Well, here it is, my completed game. It's a .z5 file, so it should work right. If you have any problems, please just let me know.
(Oh yeah, if you're using Firefox, you'll have to right-click the "here it is" download link and then select "Save Link As..." in order to properly download the file. Otherwise you get a page with a bunch of rubbish.)
Enjoy!
This is the third installment of my weblog portfolio for the fall of 2006. Here are some links to the first two parts of this package:
Below Zero Weblog Portfolio: Fall 2006, Part 1
Below Zero Weblog Portfolio: Fall 2006, Part 2
Please feel free to explore; I'd suggest following the installments in order, since they demonstrate my growth and development as a new media professional throughout this semester.
EL405: Project 2 Proposal - Here I discussed some of my developing thoughts about project 2 in the weeks leading up to the initial development. (This entry was included in my last portfolio, as well, but it has sparked more discussion since then, so I felt it was worth including.) [Coverage, Depth, Discussion]
Final Project Development Journal: A puzzling beginning - In this entry I describe the initial development of my final project, an interactive fiction game entitled "The Escape." [Coverage, Depth]
Final Project Development Journal: Unraveling a mystery while winding up a story - Here I describe the final stages of development for my interactive fiction game, as well as some of my hopes for expanding upon this project further in the future or perhaps even taking up interactive fiction programming and storytelling as a professional endeavor. [Coverage, Depth, Interaction, Timeliness]
Final Project Development Journal: The Escape, v1.0 - In this entry I provide a link and some brief instructions for downloading the release version of my final project. [Coverage, Wildcard]
Xenoblogging
Girl Meets World - A Hammer a Day - Here I left a thoughtful comment on Amanda's blog.
Sugarpacket - Project Breakdown: making it manageable - Here I left a supportive suggestion on Karissa's blog.
Tranquility Lost - EL405: Collision Course - Here I left a supportive comment on Mike's blog.
Well, my game is nearing completion, and I'm quite pleased with the results. While it's not quite as long as some of my previous games, the amount of exploration and experimentation needed to solve the puzzles in the game will ensure that most gameplay sessions are long enough.
The coding still hasn't been a problem with this game (I think I finally figured out the torch thing). However, I have had some trouble deciding how the story should progress, and even more trouble deciding how it should end. Realistically, looking back on it now, I suppose this game would probably function better as the first in a series; now, don't get me wrong, the story here stands on its own (to some degree, anyways), but the player would definitely benefit from a bit more background information carefully revealed through more gameplay-accessed storytelling. Oh well. This always happens when I'm writing--my imagination runs away on its own and climbs up to lofty heights of ambition that I just can't seem to reach in the short spurts of time that I have. I accomplished basically everything I wanted to with the game, but the story leaves me with some lingering thoughts of how I could expand upon it and create a much more compelling tale. I discussed these thoughts with one of my beta-testers, Lori, during a class session a few days ago.
Nonetheless, I'm glad I've spent so much time working with Inform 7 this semester. It's a great tool (so much easier to work with than the previous version), and once you understand the basics of coding, all the little quirks aren't very hard to figure out with a little fiddling. I'm actually considering contacting a guy Dr. Jerz told me about who is planning to start an interactive fiction business of sorts that produces educational games (the details are fuzzy, so I'll post more about it as things become more clear). Anyways, I'm enjoying some time off this afternoon, buzzing through some work I had on the backburner, and I'm finally recovering from my week-long illness. Hopefully by the time for the finals session on Wednesday things will have settled back to normal.
Well, I did it again. I changed my mind about my final project, and went in a totally different direction than I had first intended. But I don't think that's a bad thing--I'm actually having a lot of fun with it.
The initial development of my game was pretty smooth, devoid of most of the coding complications I ran into in my earlier interactive fiction projects this semester. I started out with a basic premise that places the player in the role of a prisoner who must escape his cell and make his way out of the prison by solving puzzles. It has a decidedly "PC-adventure game" feel to it, especially since the player is traveling primarily through areas that are deserted (there is reasoning within the story for this). In the first few turns, the player has the chance to check his inventory, use an item to assist in escaping from a cell, and then wander through a few dark passageways encountering obstacles that must be overcome or looking for hidden switches. It's simple, really, but still entertaining, especially since some of the puzzles have multiple solutions.
One thing I don't like about the early stages of the game's development is that I couldn't really find a way to implement a torch item that is essential for completing the game without forcing the player's death upon dropping the torch (because, realistically, a torch's flame would die after dropping it, thus leaving the player hopelessly lost in the prison's dark depths). I could just change the code to give the player the option to relight it somehow after dropping it, and that's something I've worked on since the beta tests for my game.
Yeah, it's that time again. Below I have listed all of the most important entries posted here on my weblog over the past several weeks. Please feel free to browse through them in any order, though the development journal for project 1 is probably best viewed in order from earliest to latest entry.
You can also view the first installment of the BZ Weblog Portfolio for the fall of 2006.
Project 1 Development Journal: the birth of "Consequences" - In this entry I describe my early work on the CST project and explain some of the plans I had for my game before I started running into problems and deadlines and found it necessary to withdraw some ambition. (Coverage, Timeliness, Depth)
EL405: Project 2 Proposal - Here I describe some of the ideas I had for an interactive poetry package created in Flash. I have since changed my direction for project 2, however, and will probably end up just expanding project 1. (Coverage, Timeliness, Depth, Discussion)
Project 1 Development Journal: So far, so good - In this entry I describe a playtesting session I had with Karissa in class and how it affected the development of my Inform game in its final project 1 stages. (Coverage, Interaction)
Project 1 Development Journal: Complete (for now) - Here I provide links for downloading the .z5 and .zblorb files for my first project for the semester, an IF game called "Consequences". I also briefly mention my development plans for the expansion of the game. (Coverage, Wildcard)
Flash photo slideshow - In this entry I describe the final Flash package I created with Lori, a photo slideshow with accompanying music. I hope to have the complete package available for download soon. (Coverage, Interaction)
Xenoblogging
Girl Meets World - A sound debate - Here I left two helpful comments on Amanda's blog with links to Flash resources.
Girl Meets World - Interactivity stinking up the Flash - Here I left a brief but supportive comment on Amanda's blog.
A while ago, Lori and I completed a Flash photo slideshow presentation together. Lori supplied the photos and some of the code, and I supplied the music, more code, and the basic layout. Here's the .swf file:
Flash Photo Slideshow by Lori Rupert and Christopher Ulicne - COMING SOON[Note: I'm currently looking into a way to make all of the necessary files available for download as a package... The download will be available soon.]
I think the slideshow was a success, though our Flash textbook never really told us how to set it up so that a different sound file would play during the display of each different photo. I imagine that there is a fairly simple way to do so, but I'm essentially finished with Flash for the semester, so I can't be bothered to look into it (I'll be spending all my time on Inform 7 and final projects for other classes).
I have to admit, out of all of the software packages we've used this semester, I think that Flash comes in behind my favorite, Inform 7, as a close second. The sheer amount of things you can do in Flash is incredible, and the fact that the coding system allows for a simple point-and-click interface for most simple coding is awesome.
I keep forgetting to post my project 1 Inform game online. Here are the z5 and zblorb files:
Consequences - An Interactive Fiction Game by Christopher Ulicne (.z5) - Download now! (146k)Consequences - An Interactive Fiction Game by Christopher Ulicne (.zblorb) - Download now! (147k)
[Reminder: If you're using Firefox, you'll probably have to right click on the "Download now!" links and "Save Link As...", in order to download and save the files. IE should automatically prompt you to download and save the files.)
I haven't really had time to work on it since the due date for project 1, but thankfully we will be getting class time for just that purpose in the coming weeks. (I've been a little too busy gaming, lately--first NWN2 snagged my attention for about a week, and now my Wii is keeping me occupied.)
I'm still planning to expand project 1 for project 2, and I have plenty of ideas recorded and ready to be implemented (if I can figure out the coding). I've taken a brief look at the problems that lie ahead, and it seems my biggest problem will be finding a way to get Inform to understand a complex idea that will require it to access one of two tables, depending on the return generated by a conditional statement. I tried it once before already back when I was working on project 1 in the early stages, and I couldn't get it to work right. Hopefully this time around I'll find a way to do it.
I've been working like crazy on my interactive fiction game, "Consequences," since my first entry about its development. It's evolved into an IF game with over 5,000 words of code, tables, custom actions, people you can converse with, lots of scenes, microevents, and more.
In class on Tuesday, we took some time to peer review projects, and I learned a lot from it. Karissa played through my game, and it didn't recognize or generate responses to over half of the things she tried to do; I guess I got so wrapped up in getting the coding to work the way I wanted it to that I didn't think about making it work for other people, too. So I went back and revised the game, adding about 1,000 words of code (to the 4,000-something I had before), code purely intended to ensure that the game would respond properly to some of the things that Karissa tried during the testing session.
I'm quite pleased with the game's responsiveness and interactivity now, and I'm thinking about working more on this project and developing it further for my second term project of the semester, rather than trying to start something new all over again. There are so many things I want to expand in the game... Especially the possible endings. Right now, the game cuts off at a bit of an awkward point, and I want the ending to be more variable.
For my final term project, I would like to use the new media tools provided in Flash to create an interactive poetry package. I want to incorporate several poems I've written and enhance them by adding sounds (perhaps music or narration), animated images, and other special content.
While I might revise poems I have already written for this project, I think it might also be interesting to work on a few new poems, keeping the Flash product in mind. I would like to experiment and find out how my writing process is changed or refined by the added consideration of the new media tools.
I'm not entirely sure precisely how I want to organize the poems within the Flash package; it's something I hope to get feedback on from the class. But I do have a few ideas.
I could organize the poems into a web-like environment, where certain keywords in a poem bring up pop-up windows with short poems inspired by those words. In this case, it might be neat to have the short poems demonstrate a contrast between the meaning of the keyword in the original poem and a fresh meaning from a different perspective. For instance, in a poem about the sea that describes the ocean as a calm, peaceful place, I could create a few pop-up short poems for keywords like "waves," "ships," etc. that show it in a different light (describing, perhaps, a stormy sea with tremendous waves that carelessly capsize ships caught in their path). Or, I could create short pop-up poems that accentuate the meaning of the keywords used in the original poems. An example would be a short pop-up poem spawned from the keyword "pain" in a poem about a painful experience that reinforces the meaning of the word with a brief but powerful extended metaphor. Of course, either way, I could include animated images and sounds that enhance both the long and short poems.
I could also do a similar thing, highlighting keywords in the poems, but instead of bringing up pop-ups, clicking on the keywords could cause certain images on the screen to play an animation, or perhaps cause appropriate sounds to play. For example, in the poem about the ocean described earlier, clicking on the keyword "waves" could cause a rush of waves to roll across the screen, or cause an audio clip to play the sound of waves crashing against the shore.
Finally, my last idea was to use one long poem to tell a story, and use animations, sounds, etc. in the format of a Flash movie. The movie would not be as interactive as the web-like structures I've presented for my last two ideas, and thus I'm not quite sure how much I like this idea; I want users to be able to explore the content at their leisure, rather than prescribe a specific path for them.
Hopefully, after receiving some feedback on these ideas from my peers, I will be able to narrow my scope down to just one of these ideas. Personally, I'm leaning towards the first idea, simply because it sounds like the most fun and it would probably be the easiest to program within Flash. It could be enriched equally by my writing and by the features of Flash.
I've been working on an interactive fiction game for my first term project of the semester--a project which must focus on an issue of Catholic Social Teaching. I want to make a game that demonstrates how actions can have lasting consequences, how even the smallest decisions can have a huge impact on the course of history.
Continue reading "Project 1 Development Journal: the birth of "Consequences"" »
I'm learning how to use Flash in my New Media Projects course. If you want, check out the brief flash animation I made as a test to see if I could get it to upload to the web.
I tried to use the javascript coding provided in Mindy McAdams' Flash Journalism book to embed my flash video in a web page, but I couldn't get it to work, despite the fact that I triple-checked every line of code and every instructional step to make sure I was doing it all correctly. Here's hoping that Dr. Jerz might be able to provide some hands-on help in class during one of the next few sessions.
While that effort didn't end too well, I did manage to get my Flash file uploaded as a .swf which opens in a popup window, so the experience wasn't a total failure.
Welcome. My name is Christopher Ulicne, and I am a journalism/graphic design/french student at Seton Hill University. Below Zero--the weblog you see before you--is a casual haven for all of my thoughts and feelings, past and present.
This is a portfolio entry, meaning that it lists all of the most relevant and stimulating intellectual blogging I've done so far this fall. Feel free to let this entry guide you, or strike out on your own and see what you can find. Either way, I hope you enjoy reading these entries as much as I enjoyed writing them--and who knows, maybe you'll learn a thing or two, or something I've said will spark some new ideas for you.
"Story deserves better treatment than that" - In this entry, I discuss my feelings about the quality and sophistication of stories in video games, pointing out an example of one video game with a highly satisfying story and theme. (Coverage, Depth, Timeliness, Discussion)
"Games, at their best, are not prescriptive" - Here I briefly address the controversy over violent content in video games and then move on to discuss games' ability to convey very specific stories and ideas. (Coverage, Depth, Timeliness, Discussion)
"Your head a splode" - In this entry, I respond to a peculiar animated cartoon. (Coverage)
"Gesticulating" - Here I discuss my reaction to several different interactive fiction games I played in preparation for creating my own IF game. (Coverage, Depth, Timeliness)
Exposure to exposition in a new medium - In this entry I discuss the role of exposition in interactive fiction games, and reflect on some of my past experiences as an IF author. (Coverage, Depth, Timeliness)
Ask the Adventure Elf - Here I revised the opening scene of one of my professor's IF games, to demonstrate my ability to work within the Inform 7 software... The humor in the changes is a bit of an inside joke. Sorry. (Coverage)
"A common sense approach to game design" - In this entry I mostly gush about how excited I was to work with The Games Factory 2 software--back before I realized how complicated and awkward it really is. (Coverage, Timeliness, Interaction)
"Objects, the Cornerstone of Creation" - Here I begin to discuss some of my developing ideas for a future project created with the Games Factory 2 software. (Coverage, Depth, Timeliness, Development Portfolio)
"Graphics and Animation" - In this entry, I continue to discuss my progress with my ideas for a game created using the Games Factory 2 software. (Coverage, Timeliness, Development Portfolio)
"Survey: two-thirds of online gamers are female" - Here I reflect briefly on my surprise upon discovering said survey results.
"Flash interface and interactivity" - In this entry I discuss the easy pick-up-and-play nature of Flash packages, and then shoot off a few ideas I had for possible Flash projects I could develop after I become more familiar with the software. (Coverage, Development Portfolio)
Flash français - Here I mention some of the things I learned by examining a case study of Flash journalism in a textbook, and then ponder how Flash might fit into my future and career. (Coverage, Interaction, Case Study Blog Entry, Wildcard)
Flash Movie - Pencil Sharpener - In this entry, I link to a simple Flash movie I created while learning how to use the Flash software and describe the experience I had while trying to upload it to the web. (Coverage)
Xenoblogging
Girl Meets World - Looking at the (MSNBC) Big Picture - Here I left a brief but timely comment on Amanda's blog.
Girl Meets World - Just how many minutes? - Here I left two comments on Amanda's blog, one short response and one much longer one that discussed my thoughts on an article she linked to.
Sugarpacket - Flash Tour: c'est fantastique - Here I left a brief comment with a link I hoped would prove helpful to Karissa (which linked to something she mentioned she had trouble finding).
Sugarpacket - I have no patience for IF - Here I left a comment with some tips and suggestions for Karissa, in response to her frustration with IF.
... the Tour de France. Across more than 2,000 miles in twenty-three days, punishing mountain climbs, sprints, and team and solo time trials grip the entire nation of France and cycling fans around the world. In 2001, Agence France-Presse (AFP) attempted to pack the entire event into a database-driven Flash application with live updates during each stage of the race. ... With some luck and the right people in the right places, AFP pulled it off. (Mindy McAdams, Flash Journalism; links my own)
I'm quite impressed by the Flash packages that AFP and Art Movies produced. (The Art Movies website is only available in French.) Only after reading through the history of the Tour de France package, however, did I really begin to understand how much work and effort went into its creation. The sheer number of facts, photos, animations, and other components that had to be managed in order to make the package is staggering; it's no surprise that the two teams had to work together in order to build and maintain it.
Integrating a database into a Flash package certainly sounds complicated, what with all the scripting and testing required, but after everything is set up and ready to go, the producers were able to update the Tour de France package in real time as the event went on, adding up-to-the-minute information and statistics about the cyclists and the results of each leg of the race.
The interactive map enabled users to find information based on location and quickly reference it as they liked, without the need to navigate through search engines or browse through chunks of text in news or magazine articles to find it--and the constantly updated Flash package certainly provided that information much faster than regular newspapers or magazines. One of Flash's major advantages is the very fact that it fits perfectly into the structure of the Internet, giving the public easy access to content that can be produced and delivered to them in minutes or even seconds (the Tour de France package was updated every 30 seconds during certain parts of the race).
The teams that produced the package mentioned that it took two to three times longer than they expected, mostly because they had to spend a lot of time ensuring high quality for the interface design. While that may have been bad news for them as they tried to meet their strict two-month deadline, it sounds like good news to me now because--as a student who spends his time working simultaneously in the disciplines of journalism and graphic design--I have a combination of skills that would prove perfect for applications such as the development of Flash journalism packages. Even better, French is also a part of my repertoire, so I would also have the skills necessary for translating such a package into that and (perhaps someday) other languages, too. Who knows, maybe I could end up working on a Flash package for the Tour de France in the future.
"This job is about 40 percent editing, 30 percent writing, 30 percent translation--preparing French text for the English market--rather than being a reporter," [Damian McCall, english-language writer for AFP] said. "We really enjoy it."
Sounds like a dream job to me.
[Check out the archived non-live version of the 2004 Tour de France Flash package. Also, check out Karissa's blog entry on the case study I examined here--she provides some good insights of her own.]
How do the users know what they can do and what a package contains? The typical Flash journalism package uses the same kind of interface as most Web sites--links. Links may look like buttons, tabs, or perky icons, but when you get right down to what the interface does, it is just a list of links. Click one and you get some new information. (Mindy McAdams, Flash Journalism)
I think this may be one of the most compelling reasons for using Flash to produce journalism packages: users are already familiar with the interface. Unlike some more complex media players that provide an array of options and preference settings, Flash packages are really just Web sites like those most people read and interact with everyday, so they don't really need to learn anything new to use them. All they have to do is point and click.
Interactivity involves more than merely providing several choices to the user--although choice is one aspect of interactivity. The ability to provide a real user-controlled experience distinguishes online media from other news media; much more could be done in the future to allow users to get what they want from journalism online and to engage more deeply with the story. (Mindy McAdams, Flash Journalism)
Exactly. What sets most Flash packages apart from traditional slideshow presentations is the user's ability to navigate them and control the experience as they see fit.
I'm really starting to get excited about learning how to work well with Flash. I've already got a slew of ideas about producing Flash packages, though admittedly most of them are ideas I will pursue outside of class on my own time (such as compiling an annotated portfolio of my best graphic design projects and photography along with some music that enhances the messages inherent in each project or photo).
Importing graphics and animations into TGF2 seems simple enough. I worked my way through some tutorials last week, but I didn't reach any parts where I needed to animate an object.
As I went through the tutorial sections in the book, I found myself wanting more screenshots or tables and less blocks of text to demonstrate the process of making a game. Darby tends to list things in numbered steps, which is fine for most simple instructions, but it gets a little tedius when he lists a bunch of strings of text or x/y-coordinates. I think the tutorials would be much easier to follow if he had shown such information in a more organized visual format.
***On a side note: I accidentally left my companion CD (the one that came with the book) in the CD drive of one of the computers in our classroom last Thursday, and when I went back to get it, it was already gone. If anyone picked it up or knows where I could find it, I'd greatly appreciate the help. I already spoke to the Lost and Found folks, and they've sent out a request for all of their workers to be on the lookout.
Most of the information in chapters 5 and 6 of Darby's text was really just review. Chapters 7-11 proved more helpful, and I'm sure I'll be referencing them a lot as I continue to work with the new software (The Games Factory 2).
I keep finding reasons to get more and more excited about creating games with TGF2; I noticed in today's reading about objects that TGF2 gives designers the option to import CD Audio into their games. Oh, the possibilities. I can't help but imagine creating a Guitar Hero copycat, with scrolling arrows that follow the rhythms of several of my favorite songs. From what I've seen of the TGF2 software, it would probably work (though it would take a lot of fiddling to get the arrows to scroll at the right speeds, following the alternating rhythms).
I've been talking about these new media projects I've been working on with my two best friends, and they've been a constant source of ideas. One of them is obsessed with Dead Rising for the XBox 360 (running around a mall swarming with zombies, using pretty much anything and everything as a weapon), and I think I might try to create a 2-D derivative of that game for my first TGF2 project.
As for the Catholic Social Teaching project, I'm still not sure where I want to go with it. I've been stirring a few ideas around in my head, but I can't really decide how best to approach them in game format. I'm sure a solution will come to me soon enough, though; perhaps after I've had some more experience with the rest of the software we'll be using in class.
I've been looking forward to learning more about The Games Factory 2 (TGF2) since there was a demonstration of its power and capabilities during class a few weeks ago. Jason Darby's Making Amazing Games in Minutes has given me a tantalizing glimpse at the possibilities, and while I still don't know exactly how to create a game in TGF2, I can already tell that I'll have lots of fun learning.
