It's the middle of the semester, but I'm already neglecting core responsibilities to work on projects such as: an impressionistic slideshow of the maha mrityunjaya.
For example, "triyambakam yajamahe" would be a traffic light. Sugandhim is the steam that rises from manhole covers.
(I think) the pictures would have to be moonlit for contrast and the OneCard machine is bound to make a cameo somewhere ...
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
travelgate update -- even more funding
Super Bob finds more travel dollars behind the microwave [see below]. Note Bob - Francie correspondence for added cuteness, which becomes cuteness cubed with me and Jessica on the CC line. Too bad these fantasies never work out irl.
Wait, what fantasies?
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ROBERT J BURGOYNE [mailto:ad5148@wayne.edu]
>Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 1:32 PM
>To: ae8683@wayne.edu
>Cc: hilaryanne@wayne.edu, j.rivait@wayne.edu
>Subject: Grad Student support
>
>Dear Frances,
>
>I will approve $100 apiece for the grad students in tech writing who will be
>presenting papers at the conference you describe. Please talk to Kathy to
>find out what the procedure will be. The larger question should be taken
up
>later.
>
>Best, Bob
Wait, what fantasies?
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ROBERT J BURGOYNE [mailto:ad5148@wayne.edu]
>Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 1:32 PM
>To: ae8683@wayne.edu
>Cc: hilaryanne@wayne.edu, j.rivait@wayne.edu
>Subject: Grad Student support
>
>Dear Frances,
>
>I will approve $100 apiece for the grad students in tech writing who will be
>presenting papers at the conference you describe. Please talk to Kathy to
>find out what the procedure will be. The larger question should be taken
up
>later.
>
>Best, Bob
Saturday, March 03, 2007
usability problem
So here's the thing: What do girls do when they have like Rihanna-style sideswept bangs that sweep over 1 eye, and they need to like use that eye to write a short perl script or something? Should I assume that sexy hair and programming are mutually exclusive?
handprint awareness day
Along with my hair, the following items are now soft ash brown:
1. My hands.
2. My cell phone.
3. The Origins of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
4. My ipod nano.
1. My hands.
2. My cell phone.
3. The Origins of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
4. My ipod nano.
Friday, March 02, 2007
girl scout
Date: Fri 2 Mar 16:15:05 EST 2007
From: HILARY WARD Add To Address Book | This is Spam
Subject: auto mechanic
To: ae8921@wayne.edu
Hi Dr. Gorzesky,
I'm searching for a reference to a reputable auto mechanic in southwest detroit. Any suggestions?
Note: Yes, I'll gladly take a reference to an espanol-only mechanic. The language of cars is universal.
Hilary
p.s. It takes a real grown-up to ask for a mechanic reference well in advance of the next emergency. Time to reward myself by deleting 4 unread student emails.
From: HILARY WARD
Subject: auto mechanic
To: ae8921@wayne.edu
Hi Dr. Gorzesky,
I'm searching for a reference to a reputable auto mechanic in southwest detroit. Any suggestions?
Note: Yes, I'll gladly take a reference to an espanol-only mechanic. The language of cars is universal.
Hilary
p.s. It takes a real grown-up to ask for a mechanic reference well in advance of the next emergency. Time to reward myself by deleting 4 unread student emails.
fabulous idea for TCQ article
"Hall discusses technology as "extensions", which permit the human species to evolve without changing biologically" (Miller, Technology as a form of Consciousness, p. 229).
Do you see it? Do you?
Do you see it? Do you?
How long will this hair last?
I'm happy to report that the cute extensions and cut have already outlasted their predecessors.
However, this color has 2 hrs. to live. Max.
Every time I shower, precious blue-green tones go crestfallen into the water. Througout the history of bloggerandme, the remaining color has had many names such as:
tentanus shot
dennis rodman
vomited yam
Don't they know that tones with names like:
dark chocolate brown
seaweed
midnight mud
ash
are self-evidently better? It never ceases to amaze me that people will add golden tones to their hair on purpose, and that some even look good while doing it.
However, this color has 2 hrs. to live. Max.
Every time I shower, precious blue-green tones go crestfallen into the water. Througout the history of bloggerandme, the remaining color has had many names such as:
tentanus shot
dennis rodman
vomited yam
Don't they know that tones with names like:
dark chocolate brown
seaweed
midnight mud
ash
are self-evidently better? It never ceases to amaze me that people will add golden tones to their hair on purpose, and that some even look good while doing it.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Quiz
Bloggerandme invites you to participate in a new quiz titled, "How long will this hair last?".
Helpful hints:
1. I have to look at a picture of Rihanna to style my hair.
2. "Let's pretend, for a second", said Hilary, "that I'm motivated enough to do this at home. What ... contraption would I use?" Answer: ceramic flat iron.
3. This morning I looked at my hair in the mirror and out at my car where the ceramic flat iron is now housed and said, "Shh! Not now".
4. Hair invites unwanted sexual attention.
5. I've started to bitch that my hair (which is a natural chocolate brown) "looks red to me for some reason".
So, how long will this hair last? The closest guess (measured in days) wins a free lunch @ OG.
Helpful hints:
1. I have to look at a picture of Rihanna to style my hair.
2. "Let's pretend, for a second", said Hilary, "that I'm motivated enough to do this at home. What ... contraption would I use?" Answer: ceramic flat iron.
3. This morning I looked at my hair in the mirror and out at my car where the ceramic flat iron is now housed and said, "Shh! Not now".
4. Hair invites unwanted sexual attention.
5. I've started to bitch that my hair (which is a natural chocolate brown) "looks red to me for some reason".
So, how long will this hair last? The closest guess (measured in days) wins a free lunch @ OG.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
update
Bloggerandme is happy to announce that I survived the gravy of death and am up on 9, "happily" grading papers.
...
So one thing that's hard to find on-campus is, a socially acceptable place to lay down.
Let me back up. I'm mildly allergic to gluten. Basically, it wears down the tread on my stomach lining. Normally this is not a big problem: I "try to stay away from" products that contain wheat, but to get really, genuinely sick I'd have to drink gluten concentrate or something.
So do you remember the hot turkey sandwitches that my dad used to make when we lived in Adrian? Of course not. But the point is, that's one hell of a sandwitch. So tonight I describe the sandwitch at OG and they make one for me and I ate the sandwitch.
And the preternaturally thick gravy must have been made straight from gluten concentrate or something. So two minutes later, I'm locked in that semi-private bathroom throwing up things that I ate in kindergarten. Normal people who just want to go to the bathroom are knocking on the door.
SO-O I leave without paying and go to State Hall looking for a place to crash. It feels like I've been kicked in the stomach. I'm dizzy. I should phone a friend to take me home, but first I want some privacy with my exploding stomach.
So I get to State Hall and the bathroom floors are all pee-soaked, which makes me throw up again. Hmm, I think. Better go upstairs.
Then I kind of lay down flat on the stairwell. I know from my experience with Avalon cookies that I'm not going to die ("whole" = wheat), but the students, who don't know that, are stepping over me on their way to class. No forthcoming offers to help. So I'm laying there kind of praying, please don't let any of these students be my students, please don't let any of these instructors be Ruth.
And the student security guard who has seen me walking to class a ZILLION times asks me to leave. "I'm not homeless", I protest, "Just allergic".
"Still", says the guard skeptically, "you can't lay here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave".
So I go outside and lay on the designated stone slab. It's cold, so I go under my coat. What if I fall asleep here, I wonder. Throwing up makes me tired so I start to drift off.
But then, fortunately, some nice students come by and offer me a quarter.
Let me back up. I'm mildly allergic to gluten. Basically, it wears down the tread on my stomach lining. Normally this is not a big problem: I "try to stay away from" products that contain wheat, but to get really, genuinely sick I'd have to drink gluten concentrate or something.
So do you remember the hot turkey sandwitches that my dad used to make when we lived in Adrian? Of course not. But the point is, that's one hell of a sandwitch. So tonight I describe the sandwitch at OG and they make one for me and I ate the sandwitch.
And the preternaturally thick gravy must have been made straight from gluten concentrate or something. So two minutes later, I'm locked in that semi-private bathroom throwing up things that I ate in kindergarten. Normal people who just want to go to the bathroom are knocking on the door.
SO-O I leave without paying and go to State Hall looking for a place to crash. It feels like I've been kicked in the stomach. I'm dizzy. I should phone a friend to take me home, but first I want some privacy with my exploding stomach.
So I get to State Hall and the bathroom floors are all pee-soaked, which makes me throw up again. Hmm, I think. Better go upstairs.
Then I kind of lay down flat on the stairwell. I know from my experience with Avalon cookies that I'm not going to die ("whole" = wheat), but the students, who don't know that, are stepping over me on their way to class. No forthcoming offers to help. So I'm laying there kind of praying, please don't let any of these students be my students, please don't let any of these instructors be Ruth.
And the student security guard who has seen me walking to class a ZILLION times asks me to leave. "I'm not homeless", I protest, "Just allergic".
"Still", says the guard skeptically, "you can't lay here. I'm going to have to ask you to leave".
So I go outside and lay on the designated stone slab. It's cold, so I go under my coat. What if I fall asleep here, I wonder. Throwing up makes me tired so I start to drift off.
But then, fortunately, some nice students come by and offer me a quarter.
various
Date: Tue 27 Feb 16:24:10 EST 2007
From: Margaret Maday Add To Address Book | This is Spam
Subject: Fwd: FYI -- Various construction issues
From: Margaret Maday
Subject: Fwd: FYI -- Various construction issues
travelgate update
Anyway, who says that nagging doesn't work? I, personally, did some champion nagging this weekend, the kind of nagging that veers into stalking.
And what did we get? Travel funding. Oh you will see how far I am willing to go, said Francie to Ross, to make the nagging stop. That's a paraphrase.
And what did we get? Travel funding. Oh you will see how far I am willing to go, said Francie to Ross, to make the nagging stop. That's a paraphrase.
reverse psychology
You know, if I ever do have children, I've decided not to try to influence them on matters of faith. Nope. Because I know, for example, that my mom is going to want to take them to Mass [ie Catholic Church]. And that's fine with me. They can go and listen about the Israelites and the Canaanites and the Pamphalet Rack in the Vestibule.
And then, on the way home, I'll say: "Well, I bet you've had enough religion for one day -- so I'm not going to bore you with a story about Hanuman the talking monkey".
And then, on the way home, I'll say: "Well, I bet you've had enough religion for one day -- so I'm not going to bore you with a story about Hanuman the talking monkey".
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
story
"A young guy lived in an ordinary town, ordinary except for one thing:it was surrounded by a completely empty plain that extended all the way to the horizon.
One afternoon, the guy went for a walk. It was sunny and there was a soft wind blowing. Some children were playing in the street and some old people were drinking tea in the doorways of their houses. It was a small town, and when he walked too much in one direction, after rounding a corner suddenly he faced the plain, flat and white as marble, extending to the horizon. So the town began to get smaller. Houses and buildings began to disappear. More and more often the guy found the plain, and changed his direction. Also the streets began to get wider, until because of the decreasing number of houses and buildings, and because of the widening of the streets, the plain began to be seen in any direction that one could look. This continued to happen until only twelve buildings remained in the town, then eight, then four...
Finally the town disappeared completely and the guy remained in the middle of the plain, empty all the way to the horizon, with the sun fixed and unmoving in the sky" (Pablo Frank).
One afternoon, the guy went for a walk. It was sunny and there was a soft wind blowing. Some children were playing in the street and some old people were drinking tea in the doorways of their houses. It was a small town, and when he walked too much in one direction, after rounding a corner suddenly he faced the plain, flat and white as marble, extending to the horizon. So the town began to get smaller. Houses and buildings began to disappear. More and more often the guy found the plain, and changed his direction. Also the streets began to get wider, until because of the decreasing number of houses and buildings, and because of the widening of the streets, the plain began to be seen in any direction that one could look. This continued to happen until only twelve buildings remained in the town, then eight, then four...
