register that we were using rhetorical concepts and principles until now. I think that the way that these concepts and principles were introduced to the class was well thought out in the sense that these elements of rhetoric were not forced upon us and they never felt intimidating. These concepts and principles did not feel intimidating because when we were presenting, we weren’t presenting advocacy and activism, but something we cared about but was still related.

Today I went to the speaking center to work on my speech for class tomorrow. In my appointment, I discussed different organizational methods to present my speech. I think that organization is something I have neglected in past speeches; I usually just write out everything I want to say then constantly rearrange it minutes before I give my presentation. For this next final presentation, I am going to be focusing more on giving a clearly articulated, well thought out presentation. Some things in particular I want to work on are my pace (sometimes I talk to fast/slow) and my transitions (I barely ever use any).

 

Each year there are around 5,000 cases of ALS diagnosed in the United States. While the number of diagnosis seems small when compared with the size of the United States, the number of lives ALS touches is uncountable.

 

In this presentation I’ll be comparing two fundraisers related to ALS, Roll for Rob which is a fundraiser organized by my local skateshop in collaboration with DLX distribution which operates out of San Francisco and the Napa Valley ride to defeat ALS, a yearly fundraiser here in Northern California that raises money for ALS treatment and research. Both fundraisers have much overlap including a common goal; to support friends and family diagnosed with ALS both figuratively and financially.

 

Advocates

Rob Pontes is an east coast sales representative for DLX distribution, a skateboard and apparel distributor based out of Potrero Hill in San Francisco who was diagnosed with ALS in the fall of 2014. By the summer of 2015 DLX and my local skateshop, Theory had organized a fundraiser to help support Rob and his family by covering his hospital bills and additional income for his family while he is unable to work.

 

Activists

Roll for Rob is a largely community based event; Once a year a skate shop in Western Mass holds an event at the shop’s local skatepark where DLX sells roll for rob boards and shirts are sold.

The people who attend these events are more supporting because Rob is a part of the skateboarding community in Western Massachusetts rather than because they can relate to his diagnosis of ALS.

 

Goals

Because Rob’s family’s goal was reasonably modest, Rob’s family was able raise $10,000 over their projected goal on gofundme in 2014 (which raised a total of $42,000). Rob’s family has recently set up another gofundme and is in the process of trying to meet the same goal this year. The majority of donations for Rob ranged from $10 – $100. Low cost fundraising and high impact provides an incentive for people donating

 

Use of funds

All of the funds raised by DLX, Theory and Rob’s family’s gofundme go directly to Rob’s treatment and his family’s financial support. People investing can actually see what their donation is doing for Rob.

 

Transition

Roll for Rob can be contrasted by the Napa Valley ride to defeat ALS in many ways; the most apparent being the scale of the event.

 

• Similar to AIDS bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the sense that the goals of fundraising are the same  

 

The Napa Valley ride to defeat ALS is a fundraiser which was started in 2002 by the ALS foundation and helps raise money to fund ALS research, Support for people diagnosed with ALS and to push ALS awareness and advocacy.

This event takes place once a year and consists of 100 mile, 62 mile, 28 mile and 12 mile bike routes that participants can ride in.

The Napa Valley ride to defeat ALS is sponsored by the ALS Association and his highly competitive, on their website’s homepage there is a leaderboard of single participants who have fundraised the most as well as teams who are leading in fundraising. There is also a minimum of $150 raised to participate

• Event is more of a destination rather than local community centered

 

Activists

Most of the people participating in the Napa Valley ride are people who enjoy cycling and in some way are affected by ALS, whether they have friends or family who have been diagnosed. Most people ride in memory of lost loved ones, but there is also a competitive aspect to the ride which draws participants.

 

• Funds from the event support the ALS association rather than single cases, but the funds raised support both friends and family as well as others diagnosed

 

Transition

 

Comparison

Both Roll for Rob and the ride to defeat ALS strive to meet a mutual goal, to provide support to a victim or victims of ALS.

 

Scale

• Roll for Rob’s goal was $30,000
• Ride to defeat ALS was $1,000,000
• Roll for Rob has an uncounted number of participants but surely less than ALS ride, each person attending the event must pay $10 to get into the event
• ALS ride has hundreds of participants who all must raise at least $150 to participate in the event
• ALS ride has been running for 13 years while Roll for Rob is going into it’s third year.

 

While the scale of these two events are drastically different, both are successful in meeting their designated goals. One goal should not be valued over the other.

 

Effectiveness

It is hard to tell which is more effective because they both use different strategies to fundraise; Roll for rob uses community involvement and a touching personal story while the ALS ride is driven by people who share a story of a friend or family member who is affected by ALS and utilizes mandatory fundraising and competitiveness in fundraising.

For my presentation for module 4 I am going to compare two ALS fundraisers; Roll for Rob, a fundraiser that my local skateshop puts on every year and the Napa Valley Ride toDefeat ALS.

 

Roll for Rob is a fundraiser for Rob Pontes, a local to the Western Massachusetts skateboarding scene who was diagnosed with ALS four years ago. Each year, my local skateshop organizes events with a San Francisco based skateboard distributor DLX to raise money for Rob’s treatment as well as to support his family. To raise money, DLX prints special shirts and skateboard decks that directly benefit Rob and are sold at skateshops across Massachusetts and at the DLX sponsored events.

 

The Nappa Valley ride to defeat ALS is quite a different fundraiser though, the goal for 2017 is to raise 1,000,000 for ALS treatment research as opposed to Roll for Rob’s which is 30,000. The Ride to Defeat ALS is an annual event in napa valley where bikers fundraise in a more competitive approach with both team and individual leaderboards posted on the homepage of their website.

 

The differences between these two organizations are numerous and I am excited to dissect them in my next presentation

I foundMartin Luther King Jr.’s last speech very powerful and thought provoking, not unlike many other speeches he gave while spearheading the civil rights movement. In this speech Dr. King criticizes the ambiguity of different aspects of the US Constitution such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press. King is able to emphasize flaws he sees in the constitution by saying “I read somewhere of a freedom of speech/assembly/press”. Through repeating this phrase, King is suggesting that he read the rights of the constitution from some document of little importance or in this case a document which has been neglected in the sense that the enforcers of it aren’t reading it themselves. In the second half of the excerpt we watched King prophecies that someday there will be racial equality in the United States, but it will not happen immediately. Ironically, King talks about how he may not make it to the bright future ahead of the civil rights movement but that it will happen someday. By saying this, King is providing a sense of drive for the civil rights movement that focuses on future generations as opposed to settling for something for the current generation.

For my video, I decided to choose someone who doesn’t follow youtube voice. Skateline is a weekly video series where Gary Rodgers recaps everything that has happened in skateboarding in the past week. Gary Rodgers’ style does not follow youtube voice in the sense that he uses his distinct, hyper tone to stand out from other youtube personalities.

For class on Tuesday, September 26th we spent the majority of the class in the library working on our class blogs. After touching up our blogs, we formed groups and made posters for the data we collected a week before in class. In this exercise we touched on the hierarchy of information on a poster and we also looked at an example poster from a student science fair last semester (pictured below). The posters that we made in class were presented by students from our class at a bike summit the following weekend.