Both the end and the beginning...

14 weeks is both an eternity and a heartbeat.  A lot can happen in this time frame and a lot has happened.  The semester started in January when we were buried in snow but excited for a clean slate and a new beginning.  However, the semester soon lost its novelty as we trudge through the snow day after day, devoting myself to school and running.  I yearned for spring break and a welcome reprieve from the daily bombardment of information.  After spring break I returned ready for outdoor track and the home stretch of the semester.  However, I yet again forgot how fast the year goes after spring break.  It is now April 14^th and I am looking at my dwindling academic calendar than is crammed with finals, papers, and presentations. 

            How do I identify myself 14 weeks after that first blog post?  I am the same person but with more experiences, knowledge, and a slightly different perspective.  I have been challenged beyond what I thought was possible this semester and had several weeks in which I was waiting for everything to fall to pieces around me.  It has been a great growing semester through classes, research, and running.  I have (almost) conquered orgo II and the corresponding eternal lab, carried out a research project that I was sure would fall through, scored at the Big Ten meet, run a 10k on the track, and revolutionized my paradigm of how writing does and should function in college.  I now can legitimately identify myself as a researcher, a valued member of the track team, and a big picture thinker.

            As a writer, I have developed more confidence and a new perspective on where I ultimately belong as a writer in my career.  As I discussed in my last post, I hope to use writing as a constant challenge and a link between academia and the public.  Although I briefly considered this concept previously, I have put a lot of thought into the communication gap in the last 14 weeks.  I believe that I will always read and write scientific writing differently as I consider the intended audience and implications of the article.  I hope that I won’t forget the ideas that I have explored in this course and revert back to my hopes of being a introverted lab rat.  I think there is much more potential for me to occupy in the mysterious chasm that currently exists between academia and “real life.”

So 14 weeks later, the same person yet not.  I would say this is the end of  an intriguing journey for closure on the semester, but ultimately it is not even close.  The end of one journey is nothing but the beginning of the next. So here’s to the beginning of a new intriguing journey.

Where to go from here?

It is at this point in our lives that our future is possibly the most uncertain.  Although life is never predictable, we often have an idea of where we are heading and how we will get there.  However, as undergraduate students, we are at the crossroads of our lives.  Where we go after college will inevitably influence our careers and our lives.  Some of us know where we want to go and what we want to do whether it be medicine, law, engineering, or business. However, many of us don’t know where we will be a year out of graduation.  This is a scary yet exhilarating concept. 

Right now my plan is go to medical school or some type of graduate program for physiology or neuroscience.  I really want to enter either the medical field or academia. Coming into college, I was set on going into research.  I couldn’t see myself as a doctor and loved the idea of being a lab rat and publishing articles.  However, after my experiences so far in college, I’m not sure that that is where I want to be.  I enjoy writing and consider myself a strong writer but I don’t like the system of churning out articles for pension and teaching on the side. The writing skills that I would rely on would be dominated by technical and scientific writing.  Academia is almost a world of its own with a definite disconnect from reality that I have explored all semester.

My plans have recently evolved and as much as I am still intrigued by research, I want another dimension to my work.  I would like to become a doctor and balance clinical work with research.  I am intrigued by translational research and making research accessible to a broader audience through writing. This would require a different approach to writing. Instead of writing for a strictly scientific community, I would be reaching out to a community beyond academia.  This would be a much different challenge and require me to understand what I am trying to explain on a fundamental level in order to translate clearly. I think this is a challenge that  I am willing to take up and it would be very rewarding. 

Ultimately, I hope to find a career that I never stop learning or being challenged.  This is just my personality and I can’t really imagine being happy if I am not working hard and always being stimulated.  I think that responding to new genres and writing tasks will just be part of the challenge of constantly adapting and learning. 

Another post from the West Coast

 “Fame, fortune, wealth, glamour, and excitement.  The “City of Angels,” the land of the beautiful people, the leader in fashion, culture, and entertainment.  Welcome to Los Angeles, California, one of the biggest and most celebrated cities in the United States.”

Stanford one week, UCLA two weeks later.  I have to thank the football team for our extensive travel schedule because women’s track and field definitely doesn’t bring in a lot of money.  I am currently in a hotel room four miles from UCLA and a few blocks from Sunset Boulevard.  Track trips like these seem almost surreal as we are swept away from our normal lives in Ann Arbor and suddenly find ourselves across the country, guests at these famed campuses.  

