Category: Blog (Page 1 of 2)

For this assignment when looking for an example of “bad” writing, Steven Pinker’s “Why Academics Stink at Writing” was my first thought. Although it is an example of how to spot bad writing, it was bad writing in itself.  In the piece he talks about how academics “turn out prose that is turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible to understand” (Pinker 1). When looking back through the piece, I found this funny because it seemed as though this is what he did, in my opinion. The sentence itself is a good example of this, being “bloated” by many unnecessary adjectives, “impossible to understand” with confusing descriptions (what makes writing “wooden”?), and in turn, “unpleasant to read.” Throughout the piece I found myself going back and rereading sentences, and sometimes entire paragraphs, due to getting lost in his wording.

Pinker also says, “They dress up the trivial and obvious with the trappings of scientific sophistication, hoping to bamboozle their audiences with highfalutin gobbledygook” (2). Although this sentence itself is probably purposefully written to mock the use of “gobbledygook,” I found Pinker to be doing exactly what he said here throughout his piece. Pinker refers to the concept of using words to “dress up” the text, but he fails to avoid this himself. I found this piece very odd overall, it contrasted what it said to do by doing the opposite throughout the piece, which seemed hypocritical. Due to this, I find Steven Pinker’s “Why Academics Stink at Writing” to be “bad” writing.

While thinking of similar processes to the recursive writing process, one learning experience stood out more than the rest. In high school, instead of taking a gym class or art class I took dance class. Mostly everyone took it at least once in high school, it was definitely one of the most popular classes. I always hated it but I took it almost every year. In the class, we would form small groups and individually have to learn or make up dances for the production at the end of the semester.

When learning these dances the teacher, Mrs. Veazie, had us work (mostly) independently to develop these dances however we wanted to. When learning these dances, they would usually start off pretty bad. Looking back and practicing these dances, we had to change parts, moving them around or deleting/adding them completely. This process highly resembles the recursive writing process, honestly being almost exactly the same, with dancing instead of writing. This process ultimately led to the dances being so much better developed, and look good in the end. Without this sort of “recursive” process where you go back and edit, it would be much harder to get a final product with the same success.

When revising this last paper, I am going to have to focus a lot on pushing myself past summary. This is already hard for me, but with the articles I chose it makes it harder even. Since it’s not a well known topic, I feel the need to use summary to inform the reader about the topics being presented in my paper. When revising I’m going to need to find a way to rely less on summary for this task.

To drive the paper with my own thoughts, I was going to incorporate Wasik’s piece more than I had in my free draft, since he didn’t show up much. In a suggestion from Professor Emerson, she had mentioned more just talking about the bigger ideas when summarizing. When going back, I’m going to be looking for possible summarization that could be cut out of the piece. This is going to be hard since I had tried to only include relevant details. Also, I’m going to have to connect what I’m writing to my argument more. Tying in some of this information back to my argument will make it less “summary-ish,” and it’ll help drive my paper.

Hearing my peers’ podcasts has been different than I was expecting. The most unexpected thing I’ve noticed so far is how these adults answer the simple question “do you feel like an adult?” Although they all feel grown up, how and when they feel more grown up varies. It was interesting to hear in one podcast that one adult felt grown up at times, but not as much so in different situations. This is different than I perceived adults in my first paper. During the paper, I had thought that adults would feel grown up all of the time, not in certain contexts. It seemed more clean cut than this “messy” reality being shown by these podcasts. They show adults who need to be adults at some times, but can relax and be not as serious in other situations. This messy reality is surprising as well as being unsurprising at the same time. While it may seem surprising that adults feel “not grown up” at times when you step back and think about it, it’s very much needed in keeping people happy. People need times when they can feel unresponsible, giving them a time to unwind. This messy reality, although interesting, wouldn’t really fit into my paper I think. Since my paper is sort of taking the prompt at a different angle, it doesn’t really fit into the paper.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-battle-for-the-dark-net-20151022

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dp59jy/the-social-media-admins-taking-on-mexicos-narcos

