Thursday, November 12, 2009
Know It All
I had enjoyed reading about Wikipedia and Jimmy Wales. Learning about how this website came to be in a short amount of time and the back round information made it more enjoyable to read. I did find myself having to go back and read things over again about how each search can lead you to other links about other facts you may not even want to know. As a reader I found it to be a little long for a web entry and had dragged on some parts like examples of how Wikipedia fails to accurate and sends you all over. I also noticed that the hardest thing to find in the entry was the most interesting, “Last year, Nature published a survey comparing forty-two entries on scientific topics on Wikipedia with their counterparts in Encyclopedia Britannica. According to the survey, Wikipedia had four errors for every three of Britannica’s”, it felt like Stacy Schiff was more focused on saying how Wikipedia is something you should not trust. I don’t think Wikipedia can conquer expertise but it can come in handy with giving users information needed, but as users go cant ever fully trust the information without check other sources. Wikipedias information comes from its users anybody with a computer can edit and add, this automatically means there is bound to be flaws. Always trusting expertise is not the way either, there are always some flaw, the key is using a collaboration of information from multiple websites.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Art of Summarizing and The Art of Quoting
The Art of Summarizing
Having a summary is considered a key to arguing and has strong persuasive power. Some writers do not use summarizing because they feel they don’t want to question what is being said or fear that they are devoting to much time to other peoples ideas. The opposite extreme on the other hand is over loaded with summaries because the lack of confidence in the work. Being able to have a good summary is a balance between what the original author says and with the writer’s own focus at hand. Automatically writers and readers already have view of a belief on certain topics. Having a well written summary come from when the writer suspends there own beliefs for a time and play they “believe game”.If the writer can truly summarize a certain part then the reader should not be able to tell whether you agree or disagree with the text. When writers do not use the believe game it tend to lead to “the closest cliche syndrome”. What is happens is what is getting summarized is not the view of the author, but mistake of what the writer thinks is the summary. Having this can be totally counterproductive to the points you are trying to prove. The summary needs to have focus and spin that allows it to fit in the overall agenda of the paper while still maintaing true to the text. Listing summaries and breaking each down to help your overall clam is vital to help writer with frame. Making sure the “they say” and “I say” are matched up will give clarity, don’t get lost in list summaries make sure they focus the point on the overall clam. The art of summarizing is not just representing the authors view accurately, but in away that fits your own composition’s larger agenda.
The Art of Quoting
Using quotations in ones paper is another way of effective argument. Being able to use quotes gives tremendous amount of credibility to your summary and also helps to ensure accuracy. Having the quotes gives the readers evidence in away, showing them that the information is not fake and did come from a reliable source. One of the main problems with writers and quoting is that the writers assume the quotations speak for themselves. The quotations need explaining in order to show there point towards overall clam, cannot just throw quotations in the paper without telling the importance or meaning. The quotes are there for a reason, they help with the point the writer is trying to make not just show you read the authors work. In order to have good quotations the writer needs to build frames around quotes that support them so they do not become “dangling quotations.” Dangling quotations are quotes that the writer did not give any explanation too. Creating a frame for quotes is really actually easy. First what needs to be done is state who it is the writers quoting and about them, and then make sure to tell how the quote or quotes connect to the writing. A quotation sandwich is the best way to explain the process. Having a statement introducing the quote, then the quote, and then explaining to wrap it all up makes a mean and powerful tool for persuasion. The Art of quoting is to make sure to have accurate response to authors quote but at the same time give the writer’s own spin instead of simply word for word.
