Software Class

On Monday I attended the Photoshop 1 software training class. The reason I chose to take photoshop instead of Dreamweaver or Fireworks is because next year I am taking ETD 327, Textile Design: Manual/Computer Generated Imagery and Pattern. In this class we work with photoshop, illustrator and euphoria to create patterns on the computer. At one point we will print one of the patterns we have created on fabric. I wanted to at least know a little bit about photoshop so I wouldn't be completely clueless in class next fall. The class taught me how to work with multiple layers, how to blend two different layers together, how to cut an image in three different ways and much more. I'm glad I took this class because I now feel more comfortable using photoshop.

Stitched-Pinked

This week we read part of the book Emergence by Steven Johnson. The book discusses the theory of emergence. Steven Johnson defines emergence as the low level rules, like behavior and interaction, to form higher level order. There are three examples of emergence that were discussed in the reading. They are an ant colony, Manchester and computer software.

An ant colony has no pacemaker, it is general, a monarch. Every ant has their own specific job and that ant will always do its specific job, no matter what. For some reason the ants all work together and come together by each one doing their own job. They are able to form order. There was one example in the book about how a specific ant colony that was under observation was able to create a “cemetery” and a “landfill.” No one knows if this concept is instilled in the ants brains, but for some reason every ant knew to put the “cemetery” as far away from the colony as possible and to put the “landfill” as far away as possible but opposite the “cemetery.” I just think it’s interesting that the ants knew to have a “cemetery” and a “landfill.” Ant colonies seem to be unplanned, but by looking at the “cemetery” and the “landfill” they seem to have patterns of organization. I was very intrigued by this part of the reading because when I was younger, it’s really dorky, I always thought that there was an ant for every person in the world; like that ant lived the same life as the human. I had a big imagination as a child.

In class we started discussing Manchester and how it was unplanned but had patterns of organization, like the ant colony. However, we quickly switched to discussing suburbia and if it was a form of emergence. I still can’t decide if I think suburbia is a form of emergence. The developments do start as a bottom-up instead of a top-down, I’m just still a little confused. I guess they are because it is its own community that is unplanned. When making suburbia I don’t think the builders are thinking that everyone is going to work together and form this community, but it happens. We also then said that if suburbia is emergence than a trailer park is as well. I’m just wondering about the inner ring of suburbs, the ones that were built first, but then have suburbs past them. I live in an inner ring of suburbs at home. My town was one of the first formed, but now my town feels more apart of Minneapolis than its own town. We have every major highway running through the town. Are these suburbs part of emergence? I guess they could be on some way because they have emerged into the large city even though they started out as small suburbia.

The last topic we discussed was computer software, for example, facebook, and wikipedia. Facebook has emerged into this huge program. It started out simplistic but has evolved and is constantly evolving. Wikipedia is another form of emergence. Anyone can edit wikipedia and the content is a compilation of different sources and materials. The last thing we discussed and actually tried was the book recommendation part of amazon.com. Once you are a registered user you find your favorite book on amazon.com and say you own it. Then you go to the recommendation tab and see what books “they” recommend. If there is a book on the list that you already own then you click own it and refresh the page. The program will automatically recommend more books based on what you own. You can also take the book off of your recommendation list if you know you won’t like it. Eventually the program will change and will know your preferences automatically. We used this in class and it was crazy how accurate the program was at picking books that I would want to read. Some of the books were actually books that I had considered buying.

Net-bound

Last Tuesday we finished watching Lost in Translation by Sofia Coppola. I had already seen the movie (I saw it in theaters.) It was interesting to watch the movie again. I am definitely one of those people who can watch movies over and over again because I always miss something. What I missed this time I actually didn’t notice right away but someone else in the class had written about it on their blog. In the movie when people say “I love you” there is never a response from the other person (the person that is being loved.) We have been talking about places and non-places and Lost in Translation has some great examples of non-places but what about the missing dialog? Another one of my classmates had responded to the “I love you” phrase and said that maybe instead of non-places the phrase is a “non-word.” I find this interesting because I think that this actually is a “non-word” or rather a non-place that isn’t an actual place.