Finally the town disappeared completely and the guy remained in the middle of the plain, empty all the way to the horizon, with the sun fixed and unmoving in the sky" (Pablo Frank).
Fabulous "Enjoy your modem" quote for ATTW:
"Autistic cultural development began in the early 1990's when increased computer access allowed established groups to form as never before, in a medium that was very well suited to autistics. It was quickly found that similarities in experience, communication, and interests created a thriving basis for a culture" (Nelson, 2006).
"Autistic cultural development began in the early 1990's when increased computer access allowed established groups to form as never before, in a medium that was very well suited to autistics. It was quickly found that similarities in experience, communication, and interests created a thriving basis for a culture" (Nelson, 2006).
notes toward ATTW presentation
Good term for my presentation : the "broader autism phenotype" (Attwood).
"Pathways to diagnosis" (Attwood cites the Yale study) is an interesting network concept.
Ie, opening line of my talk:
"The Yale study's highly publicized findings pose this question: do we attribute the autism epidemic to better diagnosis or increased prevalence of the broader autism phenotype? However, no research as explored the possibility that autism is transmitted via the Worldwide Web". Har!
It's strange that Attwood doesn't specifically name the WWW as a pathway to diagnosis.
Oooh. And this would be the theoretical frame:
Much of what we know about medical discourse separates medical discourse into two diverging categories: the professionals and the quacks (cite Faber, Koerber and Tebeaux -- use funny diagram of professional w/tie and funny-looking quack, use my hat, which I won't wear to the conference, as the model for the quack). What we lack is a good model for how these 2 discourses intertwine.
HFA as an example par excellence.
Step 1: APA - affiliated message boards and forums, or MB and forums est. by parents of children diagnosed with autism.
Interesting features: References to DSM -IV criteria, medical-model + psychosocial support.
(Note: Dr. Phil has an AS / HFA message board. No shit!)
Step 2: Individuals w/ AS HFA post in "parents asking adults with AS / HFA sections". Medical model + psychosocial support.
Step 3: And then an interesting thing happened: writers w AS / HFA argue for depathologization.
These writers directly critique and parody the medical model.
Step 4: Professionals (Baron-Cohen, Attwood, etc) argue for depathologization of the broader autism phenotype in medical journals, citing the www writing of adults with AS / HFA (folk psychology, folk physics).
Note loop : Diagnosis is step 0 and step .... n.
HEY! I could email Barb Kirby and get notes from the old message board, woot!
"Pathways to diagnosis" (Attwood cites the Yale study) is an interesting network concept.
Ie, opening line of my talk:
"The Yale study's highly publicized findings pose this question: do we attribute the autism epidemic to better diagnosis or increased prevalence of the broader autism phenotype? However, no research as explored the possibility that autism is transmitted via the Worldwide Web". Har!
It's strange that Attwood doesn't specifically name the WWW as a pathway to diagnosis.
Oooh. And this would be the theoretical frame:
Much of what we know about medical discourse separates medical discourse into two diverging categories: the professionals and the quacks (cite Faber, Koerber and Tebeaux -- use funny diagram of professional w/tie and funny-looking quack, use my hat, which I won't wear to the conference, as the model for the quack). What we lack is a good model for how these 2 discourses intertwine.
HFA as an example par excellence.
Step 1: APA - affiliated message boards and forums, or MB and forums est. by parents of children diagnosed with autism.
Interesting features: References to DSM -IV criteria, medical-model + psychosocial support.
(Note: Dr. Phil has an AS / HFA message board. No shit!)
Step 2: Individuals w/ AS HFA post in "parents asking adults with AS / HFA sections". Medical model + psychosocial support.
Step 3: And then an interesting thing happened: writers w AS / HFA argue for depathologization.
These writers directly critique and parody the medical model.
Step 4: Professionals (Baron-Cohen, Attwood, etc) argue for depathologization of the broader autism phenotype in medical journals, citing the www writing of adults with AS / HFA (folk psychology, folk physics).
Note loop : Diagnosis is step 0 and step .... n.
HEY! I could email Barb Kirby and get notes from the old message board, woot!
good grief
After the grievance committee meeting this morning, I had a chance to seriously think through the connection between two apparently separate ATTW issues:
#1: The power structure of the panel.
#2: Travelgate.
So here's how I figure.
If I'm roughing it on a kind of warped survivalist retreat where we surivive on locusts and honey (read: no per diem meal allowance) and Jessica and I learn valuable life lessons by raising alpacas, that's fine. Bring on the bunk beds. But in this scenario I expect to rough it at the conference too, taking some meaningful intellectual risks and inviting the panel out for some NY nightlife.
But if I'm going to say "anti-discourse" when prompted (as in: "Actually, Hilary, that's not what we mean by anti-discourse") and sit politely through the whole good-girl / bad-girl / babysitter dynamic we have going? Seriously? That will be 20 dollars a song.
#1: The power structure of the panel.
#2: Travelgate.
So here's how I figure.
If I'm roughing it on a kind of warped survivalist retreat where we surivive on locusts and honey (read: no per diem meal allowance) and Jessica and I learn valuable life lessons by raising alpacas, that's fine. Bring on the bunk beds. But in this scenario I expect to rough it at the conference too, taking some meaningful intellectual risks and inviting the panel out for some NY nightlife.
But if I'm going to say "anti-discourse" when prompted (as in: "Actually, Hilary, that's not what we mean by anti-discourse") and sit politely through the whole good-girl / bad-girl / babysitter dynamic we have going? Seriously? That will be 20 dollars a song.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
brittany
This just in: According to multiple media sources, shaving your head and / or putting someone elses' hair on your head is a sign of incapacitating mental illness.
Finally, the proof I need to quit my job and live perpetually off of SSI.
Finally, the proof I need to quit my job and live perpetually off of SSI.
Every month, a strange thing happens: everyone in the adjacent terminals in our research library makes a HUGE PRODUCTION about sitting down, with heaving sighs, chair leaping (which is a violent form of "scootching") and strange verbal ticks.
Do I really tune all of this out when I'm not getting my period? Seriously ? Am I normally wearing earmuffs? Can I have some earmuffs now?
Do I really tune all of this out when I'm not getting my period? Seriously ? Am I normally wearing earmuffs? Can I have some earmuffs now?
"Indeed, it is hard to find a clinical account of autism spectrum conditions that does not involve the child being obsessed by some machine or another. Examples include extreme fascinations with electricity pylons, burglar alarms, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, video players, calculators, computers, trains, planes, and clocks. Sometimes the machine that is the object of the child's obsession is quite simple (e.g., the workings of drain-pipes, or the design of windows, etc.). A systematic survey of obsessions in such children has confirmed such clinical descriptions". Simon Baron-Cohen, arguing for the folk psychology / folk physics model as a way to legitimately depathologize autism.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
... And that was before Parm, our receptionist, decided that she had found the "perfect guy" for me. No thanks, I calmly replied with the kind of mythical silent scream that you read about but rarely experience firsthand.
But do you know who I am talking about? She insisted.
No, I said. I honestly can't put a face to the name. And something inside of me curled up like a dead shrimp.
But do you know who I am talking about? She insisted.
No, I said. I honestly can't put a face to the name. And something inside of me curled up like a dead shrimp.
seriously
Don't get me started on the Brittany haircut. Male news anchors with cute buzz cuts are talking about it as though she mutilated herself or something. It kind of makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
evidence
From recent email to f:
>Hey, I have this cool idea for our ATTW presentation! *Now* all I have to do is wait for you to say "No, Hilary, that's not what we're doing" and Jessica to agree.
>Hey, I have this cool idea for our ATTW presentation! *Now* all I have to do is wait for you to say "No, Hilary, that's not what we're doing" and Jessica to agree.
Monday, February 19, 2007
comparative religion
Book of Mark: Leprosy cured by Jesus.
Atharvaveda : Leprosy cured by a dark plant.
Atharvaveda : Leprosy cured by a dark plant.
math phobia
What is a logarithm? Because I think that I need one just to access the Blackboard Gradebook grading interface.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
when I look back
I can honestly say that at least I didn't cram them all together like sardines just to make myself feel like a big shot.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
...
It's surreal to run my fingers through my hair, twisting it into tiny bantu knot like hyperlinks back out into into the outside world. Plus I think that boy is looking at me.
Friday, February 09, 2007
reading notes
Notes on Kynell and Moran: 3 keys to the past: The history of technical communication.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
in 1999.
What group of scholars is the author addressing? Reseachers in technical communication.
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing? Historical anthology.
The hard questions:
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Tech comm researchers were writing our "as-yet-incomplete" history. This anthology collects and contributes to that knowledge.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Other research on tech comm history focues on curricular shifts, emerging disciplinary patterns and broad movements. KM refocues on key individuals, european and american movements, key advances and reprinted articles. The rivers bibliography goes at the end.
What is the epistemological background?
Historical research that provides insight into current trends and suggests new directions.
What is the argument?
The disparity among the selections suggests that "inquiry into technical communication is virtually boundless" (p. 11) -- a very strong claim if you know what's been going on. KM argue that Tech comm isn't chained to a dsicpline: engineering, science or business. We should not priveledge one discipline over the other and explore sources from "a range of archival environments".
What evidence does the author bring?
What perspective does the author take?
There is no such thing as a "straight" history.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
KM don't really talk about the "landmark essays" shape, as well as report, the history of the field -- but that's precisely KM are trying to do here.
Chapter notes:
None: I think I've read this book at least 108 times. Copy chapter outline for folder.
Project notes:
Tebeaux is the key essay.
Technical books were common in the 16th and 17th century, incl. techincal books for women. The first ones by women were on domestic medicine. The technical books by women have a "conversational, personal quality" w/ succinct linear instructions.
The books for midwives: women resented the fact that medical professionals were trying to supplant midwives. OK, the midwives might have had to draw on some quackery, but that's only because the physicians were publishing in Greek. So in another document the midwives propose a royally funded teaching hospital for properly educating midwives.
(!) Tebeaux views these documents as "a microcosm of social change" -- you could probably say the same thing about hacks and user-centered design.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
in 1999.
What group of scholars is the author addressing? Reseachers in technical communication.
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing? Historical anthology.
The hard questions:
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Tech comm researchers were writing our "as-yet-incomplete" history. This anthology collects and contributes to that knowledge.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Other research on tech comm history focues on curricular shifts, emerging disciplinary patterns and broad movements. KM refocues on key individuals, european and american movements, key advances and reprinted articles. The rivers bibliography goes at the end.
What is the epistemological background?
Historical research that provides insight into current trends and suggests new directions.
What is the argument?
The disparity among the selections suggests that "inquiry into technical communication is virtually boundless" (p. 11) -- a very strong claim if you know what's been going on. KM argue that Tech comm isn't chained to a dsicpline: engineering, science or business. We should not priveledge one discipline over the other and explore sources from "a range of archival environments".
What evidence does the author bring?
What perspective does the author take?
There is no such thing as a "straight" history.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
KM don't really talk about the "landmark essays" shape, as well as report, the history of the field -- but that's precisely KM are trying to do here.
Chapter notes:
None: I think I've read this book at least 108 times. Copy chapter outline for folder.
Project notes:
Tebeaux is the key essay.
Technical books were common in the 16th and 17th century, incl. techincal books for women. The first ones by women were on domestic medicine. The technical books by women have a "conversational, personal quality" w/ succinct linear instructions.
The books for midwives: women resented the fact that medical professionals were trying to supplant midwives. OK, the midwives might have had to draw on some quackery, but that's only because the physicians were publishing in Greek. So in another document the midwives propose a royally funded teaching hospital for properly educating midwives.
