RePost: the interwebs - relevant analogies.

The following appeared on my original blog.

Intellectual intercourse requires maturity and an understanding of consequences. A recent NPR report presents several cautionary tales on cyber security / responsible online behavior. Scroll down to the “Excerpt: ‘The Future of Reputation,’” by Daniel J. Solove for a (haunting? sobering?) discussion of online ethics, gossip and shaming.

An adolescent girl engages in mildly (?) socially irresponsible behavior as a result became a pariah. She dropped out of college as a result. When you consider her transgression, the punishment really doesn’t fit the offense. Keep reading and the subtitle, “Chapter 1: When Poop Goes Primetime” may put you off as a potentially offensive, but if you read the section called, “The Internet as Teenager” all may become clear.

Personifying the technology and applying understanding of the stages human development, may bring a fresh perspective and an inroad for discussion. According to the article on NPR, the internet, “is now maturing into its second decade in mainstream culture — its teenage years….the teenage Internet is taking on all the qualities of an adolescent — brash, uninhibited, unruly, fearless, experimental, and often not mindful of the consequences of its behavior. And as with a teenager, the Net’s greater freedom can be both a blessing and a curse.”

There might be something to this. Scatological metaphors and analogies really work in explaining the web. Fortunately for myself, degrees in literature gave me a thick skin for such allusions (if you suffered through The Fairy Queene or Ubu Roi, you can handle anything). Unfortunately, even when successful in communicating a complicated idea, you can look foolish. Ted Stevens (R. Alaska), the octogenarian senator in charge of the committee regulating the internet, caught considerable flack for comparing the internet to plumbing but he has a point.

Many, including The Chronicle and others, rail against the overuse of Wikipedia as a solitary source of research. I developed an explanation for students that works. It’s brief and, in its own odd way, elegant, but I don’t always share it; particularly not until we’ve established trust and a mutual agreement on acceptable language in the classroom (and yeah, it’s a scatological metaphor).

Response Comparison Contrast paper

This assignment assessed several things including:

1. thesis and/or thesis statement construction
2. research and citations
3. organization and rhetorical construction and success of argument.
4. all the mechanical and format concerns addressed on previous papers.
   

Several students have noted that the thing they liked most about this assignment is the range and freedom they have to explore their interests. Oddly, but perhaps predictably, that revealed the greatest common challenge we face - the crafting of workable thesis statements.

We need to do a workshop on the difference between a thesis and a topic. I've started a page collecting links to resources for the explanation of what a thesis statement is and tips on how to create one. Several links have online "thesis statement generators" which might be fun.

below are some thoughts and responses to what I've read this week.

Research
I'm a skeptic. I also come from a different background. You may live in a world where men are dominant and incapable of nurture, and women are never found driving cabs, working construction or in positions of leadership, but I've lived in places - both here and abroad - where these things can't be taken for granted.

Beware of unsubstantiated claims like, "some say," "research shows" and "people think." They need to be backed up with some kind of documentation. Without knowing who "they" are, these comments throw up red flags. What informs your opinion could be personal experience, a book or article you read, T.V. program, a video or other media available through ANGEL or class wiki, or whatever - but the reader needs to know where claims come from.

Even if you believe something to be true - imagine your audience. How well do you know them? Would they believe the same?

Several claims reminded me of a report I read that claimed second-hand smoke wasn't dangerous. When I looked up the original research it came from the National Tobacco Foundation or similar such agency. The research wasn't rigorous and it was biased. You can learn much by looking at people's research sources.

Wikipedia is more of an example of a research essay (a tertiary research soure) and not what college professors generally consider to be primary or secondary research source. I've long had a love -hate relationship with wikipedia - see previous post. But with wikipedia - it is their sources that are of more use. Check out their sources and draw your own conclusions.

And even if Wikipedia falls under "common knowledge" and therefor deemed unnecessary to cite - you must put anything you quote in quotation marks and provide documentation info on your works cited page. YOU CAN'T CUT and PASTE FROM ANYWHERE on the web without giving credit to your source - and believe me - people can tell.

Quoting sources
A general rule of thumb is that if 5 words or more in a row in your paper are found in your text you must put quotes around it - or if it is over 4 lines long set it off with a block quote. See quoting sources for details.

Anything cited, referred to, or quoted in your text must have documentation info on the works cited page. If not quotes or documentation exists and your reader finds the phrase word-for-word somewhere (and it's easy to catch - if you've taught a subject for a while and/or know how to use Turnitin.com)

Works Cited page
I advocate (and requested for this paper) a "Works Consulted" page rather than a "Works Cited" page per se, reasoning that any work that informed your opinion in researching this assignment should be referenced. I'm encouraging you to err on the side of caution. It's better to have a source on your works cited page that isn't referenced than not have a source that is used.

On the works page - each source should be formatted with a hanging indent. It's visually obvious when that isn't done. It screams "I didn't make the slightest effort to use any acceptable format for citations. I spit on MLA, APA, Chicago and Turabian." For instructions how to do this click here.

Coherence
Sleep deprivation (aka all-nighters), drugs and/or alcohol may seem like a source of inspiration - but the results are not coherent. Reread your drafts and make sure they make sense in the cold, sober, light of day.

Sources
In class, our sources have been decidedly feminist - you may be interested in:

• Cathy Young - proponent of equity feminism. Born in the USSR, but fluent in English as anyone, she's brilliant and not embraced by either feminists or masculists
• identity politics - I just learned of the term from my dialogue with you all over this paper. I haven't decided what to make of it or how (or if) to apply the lesson to my class
  
• wikipedia page on income disparity (thanks P)
• Warren Farrell - only man elected to the National Organization for Women's board of directors 3 times. He's now an icon of Men's Studies.
  

Questions from my reading of your papers

1. What is the relationship between care or nurture and dominance? Are they mutually exclusive?
2. Can one provide for another without it affecting power in the relationship?
3. Is gender disparity in any profession ever a good thing?
   

Digital Rights Management, Copyright, and Citing Sources

If you can handle scatological terms there's an interesting thread to this discussion started elsewhere. Part of the goals of this class include the effective integration of the words and ideas of others. We need to all follow some practices to maximize communication (meta data rocks) and participate in a larger scholarly discourse community, whilst covering our collective and individual assets.

Citing sources impresses me - don't hide your research. Failing to give credit where it is due, to fail to "give props" in the popular parlance, is at best rude and at worst legally actionable. Give a shout out to the influences on your ideas when you can.

Some faculty have told me it stems from an inability to distinguish fact from opinion. Maybe...I have doubts. The unwillingness to express an opinion is not evidence of a lack of rational thought. It just appears that way in class. I'll also address this topic in an audio rant, I mean "lecture."

No citation is needed for ideas that are common knowledge - unless you use the specific language of someone else. That's lazy and doesn't impress anyone, but not illegal (as long as you place the other's words in quotes and provide citation information). That's one reason English faculty tend to look at Wikipedia with such disdain. To most writing instructors, using Wikipedia is like peeing in the shower. Maybe everyone does it (present company excluded), but no one talks about it in polite company.

Wikipedia is great for technology and math topics, where facts are relevant and opinion less so. Where knowledge can be debated, socially created references are of dangerous or lesser use

Make an effort to be fair to your sources and to your readers. Works Cited pages give readers an added resource - we can go find the same sources if we're interested. FYI: Links themselves are generally seen as citation in web publications. Material posted in ANGEL has an added safeguard of being behind a firewall.

We will be using Turnitin.com - which is a great resource for protecting ourselves from charges of intellectual misappropriation, regardless of our intentions.