I was particularly excited when I found out that TGF2 allows you to design your own menus and import your own custom graphics into the games you create, because I've been studying the role of graphic designers in game design in my graphic arts classes over the past several weeks and now I'm looking forward to applying my skills while working on the next project.
As Darby says, "it is very important that you understand both your own capabilities and those of the tools you are going to use" (19).
There are lots of interesting tables in Darby's book, and one of the most useful I've found was the one which demonstrated how to organize and compare several different game ideas (18). It's a "common sense approach to game design" that assists readers in choosing a game idea that they can manage (29).
[Check out Mike's blog entry for a slightly more critical approach to the book I mention here.]
Your footsteps echo through stately vaults cluttered with faded glories. All seems quiet...Something leaps from the shadows -- skinny and singing in rhyme. "O yon button-masher, perk thy mishapen ears! I be the Adventure Elf, with the wisdom of 700 years! I spit on thine graphics card, powerful though it be; ye need more than pixels to envision a sprite like me!"
Ask the Adventure Elf about Inform 7
An Interactive Fiction by Dennis G. Jerz (edited by Christopher T. Ulicne)
Release 1 / Serial number 060907 / Inform 7 build 3V01 (I6/v6.31 lib 6/11N) SDHall of Interactive Fiction
A jolly elf blocks the way north to Retrogaming Nirvana.
Bwahaha. Elves rule, dwarves drool, Dr. Jerz. (Look carefully for a pun. :P )
The above prologue comes right out and states, rather starkly, the goal (go check on the cat) and motive (keeping in Auntie's good graces). We do see some passable attempts at establishing character; references to the garage band, sleeping until noon, being a house-sitter, and not wishing to offend a rich relative all identify the PC as an amiable slacker.But so what? Casual details like these are often found enriching ordinary prose narratives, but when they appear in the opening screen of an IF game, they take on a great deal of prominence. Some players may expect to be able to interact with the garage band later, or may feel that the reference to suits and ties is a clue to a wardrobe-related puzzle. To what extent do these details about the PC's character matter in a game about a cat? (Jerz, "Exposition in Interactive Fiction")
I created my own interactive fiction game (Elementia) a couple of years ago as a term project, and I have to admit that a lot of this never really crossed my mind. At the beginning of my game, there are almost two full screens of blocks of exposition text, so I guess it could definitely use some improvement (perhaps I'll try revising it while working on the new IF projects for my current class).
Of course, the reason why my game ended up that way is probably because I consider myself primarily as a writer, not a game designer or computer programmer. I was accustomed to writing short stories and other works, not interactive stories that revise or even completely rewrite some of the rules I grew up with.
But I think the project was a useful exercise, because it forced me to break away from my norm and think more dynamically about the effects of every little word or phrase in my story. As Dr. Jerz mentions in his introduction to exposition in interactive fiction, the IF writer/designer must consider that the player will probably want to be able to interact with any of the sights, smells, or other experiences provided in an IF game.
As a result, I developed a better sense of what works and what fails to meet the player's expectations, and thus I also learned a little more about meeting my readers' expectations while writing a traditional work of fiction. It's a skill that I am constantly improving, but perhaps there is no better medium for doing so--while having fun--than IF.
I've played most of these IF games before, so this wasn't really new for me.
Pick up the Phone Booth and Die I finished within three turns, because I remembered how to win. The first time I played this game, it frustrated me for a good half hour before I finally figured it out; of course, it was also my first IF experience, so that's probably no surprise. Whoever came up with it is a little sadistic--'nuff said.
9:05 (Dr. Jerz: I had trouble getting the game to work on the page you linked to, so I just went straight to Cadre's page) is another game I played during my studies freshman year, but I didn't remember it too well, so it was more fun. I got about halfway through the game when I suddenly remembered the plot twist that was coming up (but I finished up the game to get the good ending and refresh my memory, anyways). What a cool, eerie sensation.
Leather Goddesses of Phobos. Now here's a game I didn't play previously (the main reason why I chose it; though the cheesy-sexy name didn't hurt). I started out with the usual: picking up everything I could and exploring. The narrator in this game was pretty amusing ("Something, possibly this very sentence, tells you that it would be dangerous to travel east or west."), and was really the only thing that kept me playing long enough to get bored and take a suicidal turn around the bend in the hallway.
One interesting thing that I did notice right at the beginning of this game, however: there's really no indication as to which sex the character is, and thus I instinctively chose the "Gents' Room" when the character "felt an urge," rather than the "Ladies' Room." However, on a quick replay of the opening of the game, I pretended I was a gal and ended up encountering a different result when I entered the "Gents' Room" afterwards. Funny, how our gender identities are so deeply encoded in us.
(On a side note, I did an extended entry about the role of gender in interactive fiction quite a while ago.)
Deadline was one of the other games I chose to play, mostly because I enjoy detective stories and in small part because the title made the game sound urgent and more exciting.
A lot of places to go in this game, but not much to do in those places (at least, most of the cool stuff I wanted to do, I couldn't do--like digging up the gardener's roses while he stood there "gesticulating"). It took me a good ten minutes to figure out that I was supposed to enter the house first to get some background information; I spent those ten minutes wandering around outside the house, playing with things and bothering the gardener. I guess that is the risk the game designer takes when leaving the player without the typical exposition or opening clues found in most IF games (which Dr. Jerz examined briefly on his website).
This was a strange little diversion. I enjoyed watching the brief contrast between games of yesteryear and games of today, though the spoofs contained in this video clip certainly didn't do either much justice.
I think it's important to note that while there have been drastic changes to games' graphics over the years, some of the most successful types of games are little or no different in theory and concept from those that were created twenty years ago. Take for instance, the success of platform-jumper-style games like Mario, or the success of hack-'n-slash, level-grinding RPGs like some entries from the Final Fantasy series. The graphics have improved, but the core gameplay remains largely the same in certain areas. What's good will always be good--at least in gaming, I suppose.
The fact that playing games--good ones, anyway--is fundamentally a creative act is something that speaks very well for the medium. Games, at their best, are not prescriptive. They demand that the user create a response given the tools at hand. It is a lot easier to fail to respond to a painting than to fail to respond to a game. (Koster, "A Theory of Fun for Game Design")
In class last Thursday, a peer mentioned that people are afraid of letting their kids play violent video games for the same reasons that they are afraid of letting them watch violence in other media (movies, television, etc.), and my response was essentially what Koster points out here: games connect with people much more directly than movies or TV. There's a subtle but notable difference between a kid watching a movie where someone's head gets chopped off and a kid playing a video game where they repeatedly decapitate their enemies.
Don't get me wrong; I play those types of games (Resident Evil 4 and F.E.A.R. come to mind), and I'm fairly docile, so I don't believe they have the sort of tremendous impact on us that some critics say they do.
But I definitely recognize a difference between the feeling I get when I watch a horror flick and the feeling I get when playing a survival horror game. There's a "gross" factor while watching the film, but while playing the game it becomes more of a "gross/cool" factor, because I am mastering the special move that has, as a side effect, a gory animation sequence. As Koster repeatedly emphasizes in his book, the "fun" factor in games (what I dub the "cool" factor here) comes from the sensation of learning and mastery that players experience.
Games are not good at conveying specifics, only generalities. It is easy to make a game that tells you that small groups can prevail over larger ones, or the converse. And that may be a valuable and deeply personal statement to make. It's a lot harder to make a game that conveys the specific struggle of a group of World War II soldiers to rescue one other man from behind enemy lines, as the film Saving Private Ryan does. (Koster)
I would argue that games aren't necessarily bad at conveying specifics, in the sense that they can't do it well; I would instead argue that they typically don't do so because to tell a detailed story (like that in the movie mentioned) would require players' choices to be severely limited.
(Games can certainly tell the story of a specific group of soldiers in a war. Call of Duty 2: Big Red One is just such a game. It may not be as dramatic, emotional, or convincing as Saving Private Ryan, but I think that is due to the design of the game, not the limitations of the medium itself.)
"Games, at their best, are not prescriptive" (Koster). Which is probably precisely why most games inspired by movies and television shows are usually terrible games.
It's as if we are requiring the player to solve a crossword puzzle in order to turn the page to get more of the novel.By and large, people don't play games because of the stories. The stories that wrap the games are usually side dishes for the brain. For one thing, it's damn rare to see a game story written by an actual writer. As a result, they are usually around the high-school level of literary sophistication at best.
... my background is as a writer, so this actually pisses me off. Story deserves better treatment than that. (Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun for Game Design)
I guess I'm an oddball, because I'm one of those people who plays games for the stories.
I'm a huge fan of roleplaying games, especially console RPGs like the Final Fantasy series, the Grandia series, the Star Ocean series, etc. I was surprised by Koster's suggestion that games require players to solve puzzles to "turn the page," because that's actually exactly how I feel when I play one of these types of games. Whenever I run into a difficult section in a roleplaying game--a rare occasion for me now, since I've "chunked" roleplaying games so much (to the point of "grokking," I suppose)--I can't stand to put the controller down, and I get really frustrated because I want to see what happens next in the story, but I have to complete the task to earn that.
I can agree that most game stories are pretty "juvenile," as Koster says, but I have encountered a few exceptions. Final Fantasy X, for instance, has an absolutely incredible story that has a theme, just like any novel. It's a game about a gang of close-knit friends trying to defeat a creature called Sin (ah, irony), a beast that terrorizes the entire planet. However, as the player progresses through the game, he slowly starts to unravel a tapestry of deception that cloaks the game world, one as intricate as any plot from a popular mystery novel.
Still, most games can only dream of achieving that level of depth. It's a shame, too, because games with excellent stories like FFX provide players with most of the benefits of reading a great book and playing a great game at the same time.
I find that Arthur Miller's plays have more comedy than is often understood. (David Esbjornson).
Funny, I just mentioned earlier on classmate Melissa's blog that I don't quite get all the humor that everyone else in my class seems to be picking up on in the play.
Strange, in particular, because I usually enjoy satire. I guess I'm just too burnt out to laugh right now (final assignments and final exams, unfortunately). I think I might have to go back and read the play again after the semester ends, so I can take some time to really try and appreciate the humor (and whatever else I may be missing in my yawn-riddled stupor).
Anyways, I really enjoyed the very first essay-reading in this online compilation, the excerpt from a talk by Sir Richard Eyre. His qualifications as a theatre buff are obvious right from the start, in part because he has that sort of easy yet authoritative tone that makes you want to lean forward in your chair and really pay attention. I loved his discussion of the profound effect Millers' plays had on British theatre; I never really thought much about the American culture behind his plays. I thought the connection Eyre made between The Crucible and the War on Terror was especially insightful. I somewhat vaguely remember reading that play back in high school, so the details are fuzzy, but I can recall the general plot and it was indeed one of the most captivating plays I've ever read. I remember rooting for John Proctor while I read, hoping that there would be some final twist and he'd escape his fate at the last possible moment, but I suppose the ending as it stands serves a better purpose than satisfaction.
In a comment on classmate Brenda's blog, I mentioned an oft-noted similarity between artists and God: both are responsible for the act of creation. There is a particularly interesting relationship between the art of the playwright and the art of God: playwrights create characters and their roles in a play in much the same way that God plays a role in the creation of human beings and their fates.
I'd venture to say that Miller is certainly aware of this theme and developed it within his play, especially considering the fact that religion plays such an important role in the plot. Of particular interest from this perspective is the quote Brenda used in her blog entry, in which Henri says that he believes all human actions are an attempt to escape a boring reality and slip away into a more thrilling fantasy. If it's true that there is such a strong figurative connection between plays and human existence, perhaps what Henri is metaphorically suggesting here is that all human action is an attempt to mimic God's brand of creative power (imagination) and escape into worlds of fancy where we can choose our own fates. This certainly seems to be one function of literature and drama, and besides, human action is the use of force to produce some sort of reaction in the world around us. This relationship between human action and God-like power has been glorified in thousands of movies, television shows, books, plays, etc. Maybe what Miller is suggesting is that we all have an inescapable God complex.
Or maybe not. I'm just speculating here, letting my mind wander.
I was just browsing through some Wikipedia information about the flappers of the 1920's and I came across this little spark:
Flappers had their own slang ... a "Handcuff" or "Manacle" was an engagement or wedding ring.
Now that I think about it, Fitzgerald generally portrayed marriage as a restrictive thing in his book. Consider Myrtle's marriage to George, or Daisy's marriage to Tom; both are examples of marriages that seemed to impede the women involved and stopped them from doing what they wanted to do (run off with some other man).
Actually, this also reminds me of a hilarious episode of Everybody Loves Raymond in which Ray describes marriage like a hostage situation and imprisonment.
Usually, I thought this sentiment was more of a masculine one, but I guess (as Fitzgerald seemed to suggest) that women, too, can likewise feel trapped in marriage.
One more thing to note: Jordan Baker, the only unmarried female in the story, seems to exhibit the flappers' social attitude (though she didn't really dress much like them, to my knowledge). But at the end of the story, she mentions to Nick that she's engaged, which could probably allude to the return to family values and more conservative roles for women in society that was soon ushered in, culminating in the 1950's.
This entry is built upon the foundation of my first blogging portfolio for this semester. Please feel free to browse through it in order to get a comprehensive sense of my accomplishments:
Below Zero Portfolio - Spring 2006 (#1)
I've worked hard to keep up with the readings assigned in my American Literature course, and I feel that I've produced some quality work over the past few months. There's always a moment of pause before I start one of these portfolios when I realize just how much material I've covered in such a short time (and really with little time to spare for blogging, thanks to a handful of other writing-intensive courses). I'm glad that I took this course, if for no other reason than that it forced me to read with a critical mind, a useful process for any writer (and any student, for that matter).
Without further ado. Enjoy. I know I did.
[Note to Dr. Jerz: I've put an asterisk (*) beside each entry or comment that was part of my make-up work.]
(*) [Coverage, Depth] Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby: Marital incarceration - In this entry, I explain an insightful observation about the portrayal of marriage in Fitzgerald's novel.
[Coverage] A Good Man is Hard to Find: Toombsboro - Here I point to some foreshadowing symbolism in O'Connor's short story.
[Coverage, Discussion, Timeliness] The River: A burden blue - In this entry, I give my thoughts about birds as a possible symbol in O'Connor's short story.
[Coverage] Simburbia: Daisy appraises the goods - Here I reflect on an academic essay and provide an extension of the material based upon my own experience with the computer game it examines in tandem with Fitzgerald's novel.
[Coverage] Writing About Literature: Comparison and contrast - In this entry, I very briefly mention a possible approach to a literary research paper for my American Literature course.
[Coverage] Writing About Literature: Demonstrative Research Essay - Another brief entry, here I mention a sentence that struck me while reading an example of a research essay in Roberts's text.
[Coverage, Depth] The Life You Save May Be Your Own: Do the ends justify the means? - In this entry, I launch from a classmate's entry into an insightful response to O'Connor's short story.
[Coverage, Interaction, Discussion] O'Connor, A Stroke of Good Fortune: Whodunit? Bill Hill - Here I explain some of my thoughts about a character's actions and motives in O'Connor's short story, inspired by a classmate's post.
[Coverage, Discussion, Timeliness] O'Connor, A Temple of the Holy Ghost: The best way to go - In this entry, I provided a brief response to a passage in O'Connor's short story that stimulated a thoughtful, insightful discussion with my classmates.
[Coverage] O'Connor, The Artificial Nigger: To Hell and back - Here I briefly mention a metaphor I noted in O'Connor's short story.
[Coverage, Interaction] Roberts, Appendix A: Making your own meaning - In this entry, I reflect on the value of the reader response method as a critical approach to literature, establishing a connection to a classmate's thoughts.
[Coverage, Discussion] O'Connor, A Late Encounter with the Enemy - Here I briefly question the historical context of O'Connor's short story and receive a quick response from a classmate that clears up my misconception.
[Coverage, Depth, Interaction] O'Connor, A Circle in the Fire: Cope with a problem - In this entry, I use a classmate's entry as a foundation and then delve deeper into O'Connor's short story in order to discover new meanings.
[Coverage] O'Connor, The Displaced Person: Peacock symbolism - Here I ponder the meaning of the peacock as a symbol in O'Connor's short story.
[Coverage, Depth, Interaction] O'Connor, Good Country People: What is the meaning of this? - In this entry, I describe my adverse emotional reaction to O'Connor's short story and catch the attention of an... interesting character.
[Coverage, Depth] Roberts, Writing About Literature: Looking beyond the characters - Here I reflect upon the purpose of dialogue in literature and reveal some information I dug up about O'Connor's reaction to critical analysis of her works.
[Coverage] Roberts, Chapter 12: How to reject objections - In this entry, I explain how a passage in Roberts's text helped to clarify an important essay-writing issue for me.
[Coverage] Hughes and Frost, Six American Poets: Obscure meanings - Here I reflect upon the power of obscurity in poetry.
[Coverage] Roberts, Writing About Literature: Avoid compartmentalization - In this entry, I connect a concept from Roberts's text to a teaching method used by one of my professors.
[Coverage, Depth] McBride, The Color of Water: Synthesizing key concepts - In response to a request by Dr. Jerz, here I provide an example of a synthesis of concepts, using some from McBride's memoir.
[Coverage, Depth, Interaction] McBride, The Color of Water: Reality literature - In this entry, I describe my admiration of McBride's ability to notice the symbolism in everyday life and incorporate it into his memoir.
[Coverage, Timeliness] Roberts, Writing About Literature: Ideas about characters - Here I describe how a concept from Roberts's text fits well with one of my literary research papers.
[Coverage, Depth, Timeliness, Wildcard] Character studies in Flannery O'Connor's short fiction - In this entry, which I used as a guide for an in-class formal oral presentation, I describe the key concepts and ideas found in my last (and longest) literary research paper for my American Literature Course.
[Coverage, Depth, Interaction] Roberts, Writing About Literature: Procrastination, typical - Here I contrast my test-taking tendencies with those of a classmate.
(*) [Coverage, Depth, Interaction Miller, Resurrection Blues: Who's pulling the strings? - In this entry, I extend an analysis that I began in brief in a comment on a classmate's blog.
(*) [Coverage, Depth, Interaction] Miller, Resurrection Blues (Online Study Guide): Not funny - Here I describe my reactions to material found in an online study guide for Miller's play.
Xenoblogging
BrendaChristeleit - Langston Hughes bio - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed to her reflection on poetry readings.
BrendaChristeleit - Flannery O'Connor starring in the role of Mrs. Freeman, a Good Country Person - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed to an ongoing discussion about O'Connor's short story.
(*) The Gentle Giant - Oral Presentation/Questions for F. Scott Fitzgerald - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and answered a sample final exam question he posted.
MatthewHampton - History lesson - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed to an ongoing discussion about McBride's memoir.
MatthewHampton - Pairaguys Lost - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed to an ongoing discussion about one of O'Connor's short stories.
(*) JenniferDiFulvio - behind the scenes - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to her personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) JenniferDiFulvio - amazing - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to her personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) JenniferDiFulvio - assimilation - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to her personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) MelissaLupari - Ressurection BLues - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to her personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) MelissaLupari - Ressuration Blues - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to her personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) TerraStumpf - Ressurection Blues - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to her personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) TerraStumpf - A Late Encounter with the Enemy - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to her personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) TerraStumpf - Practice your answers! - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to her personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) The Gentle Giant - Resurrection Blues Part II - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to his personal reflection on an assigned reading.
(*) The Gentle Giant - The Color of Something Special - Here I commented on a classmate's blog and contributed a timely response to his personal reflection on an assigned reading.
1956 - Miller divorces Mary Grace Slattery. He marries Marilyn Monroe.
Whoah. This Marilyn Monroe is the Marilyn Monroe, right? I never knew that, very surprised when I read it.
Classmate Matt mentioned on his blog that he has trouble working well on tests when he's tense.
Interesting, because I usually feel just the opposite. Whenever I spend a lot of time studying for a test in the days leading up to it, and I feel generally stressed out, I actually tend to perform better. Confidence usually hinders me somehow, makes me think I know all I need to know when I really don't, and then I start getting lazy and brushing aside my studies because I think I don't need to study.
If there is one thing I've learned about exams throughout my education here at Seton Hill, it's that I should always expect the tests that seem easy to be difficult and the tests that seem difficult to be easy. For some reason, it always seems to work out that way for me.
It's time to start studying for finals, and I know I'm going to be pushing myself really hard to perform at my best. Hopefully, though, this semester I'll be able to spread out my studying over several days and stop myself from cramming everything into two long, mentally agonizing nights.
[Note: This entry is intended primarily as a guide for a formal discussion of O'Connor's works in my American Literature course at Seton Hill University.]
When I first proposed a literary research paper examining the theme of redemption and archetypal character relations in "Good Country People," I had no idea what I'd find. But upon completing my research and actually writing the paper, I realized that I had stumbled upon an unconventional interpretation of the text that proved enlightening for me as a reader.
Continue reading "Character studies in Flannery O'Connor's short fiction" »
As both classmate Brenda and classmate Matt pointed out, McBride's work of nonfiction seems to lack the literary depth of most of the fictional works we've read this semester.
But on the other hand, I think it's impressive that McBride could take two real-life stories, blend them together into a wonderfully cohesive whole, and even manage to recognize and incorporate the symbolism naturally produced in those real-life situations he describes throughout his text..
Imagine examining your own life for symbolism, themes, allusions, etc. What do you think you would find?
As a writer, I actually do pay attention to such things in the course of my everyday life, though usually it's not a conscious, active interest; instead, I'll notice a peculiar coincidence or connection between two different things I've seen or heard or read or otherwise experienced. One good example that comes to mind right away: I remember one summer vacation a few years ago during which I was constantly thinking about someone, and I was certain it was no coincidence when I started to hear songs on the radio that described her perfectly or met random people on the street or in hotels who had her name. I've always been suspicious that these are more than just coincidences. Divine in nature, methinks, or perhaps inspired by pure human madness. I never really talk about such private thoughts much with others, so I can't be entirely sure that I wasn't just imagining it all out of some odd longing.
