For my project I would like to study the discourse community known as Twitter. Social media has become a recent craze due to the advent of the internet as well as the ease and access of inter connectivity between people now. Whether this be via cell phones, tablets or laptop computers it has become increasingly easy to connect with other people no matter where the location. Twitter is currently the latest trend in social media and is expected to eventually outgrow Facebook in users.
Using Swales' six characteristics of a discourse community Twitter can be described as such. The first of these characteristics is that of a common public goal that is broadly agreed upon. Each different person, group or business that puts themselves on Twitter are all after something different but the main thing that every single person on Twitter does is tries to gain attention or a following of some kind. The goals are public in that anyone who has a Twitter can follow anyone else who has a Twitter. Another of these characteristics is that of intercommunication among its members. With every tweet posted online each member has the ability to see what any other person has tweeted. If a person however decides to not make a post private they have the option to send a private message rather than a public post. The third of the discourse characteristics talks about how the community uses its participatory mechanisms in order to gain feedback. This can take form in a variety of ways depending on the situation of who talking. A group such as a news network might ask what questions they should ask in an interview they are going to have later. A person might just ask for some sort of simple advice on a life situation. Other people are able to respond to these types of posts and put in their two cents on the subject. The fourth of these characteristics talks about different genres a discourse community can have. When people post things they can take various forms.. Some post in text, others with pictures and some with links and videos. Each of these different kinds of posts will effect the community in a different way and can be used to convey a certain type of emotion. Along with genres another characteristic of a discourse community is the use of lexis specific to that discourse. The most common form of this on Twitter is the hashtag. After a tweet has been composed a person may put a hashtag at the end followed by a word or short phrase that is related to the post. What this does is categorizes posts and these hashtags can be searched later to find other information similar to that topic. Another form of lexis found on Twitter is the use of abbreviations or emotional texts. In order to convey a certain emotion one must use such words as "LOL" or "LMAO." Also because there is a 140 character limit people must use abbreviations sometimes to fit all of their text into one post. The final characteristic of a discourse community is the threshold of membership. While anyone can join into the Twitter sphere there are only a few of those many people who will gain a large active following of people.
Twitter is gaining popularity among the world of social media and many people are dropping their older forms in order to have more time to spend on this one. A few people I know including one of my roomates no longer has or uses Facebook and spends him time exclusively on Twitter. I would like to interview him as well as other friends who have stayed on Facebook and discuss with them how maybe there can be dual discourses that can possibly overlap.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Post 10: Discourse Community
As I have stated in my literacy narrative I have always been someone who is involved online in all sorts of different sites and different ways. The discourse community in which I am involved in that I would like to talk about is that of Twitter. Twitter is a social media site where people can choose to follow certain people in order to see who or what organization is up to or what they thinking or doing at the moment. In John Swales' The Concept of Discourse Community he talks about discourses as having a broad set of common public goals. What I have noticed in the way of public goals is that everyone seems to have different reasons why they Tweet what they Tweet but in the end the main purpose I believe is just for interaction. People want to feel connected to each other and Twitter allows for people to have a metaphoric window into others minds. In his article Swales also talks about how discourses use certain mechanisms of communication and how they use it for feedback and to provide information. When someone tweets about something they only have a 140 character to do it. This causes straight to the point kinds of communication. Also people can be tagged in tweets in order to make sure that a certain person is more likely to see the post and respond to it. In many cases people who have more followers will often get more responses especially when something offensive or funny has been posted by an individual, providing feedback from among other Twitter peers. In addition to this characteristics Twitter also has formed certain genres and lexis among their discourse sphere. Anyone can be on Twitter but there are three main types of categories that people often follow: friends/family, celebrities and news outlets. This creates different ways in which people post things. Family and friends will be much more informal and use acronyms to shorten sentences or express themselves with text such as "LOL" (laugh out loud). Many other celebrities may use the lexical texts as well depending on how what they are known for. Other choose to be more formal and serious and speak in regular more formal English as the news outlets choose to be. Swales also talks about how discourse communities have changing memberships. Social media sites tend to come in and out of "fashion" and people will flock to the "newest" and "better" trend. There are not really novices and apprentices in this discourse. Rather its just depends on the interest of people still willing to be a part of it.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Pencils to Pixels: post 9 Collin DeWalt
In the article From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies the author, Dennis Baron argues that literacy is always changing and changes due to technology. There has been a long line of new inventions that shape the way in which people communicate. His message seems to be that no matter what new literary invention comes around the effect is always the same, a changed view on literacy. No matter whether it is the telephone, the television or even the pencil, literary technologies have influenced and changed the way people perceive language.