(!) Tebeaux views these documents as "a microcosm of social change" -- you could probably say the same thing about hacks and user-centered design.
science of sleep
Whatever resentment I've been harboring against fjr about ATTW has been completely soothed by her heroic rejection of any travel arrangements that require me to share a bed.
"Hilary doesn't even sleep with the people she's sleeping with", she argued. It was more than Ross wanted to know.
"Hilary doesn't even sleep with the people she's sleeping with", she argued. It was more than Ross wanted to know.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
so anyway:
As I was saying, I am going to do something very interesting with my hair. Note: interestingness is scheduled for tomorrow at 5:45 pm and Friday 11: 15 am.
The big warning sign that I had eeked every inch out of a relaxed pace of life after the fire came last week, when I started eating cereal with bare hands out of the cereal box in bed.
More omens have started to accumulate.
The big warning sign that I had eeked every inch out of a relaxed pace of life after the fire came last week, when I started eating cereal with bare hands out of the cereal box in bed.
More omens have started to accumulate.
reading notes
Short meme notes on the Mitcham review in TCQ:
M doesn't take rhetoric seriously
M ignores that "technology" in teckne rhetorike is a verb
M thinks that the neologism is a purely rhetorical move
Mitcham has the handbook tradition in mind when he says "rhetoric" or "communication"
Connection between handbook tradition and technology -- stamped and stored -- connection to Heidegger.
Other scholars such as Miller and sullivan try to get out of the technologizing [ie in the handbook tradition] of rhetoric by turning to phronesis but, the reviewer argues, we could turn to techne w/better results. Weaknesses of praxis: embedded in technological system and you can't get out. Techne: you can teach it as a heuristic process -- a verb -- of "identifying, questioning, perhaps even transcending boundaries".
Atwill : techne can "transgress boundaries" and "rectify transgressions"
Johnson: Techne focues on maker as origin and end use by the user.
Read: Technology as a form of consciousness [CR Miller].
M doesn't take rhetoric seriously
M ignores that "technology" in teckne rhetorike is a verb
M thinks that the neologism is a purely rhetorical move
Mitcham has the handbook tradition in mind when he says "rhetoric" or "communication"
Connection between handbook tradition and technology -- stamped and stored -- connection to Heidegger.
Other scholars such as Miller and sullivan try to get out of the technologizing [ie in the handbook tradition] of rhetoric by turning to phronesis but, the reviewer argues, we could turn to techne w/better results. Weaknesses of praxis: embedded in technological system and you can't get out. Techne: you can teach it as a heuristic process -- a verb -- of "identifying, questioning, perhaps even transcending boundaries".
Atwill : techne can "transgress boundaries" and "rectify transgressions"
Johnson: Techne focues on maker as origin and end use by the user.
Read: Technology as a form of consciousness [CR Miller].
also
The recurring metaphor of the evil cucumber reminds me of Sharon's review of Pan's Labrynth:
"I am now prejudiced against all fauns because they were bad in two movies".
"I am now prejudiced against all fauns because they were bad in two movies".
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
shame
Date: Mon 5 Feb 17:58:49 EST 2007
From: Margaret Maday Add To Address Book | This is Spam
Subject: Fwd: Water Break
To: EVERYONE-SO-FAR@lists.wayne.edu
Worst Case Scenario: Because a window was left open in a 9th floor faculty office, pipes have frozen and burst causing water damage to rooms 9313, 9312 and 9310. The water damage/flooding has moved down to floors below 9. Water has now been shut down throughout the building. We won't know the extent of the damage until tomorrow.
Margaret
From: Margaret Maday
Subject: Fwd: Water Break
To: EVERYONE-SO-FAR@lists.wayne.edu
Worst Case Scenario: Because a window was left open in a 9th floor faculty office, pipes have frozen and burst causing water damage to rooms 9313, 9312 and 9310. The water damage/flooding has moved down to floors below 9. Water has now been shut down throughout the building. We won't know the extent of the damage until tomorrow.
Margaret
Monday, February 05, 2007
hmm.
Date: Mon 5 Feb 12:12:51 EST 2007
From: "Salvo, Michael J" Add To Address Book | This is Spam
Subject: RE: Revised Panel Title AND paper titles
To: "Frances J. Ranney"
Cc: "HILARY WARD", "Jessica Rivait" ,
Dear Frances, Hilary, Jessica, and Joseph,
Thank you for the update on the panel and individual titles. I’ve added Joseph Jeyaraj to your panel thinking it fit very well with the panel theme and approach. I’ve included Joseph in the CC line of this email, and added his contact information below. Please be in contact with all the panel members, and I will be in touch soon with panel chair information as well.
Joseph Jeyaraj Joseph_Jeyaraj@baylor.edu
Liminality and Postcolonial Bureaucracy: The Right to Information Act - Deprivatizing Postcolonial "File Notings"
I have scheduled the session for A5, the first morning session, and believe you will draw a substantial audience. Thank you, and I am looking forward to seeing you all in New York.
Michael
salvo@purdue.edu
From: "Salvo, Michael J"
Subject: RE: Revised Panel Title AND paper titles
To: "Frances J. Ranney"
Cc: "HILARY WARD"
Dear Frances, Hilary, Jessica, and Joseph,
Thank you for the update on the panel and individual titles. I’ve added Joseph Jeyaraj to your panel thinking it fit very well with the panel theme and approach. I’ve included Joseph in the CC line of this email, and added his contact information below. Please be in contact with all the panel members, and I will be in touch soon with panel chair information as well.
Joseph Jeyaraj Joseph_Jeyaraj@baylor.edu
Liminality and Postcolonial Bureaucracy: The Right to Information Act - Deprivatizing Postcolonial "File Notings"
I have scheduled the session for A5, the first morning session, and believe you will draw a substantial audience. Thank you, and I am looking forward to seeing you all in New York.
Michael
salvo@purdue.edu
reading notes
Notes on Selber[SS], Computers and Technical Communication.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
In 1997.
LINK: Selfe identifies 1997 as a critical year for something internet related [look this up!].
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Teachers and administrators in the research discipline of tech comm The focus is on pedagogy : "the possibilities for tech comm in the academy".
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
Critical anthology -- SS wants the book to be a "Burkean parlor".
LINK: SDF on virtual communities.
The hard questions:
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
The most important thing to think about here is the fact that there were other "computers and" conversatiosn going on: Computers and language arts, computers and composition, computers and English studies.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
SB focuses on "the full range of pedagogical and prgrammatic issues specifically facing tech comm teachers and program directors in the digital age".
What is the epistemological background?
A humanistic approach to tech comm (Miller).
What is the argument?
Weak: We need to take a critical, contextualized view of computers and tech comm.
What evidence does the author bring?
1) computer courses in tech comm programs are often skills based
2) Computer courses in tech comm integrate technologies in conservative ways, focusing on efficiency and speed.
3) Computing spaces in academic tech comm don't support the demands of industry
4) Few tech comm programs have systematic strategies for integrating computers.
What perspective does the author take?
Selber's "critical, contextualized view" of computers and technical communication.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
Selber says he's not focusing on particular "artifacts of an industrial culture": IP, specific platforms, commands and that kind of stuff. This is how Selber winds up making sweeping generalizations about technology and culture -- cf his interpretation of GUI: It's good!
Chapter notes:
Selber, Hypertext spheres of influence. S argues that htext development and use is influenced by a range of pedagogical, institutional and industrial forces. This is precisely the kind of claim that gives Selber his honororary snooze button. I won't sleep with him at ATTW.
Johndan in Wild Technologies: I've read this article many times -- it's the one with primary and secondary instrumentalization. (Secondary inst. recuperates primary inst).
LINK: Secondary instrumentalization and heidegger's turn to art at the end of Essay Concerning Technology.
LINK: Like Selber, Johndan -- NOOOO, STOP, Johndan! -- seems to think that GUI is liberatory : experimental and nonhierarchical.
Wahlstrom's article: An ecological model of literacy, a liminal space where old stuff is fading out but new stuff isn't settled in, the ark of rammed earth as a "transcendent interface" (w/no silver gods), words becoming things (not just the 10 commandments but the tablets), the liminal digital space and a shift back to some of the old rules. Wahlstrom is enthusiastic about the virtual classroom -- contrast with SDF.
Burnett and Clark, "Shaping technologies: Electronic collaborative interaction". The main argument is that our communication is shaped by coll. technologies more than it shapes them. Tries to get beyond a tool metaphor.
Allen and Wikliff: New communication technologies challenge traditional assumptions about learning, work and writing.
NOTE: Why is it that the main theme of every chapter in this book is DUH?
Howard, "Designing computer classrooms for tech comm programs". Interesting: at the time of thsi book, most university labs supported desktop publishing but not interface design. In terms of our lab, I would say that it does support interface design but it is only used for desktop publishing, and that students use a desktop publishing metaphor to do their multimedia assignments.
Emphasis on what to buy, not on finding ways to hack and customize. These people (Computer people in English studies) are eating Plato's cookery off a digital menu.
(!) Interesting: Howard talks about the layout of a computer classroom. He touches on power circuits, air filtration, lighting and static. H comments that lots of people have already talked about the layout of a computer classroom, including the pod vs row arrangement. He has a special meaning for computer classroom: the students use the computers and the teacher can teach in it (not a technology-equipped traditional classroom or decentralized lab).
Words words words: our computer classrooms and labs at WSU appear to have been assembled by sleepwalkers. There should be a grad student design team for the computer lab.
I disagree with Howard: instead, I would give my 3060 students a shoestring budget and let them design the computer classroom as a community-based tech comm project (they have to write memos, proposals, etc). That way, they're forced to take a critical, contextualized approach because they're planning for how people will write with the technology rather than mindlessly writing with the technology.
Wearner and Kaufer: "Guiding tech comm programs through rapid change".
Ecker and Staples: "Collaborative conflict and the future: academic-industrial alliances and adaptations". Support "balanced and unresolved collaboration" with a hint of "get over your fear of industry". Still, ES are alligned with the traditionalprinciples of academic freedom associated with the Boyer report. However, they think tech comm should break away from the "disciplinary definitions of english departments" and be interdisciplinary and technology-related.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
In 1997.
LINK: Selfe identifies 1997 as a critical year for something internet related [look this up!].
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Teachers and administrators in the research discipline of tech comm The focus is on pedagogy : "the possibilities for tech comm in the academy".
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
Critical anthology -- SS wants the book to be a "Burkean parlor".
LINK: SDF on virtual communities.
The hard questions:
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
The most important thing to think about here is the fact that there were other "computers and" conversatiosn going on: Computers and language arts, computers and composition, computers and English studies.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
SB focuses on "the full range of pedagogical and prgrammatic issues specifically facing tech comm teachers and program directors in the digital age".
What is the epistemological background?
A humanistic approach to tech comm (Miller).
What is the argument?
Weak: We need to take a critical, contextualized view of computers and tech comm.
What evidence does the author bring?
1) computer courses in tech comm programs are often skills based
2) Computer courses in tech comm integrate technologies in conservative ways, focusing on efficiency and speed.
3) Computing spaces in academic tech comm don't support the demands of industry
4) Few tech comm programs have systematic strategies for integrating computers.
What perspective does the author take?
Selber's "critical, contextualized view" of computers and technical communication.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
Selber says he's not focusing on particular "artifacts of an industrial culture": IP, specific platforms, commands and that kind of stuff. This is how Selber winds up making sweeping generalizations about technology and culture -- cf his interpretation of GUI: It's good!
Chapter notes:
Selber, Hypertext spheres of influence. S argues that htext development and use is influenced by a range of pedagogical, institutional and industrial forces. This is precisely the kind of claim that gives Selber his honororary snooze button. I won't sleep with him at ATTW.