Normally when someone says “I love you” there is a response of “I love you too.” Maybe the “non-word” has no response because, like a non-place, people are just passing by, doing their own thing. A person feels that maybe they don’t have an identity, there is no substantial history. Yes there is history, but maybe the other person doesn’t feel it or maybe they say it out of habit. I’m not sure exactly what this “non-word” means but I’m interested to find out.

We had also discussed how in the movie there are scenes with no dialog and that maybe it meant something. I’m not sure if it meant something but I do know that in a few of Sofia Coppola’s movies she has those same scenes. I just recently saw Marie Antoinette and the movie had very similar scenes. Someone is just standing there with emotion, they don’t say anything, there is no music and then the movie goes to the next scene. Maybe it means something or maybe it is just Sofia Coppola’s style or signature mark.

Hand-overcast

Last week we read Non-Places: From Places to Non-Places by Marc Auge’. The reading describes what a non-place is and how it is actually related to a place. To understand how this relationship works we first need to define a place and a non-pace.

Auge’ defines a place as “relational, historical and concerned with identity.” These places are towns or village centers and lively urban neighborhoods. We feel close and comfortable to our neighbors and history, it’s what we search for in a place. He defines a non-place as “a space that cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity,” also “non-place designates two complementary but distinct realities: space formed in relation to certain ends (transport, transit, commerce, leisure), and the relations that individuals have with these spaces.” Non-places then are airports, hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and highways. In these non-places one has a clearer sense if identity, singularity. One does just what they want to do and doesn’t have concerns for other people in the non-place. When one is in a place there is a sense of community, it is what makes the place a place. However, when one is in a non-place movement is overpowering tradition.

Since non-places and places are so different, how then are they related to each other? They are related by the fact that whenever you have a non-place there is always some aspect of a place and vice versa. As Auge’ states “[a place] is formed by individual identities, through complicities of language, local references, the unformulated rules of living know-how; non-place creates the shared identity of passengers, costumers or Sunday drivers.” For example, in an airport everyone is going in their own direction, their own destination but they have shared identities because they all have a destination. Some people’s destinations might be the same (the same gate, airplane or baggage claim), while others is just a destination somewhere (a gate, restaurant, starbucks, ticket counter, etc.) Everyone has a personal identity, but they are all shared in some way. Auge’ also says that “certain places exist only through the words that evoke them, in this sense they are non-places, or rather, imaginary places: banal utopias, clichés.” For example, the signs that lead one to rest stops create the illusion of a place, but in fact it is a non-place because you have all of these people going in their own direction. Yes they are all stopping at the same place to do the same thing, but the only reason this happens is because of the sign that states that the “place” is a rest stop

Specialty Finish

Since I was in an airport for two hours on Tuesday I decided to write about the airport for my non-place. What I observed was while in the waiting area (at the gate) people were reading a book or magazine. Some people were doing homework, which makes me consider them students. People were talking to one another, have it be with people they know and are traveling with, people who they just met and are getting to know (making small talk) or people talking on the phone. Some who were talking on the phone were actually holding the phone to their ear, while others had the ear piece in where you couldn’t tell if they were talking to themselves or talking on the phone. There were also people working on their computers, either sitting by an outlet or using the battery life of the computer.

The people that were not sitting at the gate were constantly walking, sometimes they would stop to grab their phone or make sure they didn’t drop anything. Everyone looked rushed, in a hurry. Some people were running while others were speed walking and still others were meandering. The meandering people were normally with small children. There were also people boarding planes and getting off planes on their way, in a hurry, to baggage claim. Also, some were buying food or magazines or books or just browsing. The airport was interesting because in the reading it said that most of the time there is always a place in a non-place. I don’t know if I necessarily found the place in my non-place but I did realize that although everyone is going in their own direction and doing their own thing everyone has a destination. Everyone is similar in the fact that we are all going somewhere; no matter how we arrive to our destination we all have a destination.