In every case of advancement in writing technologies Baron claims that there have always been people who opposed such new inventions as making literate society much worse off than the older technology. Even the first writing technology, which is writing itself, was spoken out against such people like Plato. In his summary of writing technology however, Baron goes on to argue "Pessimistic complaints about how new literacy technologies... are balanced by inflated predictions of how technology will change our lives for the better" (427). The point Baron is trying to get across is the fact that literacy is always changing but not quite so in that it completely evolves into something new. Rather the "old" technology falls into the mainstream and is no longer thought to be different than normal "literacy." It is not hard to imagine that new technologies will fundamentally change literacy, instead it will be harder to remember how it did.
In every case of advancement in writing technologies Baron claims that there have always been people who opposed such new inventions as making literate society much worse off than the older technology. Even the first writing technology, which is writing itself, was spoken out against such people like Plato. In his summary of writing technology however, Baron goes on to argue "Pessimistic complaints about how new literacy technologies... are balanced by inflated predictions of how technology will change our lives for the better" (427). The point Baron is trying to get across is the fact that literacy is always changing but not quite so in that it completely evolves into something new. Rather the "old" technology falls into the mainstream and is no longer thought to be different than normal "literacy." It is not hard to imagine that new technologies will fundamentally change literacy, instead it will be harder to remember how it did.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Wikipedia Reflection
Wikipedia is an excellent tool when it comes to English as well as writing skills. It can enhance the ability to create as well as edit or reform papers. While it gets a bad reputation among the academic community for researching it can be academically helpful within the sphere of writing. What Wikipedia can teach as a tool is how to make drafts.
Drafts can mean all the difference in the world of writing. In my own words, writing is progression not perfection. One cannot simply sit down at a desk and type out a beautifully scripted piece of literature in one sitting and expect it to be their best work ever. Writing is a process that requires much more than one glance at a piece of work. It can take many times of revisiting and revising until the perfect draft can be formed. Without this idea of drafting and re-editing it can be hard to even know what to begin typing or what to even type about.
This writing construct is well illustrated in the article "Shitty First Drafts." As Anne Lamott puts it in this article "Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow" (1). It is important to note that in this article Lamott makes not that even experienced or professional writers will even have trouble when it comes to writing papers. In this article the claim is that the only way to make a quality writing is by drafting. Lamott comes up with the idea of a "shitty first draft" in which she explains how to go about the beginning process of writing a paper. "The first draft is the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, "Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?," you let her. No one is going to see it" (2). In a sense the first draft is just about getting something on paper, whether or not it makes sense. This process is almost like free form writing.
Once the first draft is done then the fine tuning of the paper can begin. Crossing things out and creating new leads or starting in a new direction will redefine the paper and give it more coherence for the readers. This begins the re-editing and revising portion of the drafting process, which in turn creates the readable literature that will connect with the audience with the argument or point of the paper. While revision and editing are key components in the writing process the most important and difficult part is that of coming up with the first draft.