Johndan in Wild Technologies: I've read this article many times -- it's the one with primary and secondary instrumentalization. (Secondary inst. recuperates primary inst).
LINK: Secondary instrumentalization and heidegger's turn to art at the end of Essay Concerning Technology.
LINK: Like Selber, Johndan -- NOOOO, STOP, Johndan! -- seems to think that GUI is liberatory : experimental and nonhierarchical.
Wahlstrom's article: An ecological model of literacy, a liminal space where old stuff is fading out but new stuff isn't settled in, the ark of rammed earth as a "transcendent interface" (w/no silver gods), words becoming things (not just the 10 commandments but the tablets), the liminal digital space and a shift back to some of the old rules. Wahlstrom is enthusiastic about the virtual classroom -- contrast with SDF.
Burnett and Clark, "Shaping technologies: Electronic collaborative interaction". The main argument is that our communication is shaped by coll. technologies more than it shapes them. Tries to get beyond a tool metaphor.
Allen and Wikliff: New communication technologies challenge traditional assumptions about learning, work and writing.
NOTE: Why is it that the main theme of every chapter in this book is DUH?
Howard, "Designing computer classrooms for tech comm programs". Interesting: at the time of thsi book, most university labs supported desktop publishing but not interface design. In terms of our lab, I would say that it does support interface design but it is only used for desktop publishing, and that students use a desktop publishing metaphor to do their multimedia assignments.
Emphasis on what to buy, not on finding ways to hack and customize. These people (Computer people in English studies) are eating Plato's cookery off a digital menu.
(!) Interesting: Howard talks about the layout of a computer classroom. He touches on power circuits, air filtration, lighting and static. H comments that lots of people have already talked about the layout of a computer classroom, including the pod vs row arrangement. He has a special meaning for computer classroom: the students use the computers and the teacher can teach in it (not a technology-equipped traditional classroom or decentralized lab).
Words words words: our computer classrooms and labs at WSU appear to have been assembled by sleepwalkers. There should be a grad student design team for the computer lab.
I disagree with Howard: instead, I would give my 3060 students a shoestring budget and let them design the computer classroom as a community-based tech comm project (they have to write memos, proposals, etc). That way, they're forced to take a critical, contextualized approach because they're planning for how people will write with the technology rather than mindlessly writing with the technology.
Wearner and Kaufer: "Guiding tech comm programs through rapid change".
Ecker and Staples: "Collaborative conflict and the future: academic-industrial alliances and adaptations". Support "balanced and unresolved collaboration" with a hint of "get over your fear of industry". Still, ES are alligned with the traditionalprinciples of academic freedom associated with the Boyer report. However, they think tech comm should break away from the "disciplinary definitions of english departments" and be interdisciplinary and technology-related.
...
Hilary let her hand stick to the window, the horses strain against the fence and the plants coil around the light.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
current stats
Number of times I saw Pan's Labyrinth at the theatre yesterday: 2
Interfaith dialogues w/ Sharon: 1
Messages titled "ATTW": sorted into spam folder.
Interfaith dialogues w/ Sharon: 1
Messages titled "ATTW": sorted into spam folder.
Friday, February 02, 2007
oh :
That's what that mysterious number on my cell phone happened to be. You know, I really should call them back.
bwahaha
>REMINDER:
>
>Before you leave for the weekend, please make sure any opened
>windows are closed and locked before leaving. It will be extremely
>cold this weekend and we don't want any building pipes to freeze and burst.
>
>Thanks for your help.--Margaret
>
>Before you leave for the weekend, please make sure any opened
>windows are closed and locked before leaving. It will be extremely
>cold this weekend and we don't want any building pipes to freeze and burst.
>
>Thanks for your help.--Margaret
current affirmations
I accept that established researchers in scientific and technical communication will get to the IPCC report before I do. [random smashey noises]
reading notes
Notes on Doheny-Farina [SDF]: "Effective Documentation: What we have learned from research".
Preliminary questions:
How will this book compare with "The Wired Neighborhood" and other, more theoretical books by SDF?
This book is meant to make lots of empirical or otherwise submerged research avail. to a wider audience of people interested in tech comm. Will any of the authors chose a more experimental style in reporting their findings?
Will I be shocked by the coolness of the book?
What would this book suggest about the "life" of the IPCC report on climate change? [released this morning].
The easy questions:
When was it published? 1988
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
SDF is addressing a wide range of tech comm professionals:
tech writers
document designers
tech writing dept managers
tech comm researchers [me]
teachers and students in tech comm
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
It's an anthology of -- and this is important -- prescriptive research. SDF hedges this: some of the research is localized and some attempts to uncover fundamental principles; some is slightly positivistic and some is critical about the generalizability of specific studies. The methods are elcectic and attitudes toward the findings vary, but this is a collection of prescriptive studies.
The hard questions:
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
The book arose out of a conflict between 1) tech comm researchers and 2) pracititioners and teachers at the 34th intl tech comm conference [may 1997]. Group #2 called for more research and group #1 kept saying that the research is out there, but inaccessible. This conflict mirrored a larger conversation in the field.
SDF offers Effective Documentation as a way to fill the gap with research that can reach a wide range of tech comm people. Some of the research is new.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
SDF focuses on issues that are relevant to a wide range of tc professionals: 1) text and computer screen issues, 2) the contexts of usability and 3) research methods and epistemological / critical stuff.
Focus topics: user learning and performance, format and graphic design, management of documentation processes, analysis of research methods in tc.
These topics are of current general interest in TC.
What is the epistemological background?
Huh. What is an epistemological background?
Vee-eery breifly, the form of technical comm today reflects the heritage of 17th-century publishers and audiences. While "Adventurous scribes" conducted layout experiments in the M.Ages, this stuff was standardized in the century after the invention of the printing press: at first, the pp wanted to preserve aesthetic features for the printed book, but then they started to experiment with features that enhance readability.
OK. So, at about the same time, The Royal Society rejected the exceesses what we call "Ciceronean" rhetoric for a plain, ytilitarian style that makes language safe for natural philosophy. [see Sprat, a history of the royal society].
So that's a brief history of making texts useful. We're still interested in how to do that. Note: While reading-to-learn has been popular since the 17th century, reading-to-do became more popular circa WW II. Current views on how to make texts useful vary widely. This book presents current information for a wide audience of tc professionals.
What is the argument?
SDF takes a stasis approach, presenting point and counterpoint on the following issues:
[research into user learning and performance]
elaboration vs truncation
computer documentation : "worked out" or active/experimental
hardcopy-to-online transition in computer d.
[research into format and graphic design]
graphics in hard copy and online: what works?
[research into management and documentation processes]
outmoded documentation cycles vs. new directions
[research methods: relative merits]
What evidence does the author bring?
The articles [copy chapter descriptions]
What perspective does the author take?
SDF reports prescriptive research.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
I would describe prescriptive research as ... driven or skewed, but I'll have to read chapter by chapter to see what's missing.
Notes:
(!) The ITCC discussion section was lead by WSU's John Beard (WSU School of business).
Fabulous overview of empirical research [Morgan, ch. 2].
(Har!) An expert user in Hunt and Vasilladis' study of error messages preferred 1 error message: ERROR.
HV deviates from the 1st definition of tech comm -- no matter how brilliant the introduction is, the "perverse reader" will open your book in the middle. NOTE: HV prefer "elaborated natural language" for error messages.
Bradford notes that technical books -- the "technology of text"-- have looked the same for 800 years, and that these traditions aren't applicable to the emerging "technology of the display screen".
(!) Krull challenges the assumption that GUI is the new jesus. HE thinks that icons are a transitional thing (they're slippery and inextensible) and that direct manipulation interfaces will focus more on point and do, windows and dynamic menus.
(!) Baker on the traditional context of product documentation: 1) The user is inexperienced. 2) The product is unique. 3) The user is concerned about damaging the product and 4) The user perceives the product as dangerous. Note: Hacks are as far away from this traditional context as possible! Cite this at the QE.
(Hey!) What can this book tell tech comm instructors about syllabus design?
Preliminary questions:
How will this book compare with "The Wired Neighborhood" and other, more theoretical books by SDF?
This book is meant to make lots of empirical or otherwise submerged research avail. to a wider audience of people interested in tech comm. Will any of the authors chose a more experimental style in reporting their findings?
Will I be shocked by the coolness of the book?
What would this book suggest about the "life" of the IPCC report on climate change? [released this morning].
The easy questions:
When was it published? 1988
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
SDF is addressing a wide range of tech comm professionals:
tech writers
document designers
tech writing dept managers
tech comm researchers [me]
teachers and students in tech comm
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
It's an anthology of -- and this is important -- prescriptive research. SDF hedges this: some of the research is localized and some attempts to uncover fundamental principles; some is slightly positivistic and some is critical about the generalizability of specific studies. The methods are elcectic and attitudes toward the findings vary, but this is a collection of prescriptive studies.
The hard questions:
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
The book arose out of a conflict between 1) tech comm researchers and 2) pracititioners and teachers at the 34th intl tech comm conference [may 1997]. Group #2 called for more research and group #1 kept saying that the research is out there, but inaccessible. This conflict mirrored a larger conversation in the field.
SDF offers Effective Documentation as a way to fill the gap with research that can reach a wide range of tech comm people. Some of the research is new.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
SDF focuses on issues that are relevant to a wide range of tc professionals: 1) text and computer screen issues, 2) the contexts of usability and 3) research methods and epistemological / critical stuff.
Focus topics: user learning and performance, format and graphic design, management of documentation processes, analysis of research methods in tc.
These topics are of current general interest in TC.
What is the epistemological background?
Huh. What is an epistemological background?
Vee-eery breifly, the form of technical comm today reflects the heritage of 17th-century publishers and audiences. While "Adventurous scribes" conducted layout experiments in the M.Ages, this stuff was standardized in the century after the invention of the printing press: at first, the pp wanted to preserve aesthetic features for the printed book, but then they started to experiment with features that enhance readability.
OK. So, at about the same time, The Royal Society rejected the exceesses what we call "Ciceronean" rhetoric for a plain, ytilitarian style that makes language safe for natural philosophy. [see Sprat, a history of the royal society].
So that's a brief history of making texts useful. We're still interested in how to do that. Note: While reading-to-learn has been popular since the 17th century, reading-to-do became more popular circa WW II. Current views on how to make texts useful vary widely. This book presents current information for a wide audience of tc professionals.
What is the argument?
SDF takes a stasis approach, presenting point and counterpoint on the following issues:
[research into user learning and performance]
elaboration vs truncation
computer documentation : "worked out" or active/experimental
hardcopy-to-online transition in computer d.
[research into format and graphic design]
graphics in hard copy and online: what works?
[research into management and documentation processes]
outmoded documentation cycles vs. new directions
[research methods: relative merits]
What evidence does the author bring?
The articles [copy chapter descriptions]
What perspective does the author take?
SDF reports prescriptive research.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
I would describe prescriptive research as ... driven or skewed, but I'll have to read chapter by chapter to see what's missing.
Notes:
(!) The ITCC discussion section was lead by WSU's John Beard (WSU School of business).
Fabulous overview of empirical research [Morgan, ch. 2].
(Har!) An expert user in Hunt and Vasilladis' study of error messages preferred 1 error message: ERROR.
HV deviates from the 1st definition of tech comm -- no matter how brilliant the introduction is, the "perverse reader" will open your book in the middle. NOTE: HV prefer "elaborated natural language" for error messages.
Bradford notes that technical books -- the "technology of text"-- have looked the same for 800 years, and that these traditions aren't applicable to the emerging "technology of the display screen".
(!) Krull challenges the assumption that GUI is the new jesus. HE thinks that icons are a transitional thing (they're slippery and inextensible) and that direct manipulation interfaces will focus more on point and do, windows and dynamic menus.