Perhaps one day I'll write the story of my own life, or someone I know well, as McBride did. Not sure I'd have the courage to write something so long and so deeply personal, though. Writing about real people can sometimes lead to a lot of real problems if one isn't careful, as I've learned in my journalism and fiction writing courses (fictional characters are practically always--if not always--inspired in some way by real people). I suppose my confidence will grow as my professional writing skills develop further.
Since Dr. Jerz asked, I decided I would provide an example of the comparison/contrast-->synthesis method using concepts from McBride's text.
Concept 1 - Black Family --- Concept 2 - Jewish Family
Black families and communities have long been considered to be more close-knit than white families and communities. Along the same line of thinking, the family is often considered to be the basic, primary unit of Jewish life. When one considers the fact that McBride's mother was raised Jewish and later married a black man, it's obvious that these factors played an important role in the development of her own family. The black and Jewish traditions mingled, creating a woman who loved her family with intensity and devoted her life to her children.
(One could go even further and include a third key concept, Harlem, which was a neighborhood heavily influenced by both black and Jewish families throughout its history. In the post-World War II era, the majority of blacks started to leave Harlem for other areas of NYC, such as Brooklyn, where McBride's family lived.)
This is much the same format that my history professor expects when we perform the same exercise on tests: a brief explanation (several sentences) that describes the connection between two (or more) concepts. It is a useful exercise for quickly and effectively summarizing information for mental reference; that is, it's typically easier to remember two different terms or concepts if you relate them somehow in your mind while studying.
If you develop your essay by putting your two subjects constantly together, you will write economically and pointedly (not only for essays but also for tests). (186)
It's true. My current history professor has started to experiment with a new test format which encourages us to make our own connections by choosing related terms from a list and synthesizing them.
I thought Jews were something that was in the Bible. I'd heard about them in Sunday school, through Jesus and such. I told Ma I didn't know they were still around. (85)
The Bible is an interesting text in this respect: it tells the tales of real people as if they were characters in a work of fiction, blurring the distinction between fantasy and reality in a way that has led to a great deal of misunderstanding.
As I mentioned on classmate Brenda's entry about this reading selection, I think poetry's obscurity is liberating because it gives readers the freedom to find their own meaning in its words.
I remember my creative writing course in high school, where poetry was merely an emotional outlet for most of us rather than a form of literature to be studied and delicately crafted; even when students obviously wrote it to express a particular meaning, there were always a few others who found a meaning completely different from the one the author had intended.
For instance, I wrote a poem with a lot of fairy-tale imagery and my teacher--completely riveted--asked me about all kinds of allusions in my work to both other famous works of poetry I'd never read and to other concepts I'd never even considered while writing. I packed a ton of meaning into my poem without even realizing it, and after I investigated further, I actually developed a better relationship to my own work after appreciating the connections I hadn't noticed before.
I haven't written poetry in a few months now, too busy working on other writing projects, but... I think I may give it a shot again sometime soon.
As classmate Jen noted in an entry on her blog, it is important to look beyond the characters and behind their words while reading a literary work.
As a fiction writer, I can certainly appreciate the value of dialogue and its power to communicate ideas and opinions. In fact, when I receive feedback on my stories, I often get a lot of positive comments about the quality of the dialogue.
Of course, dialogue, like many other things in fiction writing, has two sides. While it can strengthen your writing and convey ideas effectively, it can also be used too much or in the wrong way, forcefully drumming ideas into your readers' heads without giving them a chance to come to their own conclusions and interpret a characters' value-ridden words for themselves. It can also simply be used too much, making a story feel choppy or static.
Flannery O'Connor's dialogue, I have noted, is stuffed with meaning, and as you can tell from a quick glance through my recent entries, discovering or even adding to that meaning for myself has provided me with lots of questions to ponder (important for everyone, of course, but especially so for writers).
While doing some research for a literary paper, however, I discovered that O'Connor seemed a bit indignant towards a majority of readers, especially college students who interpreted her works during her lifetime. She was particularly bothered by the fact that they performed psychoanalytic critiques of her works, because she believed that their meaning could best be experienced from a theological point of view. She complained about the lack of a faith-driven audience for her works, and was severely opposed to the modernist secular movement.
I can understand her perspective, but at the same time, I don't think it made sense to complain about what kind of readers she was getting. At least she was getting readers.
In studying literature, always express ideas as assertions.
This edict seems to express the core of writing about literature, the very topic of Roberts's book.
As classmate Brenda pointed out, Flannery O'Connor seems to deliberately return to the same theme over and over again in each of the short stories we've read. But I think that the repetitive nature of O'Connor's writing helps her works to accomplish their purpose more effectively.
While reading "Good Country People," I was completely emotionally stricken. O'Connor's depiction of humanity's struggle with surrender and submission touched me more deeply than most of the modern works I've read lately. At one point--when Hulga starts shushing the boy and trying to seduce him into atheism--I actually felt some kind of strong internal reaction and inexplicably threw the book across the room. I felt repulsed, furious, and horrified all at the same time. Very few stories have ever drilled that far into my core, and it was certainly a surprise to me.
While doing preliminary research and preparing a proposal for my third literary research paper--a paper which examines the archetypes of the characters within the story--I started to understand why the story was able to stab at my nerves; in Hulga, I saw some of my own worst qualities, and in her friendship and succeeding struggle with the Bible-sellling boy (her shadow aspect), I saw an internal battle that I continue to fight daily. In my paper, I plan to explain how the boy showed Hulga her own flaws and helped her to understand them. It mirrors my experience while reading the story; I recognized some of my own flaws, and O'Connor's writing helped me to understand them. What a fantastic height to reach in the craft of writing, to have such an impact on people for generations. I'm reminded of my own goals as a writer.
While reading classmate Terra's blog entry about the message of hope in the story, I started to think about some of the symbolism and allusions that help prescribe a possible meaning for the reader.
The title, "A Circle in the Fire," probably alludes to the way the farm is a circle of tranquility and safety in a world full of evils. After all, the small boy who comes along with Powell is described several times to be looking around the farm as if he is trying to encircle it with his gaze.
Mrs. Cope's name, too, seems to allude to the underlying meaning. She is able to cope with the problems caused by the boys during their visit, as well as all of the other dilemmas that arise on the farm throughout its existence. I think O'Connor intended Mrs. Cope to be a role model for readers, someone we should all try to emulate, because she's incredibly strong-willed and humble despite her suffering.
This is definitely one of my favorite O'Connor stories thus far.
While reading Jen's blog entry about the usefulness of the reader-response critical approach to literature while examining Flannery O'Connor's texts, I realized that perhaps "sophisticated" critics are too hard on it as a method of study. After all, in order to understand some works, a reader is expected to fill in the blanks on his own, and the information he or she chooses to put in those gaps usually comes from personal experience.
Even more important, the reader-response method gives readers the opportunity to imagine the story's visuals, audio, and other sensory details, drawing from their understanding of whatever the author describes, which is founded upon their ability to imagine such things in their own minds.
Really, when you think about it, author's actually depend upon readers to be able to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions from works of literature; if they didn't, authors would simply come right out and deliver the meaning of the work to the reader in the conclusion.
Roberts, Appendix C -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
Some critics use the approach to explain fictional characters ... Critics using the psychoanalytic approach treat literature somewhat like information about patients in therapy. In the work itself, what are the obvious and hidden motives that cause a character's behavior and speech?
That question is the very question that seems to be at the heart of my second literary research paper for this semester, which examines the psychological condition of the grandmother in O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find.
O'Connor, ''The Artificial Nigger'' -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
... the train glided past them and disappeared like a frightened serpent into the woods ... and he muttered, "I'm glad I've went once, but I'll never go back again!"
Here it seems like O'Connor was suggesting a metaphorical journey into sin, or Hell, and back, or something like that.
While reading classmate Brenda's blog entry, which highlighted the fact that the reader never actually gets to meet Bill Hill, I took a new interest in his role in the story and glanced through it again to read the sections where he's mentioned.
It seems to me that perhaps Bill Hill got Ruby pregnant on purpose, considering how she mentions his hint of a smile at two different places in the story, once near the beginning and again near the end. Ruby seems convinced that he could not have made a mistake and failed to use birth control, but I think that's just more denial; Ruby should definitely know herself whether or not he ever did so while with her.
Perhaps what was most interesting was the way that Laverne seemed to know about Bill Hill's mistake, and while I may be looking into it a bit too much, I can't help but wonder if perhaps he told her about his plot to get Ruby pregnant. Of course, maybe she just figured it out on her own.
After reading and commenting extensively on peer blog entries concerning Flannery O'Connor's short story, I must admit that I have had some new insights regarding Mr. Shiftlet's character (Onilee's questions about the story, in particular, sparked my inquiry).
Rereading some of the key sections in the story, such as the scene at The Hot Spot and the hitch-hiker scene, made me consider the possibility that Mr. Shiftlet was actually trying to do good in the world by abandoning his wife and making off with the car.
As he mentions, "a man with a car had a responsibility to others," and perhaps he only wanted the car so that he could be more of a help to others, like hitch-hikers. Likewise, perhaps he left his wife behind at the diner because he felt the young man at the counter would take care of her better than her mother or he, himself, could (after all, since Lucynell can only say the word "bird," there's probably no real way for her to get help in returning to her mother). Finally, in the concluding paragraphs, I noticed that he is described to be "racing" the rain to the town of Mobile after his plea to God, so perhaps he is racing it there in order to save the very people he has just asked God to condemn.
An interesting perspective, to say the least, but I still get a bad vibe from Mr. Shiftlet's character. Regardless of his intentions, I don't think the ends justify the means, in this case. He may have felt he was doing his wife a favor by leaving her with the young man, but he certainly couldn't be sure that the guy wouldn't somehow take advantage of her or just desert her the same way. Nor could he be sure that the boy he picks up will be okay, wandering around on his own far from home, and yet instead of trying to stop him he just lets him go, lets him run from his problems.
Welcome! My name is Chris Ulicne. I'm a student at Seton Hill University (SHU), and this is a portfolio cover entry for my weblog, Below Zero. Included below is a list of links to all of the most significant entries -- both on my own blog and the blogs of my peers -- from Spring 2006.
Feel free to browse through this collection and perhaps even post some comments, if you like.
Robert Frost - "Desert Places": Lonely in the crowd - In this entry I explain how reading a poem aloud helped me to discover a new personal interpretation. [Coverage]
Mending and Apple-Picking - Here I analyze two poems in a little more depth than usual. [Coverage, Depth]
A poet's passion - In this entry I explain my personal connection to something I found in an academic article that helped me develop new understanding of a poem. [Coverage]
The World Trade Center - Building character - Here I examine a poem's message about the sentimental value people attach to objects. [Coverage]
Close reading... But not too close - In this entry I reflect on a textbook's message about close readings of literature. [Coverage, Discussion, Timeliness]
A different kind of the same thing - Here I explain my observations of feminist sentiments in a play. [Coverage, Discussion]
Guilty of cowardice? - In this entry I build upon a classmate's blog entry, introducing my own questions about the material. [Coverage, Interaction]
Revealing actions - Here I describe my affection for stories that reveal characters' personalities through their actions. [Coverage]
Stubborn ways - In this entry I connect a passage in a story to some personal observations about reality. [Coverage, Discussion]
"Sphinx" character development -- head, body, and wings - Here I use a classmate's observations to form my own detailed argument about a character in a story. [Coverage, Depth, Discussion, Interaction]
No business but pleasure - In this entry I point out a sighting of an economics theme in a play's depiction of the afterlife. [Coverage, Discussion, Timeliness]
Slaves to motion, change, and progress - Here I use a classmate's ideas to explore my own thoughts on a play, going into considerable depth. [Coverage, Depth, Interaction]
Wallace Stevens's perspective - In this entry I consider how a poet's background may have affected his works. [Coverage]
Symbolism: from one, many - In this entry I reflect upon the usefulness of symbols, drawing upon my experiences as a creative writer. [Coverage]
Home away from home - Here I explore the concept of American identity by considering one American poet's feelings about his nationality. [Coverage]
Poetry VFX - In this entry I briefly look back on my early experiences with poetry in high school. [Coverage]
The modernization of poetry - Here I consider the changes in style that occurred in the realm of poetry over time, particularly in America. [Coverage, Depth]
The Great Gatsby: Daisy's insincerity - In this entry I ask a few questions about a passage in a novel that confused me. [Coverage]
The Great Gatsby: Nick's honesty - Here I link to two classmates' entries on a topic and then add my own thoughts to the mix. [Coverage, Interaction]
Writing About Literature: Second-person point of view - In this entry I ponder using second-person point of view as an element of fiction in my future works. [Coverage]
Writing About Literature: Write now, right now - In this entry I explain how an assigned textbook reading clarified an important concept for me. [Coverage]
The Great Gatsby: The incomplete dream - Here I analyze a novel's portrayal of its characters and their motives. [Coverage, Depth]
The Great Gatsby: Tom destroys Gatsby's dream - In this entry I extend thoughts from an earlier entry and describe how they fit into the broad context of the complete novel. [Coverage]
Article --- Kumamoto, "Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby": The marriage trope - Here I take a look at an unfamiliar term found in an academic article. [Coverage]
The Great Gatsby: Jordan Baker, my favorite - In this entry I explain my affection for my favorite character in a novel. [Coverage, Wildcard]
[Xenoblogging]
BrendaChristeleit - The Gatz outta the bag - In this peer blog entry, I contribute a substantial comment in an ongoing discussion that challenges one classmate's interpretation of a text.
Shanelle Kapusta - No Monkey Business - In this peer blog entry, I add my own thoughts to the author's original observations of a text, starting a brief discussion.
TerraStumpf - EYES! - In this peer blog entry, I left a comment that I later expanded upon in one of my own blog entries.
Throughout Fitzgerald's novel, Jordan Baker has been my favorite character. It was the same back when I read the book and watched the movie for the first time in high school.
I can't quite explain it, but somehow she seems like the most genuine character in the whole story. When Tom and Gatsby are preparing to butt heads, for instance, she is the one who chastises Tom directly for his behavior; this, to me, proves that she is a kind and thoughtful person at heart, because it shows her common-sense compassion for both Daisy and Gatsby.
Likewise, Jordan is one of the few characters who seems to earn her money through use of talent and skill (playing golf) instead of inheriting it from family or acquiring it through illegal connections. She doesn't exhibit any particular fondness for wealth, either.
Oh, and of course, she is "wise," as Nick describes her, because she understands how love works better than any of the other characters. She doesn't throw herself into a whirlwind of passion as Daisy and Gatsby attempt to do, nor does she seek love from people who are already attached, as Tom does.
Matt mentioned on Brenda's blog that he thinks Jordan is dishonest -- which could be proven true, if there were enough evidence -- but the reader never really finds out for sure if her golf scandal was real (at least, not to my knowledge).
Overall, Jordan is the character I most related to, and I am always a little disappointed that she didn't play a larger role in the story. But perhaps that is precisely why I like her: she doesn't get mixed up in the mess like all the others.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces / Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
When I went back to reread this poem, I decided to try reading it aloud, as we did in class with other poems during our poetry slam, and I was surprised by the way I interpreted these lines.
It seems to me that here the speaker is brushing aside the empty spaces between the stars and the planets as if they're negligible simply because they are not home to the "human race."
It's a little odd that he feels that loneliness is more prevalent on a populated planet than on an empty star. I think that maybe he is alluding to a feeling that I am familiar with: the feeling that, in a crowded room full of people, one is still alone.
Article: Kumamoto -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
Thus the chicken trope unmasks the cowardly Tom and Daisy's "conspiring together" to re-establish the unbreakable, unholy alliance of marriage, cash, and status--a fundamental cause of Gatsby's tragedy.
The bit about marriage being an "unholy alliance" really caught my attention while reading Kumamoto's essay.
Oh, and I wasn't sure what was meant by "trope," so I checked it out at Wikipedia:
A trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i.e. using a word in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form.
...
In literature, a trope is a familiar and repeated symbol, meme, theme, motif, style, character or thing that permeates a particular type of literature. They are usually tied heavily to genre.
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
"Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now -- isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once -- but I loved you too."
...
"Even that's a lie," said Tom savagely. "She didn't know you were alive. Why -- there're things between Daisy and me that you'll never know, things that neither of us can ever forget."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
Tom completely destroys Gatsby's dream of picking up where he left off with Daisy in this scene, forcing him to face reality; and in doing so, Tom ensures that Gatsby will never be happy with Daisy.
Terra's blog entry about the eye motif in Fitzgerald's tale brought to mind something I had contemplated during my latest rereading.
Nick supposes Gatsby has spent so much time constructing a flawless picture of Daisy in his memory that the real Daisy can no longer fill the hole she left in his heart.
At first, Gatsby hopes that he can somehow rewind their lives and take Daisy back with him to the time before he left her; however, as he later comes to understand, that isn't possible, no matter how hard he may try or how much he may try to change himself or Daisy to fulfill his dream.
Gatsby probably would have been better off if he had never found Daisy again because, as Nick again points out, finding her has taken away the element of fantasy in his lifestyle and forced him to see that his hopes for the future (or rather, for restoring the past in the future) are incompatible with the reality that Daisy is now a part of.
I would even go further to argue that Daisy, too, realizes that Gatsby thinks too much of her. She tries hard to fit into his lifestyle by taking a tour of his home and attending one of his lavish parties, but in the end she too knows that she can no longer make him truly happy (which could explain why she cries during her first visit).
Roberts, Appendix B -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
Literary works spring into life with each and every reading. You may thus assume that everything happening takes place in the present, and when writing about literature, you should use the present tense of verbs.
I've always wondered whether this is a "rule" or not, and I've sometimes found myself jumping back and forth between present and past tense in my critical essays.
Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
Daisy ... came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn't drink. It's a great advantage not to drink amongst hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care.
This passage reminded me of the discussion about the Prohibition, which Matt launched in class yesterday. I think perhaps Fitzgerald was commenting on it here.
... some narrators follow the usage -- not uncommon in colloquial speech -- of the indefinite "you." In this use of point of view, the you (or thou) refers not to a specific listener but rather to anyone at all. (83)
As a fiction writer, I haven't used second-person point of view too often in my works; but reading this section brought up some interesting concepts that I'd like to explore. Particularly interesting is the option of using "you" to refer to "anyone at all."
Matt and Jen each wrote a blog entry examining the last line of chapter 3 in F. Scott Fitzgerald's tale, in which Nick Carraway assures the reader that he is an honest man.
I think that Nick's honesty is in fact the trait that earns him Gatsby's friendship and confidence, perhaps because Gatsby himself is a dishonest man. This might also explain why Jordan says she doesn't believe Gatsby went to Oxford, and why she seems generally disinterested in him until he pulls her aside and speaks to her privately. She mentions that she hates dishonest people, but likes Nick, perhaps further affirming that Nick is an honest person.
The question remains, though: why is Nick so attracted to Gatsby? Is it just his mysterious social aura, or is it something deeper than that?
The instant her voice broke off ... I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. ... I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged. (17)
I'm confused here. Is Nick implying that Daisy is shallow because she doesn't really believe what she said, or because she feels that she is somehow better than he is, as a member of the "secret society"? Or both?
Reading Brenda's blog entry about the plain, American language in William Carlos Williams's poems got me thinking about the effects of modernization on poetry.
Poets like WCW, Robert Frost, and their contemporaries have developed a style of poetry that uses a language much easier to understand at a glance than the language used by poets since Shakespeare. In the modern age, making things as fast as possible has started to become a cultural value, perhaps explaining the transition to language which lends itself to faster readings; and in a way, it is thanks to this shift that America has developed its own style of prose and poetry in the realm of literature.
I wonder, though, what will happen to our poetry in the future, especially considering that the "American identity" seems to be breaking down. American citizens now identify with their distant cultural heritage more readily than they do with their American heritage, in most cases. In the same way that WCW's sense of belonging to America inspired much of his poetry, there may be poets in the future whose detachment from an American national identity shows in their work.
In visual poetry, also called shaped verse and picture poetry, poets not only emphasize the idea and emotion of their subject but also fashion the poem into a recognizable shape on the page.
I remember spending a lot of time experimenting with picture poetry in high school; it was always one of my favorites.
On a side note, it looks to me like George Herbert's "Easter Wings" takes the shape of two hourglasses.
"Of mixed ancestry," [William Carlos Williams] wrote, "I felt from earliest childhood that America was the only home I could ever call my own."
I found the poet's words here rather striking. Now that I think about it, America really is the only place in the world where the national identity is one of mixed blood, and I can understand Williams's affection for his country. America can sort of act as a "home away from home" for many people, because it encompasses practically all cultures, to some extent.
As a creative writer who loves to write fiction of all sorts, I appreciate symbolism for its ease of use and its potential to strike emotional chords within my readers.
It's a lot of fun to choose symbols for a work of fiction, because even the simplest ones can have a diverse array of meanings, as Shanelle mentioned on her blog. Sometimes, your readers go back and discover possible meanings that even you, the writer, didn't notice at first.
This, of course, presents a problem in some ways: a writer might want readers to have a particular emotional response to a symbol, in order to prepare them for an upcoming plot event, but they might completely miss the cue or even interpret it in unexpected ways. I think the best solution to this problem is to place the symbol in a context that supports the intended meaning, in order to better guide readers to it -- though that can present a significant challenge.