            I have been to Los Angeles twice before and it was nothing like I had expected.  Los Angeles and Hollywood is portrayed by the media by a magical town of celebrities and fame.  However, I find LA to be somewhat ridiculous and sad.  Sunset Boulevard is lined with huge mansions that are all surrounded by huge fences and coded gates.  Hollywood is a short strip of tourism bookended by a pretty shady neighborhood.  It is a world of extremes with the richest and the poorest people living in such close proximity of each other.  The media ultimately persuades us that Los Angeles is a perfect city of wealth and fame.  However, I feel that it is a city where celebrities lock themselves in their mansions to avoid the crazy tourists creeping on their houses and a city where the socioeconomic extremes are repulsive.

             This fits with our recent discussion of persuasion.  How do we have such an established perception of Los Angeles even if we haven’t been there?  The media has a huge persuasive influence on people’s perceptions through television, movies, and magazines.  Television and movies are powerful because they draw so heavily on the audience’s feelings, beliefs, desires, and interests.  Therefore, many types of popular media rely on pathos rather than logos.  Many fads and celebrities are not necessarily rational, but they are immensely popular because of the way they make people feel.   This is an ultimate reflection of the power of pathos. 

            I attempted to discuss this phenomenon of a culture shaped by the powerful effects of the media through my experience at Los Angeles in my first paper of freshman year.  The opening paragraph of this post is taken from the introduction of this paper.  My teacher destroyed my paper and my confidence in my writing ability.   However, I recently looked back on that paper and realized where she was coming from.  I was trying to discuss a topic that I wasn’t exactly sure where I stood on and my argument was had undeniable holes.  The narrative sections were descriptive but definitely high school writing.  Even after this paper, I believed that my teacher didn’t appreciate my style. However, now that I have a great deal more experience in college writing, I realize that she was right and my writing and understanding of argument have come a long way since then.   I found it fitting that one of my last blog posts should revisit this experience as a reflection of my progress in two years of college.

            However, I think that part of my struggle with that paper was how difficult this phenomenon is to discuss.  Even now, on my third trip to LA and with much more writing experience, I cannot capture the phenomenon that I experience when I come here.  I know what I want to say but have a hard time describing it, possibly because I am addressing an audience that is corrupted by the very idea I am trying to analyze. 

Perhaps this is an idea that is better considered on my own.   Or maybe this trip I should try to visit LA with an open mind and rethink my ideas.   However, the countless “Star Map” sales are difficult to ignore.  

Either way, the elitist Stanford wins hands down in my preference of west-coast schools.

Going back in time

            I have enjoyed perusing my early blog posts and having flashbacks to January when everything was so new and I was so worried about how this course and this semester would play out.  As I look back, I am pretty impressed with the quality of my first blogs.  They were definitely written with an informal tone and included quality thoughts on the topics we were reading about and discussing in class.  However, I feel like I tried to hard to make them too informal at first and my tone became more professional and sophisticated as the semester progressed. This is even apparent my blog titles- “Mature Reasoning is going extinct!” to "More complex than it seeems" and "A surreal world of perfection."  I think the biggest difference was the depth of my ideas and application to what I was interested in and curious about.  At first I would discuss the readings and my thoughts on them, but I eventually began to include ties to my research, other classes, and my own ideas. I found blogs to be much more enjoyable when I took up the challenge of finding my own angle to the blog prompt instead of passively regurgitating what we discussed in class.

I am proud of how my blogs progressed the idea of bridging the gap between academia and the general public.  I would consider this the major theme of my work this semester and it has made me more aware of this phenomenon and what should be done about it.  My blogs also evolved in respect to the audience I was addressing.   At first I tried very hard to maintain a blog that was not obviously written for a class.  I wanted it to be a credible and thoughtful blog instead of being an obvious online assignment that may turn readers off.  However, the specificity of the prompts made this very difficult and I eventually conceded and had to reveal my identity as an English student.  I still tried to keep it focused on my interests and ideas but it definitely developed overtones of academic writing. 