(!) Baker on the traditional context of product documentation: 1) The user is inexperienced. 2) The product is unique. 3) The user is concerned about damaging the product and 4) The user perceives the product as dangerous. Note: Hacks are as far away from this traditional context as possible! Cite this at the QE.
(Hey!) What can this book tell tech comm instructors about syllabus design?
Thursday, February 01, 2007
hacking the blogger template
3 points:
#1: "Men are born into whole palaces that they unravel with bare hands". Augustine
#2 No, unraveling my blog is not easier in Blogger beta (ie the new blogger).
There's nothing like a sexy GUI to mislead you with the illusion of control. I swear I could write a conference paper about that wrench and bolt icon.
#3 As a final word, my frustration with the blogger template has nothing to do with the fact that I don't know PHP.
#4 Yes, I'm going on the ignorant fantasy that one template will be easier to take apart than the others (See #3).
#1: "Men are born into whole palaces that they unravel with bare hands". Augustine
#2 No, unraveling my blog is not easier in Blogger beta (ie the new blogger).
There's nothing like a sexy GUI to mislead you with the illusion of control. I swear I could write a conference paper about that wrench and bolt icon.
#3 As a final word, my frustration with the blogger template has nothing to do with the fact that I don't know PHP.
#4 Yes, I'm going on the ignorant fantasy that one template will be easier to take apart than the others (See #3).
backing away slowly
it had to be the last time for awhile and to do what I normally do when I can't stand it. What? Nothing.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
reading notes
Notes on Doheny-Farina [SDF], "The Wired Neighborhood".
Hilary's shorthand review: This book should be compressed into a zipped file.
Hilary's shorthand review: This book should be compressed into a zipped file.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Travel funding (rant)
First of all, I am happy for the students in Literary and Cultural Studies who were able to present at the MLA in December. I agree that your travel should be funded. But so should mine.
Both the English Dept Travel funds and the Humanitites Dept Travel funds are exhausted by conferences in lit and cult studies like the MLA, which are scheduled for earlier in the academic year. The Travel funds are exhausted by the time I am eligible to apply for funding to attend my conference (CCCC), which is scheduled in March.
When graduate students in composition, rhetoric and tech comm present our research at conferences, we travel on our own dime. I refuse to accept that this perennial, systematic slight is a mere accident of the calendar. Rather, the lack of Travel funding for students in nonacademic writing communicates a subtle message about the value of our research and professionalization : We are second-rate.
Disclaimer: I am not claiming that the Department of English should withold Travel awards from graduate students in lit and cult studies and reserve them for comp/rhet. I am trying to suggest that our administrators and supportive faculty should acknowledge the problem as a problem and find new and other sources of Travel funding for graduate students in composition.
My professionalization is getting expensive.
Both the English Dept Travel funds and the Humanitites Dept Travel funds are exhausted by conferences in lit and cult studies like the MLA, which are scheduled for earlier in the academic year. The Travel funds are exhausted by the time I am eligible to apply for funding to attend my conference (CCCC), which is scheduled in March.
When graduate students in composition, rhetoric and tech comm present our research at conferences, we travel on our own dime. I refuse to accept that this perennial, systematic slight is a mere accident of the calendar. Rather, the lack of Travel funding for students in nonacademic writing communicates a subtle message about the value of our research and professionalization : We are second-rate.
Disclaimer: I am not claiming that the Department of English should withold Travel awards from graduate students in lit and cult studies and reserve them for comp/rhet. I am trying to suggest that our administrators and supportive faculty should acknowledge the problem as a problem and find new and other sources of Travel funding for graduate students in composition.
My professionalization is getting expensive.
reading notes
Notes on C. Barabas [CB], "Technical Writing in a Corporate Culture".
The easy questions:
When was it published?
1n 1990. It's part of a series called Writing research: Multidisciplinary Inquiries into the Nature of Writing. Marcia Farr, the series editor, thinks that the book is about “literacy”.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Anyone who is interested in the "burgeoning" field of research on writing. MF (ed) notes that a field is a "multidisciplinary entity" focused on a set of important questions about a central concern: in this case, literacy. A discipline shares "theoretical and methodological approaches which have a substantial tradition behind them":
"If research on writing evolves into a more unified discipline, rather than remaining a multifaceted field, much will be lost from the rich multiplicity of traditions which now contribute to it" (xvii).
So much for disciplinarity. However, Barabas notes that the work is intended for a more circumscribed "heterogenous" audience: tech writing researchers, teachers and practitioners (p. xl).
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing? Qualitative mixed-methods research: survey, dbi, ta, context-based experimental studies. CB notes that her methods are different from most research in the field of composition because it:
1) Focuses on interrelationships of writers, texts & readers (not in isolation)
2) Content-based
3) Real-world
4) Uses indigenous criteria for effective writing
(!) We don't get to the actual research until part 3.
(!) Not lots of references to the field of tech comm.
(!) Due to corporate nondisclosure rules, CB has to "contrive" the examples for her book. She notes that this is why LatourandWoolgar and KnorCetina chose to focus on drafts of published, company-sanctioned works.
The tough questions:
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Research in comp. and literacy had started to ask questions about real-world writing and writing in context, but we still didn't know very much about it.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
TWCC is an inquiry into "what it means to write well in a corporate setting", where criteria are unclear and ambiguous. She wants to compare this to "our most cherished assumptions about writing and good writing" to make us more aware of differences btw real-world and academic settings.
What is the epistemological background? Huh. The shift to the reality of writing as it functions in the world of context(ie not in archives). Bazerman and Paradis also make this point. CB claims that this research cycles back to the function of writing at its origin, "ten millenia ago".
What is the argument?
Here are the shortcomings of comp: the emphasis on structure over substance, content and functions. The requirments and standards of writing in corporate settings are different, and teaching students to be "good academic writers" may inadvertently make them "poor real-world writers". Academic criteria linger in real-world writing, causing problems for (college-educated) real-world writers.
These are some strong claims here. It's nice that CB suggests that tech comm can tell comp. something. I think a consequence of the heightened specialization that defines tech comm apart from comp/rhet is that tech comm can't tell comp/rhet anything anymore -- tech comm has to stick to its own territory. Tell Ruth: This is a good argument for having resistant tech comm grad students (ie me) read in comp for the QE.
CB also clames that much other real-world writing research is based on a priori academic assumptions.
What evidence does the author bring?
A history of the interest in real-world writing, some research on sci and tech writing and the study.
What perspective does the author take?
CB is interested in the dissonance between academic and real-world writing.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
How useful is this disctinction between academic and real-world writing? Zappen notices that scientific and technical writing have a lot in common depending on context. Can the same thing be said for academic and real-world writing?
Side Notes:
(!) "In our teaching of research and writing, we have gone a long way out of our wayb by ignoring the connection between writing and communication" (p. 5) .
B offers critiques of the 3 models from business / tech writing. (!) "What other skill-related disciplines, I wonder, have developed theories of proficiency by studying the abberant behavior of students?" (46).
(!) Students trained in the cognitive process model tend to take their writers on a "vicarious, cognitive journey". When they grow up, their real-world reports are structured inductively with extraneous info.
(!) It's hard to create meaningful nonacademic contexts when students know they're in an academic context.
(!) Writing is a context -- CB notes that a firm's upper won't streamline proposal writing practices, because the all-night cram sessions are exhilirating. Note: The middle-and-lower-level employees are NOT exhiliarated.
Most corporations need, but do not have, communication policies.
(!) This book seems to follow the cognitive model. I know what CB thought that made her write it (ie the dissonance between comp and corporate writing), the background for her model and her critique of earlier model. She might lose me before I get to the results.
(!) CB laments that the art of CYA is not covered in textbooks. Metis?
Corporate writers in some R&D organizations write "idea papers" .
In the organization studied by CB, only poor writers call their progress reports stories. This conflicts with something I read in Anderson, Brockman and Miller about stories.
CB concludes that the following shapes writing intentions:
1) General conceptions about comm, tech comm and what goes in a tech report.
2) Concepts that distinguish data, result and conclusion.
3) Awareness of general company expectations and guidelines.
4) Awareness of immediate directors' and supervisors' expectations and guidelines.
Academic tech writing traditionally only touches on 1 and 2. CB calls for guidelines in industry, real-world and direct contact between tech comm pedagogy and industry and covering stuff not usually dealt with in textbooks. She does not go so far as to suggest ways that students can uncover the tacit, organization-specific guidelines -- i.e. guerilla research techniques for figuring out the expectations.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
1n 1990. It's part of a series called Writing research: Multidisciplinary Inquiries into the Nature of Writing. Marcia Farr, the series editor, thinks that the book is about “literacy”.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Anyone who is interested in the "burgeoning" field of research on writing. MF (ed) notes that a field is a "multidisciplinary entity" focused on a set of important questions about a central concern: in this case, literacy. A discipline shares "theoretical and methodological approaches which have a substantial tradition behind them":
"If research on writing evolves into a more unified discipline, rather than remaining a multifaceted field, much will be lost from the rich multiplicity of traditions which now contribute to it" (xvii).
So much for disciplinarity. However, Barabas notes that the work is intended for a more circumscribed "heterogenous" audience: tech writing researchers, teachers and practitioners (p. xl).
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing? Qualitative mixed-methods research: survey, dbi, ta, context-based experimental studies. CB notes that her methods are different from most research in the field of composition because it:
1) Focuses on interrelationships of writers, texts & readers (not in isolation)
2) Content-based
3) Real-world
4) Uses indigenous criteria for effective writing
(!) We don't get to the actual research until part 3.
(!) Not lots of references to the field of tech comm.
(!) Due to corporate nondisclosure rules, CB has to "contrive" the examples for her book. She notes that this is why LatourandWoolgar and KnorCetina chose to focus on drafts of published, company-sanctioned works.
The tough questions:
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Research in comp. and literacy had started to ask questions about real-world writing and writing in context, but we still didn't know very much about it.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
TWCC is an inquiry into "what it means to write well in a corporate setting", where criteria are unclear and ambiguous. She wants to compare this to "our most cherished assumptions about writing and good writing" to make us more aware of differences btw real-world and academic settings.
What is the epistemological background? Huh. The shift to the reality of writing as it functions in the world of context(ie not in archives). Bazerman and Paradis also make this point. CB claims that this research cycles back to the function of writing at its origin, "ten millenia ago".
What is the argument?
Here are the shortcomings of comp: the emphasis on structure over substance, content and functions. The requirments and standards of writing in corporate settings are different, and teaching students to be "good academic writers" may inadvertently make them "poor real-world writers". Academic criteria linger in real-world writing, causing problems for (college-educated) real-world writers.
These are some strong claims here. It's nice that CB suggests that tech comm can tell comp. something. I think a consequence of the heightened specialization that defines tech comm apart from comp/rhet is that tech comm can't tell comp/rhet anything anymore -- tech comm has to stick to its own territory. Tell Ruth: This is a good argument for having resistant tech comm grad students (ie me) read in comp for the QE.
CB also clames that much other real-world writing research is based on a priori academic assumptions.
What evidence does the author bring?
A history of the interest in real-world writing, some research on sci and tech writing and the study.
What perspective does the author take?
CB is interested in the dissonance between academic and real-world writing.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
How useful is this disctinction between academic and real-world writing? Zappen notices that scientific and technical writing have a lot in common depending on context. Can the same thing be said for academic and real-world writing?
Side Notes:
(!) "In our teaching of research and writing, we have gone a long way out of our wayb by ignoring the connection between writing and communication" (p. 5) .
B offers critiques of the 3 models from business / tech writing. (!) "What other skill-related disciplines, I wonder, have developed theories of proficiency by studying the abberant behavior of students?" (46).
(!) Students trained in the cognitive process model tend to take their writers on a "vicarious, cognitive journey". When they grow up, their real-world reports are structured inductively with extraneous info.