Hong Kong Finish

Today I had my midterm project due for my off-loom class. We had to make something using plaiting, twining or coiling. I chose to use pliating and bad a belt out of ostridge leather and paper yarn. It's pretty cool. I also have a project due tomorrow in my structural class. We had to pick something in the room to cover. I chose to cover one of the lights in the room. Hopefully it will work. I leave for spring break tomorrow and I am really excited to have a week off. I also have an interview with Kenneth Cole ON April 10th in New York. The interview is for a sumer internship. Wish me luck.

Pinked

This week we discussed our concerns about our dependence on technology. It was a really interesting discussion because everyone has different opinions about it. Some people think that our dependence on technology isn’t harming anyone while others think it is. I’m stuck in the middle but leaning more towards the dependence as a bad thing.

One of the concerns that we discussed was a person’s loss of control/sense of self. We rely on technology so much, for example, we can’t do simple math problems without using a calculator. People also create faux people on the internet through MUDs. Some would argue that if creating this person on the internet helps them than why look down at them, why think it’s this horrible thing. I’m torn but if the person does not become dependent on this faux person then it isn’t troublesome.

We also discussed the difference between regulated technology and unregulated technology. Regulated technology is hearing aids or contacts, good technology. Unregulated technology is the internet, bad technology. I think that people rely on the internet so much that it has become a drug, bad technology. For example, when dating online people say they do this because they don’t have the nerve to talk to someone at a bar. If people continue to date online because they feel insecure or don’t think they can talk to someone in public these people will never change, they will never evolve. They find that dating online works so they will always use it. It’s like if you think you can’t fall asleep without a sleeping pill, even if eventually you can, your mind will always think this, and you will become dependent on the sleeping pill. It is the same for the internet (dating online).

The same is true about anything we use the internet for. I always hear people say that they are addicted to facebook or myspace or u tube. The internet has changed the way we live, some good and some bad. The good would be we are able to find information faster; the bad would be we have become so dependent on it that we are addicted. I wonder if anyone can go one day without checking there e-mail (if checking it just to check it) or going on facebook. It would be interesting to see how many people can go one day without using the internet for enjoyment.

Slot Seam

This Tuesday we read Connected, or What it Means to Live in the Network Society by Steven Shaviro. The reading discusses sampling and if it is considered plagiarism when used in music, but in a different way. We need to first understand what sampling is before trying to make an opinion about plagiarism in music.

Sampling is taking many different things and putting them together. For example, in writing when one writes a research paper or papers in general, one samples other people’s ideas. When you write a paper you combine other texts and ideas to find new meaning behind it. You can also put a direct quote in the paper as long as you site it, which is authorship. Authorship is if you take anything from anyone, you need to credit the original. So, in a paper if you put a “quote” in and you don’t site it, then it is considered plagiarism. A certain amount of what you write has to come from you. Blogs are another example of sampling. In a blog you have links to websites to give examples. You are pulling material from another context to better understand your idea.

In music people take multiple songs and combine them to make their own song. This could be considered plagiarism if the artist did not get the right to use the other artists’ songs. I am starting to understand that if you take something, sample it, but didn’t change the meaning of it and didn’t site the original author then it is stealing, plagiarism. However, if something new comes out of the sampling then maybe it isn’t plagiarism because you formed your own idea about it. Jetter, from the reading, says that “bit by bit every writer has constructed the world inside his head from previously existing texts by others.” So actually any idea that someone constructs is actually in some way taken from someone else, everything we do is plagiarized or stolen in some way.

Bias Binding

This week we read “The Coolhunt” by Malcolm Galdwell from The New Yorker. I found the article very interesting because it mainly discussed finding the “cool” in fashion. I actually don’t agree with the “coolhunt” and don’t find the act of coolhunting to be a great role in society’s fashion. It’s hard to believe that people get paid to be “coolhunters.” My definition of “coolhunting” is people going around and trying to find the one different person that’s wearing the one different thing and then they call it cool and make it a trend. I guess I don’t see the point of “coolhunting” because I think that designers should make their own cool and not take it from someone else.