Having a summary is considered a key to arguing and has strong persuasive power. Some writers do not use summarizing because they feel they don’t want to question what is being said or fear that they are devoting to much time to other peoples ideas. The opposite extreme on the other hand is over loaded with summaries because the lack of confidence in the work. Being able to have a good summary is a balance between what the original author says and with the writer’s own focus at hand. Automatically writers and readers already have view of a belief on certain topics. Having a well written summary come from when the writer suspends there own beliefs for a time and play they “believe game”.If the writer can truly summarize a certain part then the reader should not be able to tell whether you agree or disagree with the text. When writers do not use the believe game it tend to lead to “the closest cliche syndrome”. What is happens is what is getting summarized is not the view of the author, but mistake of what the writer thinks is the summary. Having this can be totally counterproductive to the points you are trying to prove. The summary needs to have focus and spin that allows it to fit in the overall agenda of the paper while still maintaing true to the text. Listing summaries and breaking each down to help your overall clam is vital to help writer with frame. Making sure the “they say” and “I say” are matched up will give clarity, don’t get lost in list summaries make sure they focus the point on the overall clam. The art of summarizing is not just representing the authors view accurately, but in away that fits your own composition’s larger agenda.
The Art of Quoting
Using quotations in ones paper is another way of effective argument. Being able to use quotes gives tremendous amount of credibility to your summary and also helps to ensure accuracy. Having the quotes gives the readers evidence in away, showing them that the information is not fake and did come from a reliable source. One of the main problems with writers and quoting is that the writers assume the quotations speak for themselves. The quotations need explaining in order to show there point towards overall clam, cannot just throw quotations in the paper without telling the importance or meaning. The quotes are there for a reason, they help with the point the writer is trying to make not just show you read the authors work. In order to have good quotations the writer needs to build frames around quotes that support them so they do not become “dangling quotations.” Dangling quotations are quotes that the writer did not give any explanation too. Creating a frame for quotes is really actually easy. First what needs to be done is state who it is the writers quoting and about them, and then make sure to tell how the quote or quotes connect to the writing. A quotation sandwich is the best way to explain the process. Having a statement introducing the quote, then the quote, and then explaining to wrap it all up makes a mean and powerful tool for persuasion. The Art of quoting is to make sure to have accurate response to authors quote but at the same time give the writer’s own spin instead of simply word for word.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Portfolio Guide
It appears to me that the portfolio guide and the comity put a lot of time and effort into making this English program. Every step and process of the way what needs to be done in the class, what we need to keep to prove that we have have grown as writers, the three essays we need to turn into the comity, and the cover letter. Each of these things are the keys to passing english 100/100a/200. First is the working portfolio, this will contain all of the drafts,revision, and reader’s responses all through the semester. This is something excellent to show the comity because this can be a supporting document showing the growth you have made along the way. The second portfolio includes the cover letter and two to four writings. The cover letter is where you can shine, this is your chance to actually write to the comity for a little bit about each of the writings you turn in. You want to explain all of your strengths and weakness, thats right your weakness, if you demonstrate awareness of what you learned as a writer then it shows you understand. If a student has a D+ or lower then they cannot submit any of the portfolios and must take english 200 in order to try again. I truly enjoy this portfolio system, it dose not make you feel like you are being judge by the work you put out. The teachers and students both act as coaches and editors to each other. It is important to us as writers in the class to get feed back from on another so that we may look at our own writings in different lights so that we may add, or edit things we did not see before. When turning in your final work to the portfolio comity make sure it meets all of the requirements such as heading, fonts, and the placement for your all your information. After reading the portfolio guide I feel confident in the portfolio comity expectations for the level of writing from all of the university, they came up with a system that works to help teach not only the students but the teachers and ways they can help teach us better.
General Apache/Simplicity
“Writing about General Apache”
I had found the story about Dr.Harrington luring to me. As soon as I started to read about his student who survive the war in Vietnam and took a bullet that is next to his spine, I immediately wanted to jump to the back to read Dr.Harrington’s poem for his student. The idea for having the student chose there own topics for papers is excellent and is not suppressing that the quality from the students is better. It is terrible to think what people did to Vietnam veterans, the solders who went over there not all of them had a choice and when they all came back people treated them poorly spiting in there faces calling them baby killers, most getting lost in alcohol and drugs to deal with coming back to the real world without there friends they fought with to survive for there lives every night. The poem gave something back to him, it gave him piece of mind, a way for him to allow people how he felt and what he went through.
