Random Reminders

We will NOT meet as a class on Tuesday, October 5th; instead, I will meet with each of you for a 15 minute individual conference to discuss your Lit Review draft. To sign up for a time (or to check/change your time), see the schedule on the door of my office (Parker 204).

(Please note that you are still required to post a Free Blog for Tuesday, October 5th even though we won't be meeting as a class on that day. And we WILL meet as a class on Thursday, October 7th.)

I've posted the first of our online grammar quizzes: it is available under "Course Documents" on our Blackboard course-site. Please note that you can take the quiz multiple times, and you can use the grammar handouts posted on the Blackboard site. You have until MIDNIGHT tomorrow (Friday, September 31st) to take the quiz.

Good luck, and have a great weekend!

This week's "best of blogs"

The winners of today's "best of blogs" voting are as follows:

• The World Through My Eyes, Go Away
• Not Worth Reading at All, Idle Minds
• Tons of Thoughts, Home

Enjoy!

In-class research results

After you've found 3 journal articles on the same (or similar) topic as your 3 magazine articles, use the "Speedy Reading" pointers on pp. 106 - 107 of The Craft of Research to evaluate these articles. How are these journal articles similar to / different from the magazine sources you found? What similarities / differences do you see in content, presentation, formatting? What similarities / differences do you see in terms of the EVIDENCE used to prove each article's claims? Answer these questions in a new Research Blog, and I'll see you next week! :-)

Screening sources

On pages 76-78 of The Craft of Research, the authors list several criteria by which readers can judge the reliability of a printed source:

• the press that published the source is "reputable"
• the source is peer reviewed
• the author is a "reputable scholar"
• the information is current

These criteria are somewhat vague: what exactly is a "reputable" source or scholar? How "current" is current enough?

To begin today's class, I'd like you to get into small groups to share the magazine articles you've found. After you've shared face-to-face, I'd like you to read & comment on one another's Research Blog posts for today. In your opinion, which of the 3 articles is the most reliable & why? Which is the least reliable? What criteria did you use to make this decision?

Tuesday's task

Today in class we talked about Peter Elbow's "open ended" writing approach & used it to help focus your research topics. I look forward to reading the blog posts you wrote after completing this exercise: I hope your topics continue to evolve as you figure out what direction(s) you want to go with your eventual research.

In preparation for Thursday's Research Blog # 3, I want you to complete the Paraphrasing Exercise posted in our Blackboard Discussion Board. (You'll find instructions on how to do this exercise in the Discussion Board itself, along with links to some resources on proper Paraphrasing & Summarizing.)

Once you've honed your paraphrasing skills, you should have no problem completing Thursday's research blog, which requires to you find 3 magazine articles on a single topic. (This single topic can be ANYTHING: although it might be related to your research topic, it doesn't have to be.) For Thursday, make photocopies of the 3 articles you find & bring them to class; in your blog, you should post a summary of each of the three articles.

Make sense? If not, leave your question(s) as a comment to this post & I'll reply via email. In the meantime, happy research!

Explanations & clarifications

First, today's best-of-blog winner is...Scribble's cat post on "Tons of Thoughts." Runners up were Doctor Bop's hurricane post on "Dropshots," Cruella8908's panic poem on "This is my life," and Crazyowl's autumn post on "Daily ramblings from Crazyowl."

Next, a bit of explanation/clarification about Thursday's research-blog topic. The syllabus says you should interview a professor in your major to discover current research topics and problems in that particular field of research. Although I'd still love for you to talk to a professor in your major, I realize that some of you don't have majors, and others might not have the time (or the courage) to interview a professor in-the-flesh. So, for Thursday's research blog, you have the option of doing some online research into an academic field you are interested in and then posting the results in a blog-post.

Start by going to the KSC Academics homepage:

http://www.keene.edu/academics/

There you'll find a list of the departments/majors that KSC offers. Pick a major (or several majors if you're undecided) that sounds interesting to you and then brainstorm some research topics that you think might be interesting. (For instance, if you think Psychology sounds like an interesting field of research, brainstorm a list of topics that are interesting in the field of psychology: child psychology, the psychology of serial killers, group psychology, the psychology of subliminal messages, etc. For this stage of your brainstorming, consider and write down ANYTHING related to your chosen field (or fields) of research: you're trying to generate ideas, not write anything in stone.

Next, visit Mason Library's eSource homepage:

http://www.keene.edu/library/esources.cfm

Halfway down the page, you'll find Subject eSources for many (not all) of the majors offered at KSC. If your chosen field (or fields) of research is listed, click on that eSource and investigate what resources are online. You'll find, for instance, that most of these Subject eSources have a list of online journals and webpages related to that particular field. Make a list of the kinds of research topics people in the field are discussing. (For example, when I clicked on the Philosophy Subject eSource, I found a link to a website on Ecofeminism, which might lead to some interesting research topics.)

After you've interviewed one or more professors and/or done some brainstorming & websurfing on an academic field/fields that interest you, write up your results. What current academic debates, research topics, or controversies do you find interesting? Why?

Good luck, and I look forward to reading your in-class blog response to Peter Elbow and your Research Blog # 2.