(!) It's hard to create meaningful nonacademic contexts when students know they're in an academic context.
(!) Writing is a context -- CB notes that a firm's upper won't streamline proposal writing practices, because the all-night cram sessions are exhilirating. Note: The middle-and-lower-level employees are NOT exhiliarated.
Most corporations need, but do not have, communication policies.
(!) This book seems to follow the cognitive model. I know what CB thought that made her write it (ie the dissonance between comp and corporate writing), the background for her model and her critique of earlier model. She might lose me before I get to the results.
(!) CB laments that the art of CYA is not covered in textbooks. Metis?
Corporate writers in some R&D organizations write "idea papers" .
In the organization studied by CB, only poor writers call their progress reports stories. This conflicts with something I read in Anderson, Brockman and Miller about stories.
CB concludes that the following shapes writing intentions:
1) General conceptions about comm, tech comm and what goes in a tech report.
2) Concepts that distinguish data, result and conclusion.
3) Awareness of general company expectations and guidelines.
4) Awareness of immediate directors' and supervisors' expectations and guidelines.
Academic tech writing traditionally only touches on 1 and 2. CB calls for guidelines in industry, real-world and direct contact between tech comm pedagogy and industry and covering stuff not usually dealt with in textbooks. She does not go so far as to suggest ways that students can uncover the tacit, organization-specific guidelines -- i.e. guerilla research techniques for figuring out the expectations.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
bob + goldfish
I did it: That is, I successfully composed a note replacing every "Go away! Stop bothering me!" with statements in the pattern of When you (blank) I feel (blank) because (blank).
On a side note, I love the note. While not reflective of the kind of invertebrate moaning I am prone to mock, it is not, on the other hand, one of my classic notes that reads as though penned by a random shakespearean insult generator.
Note: I may or may not send the note, viewing the note instead as an exercise for the other thing about the un or non invitation with the dinner. Isn't that what this is really about in the first place?
...
> So if you are feeling afraid or angry and you want me to know why, you could replace "Go away! Stop bothering me!" phrases like :
"I feel (insert feeling) when you (insert action) because (insert explanation)".
> OK! I feel like you are a jerk.
"I feel (insert feeling) when you (insert action) because (insert explanation)".
> OK! I feel like you are a jerk.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
pms
For the next 2 days I am designed to be depressed, puffy and mad. It doesn't matter what is going on. I could spend all day designing an imaginary aircraft fueled by an endless supply of fries or receive a memo from Margaret that an error has been discovered in the language of my contract: I'm supposed to be paid for NOT teaching. Even chanting the facts of my real life does nothing [cw: 110, diss: going great, hair: Feb. 2, sex life: yes], and plus I have bad dreams.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
(!)
"Rhetoricians and hindus are the same in one essential regard. Hinduism holds that everyone is hindu, and rhetoricians hold that everything is rhetorical". In Dombrowski, Humanistic Aspects of Technical Communication.
section 002
Prior to teaching I feel like I will never again be in bed watching High School Musical and that, from the State Hall window, my apartment may as well be in Africa.
Monday, January 22, 2007
stick figures in history
How stick people first migrated into American technical documents:
Sir, I will thank you very much if you will get introduced onto my Draught, a Figure of a Miller standing at the Spout A. viewing the wheat as it runs from the Waggoners Bag --
stooping a little resting hiself with his left hand on the side of the Spout, with his right hand full of wheat looking attentively at it this is the Millers Business in Real Practice and in my opinion will greatly adorn the Drought and convey a Striking Idea".
I am Sir with much Esteem
Your Humble servt
Oliver Evans [1791, qtd. in Brockman, 1998]
Unzipping in Linux
$gzip -d decompresses a zipped file in linux.
There is no untar command. Do
tar -xvvf foo.tar
or
tar -xvvzf foo.tar.gz.
Comment here if this post [found in a google search] helped prevent violence against computers.
There is no untar command. Do
tar -xvvf foo.tar
or
tar -xvvzf foo.tar.gz.
Comment here if this post [found in a google search] helped prevent violence against computers.
Friday, January 19, 2007
reading notes
Notes on Markel, "Ethics in Tech Comm".
tags: BORING.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
2001, as part of ATTW studies in Technical Communication.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical communication practitioners, teachers and researchers.
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
Markel calls the book "A critique and synthesis".
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Lots of people had talked about rhetoric, tech comm and ethics. But there were 3 problems:
1) Ethics is conceived so broadly that it loses its connection to the study of values and conduct.
2) Ethics is conceived as a critique of capitalism.
3) Ethics is equated with ethos.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
To move beyond the rigid ideas suggested above, Markel sugests ways of looking at and talking about ethics -- not ethical heuristics.
What is the epistemological background?
Markel discusses the history of ethical theory as a logical, evidence-based enterprise: rights - based theories, utilitarian theories, transitional ideas and contemporary approaches. Ethics is important in rhet. (i.e. rhetoric entails action) and especially in tech. comm, when discourse is geared toward producing action.
What is the argument?
Ethics is not an abstract theory but a practical art.
Ethics is related but logically prior to rhetoric.
Values in action, the most sophisticated ethical perspective, derives from the history of philosophical ethics.
Business ethics can tell us stuff.
Ethical conversations work best in an open conversation involving all stakeholders.
What evidence does the author bring?
Markel's work is more exploratory, inviting the reader to think through case studies and hypothetical though experiments.
What perspective does the author take?
Two-part framework for thinking through ethics:
Determine the most ethical course of action [abstract]
Determine the most available ethical course of action [concrete]
Use discourse ethics to hold the conversation and the utility-rights-justice-care model to evaluate alternatives. [note: the urjc model will be applied differently by different stakeholders and lead to conflicted results].
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
Why not look at ethics as an inventional art -- take a step back and look at how people generate alternative courses of action, rather than just think through the available options?
tags: BORING.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
2001, as part of ATTW studies in Technical Communication.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical communication practitioners, teachers and researchers.
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
Markel calls the book "A critique and synthesis".
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Lots of people had talked about rhetoric, tech comm and ethics. But there were 3 problems:
1) Ethics is conceived so broadly that it loses its connection to the study of values and conduct.
2) Ethics is conceived as a critique of capitalism.
3) Ethics is equated with ethos.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
To move beyond the rigid ideas suggested above, Markel sugests ways of looking at and talking about ethics -- not ethical heuristics.
What is the epistemological background?
Markel discusses the history of ethical theory as a logical, evidence-based enterprise: rights - based theories, utilitarian theories, transitional ideas and contemporary approaches. Ethics is important in rhet. (i.e. rhetoric entails action) and especially in tech. comm, when discourse is geared toward producing action.
What is the argument?
Ethics is not an abstract theory but a practical art.
Ethics is related but logically prior to rhetoric.
Values in action, the most sophisticated ethical perspective, derives from the history of philosophical ethics.
Business ethics can tell us stuff.
Ethical conversations work best in an open conversation involving all stakeholders.
What evidence does the author bring?
Markel's work is more exploratory, inviting the reader to think through case studies and hypothetical though experiments.
What perspective does the author take?
Two-part framework for thinking through ethics:
Determine the most ethical course of action [abstract]
Determine the most available ethical course of action [concrete]
Use discourse ethics to hold the conversation and the utility-rights-justice-care model to evaluate alternatives. [note: the urjc model will be applied differently by different stakeholders and lead to conflicted results].
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
Why not look at ethics as an inventional art -- take a step back and look at how people generate alternative courses of action, rather than just think through the available options?
reading notes
Notes on Markel, "Ethics in Tech Comm".
tags: BORING.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
2001, as part of ATTW studies in Technical Communication.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical communication practitioners, teachers and researchers.
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
Markel calls the book "A critique and synthesis".
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Lots of people had talked about rhetoric, tech comm and ethics. But there were 3 problems:
1) Ethics is conceived so broadly that it loses its connection to the study of values and conduct.
2) Ethics is conceived as a critique of capitalism.
3) Ethics is equated with ethos.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
To move beyond the rigid ideas suggested above, Markel sugests ways of looking at and talking about ethics -- not ethical heuristics.
What is the epistemological background?
Markel discusses the history of ethical theory as a logical, evidence-based enterprise: rights - based theories, utilitarian theories, transitional ideas and contemporary approaches. Ethics is important in rhet. (i.e. rhetoric entails action) and especially in tech. comm, when discourse is geared toward producing action.
What is the argument?
Ethics is not an abstract theory but a practical art.
Ethics is related but logically prior to rhetoric.
Values in action, the most sophisticated ethical perspective, derives from the history of philosophical ethics.
Business ethics can tell us stuff.
Ethical conversations work best in an open conversation involving all stakeholders.
What evidence does the author bring?
Markel's work is more exploratory, inviting the reader to think through case studies and hypothetical though experiments.
What perspective does the author take?
Two-part framework for thinking through ethics:
Determine the most ethical course of action [abstract]
Determine the most available ethical course of action [concrete]
Use discourse ethics to hold the conversation and the utility-rights-justice-care model to evaluate alternatives. [note: the urjc model will be applied differently by different stakeholders and lead to conflicted results].
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
tags: BORING.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
2001, as part of ATTW studies in Technical Communication.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical communication practitioners, teachers and researchers.
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
Markel calls the book "A critique and synthesis".
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Lots of people had talked about rhetoric, tech comm and ethics. But there were 3 problems:
1) Ethics is conceived so broadly that it loses its connection to the study of values and conduct.
2) Ethics is conceived as a critique of capitalism.
3) Ethics is equated with ethos.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
To move beyond the rigid ideas suggested above, Markel sugests ways of looking at and talking about ethics -- not ethical heuristics.
What is the epistemological background?
Markel discusses the history of ethical theory as a logical, evidence-based enterprise: rights - based theories, utilitarian theories, transitional ideas and contemporary approaches. Ethics is important in rhet. (i.e. rhetoric entails action) and especially in tech. comm, when discourse is geared toward producing action.
What is the argument?
Ethics is not an abstract theory but a practical art.
Ethics is related but logically prior to rhetoric.
Values in action, the most sophisticated ethical perspective, derives from the history of philosophical ethics.
Business ethics can tell us stuff.
Ethical conversations work best in an open conversation involving all stakeholders.
What evidence does the author bring?
Markel's work is more exploratory, inviting the reader to think through case studies and hypothetical though experiments.
What perspective does the author take?
Two-part framework for thinking through ethics:
Determine the most ethical course of action [abstract]
Determine the most available ethical course of action [concrete]
Use discourse ethics to hold the conversation and the utility-rights-justice-care model to evaluate alternatives. [note: the urjc model will be applied differently by different stakeholders and lead to conflicted results].
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
2007 ATTW Acceptance Letter
Dear Hilary Ward:
On behalf of the ATTW, I am happy to invite you to present the panel titled "The Work of Anti-Discourse through Technology Use: From the Virtual to the Professional and the Mundane" at the 10th annual conference in New York City on Wednesday, March 21, 2007. Ultimately, fewer than 50% of proposals could be accepted this year.
Now that your proposal has been selected, you will have to prepare a conference paper on a topic in which you are no longer interested. Upon completion of the conference paper you will either: 1) go on an airplane to NY with Francie and Jessica or 2) go on a road trip to NY with Francie and Jessica. Har! Ellen may also be on the plane.
Please don't kill yourself. It looks bad to the ATTW when a funded student dies in her first semester of candidacy status.
Sincerely,
2007 ATTW Program Chair
On behalf of the ATTW, I am happy to invite you to present the panel titled "The Work of Anti-Discourse through Technology Use: From the Virtual to the Professional and the Mundane" at the 10th annual conference in New York City on Wednesday, March 21, 2007. Ultimately, fewer than 50% of proposals could be accepted this year.