Finally, the way that I wrote my blogs evolved over the semester.  In the beginning, I would spend quite a bit of time writing and revising my blog posts.  However, through the semester, my blogs became more of an organized journal on a topic rather than a polished piece.  I know that this is the idea behind blogs, but at first it was difficult for me to publish posts that I didn’t feel like were up to my standards.  However, I believe my better ideas were in posts that I would do more writing and thinking than planning and revising such as my brainstorm about using blogs as a teaching and communication tool at the University.   

Ultimately, I would not change the way I set up my blog or my early blog posts.  I think the way my blog posts evolved is interesting and this progression is more important than having sophisticated blog posts from the beginning.  Overall, I think it was a valuable experience and introduction to a unique media form that I will use in the future.

An epiphany of another kind

I have recently come to several realizations, most of which are quite startling.  First of all, we only have twelve days of class left, three of which I will likely be traveling across the country to run.  In that time span I have a ridiculously long and frightening list of things I have to do. One of them is figure out my classes for next semester.  Until now I have pretty much known what I was going to take and scheduling was just a matter of fitting things together.  However, next year I have to take biochem, p-chem, and physics and the rest is a bit up in the air.  I think what I have been thinking about the most is how I am going to fill out my social science and humanities credits.  These are especially intriguing because I have not had a lot of time to explore other areas besides my major.  

There are so many choices, so many things that I want to learn and pursue but there is simply not enough time.  I would love to be fluent in a variety of discourses- not necessarily languages but I want to understand communities and spheres within the University.  I wish that time and homework were not limiting factors in the four valuable years we have here.  I am intrigued by science classes but sometimes I feel like they are just throwing information at you that could just as easily be learned independently.  I want to find classes that challenge me in more ways than memorization.  However, this is extremely difficult to accomplish by just looking at a course catalog.  The more I have thought about this university wide blog system, the more excited I get about it.  Several times when I have been class searching, I wished that I had a type of reference like that to really see into professors and classes.  However, this is not yet a reality so I am restricted to word of mouth and course descriptions.  But I will eventually decide and then inevitably change my mind the first week or two into the semester.  Because that seems to be how I operate.

Another possibly scary realization is that my time here is nearly halfway gone.  I can't believe how fast the last two years went.  When I am looking at my requirements for my major, I am shocked at how many grades fill my transcript.  In some ways, my time here has been all that I have imagined and more.  However, I am always searching for that extra dimension to my academic experience.  A dimension beyond sitting in a packed Chem 1800 furiously scribbling notes of aldols and hemiacetals.  A dimension beyond shallow group discussions that nobody really wants to have.  I am still looking, and I am hoping that the best is yet to come and my searching will yield discovery.

This is somewhat irrelevant and a bit of a tangent but I feel that it belongs in this blog if it belongs anywhere.  First of all, I love being a member of the University of Michigan cross country and track teams.  There is nothing quite like wearing the block M across the country and still hearing cheers of "Go Blue!"  Being a part of the team has enhanced my college experience but sometimes I feel like it sacrifices some of my academic potential.   I am constrained by practice time and traveling and a conservative course-load is somewhat necessary to retain sanity.  I know I could take more classes and spend more time learning if I didn't run.  Sometimes I think about this and it bothers me slightly, but I realize that being a part of this kind of team is a very unique opportunity.  It has allowed me to understand a discourse of a very different type, although not necessarily academic, it is valuable nevertheless.  Ultimately, maybe classes and homework are not the only way to understand discourses and other communities.  I think the most important part is to look for opportunities everywhere- in classes, dorms, teams, clubs- to expand your perspective and learn something.  As for my classes, I am going to look for something that challenges me to expand my current range of classes.  This is a scary concept but exciting as well.  And as for my time being almost halfway done, I am going to try to think of it as more than half left.  Still time to find what I am looking for and more.  And of course, run fast in the process.

Go Blue!

Eureka moment!

I've been passively thinking about this persuasion presentation and wondering how I am going to be persuasive on an argument that I'm not sure is quite developed yet.  Needless to say, I have been stuck.  However, tonight I was hit with an inspiration and right now I am disappointed that I didn't come up with this earlier because my last paper would have been a lot easier and a lot better.  But what is past is past and there is no use dwelling on it.  So here we go.

The students at the University of Michigan are known as the leaders and the best.  Our school boasts top ranking programs and is one of the best universities in the country.

However, if you stood at the back of any given lecture hall, you would observe an interesting trend. NOt only would you see students typing notes but you would also see a great deal of the familiar blue border of the Facebook home page. 

