Blog Assignment #8

Research Paper Annotated Bibliography

Source Descriptions and Links...

1. Link

An article from PC World magazine, written by James A. Martin and hosted by CNN.com, lists and describes the top ten infractions for "e-mail etiquette." The sixth infraction discusses why you should bother checking your spelling and grammar and how not doing so can reflect badly on you in various ways. This specific part of the article is what I'm planning to use in my research paper.

2. Link

An article by Gregory Zuckerman, a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal, reports a story that is proof-positive of how bad grammar on the internet can reflect poorly upon the author, although in this case the context ironically favors said author. A short summary of the story is that a federal judge in California threw out a libel suit because the offender, an anonymous investor, had used such poor grammar and spelling in an internet rant against a manager and his firm that the judge believed it ridiculous that anyone could actually take it seriously. The point of the story is that a serious airing of grievances was dismissed as an ignorant and unspecific tantrum simply because the author used poor spelling and grammar.

3. Link

An article by Ben Li, a news editor for Gauntlet (a weekly newsletter for the University of Calgary) discusses the issue of poor spelling and grammar on the internet, as well as the use of nonexistent words and internet lingo. The article is very thorough in that is explores why people choose to write the way they do on the internet, such as for speed and convenience, and compares it with a situation when such reasons were actually justified (i.e. the early days of computers). Now, however, the author argues that there is no reason to use such shortcuts and that to do so is a sign of laziness or of poor communication skills. A few select passages I plan to use in my paper are as follows...

"The phenomena of using clipped English is rooted in earlier times when on-line connections were slow and every character typed was costly to deliver. When 1200-baud modems were in common use, having entire conversations using abbreviations could be justified by the savings in communications costs. However, saying "thx 4 joke roflmaopp jk" (thanks for the joke, rolling on floor laughing my ass off, pissing my pants, just kidding) using today's world of broadband connections is out of place outside pagers and text-messaging. Wordage involving weird punctuation isn't even faster to type."

"Many Internet message boards are prime breeding grounds for made-up words and poor grammar. Debaters take it upon themselves to make up obscure jargon, write poorly and proceed to frown upon anyone who criticizes them for not communicating the issues well. Resistant to change, or quality, they then try to make up for the lack of quality by writing more of the same crap.
It seems many Internet communicators are unaware that taking time to properly compose a message not only adds credibility to the writing but is courteous to the reader. E-mails and instant messages can quickly appear abusive when expected elements of language are randomly discarded."

4. Link

The following article is not a scholarly source of any kind, just a simple post on an internet message board by someone who feels the same way I do. I chose it because it was written by someone who's had experience with the internet and has seen more than his fair share of poor grammar, spelling, acronyms, l33t-speak, emoticons, etc. The article is very well composed and touches on many points of the issue, including why people do it, why they should not, how it affects others, etc. There are many points that the author makes which I completely agree with, but perhaps one of the most true is a short, simple sentence toward the end of the article.

"The quality of language you are exposed to most often is the quality of language that you adopt."

If all you are exposed to is internet jargon and grammatical laziness, then eventually you'll begin to emulate that in more aspects of your life than just the internet.

5. Link

A simple article introducing and explaining various lingo of the internet, what it means, and in what contexts it is most often used. The article also describes a variety of functions of the internet and shows how one can find their way around.

Blog Assignment #7

Exercise 22 (pg. 143), #2-8

2. Original: With the opening of the East Bloc nations and China to capitalism, what is happening is that American companies are looking for ways of expanding their markets and their product lines to take advantage.

Revised: American companies are looking for ways of expanding their markets and product lines to take advantage of China and other East Bloc nations' turn to capitalism.

(8 words less in revised sentence)

3. Original: Analyzing the situation in China has shown that opportunities for investment are growing.

Revised: Analysis shows that opportunities for investment are growing in China.

(3 words less in revised sentence)

4. Original: In the biography of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro, an account of the Senate election of 1948 is described in great detail.

Revised: In Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, the Senate election of 1948 is described in detail.