Many symbols are generally or universally recognized and are therefore cultural (or universal). They embody ideas and emotions that writers and readers share as heirs of the same historical and cultural tradition.
Cultural symbols always seem to be the ones that I miss or misunderstand when I am doing close readings. I don't have a lot of knowledge of the different cultures of the world, but I am working towards solving that problem; many of my courses here at Seton Hill University integrate numerous cultures into the curriculum, and I am gaining a greater understanding of these types of references in literature.
... he was the rare American artist who never traveled abroad but instead experienced "the heaven of Europe" secondhand ...
It's interesting that Stevens never traveled to Europe himself, and I can't help but wonder if this may have had an impact on his writing.
Poetry, in Stevens's mind, is "the supreme fiction," the single essence that can replace a lost belief in God as a source of life's redemption.
Having chosen Stevens's "The Brave Man" as a poem for personal critique, I would have to argue that he intended poetry not to "replace" God as a source of redemption, but rather as a method of restoring and reinforcing Him as such.
Mr. Zero is zero -- there is no substance, simply a man striving his whole life for happiness and opportunity ...
Shanelle made an interesting point here and really gave me something to think about.
If Mr. Zero truly is a flat character, as some of my classmates have argued, then perhaps Rice made him so in order to point out that his quest "for happiness and opportunity" only leads him into an endless cycle that will always leave him wanting more.
In America, the "pursuit of happiness" is one of our founding traditions, but we go about it the wrong way. We marry and we work hard and we buy, buy, buy, all in the hopes of a better life in the end, and I think Rice was trying to imply that this will never lead us to true happiness. If we live only for the end result, only take advantage of opportunities for the sake of the final product, then our lives have "no substance," and remain static. A man like Mr. Zero could accomplish every last one of the dreams he has today, but he still wouldn't be happy, because tomorrow he would have different dreams and goals -- a fact alluded to in the play when Mr. Zero finds out that he's headed for another round of life on earth, as a completely different person. No matter how high up the ladder we climb for ourselves, we can never reach the top. We can't even get close -- it's reserved for God.
When Charles tells Mr. Zero that he is a "slave," he means, more than anything, that he is a slave to himself. He means to say that in striving to make our lives easier -- to create machines that further and further simplify our tasks -- we are actually driving ourselves to ruin. What would happen, after all, if we were to reach that point described in the story, the epitome of human civilization, at which everything is accomplished with the mere press of a button? We would hate it, we would despise it, we would be miserable -- because we would have nowhere to go, no more progress to make. Human beings thrive on constant motion and change that takes them closer to a certain attainable goal or ideal, thus explaining why Shrdlu is so disturbed by Rice's Elysian Fields -- they do not foster growth or change with an end-purpose, only endless repetition of "profitless occupations," as he puts it.
If there were one lesson to be learned from this play, I think it is probably that the pursuit of happiness itself should make us happy, that we should find fulfillment in the journey rather than the destination.
All these people here are so strange, so unlike the good people I've known. They seem to think of nothing but enjoyment or of wasting their time in profitless occupations. ... And forever they are telling stories and laughing and singing and drinking and dancing.
The whole scene that takes place on the Elysian Fields really drew me into the play, particularly because there is a lot of DnD lore surrounding the place.
I found this quote interesting because the description of this Heaven-like place elicits a picture of a true paradise, yet Shrdlu seems unsatisfied with what he finds there -- perhaps because there is no purpose to existence on that plane other than enjoyment -- but isn't pleasure a form of profit? It sounds like he's upset by the fact that there is no competition.
Classmate Brenda's blog entry about a metaphor comparing Bernice to a sphinx in "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" sparked my investigative motor, so I loaded up an electronic encyclopedia on my laptop and did a little research to learn more about the mythology behind the creature.
The sphinx's body was composed of the parts of 3 distinct types of creatures:
Human Females
Bernice begins the story with this part of her character already present and obvious; she has feminine human qualities, unlike Marjorie. These qualities serve to draw her into conflict with her somewhat masculine cousin.
Lions
Bernice receives her lion-like courage, strength, and pride from Marjorie, after she is taught how to dress, act, and speak in order to become popular with Marjorie's friends. However, part of this aspect of her character also seemed to be already present, because she initially had the courage to undergo the transformation, and because she later has the strength to defy her cousin even in the wake of destruction caused by the trap.
Birds (Eagles?)
Bernice is trapped by her inhibitions about her relationship with her cousin and her cousin's friends at the beginning of the story, but throughout the latter half of the story she learns to break away from these concerns and develops a stronger sense of independence and freedom (perhaps a connection to the idea of eagles as a symbol of American freedom and individualism).
Considering all of that, I feel that this story shows Bernice's development into a true "sphinx" character, reaching a climax when she learns to bring all three parts of her new self into harmony, as is evidenced by the phrases I emphasized in the passage below:
But as the door closed something snapped within Bernice. She sprang dynamically to her feet, clinching her hands, then swiftly and noiselessly crossed over to her bed and from underneath it dragged out her suitcase. Into it she tossed toilet articles and a change of clothing. Then she turned to her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfuls of lingerie and summer dresses. She moved quietly, but with deadly efficiency, and in three-quarters of an hour her trunk was locked and strapped and she was fully dressed in a becoming new travelling suit that Marjorie had helped her pick out. [All emphasis my own.]
Fitzgerald, ''Bernice Bobs Her Hair'' (1920) -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.
I can relate to this sentiment rather well -- the older people get, the more stubborn they become, it seems.
Roberts on Character -- Jerz: American Lit II (EL 267)
What characters do is our best clue to understanding what they are.
I love it when writers leave it up to the reader to determine the truth about a character, and I think that the method of character development Roberts points out here is indeed the best. When writers simply tell you what a character does, they usually give a clearly implied reference to one of the character's traits or motives; however, it is up to the reader to determine how strong or weak that trait or motive is, as well as how it relates to and effects other traits or motives the character may develop throughout the story. This gives readers a lot of room to form their own personal interpretation of a character.
Jennifer's blog entry about Susan Glaspell's "Trifles" made a good point that I, too, had thought about while reading the play.
Jen mentions that Mrs. Hale seems to feel awfully guilty for not spending more time visiting with Mrs. Wright before the murder, almost as if she holds herself partially responsible for what happened.
What I wonder, though, is what kept Mrs. Hale from visiting? Did she simply not have the time, due to her obligations to her own family (especially her children), as mentioned in the play? Was it because she didn't like the atmosphere of the Wright home? Or was it something more, like fear of Mr. Wright, or perhaps even fear of Mrs. Wright? After all, Mrs. Hale mentions several times that her neighbor was never quite the same after she got married.
On a side note, I just noticed that Mr. Wright's name sounds an awful lot like "Mr. Right." Coincidence? Yeah, right.
I know how things can be -- for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things -- it's all just a different kind of the same thing.
This passage seems like a feminist sentiment: women all suffer injustices and unfair challenges, but of different sorts, and (in extension), if they were to rally together, to live "close together" in all respects, they could perhaps overcome those things.
Theoretically a complete or total explication would require you to explain the meaning and implications of each word and every line -- a technique that obviously would be exhaustive (and exhausting).It would also be self-defeating, for writing about everything in great detail would prohibit you from using your judgment and deciding what is important.
I remember doing "close reading" essays in high school that required me to come up with as many different meanings as possible for poems or passages within longer works of literature, so it was a relief to learn that I can concentrate on one theme at a time, instead.
The twin towers were ugly monoliths
That lacked the details the ornament the character
Of the Empire State Building and [especially]
The Chrysler Building, everyone's favorite,
With its scalloped top, so noble.
David Lehman's "The World Trade Center" provides an example of humanity's tendency to develop sentimental attachments to lifeless objects over time, due to the ideas or ideals that those objects symbolize. Here, Lehman contrasts the twin towers' lack of character with the "nobility" of the Chrysler Building.
Even worse than having nothing to say, perhaps, is emotional poverty—feeling used up, both by the pain of events in life and by the demands of his art. He once wrote: "[poets] are so much less sensitive from having overused their sensibilities. Men who have to feel for a living would unavoidably become altogether unfeeling except professionally" (SL 300). Whatever the basis, the poem ends with the fear of one's own emptiness, one's own nothingness. To traverse these spaces inside the self is to traverse the barren.
This part of Judith Oster's analysis of Robert Frost's "Desert Places" really touched me. As a poet, myself, I must admit that both Oster and Frost hit on a shred of truth. I can't even count all the times I have been called insensitive or emotionally cold, yet when I write my main objective is to evoke and explore emotions, both within myself and within my readers.
The first thing that caught my attention in Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" was the first word, "something." What is it, exactly, that doesn't love a wall? I think this "something" is part of our human nature, that part of us that longs for companionship, friendship, love.
Throughout the poem, the wall keeps the speaker and his neighbor apart. I believe the wall represents prejudice, fear, and enmity, which are all barriers to the "something" that wishes to bring the speaker and his neighbor together.
It seems to me that the speaker finds the wall unneccessary, or at least questions its purpose, while the neighbor believes that the wall is necessary, because that is what his father (and tradition) have taught him:
Good fences make good neighbors. ... Before I built a wall I'd ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense.
Ultimately, the wall is repaired as fast as it is torn down, leading to an endless cycle that segregates the speaker and his neighbor.
Reading Frost's "After Apple-Picking," I had the sense that his poem represented a man at the end of his days, troubled with thoughts of what he never achieved.
My first clue was the "two-pointed ladder" bit in the first line, which symbolize something like horns in my mind (perhaps alluding to the Devil, or a devilish soul). The next clue came in the idea of "apple-picking": apples (a biblical reference, methinks) could represent pieces of wisdom or knowledge (or perhaps even sins).
The speaker says he is "overtired," giving the impression that he is near death, and explains that he had to try to handle the apples carefully, or they would fall out of his grasp and be wasted. This could allude to the idea that he wasted some of the wisdom he was given, and the fact that he wasted some of the apples will "trouble" his sleep.
If the apples represent sins rather than wisdom or knowledge, the speaker may be trying to allude to the fact that although he "desired" them when he started to pick the apples, he is now troubled with the consequences that he fears he will meet in death. Perhaps he feels damned.
This is an update on the previous weblog portfolios that I compiled for Fall 2005. I have included new entries posted since November 13.
I recommend you take a look at the earlier installments of the portfolio:
[Coverage, Depth] BYOM -- Be Your Own Media In this entry, I talk about the impact of new media on grassroots journalism, a topic inspired by one of my journalism textbooks.
[Coverage, Depth, Discussion, Timeliness, Wildcard] New media careers - Here I explain how my experience with new media puts me into a better position to get a business job.
[Coverage] iCan, We can - In this entry, I explain my criticism of the BBC's iCan "political activism" experiment.
[Coverage, Depth] Information Dealers - Here I examine the issue of linking to "bad" material on the Net, and what consequences it can have for both those responsible for the links and those responsible for the "bad" content.
[Coverage, Depth, Discussion, Interaction, Timeliness] Bias of the beholder - In this entry, I examined two opposing sides of the issue of copyrights for entertainment material accessible via the Net, and inspired a lively discussion amongst my classroom peers.
[Coverage, Interaction, Timeliness] Pigeons galore? Not anymore! - Here I linked to a news article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that excelled at demonstrating some of the finer points of feature writing.
[Xenoblogging] David Denninger - We the Media (Ch 10) - Here I left a comment on a peer's blog in which I tried to clarify a textbook topic by giving my own interpretation.
[Xenoblogging] Lorin Schumacher - AP Guide to Newswriting, Ch 12 - Here I left a comment on a peer's blog that added my support to her point about something found in a journalism textbook.
[Xenoblogging] Lorin Schumacher - We the Media, Ch 3-5 - Here I left a comment on a peer's blog that contributed my personal enthusiasm for the new media journalism she discussed in her entry.
While skimming through the online articles from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for Tuesday, a humorous article about an innovative solution to a pigeon problem caught my attention.
This article is another excellent example of how colorful details splattered on a topic can bring the reporting to a new level that engages the reader much more effectively than typical news writing.
It's usually articles like this one -- the strange, the funny, or most importantly, the interesting -- that draw readers into a story and give them something to think about and share with others.
Ideas are different than physical property, and they have been treated distinctly through our history. If I take your car, you can't use it. If I have a copy of your song, you still have the song. Infringement is wrong, and I don't defend it. But there has always been some infringement, and copyright holders have lived with it as part of their overall bargain with society. [Dan Gillmor, We the Media 216]
In Chapter 11, Gillmor explains some of the finer points of the copyright debate between the entertainment industry and consumers. He advocates stronger observance of the "fair use" rights of consumers, continually claiming that those rights are being undermined by the restrictions enforced by the law and court decisions.
As a college kid who loves to sidestep the rules sometimes, I can empathize with Gillmor's fear that the e-industry will someday have complete control over the distribution and use of its products. Likewise, as a college kid who dreams of one day becoming an author, I can empathize with the e-industry and its argument that its ideas should be treated as physical property, to a certain extent.
As Gillmor points out, a song is not physical property -- but it's still property, and a product, the result of creative work and imagination. Just because you can't physically hold the song itself in your hands doesn't mean that it should automatically be treated as less-worthy of copyright protections. Quite frankly, that's being unfair to the person(s) who produced the song; it's like telling them that their work is not as valuable as a car in the eyes of the law, simply because it doesn't take a physical form. After all, you could consider cars as ideas -- they're just more easily converted into a physical format, and the ideas are covered up along the way by the actual appearance and function of the vehicles themselves. The idea is still there; it's so widely dispersed and understood, however, that there's no need to try to squirm past its copyright protections.
If the web has a central function, it's linking. Publish a page and anyone can link to it, right? Well, not always. [Dan Gillmor, We the Media 205]
Gillmor describes "forbidden links" in Chapter 10, giving several examples of how linking to pages containing potentially unethical or unlawful content can get a web writer into some serious trouble.
He cites the example of Jon Johansen, a Norwegian teenager who cracked a code protecting DVDs from playback on unsupported platforms in order to watch movies on his Linux OS. Johansen's 'counter-code', called DeCSS, enabled other users to do the same. Lawsuits followed, especially after Johansen posted DeCSS to the Net and other websites began to link to the download. Ultimately, he was acquitted; however, journalists who linked to it weren't so fortunate, and suffered some legal losses to entertainment studios.
Gillmor's examination brings to light a peculiar fact: the one who was responsible for the 'unlawful' material got away unscathed, yet journalists who linked to it out of loyalty to their readers -- in the practice of transparency -- did not.
This is not necessarily to say that Johansen should have been punished; rather, I think that it is unfair that journalists were slammed for simply pointing to something that was already there. Especially when, as Gillmor describes, plenty of other Netizens -- even Gillmor himself -- also pointed it out, and received no punishment.
Ultimately, the laws that were put into effect in this case seem to be a lot like the trafficking laws regarding the use and possession of illegal drugs: you can be convicted of a crime simply for passing them along, even if you never use them yourself. But even this metaphor is flawed, because linking to the location of unlawful content on the Net is not really equivalent to possessing that content at any time, nor to suggesting its use.
Or is it?
Dan Gillmor's discussion of the BBC's iCan journalism experiment -- in which the BBC gave citizens tools for political activism and then reported what they did -- seemed to spawn some ethical concerns from my point of view.
It's true that technically the BBC was not directly "making the news," but it played a significant role in the process. I think it would be destructive to traditional journalism, and the virtues it stands for, if every news organization simply reported on news that they sponsored previously.
Gillmor lightly touches the issue near the end of Chapter 6 (not satisfactorily enough, in my opinion):
No matter which tools and technologies we embrace, we must maintain core principles, including fairness, accuracy, and thoroughness. These are not afterthoughts. They are essential if professional journalism expects to survive....
We can help the new journalists understand and value ethics, the importance of serving the public trust, and professionalism.
We may be able to help new journalists learn the basic rules of journalism, but I don't think that we can teach them enough to ensure that they will follow those rules. If anything, they will probably make some huge mistakes, face severe punishment or restrictions from the government, and be scared away from the new media grassroots journalism movement. There needs to be some sort of standard in the new media, to protect and foster the growth of this new movement in the years to come.
Chapters 3-5 of Dan Gillmor's We the Media got me thinking about the value of my education as a New Media Journalism major here at Seton Hill University (SHU).
My experience with different forms of new media -- weblogs, wikis, discussion forums, e-mail, etc. -- puts me into a better position not only for a career in journalism, but for any career in business.
As Gillmor points out in his book, businesses are already using new media for PR purposes, internal communications amongst employees, advertising, networking, and other things. This shift in business will most likely cause a shift in what kinds of people businesses hire -- meaning that those who can demonstrate skill with the different forms of new media will probably have a better chance of getting a job than someone who receives a traditional education in a business field.
Then, of course, you have the effect of new media on journalism, which is already more widely spread and powerful than their effect on other forms of business. The effect on journalism is more exciting, too, because it is starting to take some of the pressures of news reporting off of professional journalists and diffusing them amongst grassroots journalists via the Net. Citizens can also observe and criticize professional journalists more easily, ensuring that the professionals will have an increased awareness of the effects of their work on the people they serve. The Net allows the public to act as a watchdog for the watchdog (journalism).
I realized I was getting a better overall report than anyone watching television, listening to the radio, or reading a newspaper in the United States. It was more complete, more varied. In effect, I'd rolled my own news.It was a convergence of old and new media, but the newest component was my own tinkering to create my own news "product"--a compilation of the best material I could find. (Gillmor 24-25)
Dan Gillmor, in the first two chapters of his book We the Media, examines the new trends of grassroots journalism created by new media technology and its innovative applications.
In the passage above, he emphasizes the changes of those trends as the Web shifted from being a read-only to a read/write phenomenon. He explains that as he was gathering information over the Internet about the U.S. presidential elections for 2000 -- streaming-audio from a National Public Radio feed, news articles from The New York Times and other news organizations, and maps of the results of state polls -- he realized that he was making his own media.
In a culture where freedom of choice is heralded as one of the highest virtues, these new media continue to expand and thrive, and Gillmor seems to believe that they will continue to do so until at last citizens -- who were once known only as the news audience -- become participants in the key processes of journalism.
This new movement is certainly worth studying -- after all, it's curious that it encourages consumers to become producers, and vice-versa, as Gillmor points out elsewhere in this reading selection. Blogs, especially, encourage journalists to seek out and consume information provided by citizens, turning the traditions of journalism upside-down. The nagging wonder, of course, is what will result from this flip; what will be the consequences for journalism, journalists, citizens, and the communities, networks, and markets that they all share?
This is an update on the previous weblog portfolios that I compiled for Fall 2005. I have included new entries posted since October 17.
I recommend you take a look at the earlier installments of the portfolio:
[Coverage, Depth, Discussion, Timeliness] God is in the details - In this entry, I begin by examining two seemingly contradictory proverbs, and then move on to examine the importance of proportionality in crime reporting.
[Coverage] Muddled by media law - Here I explain a question about libel in journalism that came to my mind while reading a briefing on media law in one of my textbooks.
[Coverage, Depth] "Where Solemnity Palls" - In this entry, I explain some of the guidelines for feature writing in the news, by drawing upon examples provided in one of my textbooks.
[Coverage] Cut a little deeper - Here I provide some criticism about the arguments presented in one of my textbooks regarding the use of statistics in media.
[Coverage, Depth, Discussion, Interaction, Timeliness, Wildcard] "Tomato" statistics - In this entry, I provide an in-depth analysis of statistics that are misleading due to the methods used to compile them.
[Coverage] Through the looking glass - Here I give brief thought to something I learned about discrimination in employment from one of my textbooks.
[Coverage, Discussion, Interaction] Take your own advice - Here I provide some critical commentary on the hypocritical irony I discovered in one of my textbooks.
[Coverage, Depth] Substance vs. procedures in peer review - In this entry, I describe what I learned about the peer review process for academic articles from one of my textbooks.
[Coverage] Crime reporting under pressure - Here I reflect on a crime reporting exercise that forced me to practice news writing under pressure.
[Coverage, Depth, Timeliness] The color of details - In this entry, I explain how a chapter in one of my textbooks highlighted one of my weaknesses as a journalist, and summarize what I learned.
[Coverage, Interaction, Timeliness] Colorful court reporting - Here I give an example of court reporting improved with "colorful" details that I found in a local paper.
[Coverage] Knowing what not to do - In this entry, I acknowledge an important concept that I learned in one of my least favorite textbooks.
[Xenoblogging] Katie Aikins - Newswriting - It Ain't Necessarily So, Ch. 6 & 7 - Here I left a timely comment on Katie's blog that asked a question to further intellectual engagement with class material.
[Xenoblogging] David Denninger - It Ain't Necessarily So (Ch. 2 & 3) - Here I left a comment on David's blog that provided my personal response to his ideas concerning class material.
[Xenoblogging] Johanna Dreyfuss - Crime and Punishment - Here I left a comment on Johanna's blog that helped spark an ongoing discussion about class material.
[Xenoblogging] Johanna Dreyfuss - Surveys and Statistics - Here I left two comments on Johanna's blog that provided some insight into class material and drew upon concepts I picked up in another class.
[Xenoblogging] Jason Pugh - Chapters 2 & 3 "It Ain't Necessarily So" - Here I left a timely comment on Jason's blog that later helped to contribute to the classroom discussion after his presentation in Newswriting.
It is rather obvious that the authors of It Ain't Necessarily So believe that "journalists are often to blame" for the "rogue's gallery of ills" that they examined in their book (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 192).
Of course, the hypocrisy present in their text is also obvious, as I have pointed out before.
