Use one of the following name generators to come up with a team name.
The generator will generate a random list. You can click "English names" or "Get names" at the bottom of the list to load new names.
Chatbot Arena (click on Direct Text at the top)
This site is hosted by the University of California, Berkeley.
Chatbot Arena is free to use and allows you to use multiple Chatbots, like ChatGPT and Gemini, without creating an account.
Note: this site may not load well on phones/small screens
Chatbot Arena (change to "Direct Chat" using the drop-down at the top of the page)
New site, in beta as of May 2025 (Same as the above, but with a better interface)
Once you choose "Direct Chat", you can choose which AI tool you want to use from the other drop-down menu.
May require login after so many prompts
May require login after so many prompts
May require login after so many prompts
Requires an account
You will need to paste your essay into the GenAI tool to have it give you suggestions. You may always want to play around with adding the prompts and/or requirements of the essay.
If you do not want to use your own essay for this activity, you can use the partial sample essay draft in our class folder.
Can you outline the structure of this essay? Does it follow a logical flow?
Are there any sections where the transitions between paragraphs or ideas feel abrupt or weak?
Which paragraphs seem to stray from the main focus or argument?
Are there claims that need more support, explanation, or examples? Which ones?
If I could only revise one paragraph, which should it be and what should I focus on?
Highlight my topic sentences.
Highlight any spots where I address my reader directly
This will help you check for using “you” or being too casual in your writing style for academic writing.
This can also be done with CTL+F (Windows) or CMD+F (MacOS)
The following prompts may give you helpful advice, but they also may give you incorrect advice (based on my experience). Use cautiously.
Give me revision suggestions for the following essay
Give me revision suggestions for that essay based on these assignment requirements but don’t include suggested revisions
As a reminder, do NOT have it proofread or edit for you yet. Right now, we're just focusing on high and middle order concerns.
Link to Credit Hour Calculator
Today, we are going to work on writing in one genre about one subject matter to multiple audiences. In teams, you are going to write four letters or emails (your choice), each with a different audience.
Scenario: Your parent(s)/guardian(s) went out of town for the weekend and you threw a party (if you no longer live at home, pretend that you are roughly 18-22 years old and living at home). The party got out of hand and was busted up by the police. You are in trouble for a noise violation, and your parents’ house is trashed.
You write an email, letter, or series of text messages (choose the genre that best fits) to the following people regarding this event:
A friend who wasn’t at the party. (This can be a longer text message or two, instead of an email or letter).
Your parent(s)/guardian.
The judge who will be hearing your case.
Your boss (to explain why you will need a day off work to go to court).
Discuss first how the message might change depending on the audience as a team, and then you can split up who is writing what.
The following is a readable text version of the letter to the editor that we are looking at in class:
If you handed this issue and the one that came before it to Shadow, the clever crow on our cover, he’d know something was up. That’s because, as you’ll learn on page 58, crows are scary good at judging volume. And what you’re currently holding—our intelligence issue—is more than 30 percent thicker than the one that arrived in December.
We added 25 more pages to PopSci and increased the quality of our paper. That’s because the company let me do what i pitched when I applied for this job in 2016; transform Popular Science magazine into a quarterly publication.
After reading that, someone just called me an idiot. But hear me out—this is an awesome idea. Between magazine subscriptions, books, news apps, your favorite websites, Twitter feeds, Instagram rivers, Snapchat stories, and so on, we’re being straight-out assaulted with words, videos, and images—all flinging information at our brains. I do this for a living, and I spend all day trying to keep up. How do you do it when that’s not your job?
Instead of our bimonthly magazine, we’d rather give you four epic printed events a year: sparkling quarterly editions that each dive deep into a single topic to bring you tales of science and technology you won’t find anywhere else. We’ve been honing this idea for the past 16 months with our shift to the themed issues. Now we have more space to explore those subjects in depth, giving you a keepsake that encapsulates the most compelling topics of our time.
We’re committed to delivering the best science and tech reporting on every platform, every day. With our print and digital channels, Popular Science reaches more people than ever before, bringing you the finest journalism this publication has every produced. Wherever you are and however you choose to read us, PopSci will be there. We’re not going anywhere—except to the future.
Here’s to another 146 years. And hopefully many more
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to hunt down SIX genres on campus with your team. You cannot repeat genres (for example, you cannot have more than one flier or advertisement). Remember, any type of writing is a genre – so be creative!!!
You only need six for your entire team, so work together.
You must bring back copies of the genres, either take a photograph of it (on your phone), or grab a copy if you are allowed to take it with you, like a pamphlet.
Once you have all 6 of your genres, return to the classroom and complete the following operational report:
On one piece of paper per team, list the genres that you found (work together with your team to come up with these)
Then pick THREE of the six genres to analyze further and list as many conventions as you can for each one.
First, let’s try to learn everything we can about the intended audience of this magazine.
Who is the audience?
How can we tell?
Look at ads, articles, photos and anything else that can give you clues.
Consider: color, images, objects, people, expressions, words, language choice, font choice, mood/tone, symbols, and so on. Write each of these items on your paper and explain what is going on with this ad and how it connects to your audience.
Who is the audience for this ad?
How can you tell?
For example:
Color: the colors are bright and attention grabbing; there are lots of pinks, purples and blues. It looks feminine and young to connect to this audience.
Be thoughtful and detailed about how this advertisement is being targeted to that audience. If we have time, we will swap magazines and do this twice.
Be prepared to share your findings with class!