Genre #1 Instagram Account: @stopsolar_save

Instagram Account Posts

Genre #2 Billboards

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1na86L5GlRdEc8I1h5p1V8eWLPt0juTBCSZqS_enZbcU/edit?usp=sharing

Billboard #1

Rationale

The purpose of my work is to educate potential solar customers of the issues they will certainly encounter in the years of owning a solar system. Solar technology is deemed to be the energy of the future and while being clean for the environment that is about all solar is useful for. Solar energy can not create as much energy as other nonrenewable choices like coal or nuclear. However, this downfall of solar is not as broadly known or discussed when companies are trying to reach out to homeowners who may be interested in installing a solar system onto their homes. Homeowners are only provided with the upside of solar and are sold on exaggerations and ultimately disappointed. 

The particular audience that I aim to target would be homeowners who are in a position where they are considering installing a solar system in their homes. Solar systems do not make logistical sense for everyone when considering the factors needed in order for a solar system to operate efficiently. For example, if a home was covered by trees or a taller building where a large shadow was over the home for the majority of the day then it does not make sense for a homeowner to install a solar system in their home. 

There are certain obstacles that solar must overcome in order to be of benefit to the homeowner and installers of solar are willing to cut corners in order to make a profit. For this assignment, I decided to select two very different genres. The first genre that I decided to create was a billboard. This genre was the first one that I thought of when considering what genres would work best for my work. Given my target audience being a slightly older demographic being adult homeowners, I believed that a billboard located in a populated area or busy highway would be very beneficial to getting my point across. In a busy location, this billboard would be able to be seen by a large number of people and hopefully hit my target audience in a much greater fashion than others genres. 

The second genre I decided to go with was a social media account. More specifically an Instagram account. I imagine that homeowners fifty and under probably have an Instagram account by now and I believe that this age group of homeowners are more willing to switch to solar given that they will see more of the benefits on the back end since solar systems don’t recoup their costs until 20-30 years down the line. 

On the Instagram account under each post, I share a quick little piece of information that provides the audience with the reality of owning a solar system. I discussed the issues regarding competition in the market, aging technology, nuclear versus solar energy, and more. I felt this was the best way to portray this assignment besides the billboard. So as the billboard is very simple because they’re meant to catch the eye for a moment the Instagram account allows a much more specific argument as to why people should not switch to solar yet. 

The two genres I selected were the only ones that a really imagined myself being able to execute well. I flirted with the idea of creating an article or report but I wanted my genres to be very entertaining and I did not think that I could make those two interesting to read. I considered making a social media advertisement but I felt that it would be very similar to my billboard just in a digital format and I didn’t want to essentially copy and paste my genres. I think for the genres I have right now I would still like to chance to refine them slightly and tweak them as I see fit or after some sort of peer review.

Reflection

In transitioning from the research essay to the composition project, I feel that my transition was very smooth. Since the composition of two genres involves being creative and actually making two different genres I think forming that off my essay felt very easy. I was able to look back at my outline in many cases to understand what I wrote without having to reread my entire essay over and over again. What also helped me work was the whiteboard that I have because instead of a notebook to jot down every idea I’m able to quickly brainstorm my ideas and essentially pre-plan out what I want to accomplish before I ever do anything on my computer. For example, I made a billboard design on my whiteboard and did a poorly drawn draft of what I wanted it to look like which in the end provided me with a ton of help in what direction I wanted to head into. 

My intended audience had a few obstacles that I had to overcome in order to accurately target them. As previously mentioned my target audience are homeowners interested in solar energy for their home. This is a somewhat specific audience so in my essay and in my composition of genres I needed to directly target them and make sure they understand the message I am trying to portray. For example, the first genre that I made was a billboard. I wanted to make this billboard as simple as possible while still driving home the argument I was making. As a result on each billboard, I included a sentence that is very quick to read and I also included a link to a fake website titled stopsolar.com. In this case, I would want my audience to see this billboard and question what I meant and ultimately be intrigued enough to want to go online to stopsolar.com and see what I was really talking about. The plan wasn’t to create a website as a genre but to make the billboard as believable as possible.

The difference between the research essay and the composition is that I had way more freedom in the composition assignment as opposed to the research essay. In the essay, there was a somewhat strict format that I needed to follow in order to have the essay make sense and flow well. Meanwhile, in the composition of two genres, I was able to create two vastly different genres from the groundup with no format whatsoever to follow. This was a little difficult to initially begin I think once I got the ball rolling this assignment was done very fast and I am pleased with the results. 

As I mentioned in the rationale I chose to create a billboard and social media account because I felt that these two very different genres would work best with my target audience. I went with the billboard simply because many homeowners across the country drive their car nearly every day for either work or other reasons and putting up a billboard that they’ll see nearly every single day could potentially convince them to consider the issues with solar before committing to a system for their home. Likewise, I chose to do an Instagram account because I thought this was the best way to communicate my ideas via social media. Homeowners under fifty probably have an Instagram account by now and if they happen to stumble upon my page in some instance maybe I’ll be able to persuade them. 

In terms of rhetorical practices used in my genre, I wanted to simplify the topic as much as possible. I myself am no expert in this field whatsoever, I just happened to have done more research than the average person in this field. So in my genres, I wanted to explain my arguments simply and not complicate my points and make readers question what I am trying to say. I think this was probably the most efficient way to convey my message across the genres.