Now that your proposal has been selected, you will have to prepare a conference paper on a topic in which you are no longer interested. Upon completion of the conference paper you will either: 1) go on an airplane to NY with Francie and Jessica or 2) go on a road trip to NY with Francie and Jessica. Har! Ellen may also be on the plane.
Please don't kill yourself. It looks bad to the ATTW when a funded student dies in her first semester of candidacy status.
Sincerely,
2007 ATTW Program Chair
Thursday, January 18, 2007
reading notes
Notes on Faber, "Professional Identities: What's professional about professional communication?"
The Easy Questions.
When and where was it published?
2002 in JBTC.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
The readers of JBTC, or researchers (and teachers) who are interested in what Duin and Hansen would call "nonacademic writing". I wouldn't say that the article's primary audience is "just professional communication scholars / practitioners", because 1) It's too fuzzy of a field and 2) "Professional communicators" do not exist as a separate profession.
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
Hmm. I'd call it "A critical discussion of professional identity". That's what Faber calls it. Is a "discussion" a valid genre of research?
The article has an empirical section about the meaning of professional communication in JBTC, JBWC and TCQ.
The Tough Questions
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the article reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Professional communication was a catchall phrase for workplace/business writing, and did not focus on or explore interesting issues like professional status and the process of professionalization.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Faber focuses on:
1) How researchers have used the term "professional communication" to describe the rhet. of professionals who communicate.
2) Institutional and content conflicts between rhetorical scholarship and professional powers.
3) Current issues: deprofessionalization and proletariatization.
The above focii help us to more deeply investigate the concept of professionalization.
What is the epistemological background?
What is the argument?
If professional communication research and teaching are going to be viable, professional communication scholars need to be aware of the conceputal underpinnings of professional work.
What evidence does the author bring?
Articles suggesting that professional communicators are distinct from workplace writers in their special relationship w/ a specific and known audience, social responsibility and self-reflexive ethical awareness.
What perspective does the author take?
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
The Easy Questions.
When and where was it published?
2002 in JBTC.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
The readers of JBTC, or researchers (and teachers) who are interested in what Duin and Hansen would call "nonacademic writing". I wouldn't say that the article's primary audience is "just professional communication scholars / practitioners", because 1) It's too fuzzy of a field and 2) "Professional communicators" do not exist as a separate profession.
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
Hmm. I'd call it "A critical discussion of professional identity". That's what Faber calls it. Is a "discussion" a valid genre of research?
The article has an empirical section about the meaning of professional communication in JBTC, JBWC and TCQ.
The Tough Questions
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the article reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?
Professional communication was a catchall phrase for workplace/business writing, and did not focus on or explore interesting issues like professional status and the process of professionalization.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Faber focuses on:
1) How researchers have used the term "professional communication" to describe the rhet. of professionals who communicate.
2) Institutional and content conflicts between rhetorical scholarship and professional powers.
3) Current issues: deprofessionalization and proletariatization.
The above focii help us to more deeply investigate the concept of professionalization.
What is the epistemological background?
What is the argument?
If professional communication research and teaching are going to be viable, professional communication scholars need to be aware of the conceputal underpinnings of professional work.
What evidence does the author bring?
Articles suggesting that professional communicators are distinct from workplace writers in their special relationship w/ a specific and known audience, social responsibility and self-reflexive ethical awareness.
What perspective does the author take?
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
reading notes
Notes on Allen, "The Case Against Defining Technical Writing".
The easy questions:
When was it published?
1990 in JBTC.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical writing scholars (primary, I think) and practitioners (secondary, I think).
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
It's almost anti-prescriptive: let's not define technical writing, because no definition will adequately describe what tech writing is. Allen focuses more on describing what definitions do -- and the impact of definition questions on tech writing -- than on describing what tech writers do.
Coming soon: The Tough Questions
Right after I have my twix bar.
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it, and how does the article reflect that conversation?
Allen's article is about what wasn't going on: No definition of tech writing had emerged as universally acceptable, despite a history of foiled attempts to create one. (!) So the STC relegated the definition problem to its academic branch c 1990.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Given the historical thread on defining tech. writing, Allen focuses on the thrills and perils of definitions in general and definitions of tech writing in particular.
What is the epistemological background?
A graveyard of failed definitions, from Britton and Lay's "One meaning and only one meaning"(unrealistic!) to Dobrin's "writing that accomodates technology to the user" (circular!).
What is the argument?
No definition will adequately describe technical writing: "Perhaps we should get over our embarassment at not having a definition for technical writing and abandon the search altogether".
What evidence does the author bring?
Here's why we've been trying to come up with that definition:
1) Clarify disciplinary boundaries.
2)Identify appropriate topics for research.
3) Reflect professional values (helps w/professional status).
Definition problems:
1) Inflection problem -- content-dependent definitions have to say what is technical and what is not, style-dependent definitions don't exclude, for example, Hemingway and put a devious emphasis on clarity.
2) Do we define tech writing by what it is or by what it should be -- how to assess goodness or badness of tech writing against the definition?
3) The false inform / persuade binary.
Case against defining:
Tech writing definitions reinforce:
1) False and blurry lines.
2) The science / humanities split.
3) Existing practices (can't anticipate the future, esp. of new media).
We're doing fine without a definition: our "impressionistic, experience-based" ideas of what tech writing is will suffice to keep the field intact: it would be hard to make up a definition as functional as our good, flexible and fuzzy ideas about tech writing.
What perspective does the author take?
Tacit knowledge is fine.
What perspective is missing?
With no definition, how do tech comm scholars and practitioners represent our field to interdisciplinary colleagues, prospective employers and funding agencies?
Interesting notes:
(!) The STC doesn't think that cookbooks constitute technical writing, but Allen beleives that they do. CF Gorgias, rhetoric = cookery.
(!) Bleeding-edge technical writing practices tend to forge a bridge between the sciences and humanities, even as tech. writing defintions try to enforce a two-culture split.
The easy questions:
When was it published?
1990 in JBTC.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical writing scholars (primary, I think) and practitioners (secondary, I think).
What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?
It's almost anti-prescriptive: let's not define technical writing, because no definition will adequately describe what tech writing is. Allen focuses more on describing what definitions do -- and the impact of definition questions on tech writing -- than on describing what tech writers do.
Coming soon: The Tough Questions
Right after I have my twix bar.
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it, and how does the article reflect that conversation?
Allen's article is about what wasn't going on: No definition of tech writing had emerged as universally acceptable, despite a history of foiled attempts to create one. (!) So the STC relegated the definition problem to its academic branch c 1990.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Given the historical thread on defining tech. writing, Allen focuses on the thrills and perils of definitions in general and definitions of tech writing in particular.
What is the epistemological background?
A graveyard of failed definitions, from Britton and Lay's "One meaning and only one meaning"(unrealistic!) to Dobrin's "writing that accomodates technology to the user" (circular!).
What is the argument?
No definition will adequately describe technical writing: "Perhaps we should get over our embarassment at not having a definition for technical writing and abandon the search altogether".
What evidence does the author bring?
Here's why we've been trying to come up with that definition:
1) Clarify disciplinary boundaries.
2)Identify appropriate topics for research.
3) Reflect professional values (helps w/professional status).
Definition problems:
1) Inflection problem -- content-dependent definitions have to say what is technical and what is not, style-dependent definitions don't exclude, for example, Hemingway and put a devious emphasis on clarity.
2) Do we define tech writing by what it is or by what it should be -- how to assess goodness or badness of tech writing against the definition?
3) The false inform / persuade binary.
Case against defining:
Tech writing definitions reinforce:
1) False and blurry lines.
2) The science / humanities split.
3) Existing practices (can't anticipate the future, esp. of new media).
We're doing fine without a definition: our "impressionistic, experience-based" ideas of what tech writing is will suffice to keep the field intact: it would be hard to make up a definition as functional as our good, flexible and fuzzy ideas about tech writing.
What perspective does the author take?
Tacit knowledge is fine.
What perspective is missing?
With no definition, how do tech comm scholars and practitioners represent our field to interdisciplinary colleagues, prospective employers and funding agencies?
Interesting notes:
(!) The STC doesn't think that cookbooks constitute technical writing, but Allen beleives that they do. CF Gorgias, rhetoric = cookery.
(!) Bleeding-edge technical writing practices tend to forge a bridge between the sciences and humanities, even as tech. writing defintions try to enforce a two-culture split.
reading notes
Notes on Miller, "A humanistic rationale for tech writing".
The easy questions:
When was it written and published?
1979 in College English -- but is anthologized and cited all over the place.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical communication teachers as well as a wider audience of general people (especially comp. people) in college English departments.
What is the genre and what kind of research is the author doing?
The genre is prescriptive : Miller wants to trade a positivist perspective on tech writing for an overt consensualist one. It's also critical -- the tech comm view of science and technology doesn't match the science and technology view of science and technology.
The hard questions
What was taking place in the field when the author wrote it, and how does Miller's essay reflect the conversation that was taking place in the field?
Miller grounds her essay in a local event -- an English dept. debate about whether tech. writing satisfies a humanities requirement. But surely this debate was not isolated. By 1979, technical writing had moved from engineering departments to the English departments in which tech writing programs are now most often housed. English departments were struggling to figure out how tech writing fit in and to determine its value. Likewise, tech writing was aspiring to "disciplinary respectability" (Miller -- I would call it legitimacy) and aimed to move beyond its status as a skills course.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Miller focuses on aspects of technical communication that have humanistic value and aligns these aspects of tech comm with the New Rhetoric. This helps tech comm claim legitimacy w/in English departments and social centrality as a field -- tech writing is equivalent to, and participates in, the work of technology and science.
What is the epistemological background?
Spanning the ancient Greek philosophers to the extremely logical positivism of the early 20th century, scientists held a positivist view of science (Aristotle, Whitehead and Russell, Korzybski). Now scientists hold a consensualist view of science (Kuhn, etc -- Miller calls this the "new epistemology"). So it would be cool for tech. writing to adopt the consentualist perspective.
What is the argument?
Tech writing has humanistic value, and pedagogy can throw this value into sharp releif by trading the positivist perspective for a consensualist one.
What evidence does the author bring?
The positivist view has put some holes in tech. writing as a discipline, leaving only "self-deprecation" at the center:
Unsystematized definitions of tech writing, emphasis on form and style at the expense of invention, insistence on certain characteristics of tone and analysis of audience in terms of "level".
Each of these holes creates problems that can be redressed with the consensualist view. I'm too tired to explain.
What perspective does the author take?
A consensualist view of tech writing.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
Miller notes that the positivist view of tech writing is still held by scientists and technology people in industry. If tech writing teachers adopt a consensualist perspective, what conflicts might arise as tech writers enter the workforce -- and what are some strategies for reconciling these 2 perspectives so that people can write their documents in peace?
Interesting notes:
According to Miller, scientific and technical writing are different because they're associated with different and differently-structured communities: overlapping disciplinary (science) and i/o beaurocratic (technology).
I seem to remember that some other guy takes issue with this idea-- but who? And why?
The easy questions:
When was it written and published?
1979 in College English -- but is anthologized and cited all over the place.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Technical communication teachers as well as a wider audience of general people (especially comp. people) in college English departments.
What is the genre and what kind of research is the author doing?
The genre is prescriptive : Miller wants to trade a positivist perspective on tech writing for an overt consensualist one. It's also critical -- the tech comm view of science and technology doesn't match the science and technology view of science and technology.
The hard questions
What was taking place in the field when the author wrote it, and how does Miller's essay reflect the conversation that was taking place in the field?