(6 words less in revised sentence)

5. Original: When Julie filled out an application for a work-study job, she was surprised to learn that a detail financial statement would have to be submitted by her parents.

Revised: Julie was surprised to learn that a detailed financial statement was required by her parents for an application for a work-study job.

(6 words less in revised sentence)

6. Original: Getting his new pizza shop to finally turn a profit has meant a lot of hard work and long hours for Tim.

Revised: Tim's successful pizza shop was the result of hard work and long hours.

(9 words less in revised sentence)

7. Original: The overuse of salt in the typical American diet has had the result of obscuring the natural taste of many foods. Nutritionists maintain that a reduction in people's dependence on salt would lead to enhancement of taste and heightened enjoyment of food.

Revised: Nutritionists maintain that less salt in one's diet - which obscures the natural taste of food - will lead to enhancement of taste and heightened enjoyment of food.

(14 words less in revised sentence)

8. Original: The measurement of the Earth's fragile ozone layer was one of the important missions undertaken by the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis. The shuttle was launched in October of 1994. The mission lasted ten days. Humans are put at greater risk of skin cancer, cataracts, and other ailments because of overexposure to ultraviolet radiation. Crops can also be spoiled and underwater food sources devastated as a result of too much direct sunlight. A vast ozone "hole" over Antarctica from September to December every year is particularly worrisome to scientists.

Revised: Due to overexposure to ultraviolet radiation - partly as a result of an ozone "hole" over Antarctica - humans are at greater risk of contracting skin cancer, cataracts, and other ailments; crops and underwater food sources are also at risk. To study this problem, the crew of the space shuttle Atlantis began a mission in October of 1994 - which lasted ten days - to measure the Earth's fragile ozone layer.

(19 words less in revised sentence)

Total Words Less: 65

Assignment for 3/7/07

A) Chapter 6, Exercise 16 (pg. 110)

2. At the Swedish museum in South Philadelphia, the staff is getting ready for gala, year-long celebration of the 300th birthday of Carl Linnaeus.
Unfortunately, despite the grand affair, not many people actually know who Carl Linnaeus is.
Linnaeus was a Scandinavian scientist who created the naming system for every living thing in the past, present, or future; he called it the taxonomy of species.

B) Group Discussion Exercise (pg. 114)
"De-clicheing"

1. Quiet as a monk
2. Hot as the desert
3. Cold as the Arctic
4. Scared as a
5. Strong as titanium
6. Fast as a frog catching a fly
7. Avoid like Joan Rivers at the Oscars
8. Mean as a feral tomcat
10. Pretty as a dandelion
11. Weak as a watered-down fountain drink

Research Paper Prospectus

For my research paper I’ve chosen to analyze some of the unique characteristics of how people communicate over the Internet. Specifically, I intend to discuss how the way in which people communicate on the internet is unique in itself, as well as how it is both good and bad. The Internet is unique in that it seemingly possesses it’s own “language,” so to speak, and it can be quite confusing to those who are unfamiliar with the lingo. Through the use of anagrams, “l33t-speak,” emoticons, shorthand, slang, and other tricks, the Internet has become a source of a very diverse selection of communication styles. And while these styles may offer some benefit, there is also great detriment to the way in which people communicate on the Internet. Grammar has practically been thrown out the window, words are no longer spelled as they should be, and most surfers of web sites don’t see any reason to care, it seems. Oh yes, the internet has given us many great things, but it has also created a wave of grammatical laziness that, while inconsequential to most, threatens to make its way into other parts of our life and ultimately cause problems. This risk, however, is not a social problem but rather a personal one; it’s purely on a person-to-person basis. In my paper I seek to analyze this issue, give my opinions of why individuals should strive to uphold proper – or at least decent – grammar, and discuss some of the ways being lazy with electronic communications can affect both the offender and the receivers of such communications.