After backing away from the little things that bothered me in this text, however, I must admit that it helped me to learn a lot regarding the different methods that pollsters use to gather information, as well as the pros and cons of each. I suppose it is as important to know what not to do as it is to know what to do, when reporting about statistics or research -- or when reporting on anything else in the news.
While reading the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review today, I came across a court story that was an excellent example of the kind of colorful reporting described in Chapter 9 of the AP Guide to News Writing.
Reporter Chris Foreman, in his article "Brief trial for defendant," uses small, specific details about two defendants' struggles to escape the responsibility of appearing in court in order to capture the reader's interest and make the somewhat boring court proceedings a little more lively with some light humor.
I especially appreciated the lead, even if the first sentence is a bit lengthy and tightly-packed with information:
A Fayette County jury never saw Larry E. Kelley Jr. wearing only his dark blue boxers and white socks when he told a judge Monday morning he didn't want to appear at his trial.
Immediately, the fact that Kelley was wearing nothing but boxers and socks captures the reader's attention and demands further reading. This is the kind of colorful reporting that I need to work on.
For color, reporters cannot rely on phrases and fancy -- or ready-made -- figures of speech. They rely on hard particulars. They must train themselves to spot those small, specific details that give intimate glimpses into the nature of their subject. (Cappon 80)
Chapter 9 in the AP Guide to News Writing shows how small, colorful details in a news story can make all the difference and really serve to captivate readers.
I think that the chapter highlights one of my weaknesses as a reporter: I have trouble combining my creative writing skills -- those I am most comfortable with -- and my news writing skills. I often find myself observing people and taking note of little details in their appearance or surroundings, but I am not always sure how to work those details into a news story without introducing bias or opinion at the same time.
How does a reporter know what details are okay to include without seeming too editorial?
Take this example of colorful news writing from the book, for instance:
... judiciously weighing the options of having a second drink or not, evaluating all the factors in selecting between fish or beef and, once having made up his mind, never looking back. (Cappon 80)
I agree with the text that this example is made more interesting by the details, but isn't it a little much for the reporter to assume that the subject he is observing is actually so meticulously weighing all of his options and alternatives? I suppose a reporter could always come right out and ask the person he is observing, just to be safe, but I think that would be a little strange. ("Would you say you will 'never look back' after selecting what you want to eat?")
I guess it's probably up to the judgment of the reporter and his editors; if details seem to raise too much controversy or paint an unfavorable or inaccurate picture of someone or something, then it's probably not a good idea to include them in a news or feature article.
A few weeks ago in my Newswriting course, the students participated in a lab workshop designed to give us a taste of the pressure and time constraints that journalists must work under everyday.
During the lab, our professor read facts about a crime story from a piece of paper while showing it to us on an overhead projector, took it away and gave us a few minutes to write preliminary articles, and then went through the facts one more time so we could pick up any important ones that we missed.
As I later discussed with my professor after class one day, the exercise was not entirely realistic or fair, because journalists usually have at least a few hours or a full day to write a news article, whereas we only had about a half hour. Nonetheless, I found it to be useful for testing my ability to work under extreme pressure, in a bit of a hectic atmosphere, in a situation I couldn't really prepare for ahead of time.
Newswriting has been the most important class in my New Media Journalism curriculum thus far here at Seton Hill University, and I suspect that what I have learned from the class will always stick with me in my career.
In principle ... scientific peer review should judge the importance of a conclusion and the reliability of the procedures that led to it. The substance of the conclusion shouldn't really matter as long as it is significant, and as long as it follows logically from the procedures used to arrive at it. In practice, though, peer reviewers often have their own substantive biases, which lead them to praise research supporting substantive conclusions that they like and to condemn research that doesn't. (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 150)
Although I understood the basic process of peer reviewing before reading Chapter 9 in It Ain't Necessarily So, I never really considered that peer-reviewed academic articles could be considered unreliable sources.
It often seems like professors here at Seton Hill University (SHU) regard peer-reviewed academic articles as "Holy Writ," to use the words of the authors. When writing essays, professors say, it is always important to check the reliability and credibility of sources; but when it comes to peer-reviewed academic articles, how can one really know if it is reliable and credible or not?
As the authors of IANS point out, the researchers who write the articles could be biased, or the editors who choose which articles are published in their scholarly journals could publish unreliable articles even if they are reviewed by very few scholars, since they have control over their publications. The sources of researchers' funding can also come into play; for instance, an article about energy emissions and global warming will probably be biased if its research is mostly funded by energy companies who want to prove that energy emissions and global warming are not connected.
Although the authors reassure readers that most peer-reviewed academic articles are reliable scholarly sources, I will try to be more skeptical of such articles in the future, especially if I plan to use those sources for news articles.
Pergament conducted a survey of 150 women who are at high risk for breast cancer, because family members have contracted the disease; their actual breast cancer risk was 6 percent, but their perceived risk was 36 percent, or six times greater. (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 120).
I find it pretty ironic that, in the middle of a book that argues that journalists should cite survey questions (not just survey answers) in their articles, the authors choose to cite a survey performed by a medical doctor but don't bother to mention what kinds of questions he asked to compile his statistics.
Oh, and the implication that all journalists have in fact "crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy" on the environmental beat simply because a Time magazine editor said so doesn't really seem fair.
It Ain't Necessarily So seemed to be getting a little more objective in Chapter 6, but in Chapter 7 the authors seemed to take the plunge right back into insensitive subjectivity, again.
It may seem "obvious" that a disparity [in employment statistics] demonstrates discrimination; but on closer examination, the discrimination may turn out to be exactly where you didn't expect to find it.
I think the most interesting thing I found in Chapters 4 and 5 of It Ain't Necessarily So was the explanation of how employers can end up discriminating against blacks and other minorities who apply for lower-level jobs simply by hiring more people from such groups for upper-level positions.
It's an excellent example of the two-sidedness of statistics that the authors describe. Unfortunately, as they note, many newspapers fail to recognize and properly report this two-sidedness, instead choosing to favor one view of the glass or the other -- that is, half-empty, or half-full.
What we find depends upon how we've defined. ... Just as tomatoes can vary drastically in size, so incidents ... can vary drastically in their seriousness. (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 69)
Chapter 3 in It Ain't Necessarily So deals with what the authors dub "tomato" statistics.
In the same way that a grocery store can promise customers 3 tomatoes for $1 and then offer to sell only the smallest varieties of tomatoes at that price, so too can researchers send the public into a frenzy with outrageous statistics that reflect rather unremarkable trends associated with small, commonplace incidents.
Take, for instance, the case-study statistics cited in the text:
(The statistics in the first example were cited in the Washington Post, while the statistics in the other two examples were cited in the New York Times.)
The authors of IANS explain that these statistics all shared a common problem: the incidents that they reflected are impossible to define objectively.
How does one define "physically abused," "raped," or "abducted?"
Logically, you might argue that the legal definitions should suffice; but unfortunately, not even the courts can come up with definitions that everyone -- or even most people -- agree upon.
The problem goes even deeper than the legal definitions, though -- it goes straight to the subjective survey questions designed by the investigators in each case-study, which failed to properly incorporate the legal definitions.
The statistics for the physical abuse of women were based upon a survey that used some far-reaching questions. Would you use the term "physical abuse" to define a situation in which your spouse or partner ...
(There were four other questions on the survey, which can be ignored due to the fact that when asked these questions, "not a single respondent answered 'yes'"; Murray, Schwartz, and Licther 61)
Certainly, it would be a huge stretch to say that most people agree with all of the above definitions of physical abuse. Adults insult and swear at one another all the time. They also frequently stomp around angrily, make threats they never intend to act upon, and throw, smash, hit, or kick things (other than the people they are angry at) in order to vent their frustrations.
The statistics for the rape histories of college women were also based upon a somewhat haphazard question:
Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs? (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 62)
As the authors note in the text, it's possible that some of the women who fit in the survey's definition of "rape" merely had a few drinks, had sex, and then later regretted it. In fact, 11% of the victims surveyed said they "d[id]n't feel victimized," and 49% said their "rape" experience was simply the result of "miscommunication" (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 62).
Of course, there are plenty of other questions that could narrow the definition of each woman's experience: did she ask for the drinks, herself, and then the man paid for them? Did she act particularly sexually forceful, perhaps even if the man was passive? Did she decide to later classify her experience as "rape" because it had unplanned, negative consequences, or because she was simply uncomfortable with her own actions? It should be noted that 42% of the women who were said "to have been raped went on to have sex again with their supposed rapists" (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 63).
Finally, the statistics for the abduction of children by family members included such incidents as when kids staying overnight at a parent's house violated divorce custody agreements, "when a child [was] forcibly transported for as little as twenty feet," "when [a child was] detained for only an hour," and "when the perpetrator [was] an acquaintance (a babysitter or neighbor) [or] a stranger" (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 65).
As the authors point out, these sorts of incidents don't really fit the "popular stereotype" of child abduction that the public generally accepts.
The investigators who performed the survey attempted to differentiate between serious and not-so-serious cases by doing it twice, once with a "Broad Scope" definition and then again with a "Policy Focal" definition of child abduction. Unfortunately, when the New York Times cited the "Broad Scope" statistics, it failed to mention that they were based upon such odd assumptions about what child abduction really is.
Through careful study of the facts and arguments provided in Chapter 3, it can be learned that newspapers and other organizations who frequently cite survey statistics are not always "wise to the ways" of those who conduct the surveys. Most of these surveys probably won't reach the general public through media other than newspapers; thus, it is extremely important for newspapers to comprehend the methods used to collect data that they provide to the public. Newspapers must be able to speak for the numbers, since "Numbers Don't Speak for Themselves" (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 68).
... They refuse to admit errors.
According to Robert J. Haiman, in his Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists, the public often sympathizes with journalists and understands that they work under a lot of pressure. He says that people are willing to forgive journalists for their mistakes, as long as they are honest and direct when admitting errors. He also mentions that journalists should adopt a policy of consistently reporting any public requests for corrections or clarifications to their editors, regardless of the severity of the mistakes.
I feel that this section is particularly relevant to my experiences while writing an article for the latest issue of the Setonian. My "Bandwidth soon to increase" article contained a lot of specific details and facts (such as numerical values for bandwidth speeds and department budgets) that could easily cross into inaccuracy. I kept up communications with my interview sources from the CIT Department after my article was published, which proved helpful in discovering some inaccuracies that I never would have known about otherwise. Fred Billman sent me an e-mail after reading my article in which he both praised it and noted two minor errors; and, despite the fact that he said the errors did not merit print corrections, I forwarded the e-mail to my supervisor (News Editor Amanda Cochran) in order to bring them to her attention.
I felt proud after reading this section because I realized that I already observe some of the "best practices for journalism," which gives me a slight advantage as a fair reporter who is loyal to citizens first, rather than to himself or to an organization.
... They prey on the weak.
In this later section, Haiman discusses some of the ways in which journalists can -- knowingly or unknowingly -- go too far in their quest for the truth and overstep some ethical boundaries when dealing with the public. He particularly advocates careful practices when dealing with children, who often have trouble understanding the possible consequences of speaking to reporters.
Reading this section reminded me of the story of Kodee Kennings that I discussed in an earlier entry. That was just one example of how a child can end up in the middle of a lot of controversy and conflict due to direct involvement in a news story. When the girl in that story was interviewed after the hoax was exposed, she told reporters that she thought it was fun -- an expression of the childish innocence at the heart of a very serious matter, and proof that children often cannot comprehend the true nature of the news that involves them.
I was a little bored by the prologue, introduction, and first chapter of It Ain't Necessarily So . As a critical analysis of the media, the book seems to be a bit too radically opinionated to me, as well as frustrating in its organizational structure and methods.
The three sections that I read were repetitive, continuously blaming the media for failing to put statistics in the news in the appropriate context for their audiences, but providing few suggestions for improvement beyond the typical 'stop it' and 'do the opposite.' Even after the authors admit that the press releases provided for journalists by businesses and other organizations can cause the problems they're exploring, they push the responsibility back onto journalists, offering a very general solution of "better reporting" (Murray, Schwartz, and Lichter 32).
Obviously, I haven't finished reading the book yet, so I can't pass final judgment -- but so far, I've found only a common sense analysis that doesn't really whet my appetite for further investigation. Not to mention, the one-sidedness irks me a bit.
Strong feature writing is simple, clear, orderly and free of labored mannerisms and tricks that call attention to the writing itself rather than the substance. (Cappon 95)
And in the example feature articles found near the end of Chapter 11 of the AP Guide to News Writing, this point is demonstrated with awesome force.
I was stunned by Jerry Schwartz' snagging portrayal of the lifestyle of John Krieger, an elderly man with Down's syndrome -- a fantastic flight through the facts surrounding his condition that soars, playfully aloft, on the warm currents of the anecdotes, description, and quotes scattered throughout the story. It's beautiful in its simplicity.
Schwartz' article does an excellent job of pleasing the reader by taking a man's mental problem -- a potential social stigma -- and peeling it away to reveal the carefree soul beneath. It also informs the public with some brief statistics and background information, thus achieving both of feature writing's main objectives; "The feature, after all, is intended to please as well as to inform" (Cappon 104).
Of course, there are other good examples of feature writing within Chapter 11, but Schwartz' story stood out as the most effective in my mind.
Aside from my admiration for these articles, I came away from my reading with an improved understanding and confidence about my own news feature writing, particularly with respect to the various structures that feature articles typically use. Though there is tremendous freedom for the writer with respect to choices of style and tone, there are some helpful guidelines that may be applied to the organization:
I suppose that as a creative writer I have a special appreciation for the style of feature articles, and I am overjoyed to find myself in familiar territory, at last.
After reading the section about libel and media law near the end of The Associated Press Stylebook, I have to admit that I feel really muddled.
The complexity of the legal issues discussed is staggering, and more than a little intimidating. Nonetheless, I feel like I now have a better general understanding of the rights and privileges of both journalists and the people who are used as sources or subject material in their news stories.
As I was reading, I began to wonder how journalists and their editors decide if potentially libelous material is worth publishing, at risk; does each news organization have its own guidelines or rules regarding this kind of material, or do news organizations handle the issue of libel on a case-by-case basis?
I suppose there would be benefits and drawbacks to both methods. Having guidelines would streamline the process and result in fewer formal checks, thus speeding things up at an increased risk. Handling libel on a case-by-case basis would slow things down considerably, while probably decreasing the risks involved.
If you have any knowledge of how newspapers typically handle libel before publishing, please provide whatever enlightenment you can.
Many journalists adhere to the adage "God is in the details," and journalists do a complete job of providing details on certain crime stories.
I was amused when I first saw this quote on the CCJ site, because only a day or so before I read it I heard someone mention that political science majors always say "the Devil is in the details."
I suppose the contrast makes sense; journalists are agents of truth, and thus find details useful for their cause, while politicians can sometimes be agents of trickery or deceit, and thus find details to be weapons easily used against them.
The excerpt above is from Dave Krajicek's "The Crime Beat," an online guide to "Covering Crime and Justice" as a journalist. It comes from one section of the guide that focuses on the skewed proportionality of coverage of crime stories in the media.
Krajicek says that most crime coverage in the news deals with violence that is atypical. He mentions that violent crimes are covered 4 times more frequently than non-violent crimes, and within the group of violent crimes, usually those that are the strangest are the ones that get the most attention. In other words, a story about a parent who is murdered by his or her own child is more likely to receive big media attention than a story about someone who is murdered in a robbery.
Krajicek goes on to suggest that journalists should try to provide more proportional coverage of crime stories, rather than providing an extreme amount of coverage of extreme cases. I can agree with that, though I think that it would be difficult to convince a newspaper editor to start providing more coverage of property crimes than violent crimes, simply because there are more property crimes. Those kinds of happenings simply don't catch as much public interest -- and since journalism on the whole is slowly suffering greater and greater losses in terms of audience, it is already a struggle to maintain public interest at the current level, with the sensationalism as it is now.
Looking back on the article that I wrote about homecoming events here at Seton Hill University (SHU), I find myself a little disappointed.
My story idea was to examine freshmen responses to Homecoming 2005. Unfortunately, the homecoming weekend was the beginning of a really hectic period of school work for me, and I simply didn't have enough time to devote to finding and interviewing a diverse group of sources.
I suppose that such time constraints are to be expected and prepared for ahead of time in a field such as journalism, but it is difficult to try to function as a full-time journalist -- even for a few short hours -- when you're a commuting college student with a part-time job on the side (not to mention, another job on top of that: the Setonian).
I have tried to catch up and better divide my time amongst my responsibilities, but it's only becoming even more difficult now that the semester is starting to accelerate and the workload is starting to grow.
Anyways, my article did manage to cover a wide variety of events, but I was forced to use quotes from the same sources over and over again because I didn't manage to question more freshmen in time. It was difficult to incorporate so many references to the same sources like that without my article feeling a little too tight and compact.
Chapter 9 in Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel's The Elements of Journalism addresses the need for journalism to be comprehensive and proportional. In other words, news coverage must include a wide variety of stories and remain demographically proportional.
The book's discussion of demographics and the types of problems it creates for modern journalism is particularly noteworthy. Kovach and Rosenstiel argue that news organizations no longer give fair coverage to areas with demographics that act as a negative factor in their pursuit of profit, and assert that journalism must find a way to "serve diverse communities" before it becomes merely a competition for public attention in perspectives that are too narrow (168).
From a purely idealistic point of view, it seems to me that paying more attention to diverse communities makes complete sense; it would at least improve the quality of news coverage, if not the quantity, as well. The more news that readers are receiving, the better the chances that they are receiving valuable news which will actually play a practical role in their lives.
From a more realistic point of view, however, it seems unlikely that news organizations will be able or willing to sacrifice some portion of readership now to increase it in the future.
This is an update on the previous weblog portfolio that I compiled for Fall 2005. I have included new entries posted since September 30.
I recommend you take a brief look at the portfolio introduction included in the earlier entry.
Laissez-faire news - In this entry, I summarize some journalism guidelines that deal with tone, found in one of my textbooks.
"Let's git 'r done!" - Here I reflect upon the Morgan Spurlock Lecture I attended and analyze some of the points he made in his persuasive argument, after explaining my personal experience with McDonald's and the fast food industry.
Critical thought and investigative reporting - In this entry, I summarize some information about investigative reporting found in one of my journalism textbooks and then connect it to my experience as a student writer of research papers.
Tribune Review review - Here I reflect upon some of my observations of the news stories found in the October 11, 2005 issue of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Journalism demo - In this entry, I explain what I learned about the role of demographics in journalism from a textbook.
Homecoming and the freshman perspective - Here I reflect upon the experience I had while writing a news article about the freshman response to SHU's Homecoming 2005.
David Denninger - 10/11 Tribune Review Article - Here I made a comment on a peer's weblog that provided some insight about the popularity of sports news articles amongst readers of the Tribune-Review website.
Johanna Dreyfuss - Editorial? - Here I made a comment on a peer's weblog that provided encouragement and praise after my peer changed one of her academic opinions.
Denamarie Ercolani - Tribune Review Reflection - Here I made a comment on a peer's weblog that provided links to entries found both on my own weblog and the weblog of another peer that related to this original entry.
Nancy Gregg - Elements of Journalism, Ch. 9 Comprehensive - Here I made a comment on a peer's weblog that explains my opposing point of view regarding the impact of television news upon families.
Jenna O'Brocto - Reporters Should "have a responsibility to conscience" - Here I made a comment on a peer's weblog that explains my opposing point of view regarding the ethics of the use of tragic images in broadcast journalism.
Somewhere in the office at the McDonald's restaurant where I work, there's a little trinket that has the words "Let's git 'r done!" chiseled into it.
It's become a kind of store-specific slogan for our location, and the managers have repeated it countless times to the crew when things start to get out of hand.
Attending Morgan Spurlock's lecture here at Seton Hill University (SHU) was a strange experience, in a way, because I could relate to his criticism of McDonald's, but at the same time, I know some of the people on the lowest rungs of the ladder who dedicate themselves to service and quality for customers, so much so that you have to admire their work.
"Let's git 'r done?" What are we getting done, is the question that comes to mind, of course. In all honesty, I think we're simply feeding a lot of hungry folks with some food that is widely-known as not being particularly healthy. Health concerns for customers are rampant, but I think the methods that are used to prevent concerns from becoming problems are rather effective.
Both the managers and the regular crew persons show concern for the health of customers; I can certainly attest to that. We are expected to constantly keep the restaurant safe, clean, and orderly, and there are very specific procedures that we are supposed to follow while making food in order to follow food safety precautions. Of course, not everyone follows all those procedures all the time, but I will affirm that we never take risks that could be potentially dangerous to customers. Whenever the temptation to take such risks come along, all we have to do is remember to think "What if the person who's going to eat this is a family member? A friend?" That dissuades you from taking bad shortcuts awfully quick.
One thing Spurlock brought up during the lecture that annoyed me was the bit about how McDonald's classifies customers according to how often they eat at a McD's restaurant. Is it really that alarming that the company is recognizing that some people eat there more often than others? Quite honestly... So what? It's not like those people are forced to eat McD's food.
Spurlock mentioned that many people eat at McDonald's 3, 4, 5, or more times a week, and made it sound atrocious. Heck, I've been eating at McDonald's that often for almost a year and a half, now, and, as my sisters like to say, I'm a "skinny-minny." I don't have any major health problems, to my knowledge, and I don't even really exercise all that much.
There are other things that I could bring up, but I feel a bit of a rant coming on, so I think I'll cut off here. Suffice to say, I at least agree with Spurlock on the point that the health quality of the food at McD's could be vastly improved -- if speed of service were sacrificed. Fast food is unhealthy... By its very nature. It's made in a hurry, so of course it isn't going to be as nutritious as a sit-down meal.