 Facebook is ridiculously appealing and contagious. You can see what everyone is doing at all times as well as let them know what you are doing as well.  It is mindless and frighteningly addicting.

Although facebook can be considered a detriment to the education process, we can harness some of its appeal to create a more connected and open learning environment at the University of Michigan. 

How, you ask?

The answer is thorough blogs.

Blogging is  a relatively new media form but it is revolutionizing articles and online writing and establishing itself as its own medium.  They are often personal and make lighter reading than articles or more formal writing.  It is more accessible and often enjoyable.  Ultimately, blogs are information fused with personality.

The  key is to utilize a campus wide blog engine that every student and professor will be a part of.  The professors would be  required to keep a blog that they update somewhat regularly that explains what they are interested in as well as their research projects and goals.  The writing should not be formal but reveal a little more about who they are and their passion for what they do.  This would allow students to be able to connect with and understand their professors on a different level as well as being a useful tool when choosing classes instead of relying on rate my professor.  Students would also keep blogs that would be a window into their coursework and passions.  This would allow students to connect with each other and understand what people in other departments actually study.  The boundaries between departments are often very finite and after you choose a major, the other fields seem like mysteries.  I would like to know what goes down in West Hall or North Campus, for example.  This would make a big university smaller and allow a whole new perspective.

The other dimension of this concept is using blogs as a teaching tool.  Blogs could be integrated into every class as a small portion of participation.  Students would be given open ended blog posts that encourage them to relate coursework to applications in careers, etc or think about the way they think about or learn the material. These would be graded on participation and quality of thought.  The expanse of the blogs would make cheating easy.  However, the students should work to make their blogs their voice and an honor code may deter cheaters.  Reading these blogs would allow students different perspectives and allow them to make connections that they may not have thought of.  Some classes, especially humanities, could encourage comments and interactions to stimulate conversation.  

This would provide not only practice in writing and thinking, but communicating to a wider audience.  Forms of communication are changing but employers want people who can not only analyze and do tasks but think, apply, and COMMUNICATE!  This is one of the number one things employers look for, even over math and science skills.

So I am encouraging the University of Michigan to use a new medium to connect campus and make connections between content, learning, and applications.  In order to be the leaders and the best, we should prepare our students with skills and knowledge but also the ability to communicate and a voice to face the world with.

Ultimately an epic expansion of what already exists in mBlog.

Now I just need to figure out how to present all this...

A surreal world of perfection

I am currently blogging from the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel in Palo Alto California.  This is my third visit to Stanford and I cannot get over how unnaturally perfect this place is.  Although the rain and gloom has somewhat dampened its flawlessness this trip, it somehow retains ultimately impressive.  There is immaculately manicured landscaping, quintessential shops, and beautiful buildings.  It is hard to imagine that students similar to ourselves live and study in this environment.  It is odd that they are learning much of the same material and having similar conversations in this alternate reality across the country.  Although I attend a well respected university, I'm still awe-inspired at the Stanford University.  There is an entire next level of respect that I have for these students that call this their home school.  I wonder if this is how some people feel about Michigan students when they visit Ann Arbor.

This has made me wonder about the phenomenon of "ivory tower isolation" and the disconnect of academia.  I get this feeling of an elite exclusive community when I walk Stanford's campus and I am somewhat impressed, yet somewhat disgusted.  I think that education should be respected but the school name should not necessarily be held on a pedestal.  Maybe if people felt that the attainment of knowledge was not so elitist, we would have an overall more educated world.  However, some people are driven to attain high education to attain this exclusive status.  This presents somewhat of a catch-22.

Well, this is not a concept that is going to be resolved in one blog post so I am going to go enjoy the Stanford atmosphere although it is neither warm nor sunny.  It is only 6:12 pm here and I still have four hours until race time.  I will be competing tonight against some of the fastest in the country at the Stanford Invitational and is my first 10k on the track and I am a bit nervous.   The 10k has its own mystique that can only be revealed through 25 laps of fun.

Thanks for pondering with me from across the country.

Go Blue!
Kaitlyn

Joining the conversation

            I have recently been thrown headfirst into academic argumentation in my discipline through a progression of a single idea.  In the fall, I met with one of my previous professors to talk about testing that the University of Michigan does on athletes.  Our first conversation snowballed into a research project investigating iron regulation in female athletes.  Over the last few months, I have been scouring the literature on the subject, reviewing what has already been done and looking at where our proposed research would fit in. 

