The Rhetoric of Reputation

Here's a short article that covers a faculty debate over the Pick-a-Prof website.

Pick-a-Prof not approved by all

My paper will make a claim that there is a correlation between violent videogames and increased violence, aggression, and hostility among their players. The intended audience is a congressional committee that is investigating the effects of violent videogames on people.

Edit: The form of my paper is a causal argument. (4/13/08)

"He is dressed in a casual black shirt and he is smiling, which lets readers find him more appealing and might let them trust him more."

Problem: Second half of the sentence is awkward and has poor word choice.

Correction: "He is dressed in a casual black shirt and he is smiling. This enables the blogger to seem more personable."

"The first is letting the reader be able to leave comments on his blog posts."

Problem: Poor word choice of the verbs

Correction: "The first is enabling the reader to leave comments on his blog posts."

"While one's representation of self is not always the most reliable, due to a general bias toward oneself, if a profusion of information is provided there is reduced ambiguity, which can result in greater trust of the source."

Found an interesting post on Lifehacker today. The post basically describes how to manage your online identity across several sites, so you can control what content is available for the public to both find and see. I know an employer who Googles all applicants' names, so it's pretty important for a person to keep up their online reputation, especially considering how easy it is to access that type of information.

Manage Your Online Reputation via [LifeHacker]

I will be covering the topic of video game censorship and using The Entertainment Consumers Association Forums.