“Simplicity”
I understand the concept of repetition not being needed, sloppy sentences, run ons and so on, but I don’t find clutter to be meaningless jargon. Sometime things need to be explained or concrete details need to be given to the reader. To have a simple paper is cant have words serving no functions, every long word needs to be replaced with short ones, and cant have adverbs with same meaning already in the verb. I extremely enjoy reading about Henry david Thoreau and Walden, the reason why they are so clutter free and clear is because there messages are so simple, they want you to think, learn, live, and question. The key to writing in the uncultured way is to have a clear mind and know what you want to, having an intreats and passion for what you write makes this easy because it clicks. I do not find the attention span of a reader to be 30 seconds, in the average day the average college student dose way more. The reason why some readers have short attention spans is because all throughout the day they are attacked by billboards and signs, magazines,TV, and internet by the end of the day it is no shock that the average person dose not want to read an article that is not interesting in the first place.
I had found the story about Dr.Harrington luring to me. As soon as I started to read about his student who survive the war in Vietnam and took a bullet that is next to his spine, I immediately wanted to jump to the back to read Dr.Harrington’s poem for his student. The idea for having the student chose there own topics for papers is excellent and is not suppressing that the quality from the students is better. It is terrible to think what people did to Vietnam veterans, the solders who went over there not all of them had a choice and when they all came back people treated them poorly spiting in there faces calling them baby killers, most getting lost in alcohol and drugs to deal with coming back to the real world without there friends they fought with to survive for there lives every night. The poem gave something back to him, it gave him piece of mind, a way for him to allow people how he felt and what he went through.
“Simplicity”
I understand the concept of repetition not being needed, sloppy sentences, run ons and so on, but I don’t find clutter to be meaningless jargon. Sometime things need to be explained or concrete details need to be given to the reader. To have a simple paper is cant have words serving no functions, every long word needs to be replaced with short ones, and cant have adverbs with same meaning already in the verb. I extremely enjoy reading about Henry david Thoreau and Walden, the reason why they are so clutter free and clear is because there messages are so simple, they want you to think, learn, live, and question. The key to writing in the uncultured way is to have a clear mind and know what you want to, having an intreats and passion for what you write makes this easy because it clicks. I do not find the attention span of a reader to be 30 seconds, in the average day the average college student dose way more. The reason why some readers have short attention spans is because all throughout the day they are attacked by billboards and signs, magazines,TV, and internet by the end of the day it is no shock that the average person dose not want to read an article that is not interesting in the first place.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
learning style assignment
Matthew Dobbs
After taking the learning style inventory I was not surprised with the results I had received. I have a VAK style, witch is visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. The highest area I scored in was auditory with 9, kinesthetic with 8, and visual 6. When I was first beginning to learn how to read focusing on the sounds and tone is how I became familiar with the words. I enjoy having class discussions on topics because it gets everyone involved and wanting to interact. When given just a hand out and told to do the work I loose interest, but when the handout to talked about and told why it is we as a class are doing it, it becomes more easy and enjoyable. Ways to improv my learning experiences is by asking to see things on the bored and be explained, being abel to work with the students around me to collaborate on assignments, and having a english lab to review my work. When taking notes, I need to know what information is important to write down because what is being said in the class is what remembered. Having the class being broken up into sections helps me work hands on with people and focuses on my kinesthetic learning style. Because I have a multi learning style this will allow me to switch between the three with ease. Now that I have this information classes that are difficult will become easer. I will go over notes with classmates so I can have the hands on and the auditory style learning. Make sure to pay attention to what is being said and follow the directions. For Botany instead of just reading about different plants, ill venture outside of school and take pictures and notes with other students.