Chapter 6 in The Associated Press Guide to News Writing: The Resource for Professional Journalists deals with tone and some of the problems it can cause in a news story.
The book provides some useful guidelines to help the careful reporter avoid these problems, which I have summarized and paraphrased below.
[Those who own a copy of the book may notice that I excluded some of the subheaded categories found in the actual text; I did this because I saw distinct similarities between some of the guidelines which seemed to cause them to overlap and be repeated needlessly.]
I have grown particularly fond of the tip about letting evidence speak for itself in a news story -- it means less wordiness, and less of a chance that you may accidentally include libel in your story.
Two things caught my attention while reviewing the October 11, 2005 issue of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: the anecdotal lead and strong verbs found in one of the news articles and the content of a feature article, one from the Local section and one from the Business Section.
•LOCAL: David Hunt, in his "Woman left shaken, duct-taped in invasion" article, describes the events of a robbery that took place at a home while one member of the family was inside the residence.
Hunt wrote a lead that caught my attention immediately as I skimmed through the paper:
John Boswell embraced his shaken daughter as search dogs dashed through the woods and the choppy buzz of a helicopter hummed overhead.
I enjoyed the mental picture that this lead formed in my mind -- particularly because it seems to perfectly describe what was happening when the photograph accompanying the article was taken. It really brings the picture to life with words, a concept that interests me as both a news writer and a news photographer.
I also found several strong verbs in Hunt's article that helped me to understand some of the concepts taught by my professor and the textbooks in my Newswriting course -- concepts such as the use of active verbs that provide additional detail. For instance, in one sentence, Hunt uses the word "sped" in a place where a general word like "returned" would have been almost inappropriate, considering the emotional context (a father's fear for his daughter's safety):
John Boswell sped home from a contracting job in Uniontown as soon as his wife phoned him to say what happened.
•BUSINESS: Kellie B. Gormly, in her "School work: How much help is too much?" article, describes the conflict between parents and teachers regarding the amount of direct involvement that parents should take in their kids' education.
One of my classmates, Jason Pugh, posted an entry about his admiration of the article and its usefulness to the Trib's audience.
While I agree with Jason that the article is informative and useful to parents with school-age children, I feel that there is too much bias in favor of the teachers in this article.
I welcome Gormly's argument that some parents are a bit too involved -- and in my opinion, sometimes a bit fanatical -- about their kids' success in school, but I think it would have been fair to give some more attention to the perspective of parents in the article.
In my family, my parents have always played an important role in their children's education, particularly when I was in elementary and middle school. The parents who get involved in their kids' education deserve credit for caring, because -- as I observed by comparing my parents' involvement with that of other students' parents throughout my years of primary education -- there are plenty of parents who show little or no concern for their kids' success, and who provide little or no support for them.
There is a fine line between too much and too little, of course, so it's hard for parents to fall right on it -- I believe my own parents leaned a little more in the "too much" direction, myself -- but I think there are more parents who need to be encouraged to get involved than there are parents who need to be encouraged to back off.
In The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel provide an explanation of investigative reporting and the three forms that it takes in modern journalism.
As a fledgeling journalist, I found this to be a helpful summary, and I was particularly interested in the second form of investigative reporting that they describe: interpretive.
Interpretive investigative reporting requires journalists to compile information collected by numerous sources and interpret or analyze it in order to appropriately deliver the information to the public in a news story.
When writing research papers for english literature classes, I love to do this kind of primary research -- the kind that asks me to observe the plain facts and come up with a conclusion that connects them as parts of a logical argument. It's somehow satisfying to write a research paper that does not depend solely on the power and credibility of others' ideas, to reach a conclusion via my own analytical and intuitive powers of investigation instead of simply throwing my own opinion to one side or the other of an argument.
Which is why I believe that interpretive investigative reporting may be a style of news reporting that I would like to practice in the future, perhaps as a way of integrating my critical thinking skills with my news writing skills. The more time I spend writing news articles for my journalism classes or for the school's student newspaper, the more I find myself wishing that the reporting challenged me to understand the information that I am presenting, rather than simply requiring me to know which facts to present, and in what order.
Hey. If you don't know me already, my name is Chris Ulicne, and I'm a student at Seton Hill University (SHU) in Greensburg, PA. Every semester, I post entries here on Below Zero that highlight my academic, personal, and social experiences -- and every semester, I compile weblog portfolios that highlight the best of my blog entries.
This portfolio takes a close look at my development as a New Media Journalism major. My Newswriting course at the university has been the inspiration for most of the entries included -- but not all of them. Some of them extend to deal with learning outside of the classroom -- and I am a firm believer that firsthand experience is one of the best tools for learning.
Feel free to browse through the material presented in my portfolio, and perhaps learn a few things about journalism or other topics along the way -- and feel free to leave comments or contact me through e-mail if you have any questions, suggestions, or other concerns. Interaction with peers and the public is, as I have found, essential to my improvement as a journalist.
Bust the block - In this entry, I discuss my problems with writer's block and explain how one of my textbooks helped me overcome it while I was trying to write a news article.
Struggling with inconsistency - Here I provide an in-depth analysis of the differences I found between print, online, and television news coverage of the same story, with a focus on the accuracy of facts and information.
Plain and simple - In this entry I address the issue of time constraints in news writing, as well as the importance of finding a good balance between efficiency and style.
The birth of journalism? - Here, I use some facts I learned in a cultures class to expand upon the information about the origins of journalism found in one of my textbooks.
Pass on passive verbs - In this entry, I note how a textbook's emphasis on using active verbs in news writing has affected my development as a journalist.
Turning on the headlights - This is a personal response to a news story found in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on September 8, 2005.
Another brief reporter's reflection - This entry is a reflection on a spot news article that I wrote about SHU's Fall 2005 Honors Convocation.
Paraphrase that - Here I note how a textbook contributed to my revision of the spot news article that I wrote about SHU's Fall 2005 Honors Convocation.
Where loyalties lie - In this entry, I reflect upon a reading that was directly related to some observations I made about SHU's student news organization, the Setonian, as a member of the Setonian staff.
College campus speech codes - This entry provides an in-depth look at an issue discussed in my Newswriting course, inspired by an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on September 20, 2005.
News three ways - Here I make some comparisons between my spot news article on SHU's Fall 2005 Honors Convocation and articles about the same event that appeared in the Communicator (SHU's PR newsletter) and the Setonian, the student newspaper.
ElyseBranam - Chapters 3-5 Reflection - On Elyse's blog, I left a comment that inspired some insightful discussion about the use of blogs as an academic medium through which students can help each other understand course material.
JennaOBrocto - The aim of a journalist - On Jenna's blog, I gave her a brief tip to try to help her improve the appeal of her blog entries and gave my personal response to some of her observations about journalism.
Katherine Lambert - Spot news roundup - On Katie's blog, I left a comment that provided tips for interviewing that I have acquired during my time as a member of the Setonian.
Eye-Opener: Memo - Spotlighting an event - On Mike's blog, I left a comment that addressed a concern he expressed in one of his entries, which he said was helpful.
Comparison of my spot news article on SHU's fall Honors Convocation for 2005 to the articles in the Communicator and the Setonian has shown me at least one major way in which I could improve my newswriting skills that I didn't consider before: I need to learn to incorporate more background description in my stories.
That revelation came to me after reading David Denninger's article in the Setonian. I noticed that he devoted some time near the beginning of his article to a description of the opening remarks and prayer that took place at the Honors Convocation, something I failed to do in my own article. I also enjoyed Denninger's careful attention to the emotional displays of President Boyle and the crowd.
The article that appeared in the Communicator seemed like a comprehensive summary of the event, which didn't go into great depth and only included two quotes, both from the same source. Obviously, as SHU's PR news organization, the Communicator wanted to focus on presenting the excitement of the event, rather than things such as freshmen's boredom or remarks from students who won awards.
My own article was relevant, accurate, timely, and clear. It was also objective, though looking back on my story now I wish I would have included some direct quotes from students in order to balance the numerous quotes that I took from SHU administration and faculty. My article could also have been slightly biased because I was friends with some of the students who won awards, but not friends with others -- meaning that I could have focused on only those students that I know well -- but I considered this problem while writing my article and tried not to allow it to skew my news angle.
While skimming through the first couple of chapters of The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect, a text written by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, I noticed that under the heading "The Birth of Journalism" the book mentions that "modern journalism began to emerge in the early seventeenth century" (Kovach and Rosenstiel 21).
This kind of fact normally wouldn't catch my attention, but I remembered discussing an Athenian historian named Thucydides (c. 460-c. 400 B.C., according to Jackson J. Spielvogel's Western Civilization), in my Western Cultures class, who is often credited as being the first journalist in history. Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is a historical, journalistic account of the war that led to the decline of the Greek civilization, in which he discussed the methods that he used to gather the facts and information in his account -- which turned out to be methods similar to those journalists use to gather facts and information for news stories.
I understand that Kovach and Rosenstiel made the distinction of "modern journalism" in connection with their assessment, but I also feel that Thucydides' contributions to journalism should have been pointed out directly under that heading in their text (they eventually mention him, on page 70, long after the passage on the birth of journalism ends). Or, perhaps they should have changed the heading to "The Birth of Modern Journalism."
The more action your lead conveys, the better. Strong verbs are important. (Cappon 28)
Chapter 3 of the Associated Press (AP Guide to News Writing: The Resource for Professional Journalists provides lots of helpful tips for writing leads in news stories, none of which I found more relevant to my own needs than this tip about action verbs.
As a creative writer, and as a journalist, one of my greatest weaknesses is overuse of weak, passive verbs. Professors have noted it, I have noted it, and I am constantly struggling to overcome it. I think that doing workbook exercises dealing with news leads in my Newswriting course has helped me considerably, but I still find myself tending towards the weak-willed verbs when I no longer have instructions constantly reminding me that my objective is to write with iron force. Hopefully, as I continue to gain more academic writing experience in both literature and journalism courses, I will learn to pass on passive verbs.
"To write well is as difficult as being good," said Somerset Maugham. There may be a connection. To be good takes a high level of moral awareness. To write well takes a high level of technical awareness. We usually lapse from inattention, not ignorance. We fudge the small, measured steps, the care for details, that craftsmanship demands. (Cappon 1)
This excerpt from Chapter 1 in the Associated Press (AP) Guide to News Writing: The Resource for Professional Journalists caught my attention because I have an extreme "care for details." One of my favorite parts of writing is carefully crafting together the smallest points of significance in a research paper, a reflection, short stories, or poetry. Whenever I write a research paper, for instance, it can take me two or three hours to write just one page -- but not because I don't have any ideas or I don't know what I want to write. Rather, the reason it takes me so much time is because I meticulously consider the details of how I want to write.
This can prove to be a tough obstacle to overcome when I am under tight time constraints, though, which used to be a huge problem for me (I screwed up on more than a few tests because I couldn't answer the essay questions in the time allotted); I have improved, however, and I am learning to change my writing strategies depending on the requirements of the assignment that I am given. This is especially true with respect to my journalistic writing -- it forces me to write quickly, efficiently, and clearly, which has been helpful in breaking some of my bad writing habits.
Of course, as the book notes in Chapter 2:
The humble grunts of daily journalism work under constraints that novelists don't have to worry about, but some second thought there must be--even if only for a few minutes when time is short, as it often is. (Cappon 5)
That is where I run into yet another problem. I sometimes have trouble balancing the need for efficiency with the need for detail, especially when writing news stories. It is important to ensure that the pressure to meet deadlines doesn't ruin my writing style -- after all, I would rather not bother submitting a news article that I feel was written poorly to my professor or the Setonian -- but I must be careful not to fall into my habits of perfectionism.
I suppose that I will eventually learn to handle both deadlines and my own standards in a way that will enable me to write most effectively -- but for now, it is a battle I have yet to win.
While browsing through the archives of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's website, I came across an article published in the print issue for September 8, 2005 that examines motorist trends surrounding Pennsylvania's headlight law.
The law requires drivers to turn on their headlights whenever they're passing through an "active work zone" that has signs posted reminding them of the law. However, they must also receive another citation simultaneously in order to be cited for breaking the headlight law, according to the Trib's article -- which seems a little strange to me. Breaking a law is breaking a law, regardless of what other crimes or offenses you may commit, so why the padding?
I think the law is especially important in my local area because there is always some kind of road construction going on nearby, and drivers tend to go a bit too fast on Route 30, because they get frustrated with speed limits as low as 40 mph on a main road.
The signs saying things like "My Mommy Works Here" in cutesy letters are much more effective than the headlight law, anyways, I suppose. I think they force drivers to identify the road workers as people who will be going home to their families at the end of the workday, much like the drivers themselves may be doing at the time. Empathy is a powerful tool.
In the realm of professional journalism, accuracy is an essential component of any good news story. Unfortunately, it can often be difficult or even impossible to report news clearly and with complete accuracy, which can lead to many misleading representations or potentially harmful assumptions within news coverage of local, regional, national, or global events. One example of questionable accuracy in news reporting is found in an examination of the television, print, and online versions of a story about a robbery at a McDonald’s restaurant in Hempfield Township. Each of these three news sources acts as a filter which summarizes the story in a clear and concise format, but with varying degrees of accuracy.
During the 6:00 p.m. television news broadcast of WTAE-TV’s Channel 4 Action News, the story received a very short 10-15 second highlight, allowing only for a quick summary which gave a small portion of the information found in the station’s online article. This limited the probability for an error in the report, which delivered concrete facts in a clear manner, despite the lack of extensive coverage – making the broadcast report seem quite reliable, if a bit less informative than other sources.
In the Tuesday, August 30, 2005 issue of the Tribune-Review newspaper, the story also received little coverage – it only appeared in the section entitled “In Brief.” However, there was more information than that presented in the television broadcast, including a description of the suspect and his use of a gun to threaten McDonald’s employees. The Tribune-Review reported that the suspect police were searching for in the case, which they say “occurred around 11:30 p.m” on Monday evening, was described as a “black man between 18 and 21 years old, about 6 feet tall with a lanky build, and wearing all black clothing.” The newspaper also reported that the criminal responsible “flashed a revolver at employees before fleeing the restaurant.” The print version of this story allowed for more details than the television broadcast version, details which are an important part of the story; but are those details really accurate?
In the online version of WTAE-TV’s news coverage of the story, the report was delivered in much the same manner as it was in the other two sources – clearly and concisely – but it had some key differences, with regards to the “facts” and how they were delivered. The website reported that police said the crime occurred “early Tuesday morning,” and that the suspect “held workers … at gunpoint” after he “crawled through the drive-through window” – a detail which the print version of the report did not include. The website’s report states that the police described the suspect as “tall, thin, and probably between the ages of 18 and 25 … wearing a dark ball cap and [covering] his face with a red bandanna” – also in contrast to the printed article. The online version of the story includes nearly as much detail as the print version, but it was written from a more dramatic, attention-grabbing angle – in a manner which makes the story seem a little more outrageous than the print version.
As is evident in a careful examination of these news reports, some of the facts from the print and the online versions challenge each other. Did the crime occur on Monday evening, or on Tuesday morning? Did the suspect only flash a gun at the McDonald’s employees, or did he actually hold them at gunpoint? Was the suspect wearing “all dark clothing,” or was he also “[covering] his face with a red bandanna?” These are all questions of clarity and accuracy, which cannot be answered with certainty based solely on the news reports. The television news report should probably be treated as the most accurate source of information because it did not conflict with the other two reports, but it lacked the extensive detail found in those reports – details which could prove important to the public and influence the future of the police investigation.
The possibility of inaccuracy is always present in journalism, no matter which form it takes, even in stories written by seasoned veterans. Unfortunately, it is often impossible for readers of text journalism and listeners of broadcast journalism to confirm the facts that the news offers in its coverage of events such as the robbery at McDonald’s. This problem outlines the need for intercommunication between journalists from all three realms of the profession – television broadcast, print, and online – as well as between members of the public, in order to ensure that the facts are accurately presented in every news source.
As an English major, I sometimes find myself afflicted with the worst cases of writer's block -- and the solution for me has always been to either force myself to write on my topic even if I don't like what I'm writing or to give it up and go back to it later.
Mark Levin's The Reporter's Notebook: Writing Tools for Student Journalists lists some tips for overcoming this common obstacle that I have already found helpful.
One of them in particular has proven invaluable to me as I continue my development as a novice journalist:
Make lists. For starters begin with things you know a lot about and then add things you would like to learn about. You might possibly find a story here. (Levin 16)
I employed this strategy when I ran into trouble while trying to come up with questions that I needed to answer while attending the Honors Convocation for the spot news assignment I did for Newswriting. When I first started to prepare for the assignment, I realized that I knew very little about the Honors Convocation -- I decided what I wanted to learn about it by listing some questions I had after writing down what I did know about it.
When does the Honors Convocation occur? Who participates, and why? Who decides which students receive the awards presented? Why are freshman required to attend? Why does the President's Reception follow the event, rather than precede it? These are just a few of the questions that I tried to answer while doing research for the news story I wrote.
I think the result was an article that showed some investigation beyond the surface of the news, especially with regards to the tradition of the President's Reception. I was proud of my article, if for no other reason than that it proved to me that I knew how to ask the right questions.
The story of Kodee Kennings, told in news articles in the Daily Egyptian (DE) and the Chicago Tribune (CT), provides an excellent example of what can happen if journalists fail to verify information and facts with primary sources.
The most peculiar thing about the story is the fact that it went unchecked and unchallenged for nearly two-and-a-half years. It's hard to imagine how an illusion could be maintained for so long in the direct line of sight of the press without being exposed as a hoax. Instead of journalism shining a light on the truth, the opposite was true in this case -- the truth shone a light on journalism, exposing some of its glaring weaknesses.
The Daily Egyptian, which once employed Michael Brenner, the reporter who first covered the story, presented a fair and balanced look at both the accusations against Brenner and the other issues at hand in its coverage of the story, with the emphasis on Brenner, of course. I was surprised at first, considering Brenner's past affiliation with the DE -- but after careful thought, I realized that the DE was doing exactly as it should have. In the same way that reporters must first be loyal to citizens, news organizations themselves must be, too -- overriding concerns about loyalty between journalists of the same group.
The Chicago Tribune, which didn't play the same elaborate role in the story as the DE, seems to place emphasis first on Jaimie Reynolds' role in the events, mentioning Brenner and the allegations against him later in the article. I suppose it makes sense, considering that the story does not directly affect the CT's reputation in the same way that it affects that of the DE; I wonder, though, if the focus would have been different if Brenner would have been working for a bigger news organization, one that proved to be a more direct competitor for the CT (the DE is the student-run newspaper for Southern Illinois University).
Such individual journalistic shortcomings as arrogance, sensationalism, prejudice, over-coverage of violence, and invasion of privacy are often taken together by the public as a singular demonstration that the press is not fair. (Haiman 6)
I came upon this argument while reading freedomforum.org's Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists.
It's strange; I feel genuine sympathy for both the public and for journalists, because I myself subscribe to both sides of the issue.
For instance, on the public side, I agree that some forms of journalism (particularly TV journalism) employ sensationalism, but at the same time, I know as a journalist that stories which are sensationalized are probably going to get the most attention -- and isn't bringing attention to the truth one of a journalist's most important responsibiliies?
Likewise, I can understand the public's perception of journalists as arrogant, but as a journalist, I know that some of that perceived arrogance is just part of a natural rush that comes from really delivering a great story. The truth can be intoxicating, sometimes.
I wonder if my seemingly balanced view of these issues is actually biased, though, without my knowing? I feel myself tending ever so slightly towards sympathizing with the journalists. It's frustrating; but, I suppose it's at least encouraging that I can recognize some of my own bias, and that I am willing to admit to it. That's something that my journalism professor and multiple other sources have repeatedly stressed: the importance of accepting your own biases, rather than trying to avoid them.
Do university administrators have the right to restrict students' free speech? While discussing an article that appeared in the local Tribune-Review on Tuesday, my Newswriting class briefly touched on the topic of speech codes on college campuses.
Speech codes, which became popular amongst public colleges in the '80s and the early '90s, are generally sets of rules that describe limitations on students' right to free speech, often justified by the claim that minority students have little or no defense against the "hate speech" of other students, thus limiting their own rights. In other words, speech codes are an attempt to balance the rights of both groups -- at least, that's what most of their proponents claim.
An examination of the history of speech codes and the legal battles that they have caused, found on the firstamendmentcenter.org website, describes some of the details of past speech codes, several of which immediately caught my attention as cause for alarm.
Look at the following rules, set down in 1988 by a speech code at the University of Michigan:
"Any behavior, verbal or physical, that stigmatizes or victimizes an individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, creed … and that … Creates an intimidating, hostile, or demeaning environment for educational pursuits, employment or participation in University[-]sponsored extra-curricular activities [is prohibited]."
The speech code even provides some examples of "harassing conduct":
"You exclude someone from a study group because that person is of a different race, sex, or ethnic origin than you are.You display a confederate flag on the door of your room in your residence hall.
You comment in a derogatory way about a particular person or group’s physical appearance or sexual orientation, or their cultural origins, or religious beliefs."
The second and third examples here really caught my attention. It seems impossible to justify a ban on simply displaying a certain type of flag or a ban on "derogatory" comments about someone's physical appearance -- especially on a public college campus.
I agree with the decision of the courts on this particular speech code -- "The Supreme Court has consistently held that statutes punishing speech or conduct solely on the grounds that they are unseemly or offensive are unconstitutionally overbroad." After all, it's hardly constitutional to punish people for simply holding certain beliefs or opinions of others.