What I have been taught in all of my design classes is when inventing something take inspiration not from fashion but from other things. For example, in one of my classes we had to make an inspiration board, but the images could not be about fashion (we couldn’t put images from fashion magazines on our boards.) We were forced to look outside of the box, my topic was architecture in Italy. I have actually made some new intriguing things that could be considered cool and I didn’t get my inspiration from something that someone was wearing.

Malcolm Galdwell says that “you can’t convince the late majority that Hush Puppies are cool, because the late majority makes its coolness decisions on the basis of what the early majority is doing, and you can’t convince the early majority, because the early majority is looking at the early adopters, and you can’t convince the early adopters, because they take their cues from the innovators.” I think that the innovators should be the designers themselves. The designers shouldn’t take “cues” from people on the street because the designers are getting paid to be the innovators. I think that as long as a designer is original and creates their own “cool” then these designers can go with the trend of fashion, but make the trend their own.

I also had a discussion with my mom about this topic because she is in the fashion industry. What I started to understand is that designers can use the “coolhunters” to gather information but it shouldn’t be the only source that they use. Designers need to go out on their own and find their own inspiration but the “coolhunter” findings are useful because then one will be able to know what will sell and what won’t.

Stay Stitching

The public place that I chose was Starbucks. What I noticed as being cool were ugg boots (or any kind of winteresk boot), studying at starbucks, dressing comfy and drinking hot coffee with a straw. Everyone dresses the same so I guess what everyone is wearing (boots, long jacket, sweatpants/leggings) is more of a fad “cool.” I think that people might think it’s cool to where this clothing because everyone is wearing it, but I think it has become more of a fad because everyone is wearing it. I also think that dressing comfy for class is a fad and dressing up for class is “cool” because everyone dresses comfy for class.

I think that studying at a coffee shop is “cool,” it’s a place to study that’s “cooler” than the library. People get more excited when they study at a coffee shop than when they study at the library. I think this happens because a coffee shop is a more interesting place to study and you also see more interesting people than when one is at the library. You see people other than students so I think this makes the coffee shop more intriguing. When you find something “cool” it is “cool” because you are intrigued by it.

Almost everyone was drinking their coffee with a straw. People do this because their teeth are whitened and when you get your teeth whitened you are not supposed to drink coffee or any other colored beverages. People drink coffee any way but do so with a straw so they don’t stain their teeth. However, I saw a warning at a coffee shop once about how drinking coffee with a straw makes you more susceptible to burning your mouth, so you are actually not supposed to drink hot liquids with a straw. In a way this could be considered “cool” because it is something that you are not supposed to do, it is dangerous, but since everyone does it I don’t considered it cool.

To sum up, I think cool is more defined as something that not a lot of people do that people find interesting and then once the “cool” thing becomes “public” it is a trend/fad. It was difficult to find “cool” things because I went to a place where everyone was a little similar and the place was on campus. If I went off campus, away from college students I think that I would find more “cool” things because it would be a more eclectic group of people.

Overlock Stitch

On Thursday we read Six Degrees, Ch. 6 Epidemics and Failures by Duncan Watts. The chapter explains that by understanding how epidemics like Ebola or HIV spreads we will be able to understand how computer viruses spread. First we must look at the spread of epidemics and then the spread of computer viruses.

Ebola has mainly stayed in small remote cities while HIV has spread all over the world. The reason for this is that Ebola “exhibits all the subtlety of a train wreck, revealing its true nature in a matter of days and killing shortly thereafter.” Once the victims exhibit the symptoms of the virus they become overwhelmingly ill that they are not able to move, making themselves quarantined without purposefully isolating them, so the virus has no way of spreading to new hosts. HIV on the other hand kills their victims slowly and doesn’t show signs of infection right away, so the victim is able to pass the virus on before realizing that they are infected. A good way to compare Ebola and HIV is to look at their efficiency. “The more contagious a virus is, and the longer it can keep the host in an infectious state, the more efficient it is at searching. Ebola, therefore, is more efficient than HIV in that it is significantly more infectious (HIV-infected patients don’t vomit blood in the emergency room), but is less efficient in that it kills so quickly.”