After taking the learning style inventory I was not surprised with the results I had received. I have a VAK style, witch is visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. The highest area I scored in was auditory with 9, kinesthetic with 8, and visual 6. When I was first beginning to learn how to read focusing on the sounds and tone is how I became familiar with the words. I enjoy having class discussions on topics because it gets everyone involved and wanting to interact. When given just a hand out and told to do the work I loose interest, but when the handout to talked about and told why it is we as a class are doing it, it becomes more easy and enjoyable. Ways to improv my learning experiences is by asking to see things on the bored and be explained, being abel to work with the students around me to collaborate on assignments, and having a english lab to review my work. When taking notes, I need to know what information is important to write down because what is being said in the class is what remembered. Having the class being broken up into sections helps me work hands on with people and focuses on my kinesthetic learning style. Because I have a multi learning style this will allow me to switch between the three with ease. Now that I have this information classes that are difficult will become easer. I will go over notes with classmates so I can have the hands on and the auditory style learning. Make sure to pay attention to what is being said and follow the directions. For Botany instead of just reading about different plants, ill venture outside of school and take pictures and notes with other students.
letter of introduction
Matthew Dobbs
As a writer the best experience that had been presented to me was in my senior year. Given the chance to write a research paper on any subject. The topic chosen was Transcendentalism, this is the idea that material items such as money, clothes, and possessions are not as important then the human being themselves. Focusing on life and the people around you, instead of going to church they believe God is in nature not a building. Research papers are now one of my preferred styles of writing due to the success and ease with my senior experiences.
In high school the opportunity to learn sign language was given to the student body, luckily i was one of the few. The most interesting thing about sign language is that it is faster then actually talking. Your expressions and face is how you communicate, one sign can mean two things so depending on the topic being discuss determines witch meaning you are talking about. Some languages steer more interest then other for me, the next language I would like to try is spanish.
Some of my favorite books to read are about how to view thing differently for example “Into The Wild” is about how a young man is done with the way society focus on media, greed, and the American way and instead cuts himself off from his family and all people he did know to start a journey to Alaska, and on it how he learns that human connection and experienced being shared with one another are the essence of life witch we all need. Henry David Thru and his book “The Matter of Man” is another favorite. Thru touches on all topics of human ways and nature, how being happy is not about what you have but about who you are as a person and the relations you have with others.
What brought me to HSU was the people. How every one is down to earth and enjoys learning as much as experiencing new things. Botany is defiantly another reason why Humboldt had drawn my attention so much. Having a large option of majors for science and environmental study is something important, especially when we as human kind need to lean to live with our world not not deplete it.
As a writer the best experience that had been presented to me was in my senior year. Given the chance to write a research paper on any subject. The topic chosen was Transcendentalism, this is the idea that material items such as money, clothes, and possessions are not as important then the human being themselves. Focusing on life and the people around you, instead of going to church they believe God is in nature not a building. Research papers are now one of my preferred styles of writing due to the success and ease with my senior experiences.
In high school the opportunity to learn sign language was given to the student body, luckily i was one of the few. The most interesting thing about sign language is that it is faster then actually talking. Your expressions and face is how you communicate, one sign can mean two things so depending on the topic being discuss determines witch meaning you are talking about. Some languages steer more interest then other for me, the next language I would like to try is spanish.
Some of my favorite books to read are about how to view thing differently for example “Into The Wild” is about how a young man is done with the way society focus on media, greed, and the American way and instead cuts himself off from his family and all people he did know to start a journey to Alaska, and on it how he learns that human connection and experienced being shared with one another are the essence of life witch we all need. Henry David Thru and his book “The Matter of Man” is another favorite. Thru touches on all topics of human ways and nature, how being happy is not about what you have but about who you are as a person and the relations you have with others.
What brought me to HSU was the people. How every one is down to earth and enjoys learning as much as experiencing new things. Botany is defiantly another reason why Humboldt had drawn my attention so much. Having a large option of majors for science and environmental study is something important, especially when we as human kind need to lean to live with our world not not deplete it.
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