Miller grounds her essay in a local event -- an English dept. debate about whether tech. writing satisfies a humanities requirement. But surely this debate was not isolated. By 1979, technical writing had moved from engineering departments to the English departments in which tech writing programs are now most often housed. English departments were struggling to figure out how tech writing fit in and to determine its value. Likewise, tech writing was aspiring to "disciplinary respectability" (Miller -- I would call it legitimacy) and aimed to move beyond its status as a skills course.
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Miller focuses on aspects of technical communication that have humanistic value and aligns these aspects of tech comm with the New Rhetoric. This helps tech comm claim legitimacy w/in English departments and social centrality as a field -- tech writing is equivalent to, and participates in, the work of technology and science.
What is the epistemological background?
Spanning the ancient Greek philosophers to the extremely logical positivism of the early 20th century, scientists held a positivist view of science (Aristotle, Whitehead and Russell, Korzybski). Now scientists hold a consensualist view of science (Kuhn, etc -- Miller calls this the "new epistemology"). So it would be cool for tech. writing to adopt the consentualist perspective.
What is the argument?
Tech writing has humanistic value, and pedagogy can throw this value into sharp releif by trading the positivist perspective for a consensualist one.
What evidence does the author bring?
The positivist view has put some holes in tech. writing as a discipline, leaving only "self-deprecation" at the center:
Unsystematized definitions of tech writing, emphasis on form and style at the expense of invention, insistence on certain characteristics of tone and analysis of audience in terms of "level".
Each of these holes creates problems that can be redressed with the consensualist view. I'm too tired to explain.
What perspective does the author take?
A consensualist view of tech writing.
What perspective is under-represented or missing?
Miller notes that the positivist view of tech writing is still held by scientists and technology people in industry. If tech writing teachers adopt a consensualist perspective, what conflicts might arise as tech writers enter the workforce -- and what are some strategies for reconciling these 2 perspectives so that people can write their documents in peace?
Interesting notes:
According to Miller, scientific and technical writing are different because they're associated with different and differently-structured communities: overlapping disciplinary (science) and i/o beaurocratic (technology).
I seem to remember that some other guy takes issue with this idea-- but who? And why?
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
POW!
After a mining fataility, the MSHA circulates a FATALGRAM or safety memo w / graphic depiction of the accident.
The FATALGRAMS are not meant to be funny.
reading notes
This is a mere sample of what I must do 3-5 times per day in order to pass exam to verify that I'm qualified to ... keep doing what I've been doing for the past 4 years:
Notes on Sauer (2003), "The Rhetoric of Risk: Technical Documentation in Hazardous Environments".
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it?
Tech comm shifted from arguing that it should research non-traditional settings to actually researching nontraditional settings. Note: This never happens in "high theory", in which no actual research is done.
Note: Contemporaneous examples include -- hey! Why is Sauer the only book-length study of a nontraditional setting that I can think of?
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on, and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Sauer analyzes the "embodied" technical communication -- specifically gestures -- of miners working in hazardous environments. In addition to responding to the call for research on "marginalized forms of representation", Sauer is taking up a social issue: Government regulations focus on abstract, paper-based forms of documentation -- these kinds of regulations don't even make it into the mine.
Sauer focuses on the endpoints of the cycle of tech. documentation in hazardous environments: stage 1, when embodied experiences are put in writing via an accident report, and stage 6, when procedures are represented to workers through training. At these points, there's a crucial interface between agencies and the material sites they seek to regulate.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Tech comm researchers and risk specialists.
What is the epistemological background?
Sauer blends the Aristelian perspecive that rhet. is an inventional art with the postmodern / feminist awareness that industrial communication practices are shaped by politics and economics, and therefore might not register some necessary info. about assessing and managing risk.
Here's Sauer's twist on invention: make visible the full range of responses to the problem of risk, then focus on the non-conventionalzed stuff that pre-existing / conventional modes of analysis have made invisible.
Sources: Richard Young . He focuses on invention, and I know about him.
2. Some Guy Named J.V. Cunningham.
What is the argument?
Broadly, Sauer claims centrality and value for miners' gestures and other marginalized forms of representations (i.e., leaving them out has real consequences): "Ultimately, the rhetoric of risk arguest that rhetoricians must develop, study and adopt documentation practices that will have the same authority and force that we now assicate with the written word. The hretoirc I imagine will note see gesture as additive, but it will help us understand how speakers and writers integrate many different forms of knowledge -- analytic and experiential, scientific and embodied -- in many different modalitites at many different sites of rhetorical production".
Sauer offers 4 provocative questions:
What if individuals don't have enough rhetorical knowledge to document experience in writing?
What if an individual can't interpret a toner or gesture?
How do health and judgements get skewed in consequence?
How can other attain and evaluate knowledge that is not documented in written form.
Sauer's research is descriptive (qualitative: empirical and documentary), so the focus is on "mapping new territory for investigation" and methods for answering questions, not on making claims.
What is Sauer's perspective?
Sauer is especially interested in "how gender and power is inscribed in the official communication practices that have affected miners' lives". Her focus is on rhetorical practices, not mine safety.
What perspective is missed?
The steps in the middle, which are intra-organizational.
What is the genre?
Descriptive with a smidge of critical.
What kind of research is the author doing?
I think it's ethnographic -- you might say it's lots of case studies -- with contextual documentary research. Sauer thinks that quantitative researchers would be uncomfortable with building theory from "isolated cases", a scruple that can be avoided if we look at the individuals as creating new, momentary solutions to communication problems that extend our understanding of the avail. means of persuasion in hazardous worksites.
Notes on Sauer (2003), "The Rhetoric of Risk: Technical Documentation in Hazardous Environments".
What was going on in the field when the author wrote it?
Tech comm shifted from arguing that it should research non-traditional settings to actually researching nontraditional settings. Note: This never happens in "high theory", in which no actual research is done.
Note: Contemporaneous examples include -- hey! Why is Sauer the only book-length study of a nontraditional setting that I can think of?
What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on, and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?
Sauer analyzes the "embodied" technical communication -- specifically gestures -- of miners working in hazardous environments. In addition to responding to the call for research on "marginalized forms of representation", Sauer is taking up a social issue: Government regulations focus on abstract, paper-based forms of documentation -- these kinds of regulations don't even make it into the mine.
Sauer focuses on the endpoints of the cycle of tech. documentation in hazardous environments: stage 1, when embodied experiences are put in writing via an accident report, and stage 6, when procedures are represented to workers through training. At these points, there's a crucial interface between agencies and the material sites they seek to regulate.
What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Tech comm researchers and risk specialists.
What is the epistemological background?
Sauer blends the Aristelian perspecive that rhet. is an inventional art with the postmodern / feminist awareness that industrial communication practices are shaped by politics and economics, and therefore might not register some necessary info. about assessing and managing risk.
Here's Sauer's twist on invention: make visible the full range of responses to the problem of risk, then focus on the non-conventionalzed stuff that pre-existing / conventional modes of analysis have made invisible.
Sources: Richard Young . He focuses on invention, and I know about him.
2. Some Guy Named J.V. Cunningham.
What is the argument?
Broadly, Sauer claims centrality and value for miners' gestures and other marginalized forms of representations (i.e., leaving them out has real consequences): "Ultimately, the rhetoric of risk arguest that rhetoricians must develop, study and adopt documentation practices that will have the same authority and force that we now assicate with the written word. The hretoirc I imagine will note see gesture as additive, but it will help us understand how speakers and writers integrate many different forms of knowledge -- analytic and experiential, scientific and embodied -- in many different modalitites at many different sites of rhetorical production".
Sauer offers 4 provocative questions:
What if individuals don't have enough rhetorical knowledge to document experience in writing?
What if an individual can't interpret a toner or gesture?
How do health and judgements get skewed in consequence?
How can other attain and evaluate knowledge that is not documented in written form.
Sauer's research is descriptive (qualitative: empirical and documentary), so the focus is on "mapping new territory for investigation" and methods for answering questions, not on making claims.
What is Sauer's perspective?
Sauer is especially interested in "how gender and power is inscribed in the official communication practices that have affected miners' lives". Her focus is on rhetorical practices, not mine safety.
What perspective is missed?
The steps in the middle, which are intra-organizational.
What is the genre?
Descriptive with a smidge of critical.
What kind of research is the author doing?
I think it's ethnographic -- you might say it's lots of case studies -- with contextual documentary research. Sauer thinks that quantitative researchers would be uncomfortable with building theory from "isolated cases", a scruple that can be avoided if we look at the individuals as creating new, momentary solutions to communication problems that extend our understanding of the avail. means of persuasion in hazardous worksites.
the audacity to stick
In 2007, I'd like to see the word "tacky" restored to its positive, adhesive meaning ... because I am always in the market for a good adhesive.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Just to give these ideas maximum exposure for non - boingboing readers :
1. cooler than cool
2. ice cold
This stuff and more can be found on boingboing: a directory of wonderful things.
1. cooler than cool
2. ice cold
This stuff and more can be found on boingboing: a directory of wonderful things.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
haiku
Title: "Hardware Not Present"
Is my linksys pci card WPC54g v3
broken?
Because the LCD light is on.
Is my linksys pci card WPC54g v3
broken?
Because the LCD light is on.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
newtonian physics
Hilary weighs 113 lbs and carries a bookbag of approximately equal weight. A minute ago, Hilary and her bookbag were at rest.
If Hilary sprints straight to the 10th floor stairwell at a rate of 50 ft / sec, what is the force of Hilary's head-on collision with the stairwell door?
Notes: F = M/A
The stairwell is at rest
If Hilary sprints straight to the 10th floor stairwell at a rate of 50 ft / sec, what is the force of Hilary's head-on collision with the stairwell door?
Notes: F = M/A
The stairwell is at rest
Monday, January 08, 2007
Current stats: Win 2007
current location: Floor
why? : Six (6) hours left of Winter break
and ps: I couldn't sleep knowing that other people are teaching
watching: Jackass 2
fave expression: Har!
weight: 112. 9
that's right: I *lost* weight over Winter break.
so: Har!
why? : Six (6) hours left of Winter break
and ps: I couldn't sleep knowing that other people are teaching
watching: Jackass 2
fave expression: Har!
weight: 112. 9
that's right: I *lost* weight over Winter break.
so: Har!
math
Hilary has 5 friends. Each of these friends has 72 students.
How many students will annoy Hilary in WIN 2007?
How many students will annoy Hilary in WIN 2007?
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Friday, January 05, 2007
top ten signs that it's time for WIN 2007
#1 Sharon and I had an in-depth conversation about "the cute new guy on Ugly Betty" as though he is a real person.
#2 Having crossed a frozen tundra to register for ENG 9991, I'm thinking hmmm...there must be some way to work my candidate status into a pickup line.
#3 It's starting to seem like the movie Fargo "in a sense, becomes its own negation".
#4 While not a muslim myself, I think that I accidentally converted fjr to Islam.
[Sample proselytizing: "I think you should try to get into Muslim heaven "for the virgins". That's right! You could have your own basketball team of virginal muslims or sample the Muslims of the world"].
#5 Everyone around me has released their syllabus in beta.
#6 2 hrs: Time spent browsing anime manga for hairstyle ideas. Number of outstanding grade complaints: 6.
#2 Having crossed a frozen tundra to register for ENG 9991, I'm thinking hmmm...there must be some way to work my candidate status into a pickup line.
#3 It's starting to seem like the movie Fargo "in a sense, becomes its own negation".
#4 While not a muslim myself, I think that I accidentally converted fjr to Islam.
[Sample proselytizing: "I think you should try to get into Muslim heaven "for the virgins". That's right! You could have your own basketball team of virginal muslims or sample the Muslims of the world"].
#5 Everyone around me has released their syllabus in beta.
#6 2 hrs: Time spent browsing anime manga for hairstyle ideas. Number of outstanding grade complaints: 6.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
search terms
This blog is a popular result for the Google search string "dimension of snack shelf for Mini-mart".
Monday, January 01, 2007
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