Computer viruses, “in terms of efficiency,” are more “contagious” than human viruses. “The function of computers is to execute instructions as efficiently as possible, regardless of where the instructions came from. So they are considerably more vulnerable to malicious bits of code than are people.” Since computers do not need to replicate a virus to the tee, they can take parts of the virus to pass it on; the virus is more capable of reproducing and infecting computers worldwide, which makes computer viruses more efficient. Computer viruses are more infectious than human viruses and continue to spread. Also, computers don’t have immune systems. Usually viruses (human) can be fought off but since computers don’t have immune systems they can not be fought off unless there is an antibody made for the virus.

Mad Libs Creature

Right now I am working on my newest project for my Structural Enrichment II class. We first had to create a mad libs for a creature that we are making. My mad libs is a follows:
Who am I?
Some would say that I have very gargantuan (size) fangs (features). I think that they only think that because my movements are clumsy (movement). The outside texture of my body hairy (texture) which leads some creatures to believe that I am stressed (personality), maybe it’s true. People think I taste like chicken because of my fuscia (color) skin but I am more of a creamy (taste) consistency. I have 6 (number) fangs (features) and ¾ of a claw (feature).

The assignment is: The above mad libs is giving you hints to your creature’s looks and personality. It is your job to breath life into this creature. I want you to create a creature with lots of personality. It could be a stuffed animal or a hand puppet. It is important that you capture all of the creatures traits listed above. Please feel free to add any attributes to your creature that you think are important. As always think about rich interesting textures and color combinations. This project has wonderful possibilities for working with movement and I encourage you to do so. Keep in mind that this is a three-dimensional work so all sides need to be finished and contribute to the success of the piece. This is a fantastic project to make your own embellishments!! Have fun.

Right now I am still trying to decide if I should make a puppet or a stuffed animal. My professor wants me to make a puppet to emphasize the fangs but I am having trouble figuring out how to actually construct a puppet. For some reason my mind doesn’t understand the construction of puppets. When I am finished with the project I’ll try to post a picture of it on my blog. We will also receive 15 extra credit points if we make our creature into a food to share with the class (the class consists of 7 students).

Double Top-Stitched

On Thursday we discussed The Moment of Complexity, Ch. 1: From Grid to Network by Mark C. Taylor. Taylor is trying to explain how society has gone from a grid format to a network format. He also explains the difference between chaos and complexity. To understand the change from grid to network we first need to understand chaos and complexity and then how these two concepts work in grids and networks.

Chaos is things blown up into unrecognizable forms. It is the butterfly effect of small changes producing effects not specific to their cause, it is chaotic. Complexity is self-organizing because it has more order than chaos. An example would be the formation of an ant hill. There are ants running around, pursuing their own path and direction, and then as they start to make connections with each other they come together. Eventually, together, they start to make the ant hill and a community. They are self-organized because through the connections they made with each other they were able to come together and achieve the same goal, make a home.

Furthermore, grids are like walls where networks are like webs. An example would be the “transition from the Cold War system to network culture.” The Cold war system was established to simplify “complex relations and situations in terms of a grid with clear and precise oppositions.” With this system the grid, with its structure, provided security. However, “grids offer no protection from spreading the web; as the webs grow, walls collapse and begin to change.” So as society changes and becomes more of a network culture the grid formats collapse, as this change accelerates, it brings “everything to the edge of chaos. This is the moment of complexity.” The moment of complexity is understood as “the shift from a world structured by grids to a world organized like networks.” It is the moment where “self-organizing systems emerge to create new patterns of coherence and structures of relation.” To me this means that without the “moment of complexity” society can’t change from grid formats to network formats.

Rolled Hem

On Tuesday we discussed Understanding Media, Ch. 1: The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan. I had a difficult time understanding this reading because of McLuhan’s complexity in his thought process. However, through our class discussion I started to understand McLuhan’s argument. He states that “medium is the message.” To fully understand this statement we have to understand what he means by medium and what he means by message.