In the meantime, the University of Michigan was selected to be the institutional research partner by the Women’s Sport Foundation and be the site for the Women's Sports, Health, Activity and Research and Policy Center.  The center recently proposed a pilot study grant competition for research pertaining to women and girls in sports.  Our small pilot study is currently unfunded and we are going to submit a proposal and I am responsible for writing part of it. 

This entire project has been challenging yet intriguing before the lab work even begins.  It has truly exposed me to how research works in my discipline, or basically any field.  The goal is to be able to develop even a single untapped question that can be investigated and discussed.  It seems like a simple goal but it is deceivingly difficult.  The difficulties lie not only in logistics, but in identifying an angle that has not been investigated and is possible to explore. 

I read a great analogy on academic argumentation that compared it to a conversation between educated individuals on a certain subject.  These people are having a conversation and you want to join but you cannot appear to be ignorant or repetitive.  Successful entry requires innovation, and this is when you know you belong in the discourse community.

         Right now I am working on making this entry into the conversation.  It is not necessarily being accepted by others that makes this entry significant.  What is especially significant is the entry symbolizes the potential to generate new knowledge instead of discussing what has already been established.  This is the ultimate role of academic argumentation is to generate new ideas that can be discussed and accepted or rejected and potentially add to the base of knowledge already established. 

        

         Because of this role of academic argumentation in science, I believe the science disciplines could benefit from the collaborative learning and “writing to make meaning” theories.  Since writing is the prime medium of collaboration and communication in this field, learning to think, write, and speak with peers in the discipline is invaluable. 

         As for my own entry into the discourse, I hope that I am successful not only in finding a niche to enter the academic conversation but the persuasive conversation to fund the project.  I need to not only determine where we fit in academia and but convince a very different community that it matters.  I could really use some collaborative learning right now.  

My theory of writing- a successful failure

            If I had been asked to write a theory of writing one month ago, or even one week ago, I would have been at a loss.  Although I have read many essays and theories of writing, few of them truly resonated with me.  I would find sections of the essays that I would get excited about and could relate to but they would soon relapse into monotonous theoretical English discourse.  However,  the essay “Collaborative Learning” by Bruffee intrigued me and caused me to remodel my previous beliefs on writing theory. 

One theory of writing is utilizing it as a way to make meaning.  I liked this concept when I first read Bizzell’s "William Perry and Liberal Education" but at first could not see its practical applications.  However, Bruffee refined this idea and put it into a context that I thought to be quite brilliant despite my initial skepticism.  His proposal was that writing should be taught through “collaborative learning.”   Since writing is externalizing thoughts through a medium and conversation is externalizing thoughts through talking, the best way to improve writing is to practice and refine thinking and conversing within a discourse.  Collaborative learning allows students to engage in the "normal discourse," or conversation  that they will be using in any field they choose with their peers.  It is practice for writing and communicating not necessarily in the discourse that they will enter, but practice in the writing that will help them to attain this discourse.  He also talked about the illusion of the authority of knowledge.  It is easy to assume that those who “know more” or are more educated are automatically higher on the status ladder and students must jump through rings before attaining the authority to be an active member in a discourse.  However, if this is the active school of thought, minimal knowledge will be gained because everyone is working to obtain knowledge that has already been established instead of thinking and talking about new ideas although they might not have the authority to do so.  Although this was not an adequate synopsis of Bruffee's brilliant claims, I hope that it reflected some of the revolutionary and insighful ideas he proposed.  

  I feel as though English in college now is either too focused on adopting an argumentative and formal writing that is too contrived or it attempts to integrate today’s society by putting a media focused spin on rhetoric and analysis.  However, writing classes have the potential to be much more than this.  Writing can be practice in thinking, collaborating, and making connections between ideas.  These are not skills to be mastered, but practice in thinking about the world that will benefit students not just in English classes but throughout college and life.   After all, a college education should not just be focused on attaining skills but making connections and learning to collaborate with colleagues.   English classes could be revolutionized to optimize student’s experience and perception of writing  and enhance their college experience.   These experiences form the foundation for future education and careers instead of specializing to early and creating a one dimensional idea of writing.  Ultimately, this is not a theory of writing but a proposal for change.  My beliefs about how writing is and should be taught has continually changed while reading a range of theories, however, one constant has been my skepticism with the application of theories.  Most identify a need for change and can explain why but few address how to do this.  This is why my "theory of writing" is a commitment to change and improvement through revolutionizing writing education to benefit students and society.