My professor informed our class that Seton Hill does not have a speech code -- probably, as we discussed in class, because the issue of discrimination is already addressed by the university's current policies. I wonder, though, if those policies may one day be challenged, and thus changed to better suit shifting needs on campus? At any rate, I hope that if they do change, they don't follow the tradition of speech codes laid down by other universities -- for the sake of the university, itself.
In The Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel present an intense study of the roles of journalism in society, describing "what newspeople should know and the public should expect."
As a New Media Journalism major with a year of experience working for a student news organization (the Setonian), I found the book appealing not only because it reinforced what I have already learned but also because it gave me a perspective on journalism as a whole, as something bigger than just an academic topic with a few courses attached -- rather, as a global sensory system of eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and hands dedicated to helping the public mind seek out truth. As Kovach and Rosenstiel put it:
Journalism's first loyalty is to citizens.
They argue that journalists must "communicate clear standards to the public" in order to maintain the delicate balance of trust fostered by journalism's loyalty to citizens. They argue that journalism is only successful if it is useful to the public.
I found this particularly interesting and relevant to my own predicament, because it seems like few people on my college campus really understand the inner-workings -- or even the outer-workings -- of the Setonian. It feels strange (and somehow horribly disappointing) to speak to other students or SHU faculty about the organization, only to learn that they either don't know what it is at all, or that they hardly ever pick up a copy of our paper and read it. I have actually talked to a few upperclassmen (juniors and seniors) who say they have only glanced through one issue of the Setonian in the three or four years they have spent at the university.
Which makes me wonder; what can we (the Setonian staff) do to increase awareness and understanding of our organization on campus without turning it into a pure business venture? The paper is provided free of charge, and we usually drop large stacks of copies off at various locations scattered around campus -- but is there perhaps a better way to distribute the paper, one which would encourage students to make use of it?
A student newspaper is hard to fit into the mold that Kovach and Rosenstiel have made, especially at a small school. It's frustrating, it really is. Sometimes it feels like the Setonian isn't having much of an impact at all on the student body. New issues of the paper are overlooked or brushed aside only a day or two after they are distributed -- issues that usually take 2-3 weeks to put together, made possible only by the efforts of hard-working students who already have more than enough responsibilities.
I'm not trying to brag about the staff's accomplishments, or complain about a lack of interest from the student body -- rather, I suppose I am ultimately looking for a way to empower both the Setonian and the rest of the community at SHU. The two seem too far apart, right now -- they should depend upon one another, and grow stronger from the bond of trust and loyalty that is ideal in journalism.
Following my prior confessions about troubles with quotes in news writing, I read a chapter in the AP Guide to News Writing which gave me another reason to worry about "these".
Chapter 8 in the book, appropriately titled "Quotes: Your Words or Mine?", described when to deliver information in a news story via quotes from a source, and when to deliver it via paraphrasing.
It's not up to preference -- it requires logical reasoning and keen judgment. The guidelines are effectively summarized in one sentence that I found particularly helpful:
Good quotes should summarize what's on a person's mind, crystallize an emotion or attitude or offer an individual perspective of some sort--preferably in a concise and interesting way. (Cappon 66)
While reviewing the news article I wrote about SHU's Honors Convocation, I realized that several of my quotes were merely boring facts put between " and " in order to make them seem more significant than they really were, so I changed them accordingly with some effective paraphrasing. I also noted some problems with weak, passive verbs, so I fixed those, too.
...
Hmm. Three entries in a row, all about quotes. I have to do something to break this trend.
Well, having just completed the finishing touches on my news article about the SHU Honors Convocation for my Newswriting course, I feel the need to take down some more notes -- luckily, I won't have to scribble these ones into a notebook at frantic speeds while I'm having a heart attack.
Let's just say that I have always been an incredibly slow, methodical writer, and my experience today forced me to break away from those habits a bit. While attending the event, I needed to write down quotes and facts provided by the speakers to put into my story for the assignment, and it wasn't easy to keep up with what they were saying -- and as a result, I missed a lot of good direct quotes that I could only vaguely remember, ones that would have fit into my story perfectly.
Don't get me wrong -- I still managed to soak up some quality material -- but my story would be so much better if I had brought an extra pair of hands with me. Two of my classmates also attended, and I suppose I could have consulted them, but I know that in the future I won't always have other reporters around who would be willing to share -- so I decided to run on my own steam, instead, to better prepare myself for more difficult assignments.
I do have a strategy in mind, to improve my journalistic note-taking skills:
1. Develop my own system of abbreviated writing.
...and...
2. Practice it everyday until it starts to slip into my everyday speech.
(Hmm, sounds a bit like Newspeak.)
I figure I can probably practice by watching news stories on TV that will run several times afterwards in later broadcasts, taking notes on them, and then comparing my notes with what comes back. Or, I could just start popping movies into my DVD player, watching and taking notes/direct quotes from them, and then watching them again for comparison.
Despite the fact that I felt slightly shaken (not stirred) earlier, I think this is a problem that I can bring under my control with dedicated effort.
While googling various words for a homework assignment tonight, I came across something neat: a news story already broken down into six of the "Seven Wonders of the Journalism World."
Who?, What, When?, Where?, How?, and Why? are all represented in the story, but the So-what? question isn't there, unfortunately -- nonetheless, I thought that this was excellent proof that those six questions really are as important to journalists as textbooks claim.
Check it out, my fellow Newswriting students.
When I first signed up for the New Media Journalism major here at Seton Hill University near the end of my freshman year, I was worried that my lack of prior experience in the field of journalism would put me behind most of the other journalism students.
Today in Dr. Jerz's Newswriting course, however, an activity which required me to interview other students in the class helped me realize that I may have more talent for journalism than I had first thought.
I was surprised how easily the questions came to mind while I was speaking with the classmates I interviewed, and how much fun it was to dig up interesting facts from their past or to get them to describe other aspects of their lifestyle and educational aspirations.
Since my main focus is photo-journalism, I don't often get the chance to do investigative reporting. As I gain more experience, skills, and general knowledge from the newswriting course, however, I hope to take advantage of the multiple writing opportunities provided by my work for the Setonian, as well as a possible journalistic-writing-related internship in the future.
It's been a long, tiring spring semester of college at Seton Hill University, but I've had a lot of fun improving my critical reading and writing skills in Dr. Dennis G. Jerz' Introduction to Literary Study course. My weblog has served as a useful platform-medium for this growth, and I am grateful that I have had so many opportunities to look closely at challenging texts, arguments, and ideas here on BZ.
The following entries are those which best demonstrate my achievements as a literary blogger since the last blog portfolio.
Continue reading "Below Zero - Blog Portfolio #2 - Spring 2005" »
Reading Margaret Edson's play, W;t, brought to mind some of the things that I had mentioned in my personal essay at the beginning of this semester in EL 150. I wrote a lot about the power of language:
I cherish each story [that I read] as a personal and private experience that is wholly my own ... When a friend of mine first suggested that I read Terry Goodkind's novel, Stone of Tears, I could not quite understand why she seemed so enthralled by it ... [But] I knew as soon as I finished it that I had stumbled upon "modern magic," in the form of literature ... nowadays I seek to become an author myself, because I want to learn how to use this magic, how to shape people's lives and emotions with the written word.
In Edson's play, she carefully alludes to this power through Vivian's voice.
For instance, in the flashback scene where Vivian is speaking to her father, she says that "The little bunnies in the picture are asleep ... because of soporific!" (43). This is important to note; the bunnies are not asleep because of the lettuce -- according to Vivian, it is because of the word, soporific. Immediately after that, Vivian comes back to the present time, and mentions that "The illustration had bore out the meaning of the word, just as he [her father] had explained it. At the time, it seemed like magic" (43).
This connects back to what I had written about in my personal essay: language has incredible power. All you have to do is say one word, and you can cause thousands of images and sensations to pass through someone's mind. Say "summer," and most folks can't help but think of beaches, oceans, heat, rain, ice cream, blue skies, vacation memories, or any number of other things.
Say a "more powerful" word -- like "insidious" -- and the effect is even greater. Dr. Kelekian does so in the play, causing Vivian to reflect upon the meaning of "insidious" that she can relate to the most: that relating to treachery (7-8). This is another aspect of the power of language; it can mean something different to everyone, and the meaning usually changes according to the experiences of the individual. The doctor in this scene only thinks of "insidious" as meaning "undetectable," while Vivian -- a John-Donne-poetry critic -- thinks immediately of a darker, more sinister meaning.
On Monday of this week, we did a sort of "classroom reflections" discussion in my Introduction to Literary Study course.
I was surprised to hear some of the thoughts of my peers; they were open, honest, and direct, and they all provided some great personal feedback on the material we covered this year. I was particularly glad to find out that I wasn't the only one who had trouble keeping up with assignments in the last few weeks -- it seemed like almost everyone in class had something to say about the fact that we had to read a 500-page novel and then complete a term paper, back-to-back.
As for myself -- I reflected to the class upon the activity that helped me the most with the term paper, at Dr. Jerz' request. However, I also had some other thoughts that I didn't get to share:
- I felt that the blogging assignments for the class seemed to become less and less prominent towards the end of the semester, which was a little disappointing; I love blogging, especially when I feel that I can shine a light on some things that might otherwise remain in the dark.
- I much prefer blogging chunks of informal text and discussing them with peers to writing academic papers which I never get to share with the class as a whole -- that's why I enjoyed the set-up of the term paper peer reviews and oral presentations so much. Those activities gave me a chance to hear what came to others' minds while reading my paper -- others who actually read the texts I wrote about, rather than random family members or friends who knew next to nothing about the novel I analyzed.
- The résumé activity was a real eye-opener, and I would definitely suggest that any other freshman student who hasn't compiled a résumé yet should definitely get around to it now.
- It seemed like many of the assignments that we turned in to our professor didn't get back to us for weeks or even months at a time; I believe that thoughtful written feedback from a professor is extremely useful, and I would have liked to have received a lot more of it throughout this semester.
For my term paper in Intro. to Literary Study, I decided to examine Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.
[This entry is the launching point for an in-class presentation.]
In Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, Nell's quest to overcome Hackworth, the Alchemist, symbolizes the reconciliation of the Neo-Victorians' technological prowess with a newfound form of physical expression that is destined to save them from the ambitions of the "Coyote King". "Neo-Queen Nell" is the key to unlocking the real potential of the Neo-Victorians' knowledge -- and if Nell is the key, the lock is the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.
Consider, for instance, the ongoing quest in which Nell participates throughout the novel; she continually learns skills which were programmed into the Primer by Hackworth -- a Neo-Victorian, himself -- and then discovers how to apply those skills to situations in the real world. Nell is affected much more profoundly by the influence of the Primer than any of the other girls who are given copies; this is because she was exposed to all of the dangers of reality during her studies, as opposed to the other girls, who never experienced all of the same hardships. The other girls were already members of the Neo-Victorian phyle to begin with -- or, in the case of the girls on Dr. X's ship, kept in isolation -- and so they were sheltered and protected from the influence of outsiders similar to those whom Nell came into contact with (the bully on the playground, Burt, and other such characters come to mind).
Nell, a member of what is presumably the lowest class of society in the beginning of her story, rises from her humble beginnings to become a member of the Neo-Victorian elite due to the challenges that she faces along the way -- both in the Primer and in the real world -- which ensures that she gets the full benefits of the Primer and, consequently, the vast expanse of "forbidden" knowledge that inspires Hackworth and Lorde Finkle-McGraw to create it in the first place. The story of the Primer is dark for a reason -- it reflects the evils present in society beyond the boundaries of the Neo-Victorian phyle. This environment is the battleground upon which Nell and Hackworth finally meet in epic conflict; Nell is destined to preserve the relatively naive and pure ways of the Neo-Victorians by putting an end to Hackworth's attempts at corruption, his attempts to break down the barriers between Neo-Victorian society and the rest of the world (indeed, if there is one character who can be most closely related to the trickster myth and to Nell's Peter Rabbit doll -- the one that often lies -- it is Hackworth).
On another level, I wonder if this struggle between Nell and Hackworth could also symbolize the struggle between the Western and Eastern cultures of our world. The passage which most clearly alludes to this describes Hackworth's journey through China, immediately after Nell's "triumph" over King Coyote in the Primer:
... as the day went on, he [Hackworth] truly did approach the limit of the city and kept riding anyway toward the west, and it became evident then that he was a madman and the people in the streets looked at him with awe and got out of his way. Bicycles and pedestrians became less common, replaced by heavier and faster military traffic. (Stephenson 450)
The mention of "military traffic" almost seems to point specifically to the United States and its modern tendency to dominate Eastern countries with military force. It seems likely that Stephenson may have been making observations about the actual struggle between different societies in our own world, and then creating struggles in his novel that run parallel to them.
I couldn't help but think momentarily of one of my favorite bands, Muse, while reading N. Katherine Hayles academic article about Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. The article, Is Utopia Obsolete?, asks a question that seems to strike at the heart of the same issue Muse was addressing with their "Absolution" album. Of course, the connection is minor, but it made me more apt to think a bit about the larger issue at hand.
Near the end of her article, Hayles states the following:
... all of us ... can no longer afford to laugh at the idea that danger is an illusion and nature is impotent; we can no longer afford to believe that the actions of the dominators [humans] will not cycle through the system to affect them as well. (139)
Here are some noteworthy lyrics from Muse's "Falling Away With You":
Watching the fantasies decay
Nothing will ever stay the same
...
All of the hopes we cherished fade
The important parallel is in the underlying message.
Hayles seems to be arguing that humanity can never achieve the creation and maintenance of a true utopia, because that would require the establishment of absolute control over everything, as well as permanent human goals (something we will never be capable of; human beings can never make up their minds about what they want, and everyone has different tastes, all the time, so no perfect "utopia" could ever be successful from everyone's perspectives). Hayles is pointing out that instead of trying to fool ourselves into believing illusions, we must learn to accept reality as it is; she cites the word "mutopia" from another author, a word which essentially sums up this same argument -- a "utopia" must be mutable, or changeable, because humans themselves are not a consistent, uniform whole.
The lyrics, too, express this idea -- they express how humanity's fantasies and hopes are always changing or fading, being replaced by other goals or dreams.
I think one of the other important ideas outlined in both the article and the album is that humanity prefers to settle for "good enough" instead of striving for perfection -- more proof that utopia is obsolete. Think about it; we often accept our limitations and give up after we have "done our best," even if that means we don't "win" -- we promote our own imperfection.
Taking a closer look at the article itself, I would question Hayles implied assertion that a utopian society would have to be based upon the notion of liberal humanism -- "the belief that every person has the right to own themself and their own labor" (134). As she mentions earlier in the article, that may be true for Western society -- but what about other cultures in which the individual is practically inseparable from the community? Consider some sort of tribe of natives living out in the wilderness in some part of the world, who divide tasks up according to "who does what best," pooling all of their resources together; in such a society, the people would probably consider isolationism and individual responsibility for oneself dystopian.
Hayles seems to brush past this point in the following paragraph...
Already destabilized by cartographic indeterminacy, utopian boundaries are further subverted by the dynamic interplay between large and very small. On a macroscale geography is one thing, and on a nanoscale another thing entirely. (Hayles 135)
... But she does not really address the issue of "macroscale geography" in depth.
In addition, I would venture to say that in the novel itself, the different "nation-states" -- New Atlantis, the Celestial Kingdom, the Coastal Republic, etc. -- would have different ideas about utopian society. The Neo-Victorians, for instance, feel that old-fashioned propriety of the Victorian age of the past is a necessity -- while the Confucianists of Judge Fang's territory believe that their own Chinese heritage and customs must be preserved (Dr. X has especially strong beliefs about this).
Of course, the idea of a "mutopia" is still prevalent for all cultures presented in the novel, in my opinion, as demonstrated by a passage in The Diamond Age:
There was a Chinese belief that demons liked to travel only in straight lines ... from the point of view of most people ... all of that straightness was suggestive of demonism; more natural and human was the ever-turning way, where you could never see round the next corner, and the overall plan could be understood only after lengthy mediation. (Stephenson 127)
One of the most significant, recurring themes that I have discovered in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, is the use of allusion to other popular works of literature. One such continual reference is quite obvious -- the parallels and perpendicularities (?) between the character of Miranda from Shakespeare's The Tempest and the Miranda character in Stephenson's novel.
While reading those sections that include Miranda, I noted a few important parts that seem to point to her similarities to and differences from Shakespeare's character, among other things. On page 298-299, during Miranda's night out with Carl Hollywood, Stephenson describes Carl as a very striking male figure who is capable of "holding her [Miranda]" in place merely with his presence. I think that the character, Carl, may be an allusion to the character of Ferdinand from Shakespeare's work. Stephenson also gives Miranda a line in which she says, "I'm not going to become a housewife who acts in her spare time" (299). I think this is Stephenson's way of playing around with the notion of a Miranda-like character who chooses to reject the traditional female roles that the parallel-Miranda from The Tempest chooses to accept.
Also significant, of course, is the final scene in which Nell saves Miranda from a terrible fate at the hands of the Drummers; Miranda was going to be a "sexual sacrifice," which is also related to the plot of The Tempest; in the play, the parallel-Miranda acted as a "sexual sacrifice" by allowing herself to be manipulated into a marriage to Ferdinand for the sake of protecting the peace between rivals.
Thomas C. Foster's HtRLLaP brought up some interesting points in the section entitled "Flights of Fancy."
I was especially struck by his description of flight in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon, because it reminded me of the class discussions that we had in my high school english class while reading that novel. We had discussed how Milkman realized that Pilate could fly, and a few of the other symbolic significances of flight in the novel, but we never touched on the fact that flight could stand for "spirit and love" (128).
I am also beginning to ponder the signicance of flight in Stephenson's novel -- more particularly, the airships that the Victorians use. I wonder if the ships could be symbolically implying that the Victorians enjoy freedom that none of the other phyles can.
One of the most striking themes repeatedly emphasized in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age is that of education. He seems to be advocating for a form of education that gives young children all of the factual, informational knowledge that they need as early as possible in their lives, and then allowing the rest of their teenage and adult lives to give them the proper experiences with applying all of that knowledge to real life.
[Unfinished entry; awaiting input from class discussion.]
Sections 16 and 17 in Thomas C. Foster's HTRLLAP explained the significant changes in literature both before and after changes to the censorship laws of the United States went into effect (around 1965, according to Foster).
Most of these changes were concerned with the explicit description of sex in literature; a taboo for many long years that affected writers' works. They wrote mostly implicit descriptions or indicators of sexual content before the changes took place; however, since then, sexual content has become a widespread, useful symbolic tool.
I think one of the most powerful uses of that tool comes from delivering what is unexpected. Sex is traditionally about love and emotional connections, which is the common image that readers expect to find in their literature; however, sexual content that strays from this norm (some of which Foster describes) hooks the reader even more powerfully, horrifying or shocking him or her by striking a few of those deeper, darker chords in human nature.
I've been reading reviews of Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from some of my peers, and I'm somewhat shocked; it seems like many of them hated what they've read so far (take Evan and Vanessa, for example).
I, on the other hand, adore this novel; it has already taken a place on my list of literary favorites, and I'm not even finished reading it yet.
Reading Anthony Clarvoe's Pick Up Ax, I was surprised and delighted by the style of the play. Judging only from a quick glance at the front cover of my copy, I expected it to be much more solemn; everything is black-and-white, and one of the actors (who is sitting in front of a computer) seems sort of lifeless.
Of course, I couldn't overlook the use of rock music in the play, as I am an avid fan of the genre; I can only imagine how cool it would be to "air-guitar savagely" on stage as a part of acting out a character's role (70). Amanda pointed out on her blog that she believes the use of songs causes Clarvoe to "lose creative control" of the emotional impact of the play upon the audience. I disagree; although everyone in the audience may make different emotional connections to or interpretations of the music, they aren't the immediate focus of the sounds they hear--the actors are the ones whose moods are supposed to be reflected in the songs. This further emphasizes the genius of the invention called the "mood room" and an important aspect of its design: it is designed to react to only one person's mood swings at a time. The characters, too, mention this limitation, when Brian suggests that Keith should make a much grander version of the mood room which could mix reactions to emotions of multiple people. The music is a reaction to the emotion of a single character on stage, rather than anyone in the audience.
Somehow, I was not surprised by the ending of the play. It seemed obvious to me that Keith was hiding something throughout its course; he seemed to be encouraging Brian to view him as incompetent and helpless at certain key points in the dialogue. Basically, it was as if he kept saying, "Yeah, I'm not very good with politics or people; I design things for other people, but I can't sell these things to 'em. That's your job, Brian; I need you to handle all the administrative stuff." Unfortunately for him, Brian believed the act. Ironic, that; an actor who was acting out a character's acting.
Dr. Dennis G. Jerz' text, Technology in American Drama, 1920-1950: Soul and Society in the Age of the Machine provides some interesting background information on the play and other works of drama or literature which puts them all in a better historical context than I could on my own.
I found the passage about Henry Ford and his business practices in the 1920's to be both surprising and enlightening. I never knew that Ford was actually against the idea of producing stylish, colored cars; as I was reading this, I found myself applying it to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (125). In that novel, Henry Ford (though long dead) is revered as a god, and society is incredibly mechanical (sex is reduced to nothing more than a diversion of pleasure, childbirth is made taboo, and human beings are "manufactured"). Most of the characters in the book feel that such things as fidelity, monogamy, and lasting emotion, some of the "colorings" of live and love, have no real value--in the same way that Ford felt that such things as colors for cars were "superfluous" (125).
The next passage, which describes Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse and its impact upon Miller's Death of a Salesman, demonstrates the role of the subconscious in the playwright's work. It's strange that Miller used the name Loman in the play on instinct, only to discover later that he had picked it up from Lang's work. I can relate to Miller's experience, because I too have sometimes had a subconscious tendency to use details in my poetry that have more meaning attached to them than I originally thought.