To begin with, if you think about a movie, what part of a movie do you think is the medium and what part the message? The medium would be the act of seeing the movie or becoming engaged in the movie. It could also be the film making process. I interpret it as everything that goes into making the movie, the speech, the acting, the special effects, etc. The message would then be what happens in the movie, the actual script. Another example to further understand medium and message is blogs. The medium of blogs is everything that blogs can do: upload pictures, u-tubes, writing in html, being able to write on a blog, etc. So the content, what you write in your blog is then the message.

I think that McLuhan’s statement “the medium is the message” is validated with the examples I have listed above. Using the blog example, without the ability to write on a blog, upload pictures, etc, we wouldn’t be able to get our message across, the content. The message of a blog is what we write and without this ability, the medium, we can’t write our “message.” So, the medium is the message because without the medium we can’t have a message.

However, there is one example that he talks about that doesn’t have a message, the electric light. “The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message.” To explain this he goes on to say that “the ‘content’ of any medium is always another medium. The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print and print is the content of the telegraph.” What he means is that the medium enables other things to happen so that is its content. You could argue, though, that the content of the electric light is what it is being used for like night baseball or surgery, however he says that “it could be argued that these activities are in some way the ‘content’ of the electric light, since they could not exist without the electric light. This fact merely underlines the point that ‘the medium is the message’ because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.” I’m not convinced that the electric light has no message because everything can have a medium but not everything can have a message because the medium “shapes” the message. If the medium chooses not to “shape” a message, like the electric light, then there is no message.

Cording

Our original assignment for today’s blog was to do exercise #4 on pg. 22 in the book Writing About Cool by Jeff Rice. For the exercise we had to link all of our classes together that we are taking this semester through their readings and discussions. Since I only have one class with readings and discussion time (English 201) I chose to do a different exercise (with permission from my TA). The exercise that I am going to write about is #1 on pg. 12. It says “Construct a museum of cool Internet sites. By this, we don’t mean find sites you consider to exemplify ‘cool’, but rather construct an inventory of as many sites that you can find using cool in their title, content, or lists.”

Here are some websites that I found.

http://www.coolsiteoftheday.com/

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/

http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/

http://www.coolmath.com/

http://www.coolhunting.com/

http://www.coolarchive.com/

http://www.coolworks.com/

http://www.metacafe.com/tags/cool/

http://www.coolhomepages.com/

http://yucky.discovery.com/flash/

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~aiken/cool/

http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/

http://www.thecoolhunter.net/

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/bytopic/disasters/

http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/

http://www.coolsavings.com/home.aspx?SessionID=d683be6a-e1f6-4232-a17b-7662a624b837

http://coolwallpaper.com/

http://www.ams.usda.gov/COOL/

http://www.adobe.com/special/products/audition/syntrillium.html

http://www.coollist.com/

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu//

Flat-Felled Seam

On Thursday we discussed a reading titled “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog” by Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd. The reading discusses the different genres that weblogs have and why society is so interested in everyone’s lives. In the reading they say that in order to understand blogs as a “new genre” we first have to “understand the Kairos that makes this genre possible” and second how mediated voyeurism has played a role in the emergence of blogs as a genre.

Kairos is defined by Wikipeida as “the ‘right or opportune moment,’ ‘a time in between’, a moment of undetermined period of time in which "something" special happens. What the special something is depends on who is using the word.” It is also defined in rhetoric as "a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved." For blogs, Kairos means the opportunity for people to write or react at any moment, whenever it is convenient and to anticipate what people are going to say.

Mediated voyeurism played an important role in the emergence of blogs as a popular genre. Mediated voyeurism is looking at what is going on in other people’s lives. It has three parts that help define and explain it. The first is “the pursuit of ‘truth’ in an increasingly media-saturated world.” This explains that our society is focused on knowing the truth no matter how it is achieved and that knowing the “truth” is one of the most important things. I think that society is so intrigued by blogs because we think that if it is written in a blog then it must be true. We need a sense of reality and blogs makes this reality more “authentic.”