Sample Source:

Goldsborough, Reid. "Learning the lingo of the electronic age." Reading Today 21.1 (August-Sept 2003): 11(1). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. USC Aiken Library. 28 Feb. 2007

http://find.galegroup.com/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-
Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=
EAIM&docId=A107894385&source=gale&srcprod=EAIM&userGroup
Name=uscaiken&version=1.0

Altered Prospectus with focus on sentence rhythm:

For my research paper I’ve chosen to analyze some of the characteristics of how people communicate over the Internet, which I find particularly unique. Specifically, I intend to discuss how the way in which people communicate on the internet is unique in itself, as well as how it is both good and bad. The Internet is unique in that it seemingly possesses it’s own “language,” so to speak, which can be quite confusing to those who are unfamiliar with the lingo. Through the use of anagrams, “l33t-speak,” emoticons, shorthand, slang, and other tricks, the Internet has become a source of a very diverse selection of communication styles. And while these styles may offer some benefit, there is also great detriment to the way in which people communicate on the Internet. Grammar has practically been thrown out the window, words are no longer spelled as they should be, and it seems as if most web surfers don't see any reason to care. The internet has given us many great things, oh yes, but it has also created a wave of grammatical laziness that, while inconsequential to most, threatens to make its way into other parts of our life and ultimately cause problems. This risk, however, is not a social problem but rather a personal one; it’s purely on a person-to-person basis. I seek to analyze this issue in my paper and give my opinions of why individuals should strive to uphold proper – or at least decent – grammar. Additionally, I'll discuss some of the ways being lazy with electronic communications can affect both the offender and the receivers of such communications.

Blog Assignment #4 (2/19)

Management is still taught in most business schools as a bundle of techniques, such as budgeting and personnel relations. To be sure, management, like any other work, has it's own tools and it's own techniques. But just as the essence of medicine is not urinalysis - important though that is - the essence of management is not techniques and procedures. The essence of management is to make knowledge productive. Management, in other words, is a social function. And in it's practice, management is truly a liberal art.
The old communities - family, village, parish, and so one - have all but disappeared in the knowledge society. Their place has largely been taken by the new unit of social integration: the organization. Where community was fate, organization is voluntary membership. Where community claimed the entire person, organization is a means to a person's ends; a tool. For 200 years a hot debate has been raging, especially in the West; are communities organic or are they simply extensions of the people of which they are made? Nobody would claim that the new organization is organic. It is clearly an artifact, a creation of man, a social technology.

The charter school movement is not yet big. Just 11 states, beginning with Minnesota in 1991, have passed laws permitting the creation of autonomous public schools like Northland; a dozen more have similar laws in the works. Most states have restricted the number of these schools - 100 in California, 25 in Massachusetts - in an attempt to appease teacher's unions and other opponents. Nevertheless, the charter movement is being heralded as the latest and best hope for a public education system that has failed to delivery for too many children and cannot compete internationally.
A handful of other places - notably Baltimore, Maryland and Hartford, Connecticut - are experimenting with a far more radical way to circumvent bureaucracy: hiring a for-profit company to run the schools.

Blog Assignment #3 (2/7) - 1st Paper Paragraph Draft

"Once my comparison research was done, I was surprised to find my paper was remarkable similar to the professional article that I chose in the criteria given. The closest similarities I noticed were the paragraph length. For longest, shortest, and average paragraph length, my totals were only one paragraph less or more than the professional article. Additionally, my average sentence length was 23 words, very close to the professional article, of which the average sentence length was 19 words."

Blog Assignment #2 (1/31)

1. It would be repetitive to use the word "winter" any further because the word already makes up the title, which signifies what the passage is about. The reader obviously knows what the "it" is referring to, and so there is no reason to over-explain the meaning. Additionally, writing that only alludes to something rather than stating it outright is generally more interesting; it leaves more to the reader's imagination. Considering this is somewhat of a poetic passage, allusion or vagueness is to be expected.

2. Short sentences such as the ones in Winter are usually used to show a transition of thought or a quick action. Short sentences give a sense of spontaneity and disconnection, which are often the nature of thoughts, and so they are most often used in narrative. A short sentence may also be used to emphasize the message within the sentence, rather than risk it being overlooked if used in a longer sentence.