According to Charley, one of the characters in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, "The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell" (97).
I think that line sums up the basic theme of the play, and ties in well with the end of the plot. In the conclusion, Willy Loman "sells" his life for his family's sake by committing suicide in the hopes that his life insurance will save them from financial ruin.
Aside from finding interest in this tidbit, I was particularly surprised by the attitude towards women presented throughout the play; it seems that they are continually shushed or overlooked by the men, yet they actually seem genuinely okay with it.
I suppose that this may reflect the gender attitudes of the time period in which the play takes place (supposedly in the 40's or 50's), and Miller's general focus on realism; he presents a very convincing portrait of a dysfunctional family.
I'm so accustomed to works of literature or drama that challenge conventional roles, traditions, and ideas that I am sometimes caught off guard by works that don't try to romanticize the "quest of the unconventional."
Nonetheless, I also noticed that there is at least one female character in the play that is placed in a role of power: "The Woman." She has a sort of hold over Willy, and he seems to be stunned by the fact that she "chose" him. Even though Miller doesn't elaborate too much on Willy's true feelings for The Woman, he does show her effect on him several times in the play: his memory of his affair with her both shames and haunts him, symbolized by her laughing in the background. The affair also has a deep affect on Willy's relationship with his son, Biff, and causes a great deal of tension between them that seems unresolved by the end of the play.
Altogether, I was impressed by Miller's use of theme and symbolism in Death of a Salesman, and by my ability to pinpoint and follow along with examples of each as I read (though I can't really represent that here, I really was amazed by how many details I was picking out of the story).
I recently took The Commonly Confused Words Test at OKCupid!, and here are my results.
While rereading James McBride's The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, I was almost immediately reminded of Tony Morrison's Song of Solomon.
The main characters in both books feel a certain emptiness in their lives due to the fact that they know so little about their true family history, and they both go on journies of discovery. There are even some parallels between the two novels with respect to themes and the organization of the plots of each.
In class, we discussed several things:
- Whether or not it's a cop-out to say, "Can't we all just get along?" (or something similar)
- Human values cannot be measured, but human civil liberties can
- Different levels of prejudice
The first topic was inspired by Moira's entry, and it lead to a discussion of how we can use evidence to support our claims about race and prejudice. For instance, rather than simply saying that people of all races are practically the same, we should use facts to back up that claim.
The second topic was brought up by Dr. Jerz' reflection on some of Evan's thoughtful comments in class. I think that Dr. Jerz made a good point, because it is hard to measure human values; however, I don't think it's impossible. There are moral standards that generally all human beings agree upon (such as the idea that killing innocents is wrong). Although other things, such as prejudice due to race, may affect the way people treat one another, we are much more tolerant of each other now than we were in the past; in that sense, I think that a relative measure of our past and present values shows we've made some progress.
Finally, someone brought up the topic of "Kramer's 3 Levels of Prejudice" in class; I haven't seen them yet, but I'll do a little more research on my own time and see what I can come up with. Or, if you're the classmate who mentioned this, I'd appreciate any details you could provide (I don't remember who brought it up, which is why I ask).
Now, I end with a silly little quote I couldn't help but jot down in my notes:
"You couldn't throw a stick without hitting a quote from Thomas Jefferson." - Dennis G. Jerz, talking about his education at the University of Virginia (?)
I was surprised to find a section on emoticons in Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves, though I'm glad that she addressed them; I actually learned a few things.
I, like most students my age, have seen emoticons on the internet at one time or another; actually, I've seen an excess of them, because of Neverwinter Nights (NWN). Playing that game, you see people use them all the time (though at the server where I used to play, they started to go out of style just before I stopped playing). It's kind of funny, really, because people who use them are usually not taken seriously; they're the unofficial "baby talk" of the game on most servers.
What did I learn, if I have already been exposed to them so much?
I learned the meanings of a few new ones. For instance, I never knew that :~/ was to express a "mixed up" emotion, or that <:-) was meant to say "dunce". When I see smilies or other emoticons, I try to read it like I would read a real person's face, so I can usually pick out happy/sad/angry faces; on the other hand, it's hard to define what "mixed up" looks like on a person's face, so I never knew it had an emoticon standard.
What about you? Ever run into any wild and crazy emoticons that you couldn't decipher?
<('.'<)
<( '.' )>
(>'.')>
I'm still not quite sure why, but I feel that the ending of Katherine Mansfield's The Garden Party (included in Chapter 27 of Thomas C. Foster's HtRLLaP) leaves something to be desired. It seemed incomplete to me, as I was hoping to see a more dramatic change of character in Laura; perhaps I'm just mad that she ended up becoming somewhat of a "high society" conformist.
I thought it particularly ironic when Laura reflects that her isolation from people like the workmen is
"... all the fault ... of these absurd class distinctions. Well, for her [Laura's] part, she didn't feel them. Not a bit, not an atom ..." (Foster 248).
Despite her conscious recognition and apparent rejection of class differences, I feel that she is not quite as immune to them as she believes herself to be. Only a page earlier, the narrator mentions that Laura is not sure if the workmen's way of speaking to her is "quite respectful" enough (Foster 247).
I was also a bit annoyed by the constant "happy-go-lucky" language and attitude presented in the story, though I can understand why Mansfield wrote in such a manner; the style she used placed a lot of emphasis on the garden party and the Sheridan's home as a peaceful, joyous place, which made the contrast with the lower-class neighborhood at the bottom of the hill much stronger.
Looking over the critical reading analysis that Diane (one of Foster's associates) wrote, I was impressed most by her ability to make every piece of her argument fit into place perfectly, creating a strong flow from start to finish. That is the kind of academic writing that I would like to learn to do more often, because it often seems to me that my greatest weakness in writing academic papers is my ability to organize the information.
Altogether, I'm pleased that Foster's book came to a conclusion with a pace and tone that matched those found in the rest of the chapters. I would definitely like to see this guy write a few longer texts about literature in the future.
While reading some more of Lynne Truss' Eats, Shoots and Leaves, I found a little passage that I really enjoyed; in it, she talks about the rhythm that punctuation creates in sentences, and gives a great example:
Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, like this, UP, for hours if necessary, UP, like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots ... you stop.
It's neat how she demonstrated her point so effectively, especially towards the end of that sentence, where she's talking about running out of steam and then hitting a "full stop" (her British lingo for a "period").
Lynne Truss mentions the infamous "Oxford comma" in her book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a mark of the English language which I have always cherished.
Unfortunately, it seems to me like few of the people I know share my love for this sneaky sentence-stopper. Even the student-produced newspaper for Seton Hill University, the Setonian, kicks this poor punctuation point to the curb, choosing to leave nothing but open space and the word 'and' between the last two items of a comma-cut list.
I'm not sure what anyone could have against the poor little Oxford; maybe most people were just never given enough exposure to it early on in their grammar studies. I wonder if it is our education or our personal taste that lead us to choose one method of punctuation over the other... Or perhaps both?
What do you think? Do you punctuate according to the ways you were taught, or did you develop your writing style on your own? Were you influenced by a particular teacher or author who preferred a style that you are for or against?
Lynne Truss, in her NY Times bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves, mentions a poll she took outside of a theatre, which essentially asked
Do you fully punctuate text messages?
Out of curiousity, I'd like to extend the question to all of my fellow bloggers. So, how about it? Do you find yourself meticulously placing commas, periods, and other literary wonders in your instant messages? Or do you streamline everything you write, making "instant messaging" as close to instantaneous as possible? Maybe you don't use instant messages at all, but even if you do, here's another question: do you fully punctuate elsewhere on the net (blogs, e-mails, etc.)?
Harold Bloom asks in his academic article, "The Tempest":
Why does Shakespeare make Prospero so cold?
Prospero, cold? Bloom must have missed or conveniently overlooked some important details in the play.
Lorrie Jerrell Leininger, in her academic article "The Miranda Trap: Sexism and Racism in Shakespeare's Tempest," points out one of my favorite interpretations of the play: the allegorical Christian one.
Throughout the past several months, both my weblog and I have undergone some changes: Below Zero has become a much more diverse collection of interconnected entries, and I have matured as a thinker, a writer, and a blogger. While I had trouble getting back on my feet in January, I have come a long way, and I feel my blog has actually started to help me reach towards one of my most challenging goals: to overcome my problem with procrastination. Dr. Dennis G. Jerz' Intro. to Literary Study course at Seton Hill University has forced me to set a blogging schedule for myself, and I am both pleased and satisfied with the results.
Continue reading "Below Zero - Blog Portfolio #1 - Spring 2005" »
Barbara Fuchs' academic article "Conquering Islands: Contextualizing The Tempest" is definitely more dense and informative than Dean Ebner's article. She sets out not only to prove a point, but to educate her readers with portions of the history of colonization.
Dean Ebner, in his academic article "The Tempest: Rebellion and the Ideal State," discusses the general notion of Christian ethics throughout the play with some convincing, illustrative examples, though he seems to stumble a bit in some places.
Well, unfortunately, I'm forced to stay up late again to get this blogging done... I read the articles earlier today, but I really got stuck working on something else for a bit earlier this evening.
Anyways, time for some article reviews. Oh, and instead of focusing only on their content in relation to the play, I'm also looking at their relative credibility as sources for a research paper (since we're writing an essay on The Tempest right now).
While reviewing David N. Beauregard's essay, New light on Shakespeare's Catholicism: Prospero's epilogue in The Tempest, along with Evan's blog entry on the same topic, I came up with an idea of my own:
What if Prospero's epilogue speech is in fact a metaphorical plea from God?
Sounds far-fetched, I know. Let me explain.
Continue reading "The Tempest's Epilogue - A plea from God?" »
At last, I have finished Shakespeare's (final?) masterpiece. I've read it before, but I'm glad I got a chance to do so again. While I could give another summary and stuff, I think it much more appealing to look at Shakespeare's "farewell" to his theatrical art, which is found embedded in the play.
So, without further ado...
Another cold and snowy winter's night;
it could not chase away the warmth of life.
I sail'd upon a frozen sea, hand'ling
cargo which sought to sink. I dared not let
it fall away, so precious 'twas within
my bay. A compass pointed t'ward the sun;
our voyage there has just begun. Behind
we leave our shatter'd port, and now we take
the water's course. The rigging should now tight
be made; together bound, the future's made.
Thomas C. Foster, who has brought many enlightening points of literature to my attention via his text, has done it again.
While I was reading his bit about physical disfiguration in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I realized that one of my favorite television shows does exactly what he describes: it uses a character's physical deformity to create a symbolic contrast with his personality.
I'm always impressed by the amount of content Shakespeare was able to stuff into his works. The Tempest is a great example: the plot at the heart of the story is simple enough, but the dialogue between the characters is crawling with witty humor, allusions, and smooth talk that would make even the coolest modern cat jealous.
So let's take a closer look.
Okay, let's see if I can connect Good Charlotte to an academic article. I'm taking a look at Pavlina Hacova's (pardon my lack of international characters) Love, Life, and Death in Coleridge's Poem "The Raven".
Here lies Death, victim of Pride and Time,
slave of both the short and tall,
who leaves behind Poison, War, and Sickness,
remembered by no one at all.
...
(John Donne's Death, be not proud was the inspiration for this little concept summarization. I got bored with writing regular responses.)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Raven was a nice taste of lighthearted poetry.
Shakespeare's Sonnet CXVI and Sonnet XVIII seem like typical examples of love poems. Considering that tomorrow is V-Day, I guess these selections are good choices.
To be honest, I was a bit relieved by Thomas C. Foster's assertion that it can take a writer several days to write a few pages which readers will get through in several minutes. That's the way it should be... Writers like myself put a lot of effort into our work when coming up with a dramatic story or a witty poem, and I think that we do it because we want to give our readers the best experience that we can.
I was really surprised by the similarities I noticed between T.S. Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock and me, while reading Eliot's poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops is now my favorite reading selection for EL 150 thus far. I typically don't read science fiction, but this story was definitely worth it. Its portrayal of a possible future for humanity seems almost like a prophecy.
Denise Askin's academic article on Flannery O'Connor's work in the realm of comedic literature made some good and interesting points about her style, but it also argued that "she distances the action comedically, barring emotion and engaging the intellect." I have to disagree, as I found plenty of reasons to get emotional in A Good Man is Hard to Find.
[rant]The assigned academic article on Jack London's The Call of the Wild was pretty nuts. No offense to Dr. Jerz, but I think the reader would have to be well-versed in pyschology to grasp most of the concepts it presented. I mean, I would read about 6 pages, stop, blink at my computer screen, puzzled, and then shrug, reading on, not really caring much about the details of what had been said (since I couldn't understand them, not even with a dictionary's help, though I tried). Now, I'm all for diverse studies that expose us to all kinds of research and such, but when it gets to the point where we're being force-fed ugly terms like "quasi-psychoanalytic register" (ka-ching?), it's not learning, it's just a brain drain. Hopefully future readings won't be as frustratingly dreary and mindless for me as this one was.[/rant]
Jack London's To Build A Fire has been mentioned at least several times before in my english classes, but I've never actually read it... I'm glad I was finally forced to, it was a good exercise in critical analysis, and a striking story besides.
Again, I have given first a general response to the story, and then gone into a little more depth, pulling out quotes to point out my discoveries and explain my thoughts.
Continue reading "Reading Between the Lines - To Build A Fire" »
As soon as I started reading Thomas C. Foster's HTRLLAP explanation of weather in literature, I knew what was coming... The things he discussed had been drilled into my head over and over again in AP English my senior year of high school.
Reading Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find proved to be the perfect opportunity for me to test out some of Thomas C. Foster's critical reading techniques.
After reading the story once, I went back and reread it again, pulling out interesting quotes which seemed to have a deeper meaning to me... I summarized some of my thoughts on them below, but first, time for a general response.
Continue reading "Reading Between the Lines - A Good Man is Hard to Find" »
In HTRLLAP, Foster notes in his section on violence in literature that story (singular because, he argues they are all part of one whole) often emphasizes how insignificant human life unless it has some greater meaning attached to it.
According to Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor (an excellent guide for literature courses), "stories grow out of other stories" (32). I have to agree, because nearly every book, poem, play, or other work of literature that I have read has made reference to at least one other piece.
A recent article on the Wired News website examined the latest development in the Wikiworld: Wikinews, a hybrid which hopes to combine the format of Wikipedia with the writing style of journalism.
After reading Charles Lowe’s and Terra William’s essay, Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom, I found myself wanting to step back, take a look at the Writing for the Internet course and my weblog, and see if any of the points made in the essay could apply to my own public web writing experiences. Surprisingly enough, most, if not all of them, do.
Steve Himmer’s essay, The Labyrinth Unbound: Weblogs as Literature, made me realize that weblogs are indeed different from most other types of literature because they can be interconnected with countless other works that enable the reader to take any one of a limitless number of paths through the text.
Continue reading "An Epic Quest in the Literary Labyrinth" »
Yeah, you guessed it, I went ahead and compiled another list of links to some of the most interesting entries for the weblog portfolio. (Oh, and don't be discouraged by the title, I was trying to make it attention-grabbing. :P )
Continue reading "WFTI - Weblog Portfolio #2 - The Complete Idiot's Guide" »
Since I already took a look at the gender issue in the realm of interactive fiction, I thought it would make sense to take a quick look at the gender issue in blogs as well.
Is the internet leading to less violent disputes in our global village?
How far is too far in the realm of online deception?
This is essentially a list of links to all of the entries on my weblog and all the comments I made on others' weblogs that I have chosen to include in my second portfolio for Dr. Jerz' Writing for the Internet course. These entries/comments are those that I feel best demonstrate my achievements and growth as a blogger.
Continue reading "My Weblog Portfolio #2 - What's Included" »
According to interactive fiction enthusiast Doug Atkinson, "there are a few fundamentals of identity that every (human) character must have...and one of them is gender."
Does interactive fiction really require gender identity to be enjoyable? Successful? Does this reflect modern interests?
After reading Dr. Jerz' entry about blogging here at SHU, I started to ponder my own distinction between two types of blogging: as a profession or as a hobby.
The classroom discussion today revolved mostly around the similarities and differences between blogs and reality television.
Continue reading "Blogs vs. Reality TV - Guidelines vs. Rules" »
After reading Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd's article about social blogs, I can't help but feel that they need to change.
On Wednesday, in WFTI, Dr. Jerz' absence meant turning over control of the class to Amanda. So, how'd it go, you ask? Well...
Recently, while scanning everyone's weblogs for new content to comment on, I came across an entry in Tim's blog that describes his feelings on the WFTI course itself. It got me to thinking -- what are my feelings on the course? On the things we've learned about? For that matter, what are my other peers' feelings?
So go ahead and comment! Even if you aren't in the class now and took it during a previous semester, please feel free to give me/us your input. What are your feelings on WFTI?
Continue reading "Writing for the Internet - What do you think?" »
At the beginning of the semester, Valerie gave a presentation on customizing weblogs and helped rekindle my interest in HTML.
After glancing over the contents of the Hot Text: Web Writing That Works book again, I found that I was making a profound connection between the "objects" of web design that Jonathan and Lisa Price mention and the objects of an interactive fiction game.
It seems to me that more and more games out there are depending upon cliché plot devices to "sell, sell, sell," a lot like the conventions that dominate popular fiction in books and other media.
Continue reading "What's the story? - Predictable Patterns in Popular Culture" »
Having finished reading Rebecca Blood's The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog, I've decided to discuss some of the information she gives on the "etiquette" and "ethics" of weblogs, because all bloggers could benefit from it.
Continue reading "The Weblog Handbook - The Etiquette and Ethics of Blogs" »
While scanning through the stuff on Dr. Jerz' weblogs, I came across a web page that I remembered him discussing with us in class... A guy who used to be a CEO at a dot-com organization ended up working at McDonald's instead.
Continue reading "A dot-com to McDonald's? Say it isn't so!" »
After maintaining my weblog here at SHU for over a month, I feel I have come a long way from my first blogging experiences. Here, I want to reflect a bit on how I thought then, and how I think now.
I continue to work on my Interactive Fiction game, and I have come to realize the presence of a barrier in my work.
Continue reading "Interactive Fiction - Business or pleasure?" »
Now that I have had practice with the techniques discussed in Crawford Kilian's Writing for the Web here on my blog, I've done a little reflecting on how his information has enabled my weblog to grow and improve.
The following reflections are my thoughts on how two of the chapters in this book by Jonathan and Lisa Price will help me directly with my individual project and my group project.
Here is a copy of my project proposal for an interactive fiction game which places the player in SHU. : )
Continue reading "Below Zero IF! - Individual Project Proposal" »
As part of a fun assignment for Dr. Jerz' Writing for the Internet course, I was introduced to the "Way of the Wiki."
I, like practically everyone else on the Internet, have had my fair share of encounters with pop-ups caused by things like spyware and adware. I recently came across an article that suggests Microsoft was looking to fix this problem, but it seems their fix isn't working for my computer, and I think I may know why.
I am completely new to the culture of weblogs. I have, however, spent a decent amount of time posting regularly on traditional forums. They typically allowed a wide variety of topics; anything from computer gaming to philosophical pursuits.
Although I have only just begun to seek out and review weblogs, I have already discovered that they are also geared towards nearly all audiences and all interests.
Two types of weblogs that particularly receive a great deal of attention and are increasingly useful in our world today are pundit blogs and edu-blogs.
So what exactly are they?
Pundit blogs typically deal with the realm of politics (in fact, the word pundit often refers to a person who has authority over others, much like how political figures have power over their communities or states or how more “professional” bloggers can have a profound effect on the opinions of those less-versed in politics).
Edu-blogs typically deal with the realm of education (meaning, their purpose is to aid in education, not simply discuss the topic of education itself).
And why are these types of blogs so important?
Pundit blogs provide an easy-to-use and easily-accessed means of sorting out the facts in the world of politics, which is often fraught with deception and misunderstanding. They also allow those people who have a lot of experience with and knowledge of politics to inform the generally ill-informed public. One of the most popular pundit blogs, Instapundit, belongs to Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee. One visit to his site will show just how dedicated he is to the topic; the frequency of his comments is incredible.
If you are interested in learning more about how to write like a pundit for weblogs, check out O’Reilly Net’s list of tips.
Edu-blogs, on the other hand, are extremely effective at giving students, teachers, or even just curious and inquisitive folks a similar way to communicate their ideas and knowledge. Weblogg-ed is an excellent example of how useful edu-blogs can be, and the link provided leads to a page which explains in further detail just how helpful weblogs can be for the purpose of education. Edu-blogs also make education in the classroom supported by online activities a snap. A good example of this is Dr. Jerz’s weblog for this class, which simplifies and streamlines the “administrative” portion of the course and packs it all into a location which we can reach from home or dorm rooms, at any time of the day.
Altogether, pundit blogs and edu-blogs continue to have a growing impact upon our lives, both online and offline. It can only be expected that their impact upon politics and education will extend far beyond just blogging.
This is essentially a list of links to all of the entries on my weblog and all the comments I made on others' weblogs that I have chosen to include in my portfolio for Dr. Jerz' Writing for the Internet course. These entries/comments are those that I feel best demonstrate my achievements and growth as a blogger.
This entry is intended for use by all of my coursemates from Dr. Jerz' Writing for the Internet class. If you are in this class, PLEASE READ this entry.
Remember that Weblog Portfolio that's due Oct. 15? Well, in order to make things easier on all of us, I am attempting to set up some kind of correspondence so we can start gathering material for the portfolio.
Continue reading "Attention WFTI (Jerz) Students - Weblog Portfolio - Important!" »