This construct of drafting becomes a key part of when using something like Wikipedia. Wikipedia, an online website where anyone can enter information regarding any topic becomes a haven of drafting and editing. When entering information regarding a topic on Wikipedia one must first look to see if an existing article has already been uploaded. If there is no existing article a new page must be created on the website. When a new page is created it can either be submitted for review or just posted to the site. Either way it is posted the author's work is going to be viewed by someone who will want to figure out the authenticity of your work by checking sources. If something seems inaccurate the page can either be removed or re-edited. Because of this interaction among the website editors and other users drafting becomes a very important part in the process of posting articles to the website. It is important to draft because no one would want to work hard on making a page only to have it removed or re-edited over due to lack of sources or inaccuracies.
Whether someone is posting a new piece to the site or editing a former page, a Wikipedia user can utilize a "sandbox" tool in which they can make all of their edits and original drafts in before making changes to the page. This allows for a place where "shitty first drafts" can be made. Once the first draft is done the page can be previewed, which will show what it will look like once posted. By using this one can easily see where they may have left out a source or can see where they may have put some bad text and can easily edit it before submission. Drafting plays a major role in the Wikipedia world and if one wishes to keep their article on the site they must utilize the drafting process in order to create the best and most reliable work possible.
Drafts can mean all the difference in the world of writing. In my own words, writing is progression not perfection. One cannot simply sit down at a desk and type out a beautifully scripted piece of literature in one sitting and expect it to be their best work ever. Writing is a process that requires much more than one glance at a piece of work. It can take many times of revisiting and revising until the perfect draft can be formed. Without this idea of drafting and re-editing it can be hard to even know what to begin typing or what to even type about.
This writing construct is well illustrated in the article "Shitty First Drafts." As Anne Lamott puts it in this article "Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow" (1). It is important to note that in this article Lamott makes not that even experienced or professional writers will even have trouble when it comes to writing papers. In this article the claim is that the only way to make a quality writing is by drafting. Lamott comes up with the idea of a "shitty first draft" in which she explains how to go about the beginning process of writing a paper. "The first draft is the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, "Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?," you let her. No one is going to see it" (2). In a sense the first draft is just about getting something on paper, whether or not it makes sense. This process is almost like free form writing.
Once the first draft is done then the fine tuning of the paper can begin. Crossing things out and creating new leads or starting in a new direction will redefine the paper and give it more coherence for the readers. This begins the re-editing and revising portion of the drafting process, which in turn creates the readable literature that will connect with the audience with the argument or point of the paper. While revision and editing are key components in the writing process the most important and difficult part is that of coming up with the first draft.
This construct of drafting becomes a key part of when using something like Wikipedia. Wikipedia, an online website where anyone can enter information regarding any topic becomes a haven of drafting and editing. When entering information regarding a topic on Wikipedia one must first look to see if an existing article has already been uploaded. If there is no existing article a new page must be created on the website. When a new page is created it can either be submitted for review or just posted to the site. Either way it is posted the author's work is going to be viewed by someone who will want to figure out the authenticity of your work by checking sources. If something seems inaccurate the page can either be removed or re-edited. Because of this interaction among the website editors and other users drafting becomes a very important part in the process of posting articles to the website. It is important to draft because no one would want to work hard on making a page only to have it removed or re-edited over due to lack of sources or inaccuracies.
Whether someone is posting a new piece to the site or editing a former page, a Wikipedia user can utilize a "sandbox" tool in which they can make all of their edits and original drafts in before making changes to the page. This allows for a place where "shitty first drafts" can be made. Once the first draft is done the page can be previewed, which will show what it will look like once posted. By using this one can easily see where they may have left out a source or can see where they may have put some bad text and can easily edit it before submission. Drafting plays a major role in the Wikipedia world and if one wishes to keep their article on the site they must utilize the drafting process in order to create the best and most reliable work possible.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Shitty First Drafts: Post 5
In the article "Shitty First Drafts" the author talks about how nerve racking the processes of putting ideas down on a piece of paper can be. Trying to figure out where to begin can be the hardest part f writing a paper. Even for experienced, well-known writers the process of putting something on paper is difficult. In this article the author dictates that in order to begin writing one must make a "shitty first draft." In order to begin writing a shitty first draft the writer just has to start writing down whatever comes to mind. What the writer must realize is that no one has to see how "shitty" their first draft has to be. By putting down whatever thoughts come to mind the writer can then go back and filter out all the irrelevant parts, reorganize the information and just make a more coherent sounding paper overall. This approach to writing is just as important for experienced writers as it is for the inexperienced.