The second part of mediated voyeurism is “the desire for excitement.” An example would be watching an “amazing home video.” The excitement makes us feel that we were actually there. In that moment we “vicariously experience challenges that give meaning to life.” By reading people’s blogs, exciting as it is, we want to experience what the person in the blog experienced.

Finally mediated voyeurism is “the need for involvement, the desire to be part of the world around us, even though voyeurism by its very nature can provide only the illusion of involvement.” By creating your own blog and blog roll one has satisfied their “need for involvement.” Blogs have helped to satisfy one’s “need for involvement” by creating this community within the blog realm. A blog makes ordinary people feel like it is the National Enquirer. It is the idea of making “real” people “Celebrities.”

French Seam Finish

My previous experience with “academic” writing is pretty basic. Any time that I did writing for classes the topics were always on a book or an academic topic. For example, I took English 167 and every paper that we wrote for that class was about a book that we had just read, have it be explaining the symbols in the book or comparing and contrasting two different books. Although in high school writing was a little different. I had a writing class my junior year titled “College Writing.” We had a big research paper for the basis of the class and my topic was how the roman goddesses’ cults and the Roman Empire helped Christianity evolve. We could pick whatever topic we wanted (I’m Jewish by the way). I think the best part about the class was that it was intended to prepare us for writing in college. The class has in a way prepared me, for example I know how to write compare and contrast papers and research and write large research papers, but I haven’t really done a lot of writing while at college. I have taken English 100 and 167, but that’s about it. In the classes for my major we don’t write a lot. What we do is pick a topic and then portray it in a way that doesn’t involve writing, like through printing and dyeing or fabric manipulation and embroidery.

I think that media challenges the concept of academic in writing based on how people research topics, how they go about writing and how their writing is made available. How one researches a topic has changed from when I was in high school. In high school we weren’t allowed to use sources from the internet, they all had to come from books. Now people source almost anything, like Wikipedia. By having the internet more available and many people having their own computer we have changed the way we research topics. Even one of my professors today told me to start researching on the internet first before trying to start at the library.

I think that this way of researching could be good, but does have some consequences. By starting with the internet we can get information fast and easy and will most likely start to understand our topic more so when we go to the library we can start looking for more specific books or articles. However, sometimes by starting with the internet and not looking at scholarly websites we might get the wrong idea for our topic or obtain false information.

Learning how to create a web page is an example of how we write academically has changed. In this class we will learn just that. I think that this is a great benefit of how new media has changed the standard “academic” writing. I may not write a 20 page research paper once I graduate but I will definitely use the skills of making a web page. For certain people knowing how to write a research paper will help them in their career, but for me personally I most likely will not use those skills.

“Academic” writing used to be available to professors, TAs or teachers and the public if it was published but now it could be available to anyone. This class is a great example. All of the “academic” writing that we are doing for this class is made available to anyone who would like to read it by posting it on our blogs. I think that this is also a benefit because I seem to be able to write. Writing, for me, has always been hard, difficult and stressful. By having a blog to post all of my class work on has created this aura of ease. The blog makes writing seem less strict and freer. When we write a post we can write more casually but it still needs to have the academic touch. Writing this way creates less stress, which I think is good because writing shouldn’t be stressful. I think that it is a benefit that “academic” writing has changed with the new media, but we just need to be careful to not take it too far.

Serging

What does Writing Mean?

Mock French

In class on Thursday we read an article about Middlebury College banning students from citing Wikipedia as a source in papers. The article goes on to explain that the web site is not a great source when writing a paper because there could be and are errors in the research. Sandra Ordonez says that “there is no guarantee an article is 100 percent correct” but thinks that it is a good starting point when researching. I agree with this because you have to start research somewhere, even if it isn’t a source one will use when actually writing a paper and the website does supply good starting information. Also, the website does have a bibliography for each topic, which is a great resource because then one can look at the sources the writer of the website used to further their research and may even find great primary or secondary sources. So, I agree with Middlebury college in banning the use of Wikipedia as a source when writing a paper, but I think that it shouldn’t be completely disregarded.