Although this post is somewhat of a failure to develop a theory of writing, it has helped me to see a new angle to approach how writing should be taught.  So I'll take that and consider this long, convoluted blog post to be a success in my own mind, if not my readers. 

FINALLY!!!

Yes!  I have finally found a writing "pedagogy" (I hesitate to even call it this) that I agree with.  Kastman does a remarkable job of discussing the relevance and application of the post-process pedagogy of writing in his article “Post-Process ‘Pedagogy’: A Philisophical Exercise”.  Post process pedagogy is the concept that writing cannot be represented by a single "thing" or body of knowledge but instead is a public, interpretive, and situated form of communication. However, the process theory of writing is so cemented in our education system that it can be difficult to consider writing without this content focused and "commodified" approach.  

I don’t agree with using convoluted process theories that attempt to quantify and generalize the writing process.  The writing process is inherently complex yet natural at the same time and should not be narrowed into the confines of labels.  I could barely get through Flower and Hayes “Cognitive Theory of Writing” because it was so theoretical and impractical that I became frustrated with the ideas being presented. This theory of writing attempted to expand on the traditional writing models with the integration of the concept that writing should be understood as a set of distinctive thinking processes.  This model takes into account the rhetorical problem, the long-term memory as well as planning, translating, and reviewing steps.  However, I saw this as essentially just replacing one stage theory for another. Although I commend them for their efforts in investigating the subtleties of the writing process, I could not see practical application of their work.

  I felt liberated when Kastman provided solid reasoning that knocked process theory off its pedestal.  Although the post-process theory is often criticized for its vagueness and lack of application in the classroom, I found this abstract element to be intriguing. Post process theory proposes that writing be viewed as an activity that cannot be mastered or even taught.  It should be approached as a “dialogic understanding of meaning-making”.  Even more intriguing was the suggestions for implementing post process theory in education.  Kastman suggested focusing on more one on one communication through writing centers and including more dialogue in teacher student interactions.  I think that tutoring, especially by other students, is an interesting idea because it has the potential to help both the writer and the tutor.  

One of my friends is in a class through the university writing center that prepares students to tutor at the writing center.  They discuss theories of writing and the best ways to help others learn to improve their writing.  I think this is a great idea and I'm going to ask him more about his experiences to possibly incorporate some of these learning and teaching strategies into my own pedagogy of writing.  

This article more than any other has sparked my excitement about this paper.  I have never really liked the way English classes are taught and this paper has introduced some ideas that I feel like I can build from to create a method of teaching that I think is more effective and relevant. 

Role Models

I have been especially impressed with both Laura and Lauren's blogs this semester.  They are very different yet they both have a few elements that are similar and contribute to the quality of the blogs.   Both writers do a very good job at incorporating outside ideas and making relevant connections to the world.  Although the writers are interested in different areas, they incorporate their interests and passions into their writing while still following the prompt.  As well as including outside ideas, both blogs are very well written and clearly address the prompts.

Laura's blog often includes analysis of current events, philosophy papers, and other student's blogs, giving her blog another dimension.  This awareness probably stems from her political science and sociology background and it is a nice change in perspective from all the movement science majors.

Lauren's blog is very intriguing because she often incorporates engaging images that she links to her topic of discussion.  She makes very strong connections between these ideas in ways that I would not think of making.  I think her interest in architecture and art makes her perspective especially interesting.

These blogs encourage me to take a more out of the box approach to blogging.  Whenever I blog, I generally only rely on my own thoughts and analysis of the reading or the topic of discussion.  I rarely incorporate outside sources or images because I just don't think about it.  In the second half of the semester, I am going to try to approach blogs from a different angle e instead of writing them like English papers.   I think that I feel somewhat confined by the prompts and write to answer the questions posed instead of making this blog more of my own.  I like the idea of the freedom of blogging but I just haven't utilized it to its full potential yet.

My challenge for the rest of the semester is to expand my blog to incorporate other outside references and develop a unique blogging voice that is intriguing and captivating.