This sort of thought for normal writing can be also be used in such writing that happens on Wikipedia. In order to get something published on the website one must have coherent, well organized information with correctly cited sources. This cannot just happen by typing up something and submitting it. Surely the post will be deleted due to inaccuracy, incoherency or unverifiable sources. In order to post a quality piece of work that will remain on the site is by using the Sandbox tool in order to perfect the crafting of information. By using this tool to create a "shitty first draft" where no one has to see it, the information can be crafted in a way that will be beneficial to the writer and the readers.
This sort of thought for normal writing can be also be used in such writing that happens on Wikipedia. In order to get something published on the website one must have coherent, well organized information with correctly cited sources. This cannot just happen by typing up something and submitting it. Surely the post will be deleted due to inaccuracy, incoherency or unverifiable sources. In order to post a quality piece of work that will remain on the site is by using the Sandbox tool in order to perfect the crafting of information. By using this tool to create a "shitty first draft" where no one has to see it, the information can be crafted in a way that will be beneficial to the writer and the readers.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Intertexuality and the Discourse Community
In this article the author brings up some points on plagiarism and how it has been defined. He also explains how the notion of plagiarism has some gray areas in which he claims that there is no way that anyone can write an original work. Expanding on this argument the author claims that through the notion of intertextuality that no one can write an original piece. What this means is that writers as individuals are influenced by other texts and will pull from other writer's styles as well as wording. The romanticized version of the writer as an individual creating original works is slightly skewed. According to the author even documents such as the Declaration of Independence hold some slightness of plagiarism within its writing and if Jefferson was to submit the Declaration of Independence for a college writing class he might be charged with plagiarism.
Aside from the influence of former writings having their effect on the individuals writing the community discourse also influences writing. Every discourse has some sort of community in which they have their own styles and expectations. In this case not only are the individual's writing influenced by other writers but also among the community and forum of which they belong to. If a writer wants to submit an article to the Journal of Applied Psychology, that writer must not only write their piece in an organization compliant with that communities writing norms they must also use a certain style. In this case the accepted style would be APA. What the main point that the author is trying to make is that writers are not truly individuals but are limited to their discourse as well as previous writings with which the associate themselves.
Aside from the influence of former writings having their effect on the individuals writing the community discourse also influences writing. Every discourse has some sort of community in which they have their own styles and expectations. In this case not only are the individual's writing influenced by other writers but also among the community and forum of which they belong to. If a writer wants to submit an article to the Journal of Applied Psychology, that writer must not only write their piece in an organization compliant with that communities writing norms they must also use a certain style. In this case the accepted style would be APA. What the main point that the author is trying to make is that writers are not truly individuals but are limited to their discourse as well as previous writings with which the associate themselves.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Introduction
Writing to me is like being punched in the face, I hate it. I would much rather be punched in the face than have to write a paper. With that said, I have never had any good experiences with any English or writing professors. I have always never gotten along well with them but am hoping that is not the case in this class. In previous English classes that I have taken I never felt like I was learning anything. I would turn in a paper and they would correct my grammar in red ink and tell me what sentence does not really make sense but I was never told why things were supposed to be different. This might be the reason why I have never liked my English professors. Another problem I have had in the past with English classes is some of the grading techniques. In my first college level English course my final papers were graded solely on completion rather than content. I was never told whether they were quality papers or not, rather my professor just looked at the length and gave me an "A" because I filled enough space. I still never knew I had written anything worth reading. What I hope to get out of this class is the knowledge and know-how on writing quality papers that I will feel comfortable and confident about as others will read my work.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)