While trying to find new sources to use for my next paper, I had trouble. However, on The Electric Typewriter, I found one interesting piece (the first link) that sparked an idea. In “The Darknet: Is the Government Destroying ‘the Wild West of the Internet?'” by David Kushner for the Rolling Stone Magazine, he talks about what the Tor browser is, and how it may be used for reasons other than the more evil purposes it’s known for (the Darknet or Dark Web). He also talks about how the government is trying to combat these bad aspects of it. Although the Dark Web is known for drug and human trafficking, as well as child pornography, hacking, and finding hitmen, the Tor browser can also be used to help remain anonymous in certain situations. In certain political situations people can use this browser to remain anonymous online, when their life may be in danger. A sentence about this, “It’s dangerous to be a social-media activist in certain parts of the world,” in the article led me to the idea for what to write about. I thought about writing about how technology (social media as a big aspect of this) could be used to find purpose as an online activist, despite the possible costs. With this in mind, I looked for another article.

I found the second article (second link) after looking for pieces on the possible dangers of being a social media activist in some places today. This directly relates to the prompt in my opinion, as I would say these people have found their purpose, using the internet to cause change even at the risk of their own lives. “The Extraordinarily Dangerous Life of a Social Media Activist Taking on Mexico’s Narcos” by Rodrigo Rodríguez for VICE Magazine talks about this, following “The Administrator,” a social media activist working to combat the Mexican cartels ravaging the area.

I found that these two pieces could be used in an interesting take on the prompt given to us. As some people find purpose in different ways using technology and the internet, it was interesting to see how some people use it to the extreme. People find ways to find meaning with the internet, even if it involves risking their life. I found that the theme of social media activism relates to ideas in Wasik’s piece, “My Crowd Experiment: The Mob Project.” Although he specifically talks about how there was no activism-driven purpose behind his flash-mobs, they could be used in similar ways. People could use ideas similar to Wasik’s for activist purposes, or even possibly darker intentions (if talking about the Darknet).

I found these pieces to be pretty solid and reliable sources, using the CRAAP test told to us in the library. Both pieces are pretty new, being written in 2015 and 2016. The information is also relevant to the topic, relating to ideas in Wasik’s piece as well as the prompt in general. Both pieces are written for credible sources, as both the Rolling Stone and VICE are pretty well known. The claims in both seem to be backed up by facts from credible sources, either experts or people with first hand experience. Also, both seem to be to inform. They don’t seem to have an underlying bias, they seem to be just straightforward to inform.

https://drive.google.com/a/une.edu/file/d/0B3TIS1NpPjC1ZkVudllfaFUzdmM/view?usp=sharing

(Image of notes in text)

1. I found this section to be pretty interesting. How Wasik talked about bandwagons raised some interesting points for me. When he says, “popularity can immediately be factored into how choices are presented to us” (483), it raises an interesting question: is this a good thing? If we just choose things to like because of what others like, how does that reflect on our values of self and individuality. Also, if we just always “bandwagon,” how may that affect how we find purpose and meaning? Wasik goes on to give an example of how people in an experiment showed this exact problem when asked to download and rate music. People just basically followed the bandwagon and downloaded what was popular in their group of testees. I thought that this experiment was a very useful one in showing this “bandwagon effect.” How may this bandwagon effect change how we find purpose, if it can change other things we “like” or at least think we do? May it be possible that some people think they’ve found their true purpose, only for them to be just following another bandwagon? Although this section brought up ideas against bandwagoning, it also showed some positives of it. It helps us know what to do/what to get, as well as helping us communicate with others, which are two very valid, reasonable ideas for bandwagoning.
2. Bill Wasik used the internet to extend himself to bring people together to do something in common, ultimately finding purpose. Wasik thought of this idea from pure boredom, and using the internet created a series of flash-mobs throughout New York as well as inspiring others around the world. As well as directly using this technology as his tool, he also used it in a more indirect way. He used the bandwagon effect that he talks about so much in his piece, “My Crowd Experiment: The Mob Project,” to get this idea of flash-mobs to spread, connecting even more people. Wasik even says this himself, saying that, “The Mob Project was a self-conscious bandwagon – advertised itself as a bandwagon, as a joke about conformity, and it lampooned bandwagons in doing so” (484). This shows the power of technology in achieving your purpose. Wasik used an idea spawned from boredom to create something much more, which wouldn’t have been able to be done without technology.
3. I think that Bill Wasik is pursuing his purpose in this essay. Wasik showed that with technology, you can achieve your purpose. As well as this purpose, I feel like another purpose of the essay was to help Wasik demonstrate the power of bandwagoning. Throughout the piece, Wasik talks about bandwagoning almost consistently in some way. If not directly, he is by explaining his “self-conscious bandwagon” (484), the Mob Project. The quote where Wasik describes the project in this way (also the quote I used in the previous answer) seemed like it was trying to show his purpose to joke about conformity and lampoon bandwagons (484). I believe that Wasik achieves his purposes in this paper. He directly came out and got me thinking about bandwagoning: the possible bad as well as good things that may come out of it. Wasik also successfully shows that he pursued his purpose through technology. By showing what a giant success the Mob Project was, it showed that you can find purpose through the use of technology. A simple experiment that came from boredom helped him find his purpose, so it shows that it’s very possible.