But this is a task that begins in March. In the meantime, I have spring break to enjoy (:

Kaitlyn

More complex than it seems

  

            It is the nature of scientists to desire to quantify and explain any element of the natural world.  This drive for objective explanations and accurate models drives the scientific community and has yielded a great deal of new information.  There have been many scientific advances in medicine and technology, however some elements of society have proven to be more difficult to study and explain.  One example of this is understanding the writing process.  Since we do not know enough neuroscience to be able to completely explain all the elements of the writing process, cognitive psychologists have developed models based on thoughts and behavior to attempt to objectify it. 

            One of these models is explained in the essay “Cognitive Process Theory of Writing” by Flower and Hayes.  Flower and Hayes argue that stage models of writing are not necessarily accurate because writing does not always follow the sequential order of pre-writing, writing, and revising and these stages may take nontraditional forms.  They prefer to explain the writing process as “a set of distinctive thinking processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of composing.”  However, they go on to explain the extensive cognitive process theory of writing which includes several elements. The task environment which describes the writer’s environment, including the rhetorical problem and the written text. The other’s elements are the writer’s long-term memory, and the writing processes that include planning, translating, and reviewing, Each of these components contain several contributing elements.  For example, the planning stage includes generating ideas, organizing and goal setting. The overarching claim is that there is no correct order and these elements may happen sequentially, simultaneously, or may even be embedded in each other. 

I thought it was interesting that the model attempted to quantify and explain every element of the entire writing process.  I found it ironic that they argued against the stage model but instead present their own theory that is essentially, a complex and glorified stage model.  As I read it, I did not see how it would benefit my writing because it was just too in depth to be able to identify with each stage as during writing.

The most stimulating idea that I took from this model was the inherent complexity of the writing process.  The quantity and depth of information that must be integrated in the brain to achieve a seemingly simple task of writing is truly amazing.  Although we may struggle with writing, we often take for granted how much our mind is subconsciously working and planning.  This complexity is reflected in the difficulty to develop an accurate and accepted model or understanding of this “simple” process that is integral to our society. 

I don’t necessarily support or disagree with their proposed model but I don’t think it is particularly useful to writers.  Although I think it is important to think about the methods behind writing, I think that the degree of analysis and extensive labeling in this theory is a bit overkill.  The writing process is so personal and varies with individual that trying to quantify it can be compared to trying to quantify imagination. I realize that different people are curious and passionate about this process and are driven to break it down and truly understand it.  However, I kind of like the mystique of the writing process and the lack of rules.  I am not interested in understanding the details of how people write, I am much more curious about the function of writing in society and how it changes based on the writer and the situation.

But I am also not a cognitive psychologist.  And nor do I want to be.

And I will leave it at that.

Kaitlyn

Writer's Blindness

I believe all writers are plagued with a unique blindness when they read their own writing.  They read the words that they carefully choose and sentences that they delicately contrived with satisfaction but fail to identify blatant issues that are still present in their masterpiece.  This phenomenon is nearly inevitable because writers know what they want to say so their brains' fill in the holes in logic or structure in their own writing.  These undetected flaws are often lapses in argument and not grammar or sentence structure.

I can easily identify these lapses in argument in other writers' work but yet I fall victim to the same problems.  When I read reviews on my paper, I am often frustrated because I don't see how the readers didn't understand what I thought were the obvious elements of my argument.  However, when I go back to my writing, I can see exactly where their confusion stems from.   Writing clear and strong arguments is a crucial element of writing that I should improve on.

Strong skills in argumentation can be useful in any field, including the scientific or medical fields.  Writing grants for research funding utilizes strong argumentation.  Writing scientific articles and reviewing articles depends on skills that are enhanced by strong skills in argumentation.  Overall, argumentation is more than a style of writing, it is a way of thinking.  It is thinking that identifies trends and evidence and avoids making claims that cannot be supported. From this perspective, argumentation is the factor that hones critical thinking and is utilized in countless contexts.

It's about the questions, not the details of the answers...

Writing to inquire is both intriguing as well as daunting.  I enjoyed being able to write about my own experiences and thoughts in a unique context.  I liked writing about ideas and questions that I wonder about but never explicitly express.