What works / what doesn't

Hey there, and welcome to another week of Expository Writing. You might be interested to note that my bud Kathleen wrote about this little experiment of ours: she says that y'all hate blogging and that I'm evil for forcing you to try it. Hmmm. We'll leave that in the "no comment" category.

Congratulations to Scribble whose cat post earned her some link-love on Kathryn's Mindful Life. This goes to show that you never know when or how you'll earn fans in the blogosphere.

Another approach to earning fans (or enemies) is evident in ged's comments on Chris's dog post (yes, we seem to have an animal theme in the blogosphere this morning). Although I'm certainly used to students telling me to fuck off, this is the first time someone has said the same to one of my blog-buds. Let's hope Tom is as "gleefully open to dissent" as one commenter on ged's metablogging post suggests I am.

One question this all raises in my mind is how a writer should or shouldn't treat her or his readers: what is the best approach? Chris's dog post used a sort of wry humor that some might be uncomfortable with: humor can be a very powerful way of attracting readers, but sometimes it can backfire. By the same token, engaging in an intellectual sparring contest with one's readers can be very invigorating and can attract readers who are interested in intellectual debate and/or a good verbal fight...but it too can backfire if readers take offense and stop reading. As always, writing is a matter of choice: what choices do each of us as a writer make, and how do those choices impact our readers?

Speaking of approaches that work and those that don't, for class today we read another passage out of Peter Elbow's Writing with Power. As I explained the first day of class, Elbow's approach to writing is that you should write a sloppy first draft and then fix it up in revision: he says the impulse to write it first the first time is "dangerous" because it so often leads to writer's block. In light of what Elbow says about what writing approaches work and what writing approaches don't, I'm curious to hear how YOU go about writing. Given today's free-blog assignment, how did you go about writing it? When faced with a more formal writing assignment such as a research paper, how do you go about writing that? Honestly, what is your writing approach: what does/doesn't work? In your experience, what is the most "dangerous" method of writing: what's the surefire recipe for a nasty case of writer's block, and how in the past have you gone about getting over the block?

I look forward to hearing the TRUTH about your writing habits. We all know what the books say we should do. I'm interested in hearing what you actually do. In a word, do or don't you think that Peter Elbow should "fuck off," and why?

Blogs I like

I spend lots of time online, and here are a couple of sites I really like. I like Shane Nickerson's Nickerblog because he's a Keene State graduate and is really cool. I like Kathleen's Unsettled because she's my friend and buys me drinks (ahem). And you can find other cool sites on my other blog, Hoarded Ordinaries.

Tuesday tidbits

Hey there, everyone. I read through everyone's blogs once: some of you had already posted your first Free Blog, and some of you hadn't yet gotten around to it. Either way, I commented on what I saw & will be back again throughout the week to see what's cooking on your blog-fire.

Speaking of blog-fires, check out my bud Gary's blog-post on the topic of fire, inspired by my telling him about our first-day writing prompt:

http://www.inkmuse.com/imblogarchives/etc/fire.php

As you'll find out, blog-ideas are contagious: one person writes about an idea, then another picks it up, then another. This is one of the things that makes blogging semi-addictive. Instead of writing in isolation, you've entered a huge community of writers (one of Peter Elbow's favorite phrases) who feeds off & encourages one another. In this sense, blogging is more akin to professional writing than is "private" journaling: already several of you have blogged about how strange it is to write before a "live" audience, something that professional writers have to think about as a matter of course!

I look forward to seeing how your blog (and blog personas!) evolve over the term. In the meantime, good early morning! ;-)

Blog links now online

Hey there, Mousekeeters! Although I haven't yet gotten a chance to read & comment my way through all of your baby-blogs, I've added a "blogroll" that links to your sites. (A "blogroll" is a list of blogs that one regularly reads: on my blog Hoarded Ordinaries, my blogroll is very long and is divided into sections.) On this blog, my blogroll is titled "A cast of thousands..." and is located on the right side of the screen, in a column of information called a sidebar. (I've also added sidebar links to Blackboard as well as to my webpage & blog.) Note that I've setup the links in my teaching blogroll so they are arranged randomly each time you access this site: this way no one is always first, last, or in the middle of the list. (Hey, life might not be fair, but I try to be.)

I hope this helps you surf your classmates' new blogs: I think you'll find that posting to your own blog & commenting on others' blogs is oddly addictive. It's kind of like starring in your own reality TV show: this is your chance to show the online world what the "Real World" around your neck of the woods is really like.

But, enough blog-talk. It's a beautiful Saturday morning, so I should be doing something other than sitting in front of my laptop. Anyone planning to go to Art in the Park along the Ashuelot River today? If so, maybe you'll see me & my digital camera there!

Welcome to Zen Mama's teaching blog

As if keeping one blog (Hoarded Ordinaries) weren't enough, here I am starting a brand new teaching blog! I've always believed that the only way to learn to write is by writing, and I believe blogging is a great way of creating an online "community of writers." Writers with readers tend to write more and more carefully, and writers who get feedback tend to improve. So, good luck to all my ENG 202 students as you embark on the weird, wild world of the blogosphere: your classmates and I will be reading and commenting on your steps along the way.