Some people disagree that having all of these constant distractions are harmful, even sometimes claiming that it can be helpful. “Too much focus can be just as bad as not having enough,” and, “being distracted helps you be more creative,” are common arguments among these people. Anderson shows this, writing, “Trouble with ‘attentional shift’ is a feature common to a handful of mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and OCD” (12). Although this may be the case, being distracted can lead you to be less successful. Being able to successfully focus on a single task at hand will help you to perform the task with greater efficiency than if distracted by other, unimportant things. Ultimately, having constant distractions are harmful. These distractions lead us to perform more poorly, whatever the “benefits” could be.

https://docs.google.com/a/une.edu/document/d/1-yLtqqpS5FLemZ9C9qPT-rMQwQVckL-D-ZOSwEGXZZY/edit?usp=sharing

(Purple = Transitions, Yellow = Pointing Terms, Blue = Key Terms, Green = Repetition)

From this exercise I see that out of the four devices used to connect sentences, I use key terms and pointing terms the most. Throughout the essay, I use the words “distraction”, “multitasking”,  and “attention”  a lot, as well as “technology”. Since these are the main topics of the paper, it is easy to see why. However, at times the highlighting of these terms made some things more noticeable. I sometimes am too repetitive with some of these words. The overuse of these terms sometimes makes the piece sound like it’s trying too hard to push a certain idea. Also I noticed I use the pointing term “it” a lot, sometimes possibly in unclear ways. From reading this section in They Say/I Say, I’ll try to be more vigilant when I use “it” to describe something to make sure that it’s clear to see what the “it” is.

I don’t use repetition much in the way that the book said, usually just repeating key words. Very rarely when doing this exercise did I find repeated, restated ideas. I didn’t find many transitions either, which made me realize I should add some in some places. These transitions act as a good way to connect the ideas of sentences near each other, so adding some to the piece could add clarity.

While revising my second paper, my biggest goal is to link the ideas of distraction and multitasking that I presented into my essay more strongly to 20-somethings. By doing this, it will also help with my problem of needing to summarize less and synthesize more. To do this, I’m planning on possibly changing my thesis to accommodate a new aspect to the argument: how may these “distractions” may be harming these young people as well as how it may be impacting their ability to parent. This idea occurred after I saw a comment  added to my paper about how my example from Restak where he talks about the example of the “plastic on the cheese” could shift my paper in the parenting direction. I don’t think I would change my whole paper to revolve around this idea, but maybe put a section about it instead. It might be hard to do this, since neither piece talked on this much. However, I think it could be an interesting piece to add to link back to the example.

As well as doing this, I plan on using more examples from Henig’s essay. I didn’t really use her piece much when writing my first draft of this paper, but going back and finding stuff to help push my argument will help lead to new ideas to push me farther away from summarizing Restak’s & Anderson’s pieces.