Another thing that I was puzzled by when reading this article was that college students in the history department thought that it was fine to site an encyclopedia in a paper. I was taught to not do that in high school so I was a little confused as to why college students thought that it was ok. Which brings me to another point, Middlebury didn’t specify what the punishment was going to be if a student violated this rule of not citing Wikipedia in papers. I think that when the college presents this topic to the students or receives another paper with Wikipedia cited, the faculty should educate the students on why Wikipedia isn’t a good source to use and why there could be false information, instead of punishing the students on the first offense. Perhaps picking a Wikipedia site and showing by example the error that are found would help educate students on the discrepancies. Through education, instead of punishment, students will learn proper research procedures.

Additionally, we read another article by Lester L. Faigley titled Rhetorics Fast and Slow. This article explained the difference between fast and slow rhetorics. For example, text messaging is a fast rhetoric, while a slow rhetoric would be writing multiple drafts of a paper until you have the final draft. I think that Faigley would say Wikipedia is a fast rhetoric and would agree that if Middlebury wants to ban the use of citing Wikipedia than the faculty should educate the students first because he thinks that “the fate of future generations will depend on how well the students we teach can use slow rhetoric.” This is another example of how students need to be taught how to research in a scholarly manner.

Embroidery

I have a big project due tomorrow. It is going to be a long night. For the project we have to pick 4 onomatopoeias and create them in fabric using fabric manipulation and embroidery. Thats it for today because I have to go back to my project.

Zizag Stitch

I would define rhetoric as a way of speaking either intelligently, with authority or thoughtfully. Rhetoric is the way of speaking through literature via debate or speech. For example, President Bush does not speak with good rhetoric; however President Clinton spoke with great rhetoric because he was able to get his point across in an effective manner. The dictionary definition from www.dictionary.com is “the study of the effective use of language” and “the ability to use language effectively.”

After reading Herrick’s introduction my perception of rhetoric has changed a little. I had never really thought of rhetoric as negative. I always thought of the definition of rhetoric in a broad way, the way of speaking. I am glad that this reading didn’t change my perception or my definition of rhetoric in a drastic way because I don’t think that I would want to look at the negative aspects of rhetoric, I would rather look at the positive. The article says that we view rhetoric as a way to argue one’s point and convince their audience to agree with them instead of just a way of speaking. I guess one could interpret “a way of speaking” to be a way of persuading or convincing, but I don’t interpret it in that way.

In the “Defining Rhetoric” section George Kennedy defines rhetoric as “the energy inherent in emotion and thought, transmitted through a system of signs, including language, to others to influence their decisions or actions.” This definition shows that rhetoric is used to influence people in some way. If one thinks about it, though, almost any time one talks to a person/audience, have it be telling a story or explaining something, one is trying to convince the person/audience to agree with them even if that person isn’t trying to on purpose.

Herrick defines rhetoric as “the systematic study and intentional practice of effective symbolic expression. Effective here will mean achieving the purpose of the symbol-user, whether that purpose is persuasion, clarity, beauty, or mutual understanding.” I agree with this definition the most because it is broad enough and does not generalize rhetoric as just a way of persuading. The definition does say that rhetoric is a way of arguing, but it also says that rhetoric is a way of making people understand what someone is talking about or explaining. My perception of what we define rhetoric as, has changed because I never really thought of rhetoric as negative. If we didn’t have rhetoric how would we get anything done? Rhetoric is a way of expressing how one feels about something. My definition of rhetoric has changed because I initially thought of rhetoric as speaking with words, but I now think and know that rhetoric is more than that. Rhetoric is a way of speaking through the use of symbols for the use of understanding.

Straight Stitch

My name is Becky and I am setting up this blog for my English 201 class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am a junior majoring in Textile and Apparel design (fashion design.) I plan to attend FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City) in the Fall of 2008 to finish my bachelors degree and associates degree. Fashion is my passion (didn’t mean to rhyme) so my blog is titled after a summer/vacation clothing line I created last year. I am a pretty private person so my posts will mainly be (probably all of them) about my English class.