However, I continue to be a bit overwhelmed with this task of writing to inquire.  I am struggling to integrate so many ideas and sources into a coherent and meaningful whole.  It helped that my interview with Dr. Sonnega brought up some ideas that I have been thinking about as well.  However, I am finding it very difficult to try and capture these complex and vague concepts and translate them into language.

Writing to inquire is definitely a new challenge as I have never attempted, or even considered this type of writing.  This is likely part of the challenge because I have nothing to compare to or refer back to.  I'm not sure if I will have to use this type of writing in my other courses or career just due to the abstract nature of the writing.  Scientific courses and careers are usually very objective and writing is meant to bring about discussion through results but not necessarily thoughts.  However, the scientific process is a process of inquiry, it is just approached in a different way.  Maybe writing to inquire would be beneficial to use in scientific contexts as a way to stimulate ideas and discussion.  Maybe writing to inquire has the potential to bridge the gap between the scientific realm and the community.

Ok hold on with me for a minute as I go out on a limb.  This may be a stretch as I try to link everything back to this theme of a more open communication from the scientific community, but I think it is worth thinking about.   What if normal citizens wrote inquiries and shared them with the scientific community.  Not superficial questions that could be answered with a Wikipedia search, but complex or insightful questions that they think should have an answer.  Some of these inquiries would make it to the scientists in the appropriate field and they could write responses if they had an answer and if they didn't, it would give them bit of perspective into a relevant issue.  This discourse could be published somewhere and available to scientists and citizens alike.

There are obviously flaws and problems with this proposal but it would be an interesting experiment.  Sometimes all it takes is an outside perspective to change the momentum of thinking about a problem.  However, this would only work if people wrote thoughtful inquiries that were not politically motivated but instead curiously or practically motivated.

Ok that is enough stretching.  I admit that this would probably be not well received but it is an interesting concept.  But the beautiful thing about inquiry is it is about the questions, and not necessarily the details of the answers.

Kaitlyn

Interview Reflection

            Today I interviewed Dr. Amanda Sonnega Ph.D. who I introduced in a previous blog. I decided to interview her because I wanted to follow up on the concept of a gap in the accessibility of science writing and segway into my next paper on how writing should be taught at the university.  I thought she would have an interesting perspective on these concepts from her own writing background and experience teaching scientific writing to undergraduates.  I was nervous before the interview because I wasn’t sure how she would receive my questions.  I was most curious and apprehensive about how she would respond to my idea of this gap in science accessibility. 

            The interview went very well, she was enthusiastic and had some very insightful input.   I asked her about her experiences teaching scientific writing, her own writing experiences, and how important it is to broaden the audience of scientific writing and how we should approach it. We ended up talking a lot about how flaws in the education system and scientific community limit the scientific literacy of the general population.   She proposed that there should be a career focused on linking the scientific community and general public.  This career would require extensive training in a specific field and would have a mission of making the science being done understandable and demonstrating the relevance to the general public.  This proposed “science translator,” is in essence the ultimate public intellectual. 

            We also discussed how the responsibility of translating and sharing this information may reside with the scientists and researchers.  Scientists’ jobs include researching, writing articles, teaching, and service.  Dr. Sonnega explained that the service component is often fulfilled by sitting on boards, but outreach efforts should be stressed instead.  She had the unique position of being a science writer for the Michigan Retirement Research Center where she wrote briefs describing the research and relevance to policy makers.  Although this may be considered more public policy than scientific writing, this concept of translating to a broader audience is the same.

            She made me think about a lot of important issues in the fields of public policy and science and I hope that I made her ponder some possibilities as well.  I’m excited to reflect on some of these ideas in my paper but I’m somewhat worried that I am not approaching the prompt in the right way.  I focused much less on her idea of argumentation and writing process and more on big picture issues regarding writing in the field. 

            Whether I approached this correctly or not, this has made me think a lot about writing, the field of movement science, and where I am going to fit in all of it.  Dr. Sonnega also touched on how movement science is such a cross-disciplinary study that people have a hard time classifying it like they want to.  It is so broad that it is important to find you’re a unique angle.  But ultimately this is the key in any field, to find or develop your own niche and occupy it.  

Writing Woes

Last semester I had two unique writing experiences that shook the foundations of what I thought I knew.  This challenge ironically came in Introductory Biology Lab.  Although the majority of the class was spent in lab, a large portion of the grade was based on two papers on topics relevant to the experiments performed.  I had previously been successful in writing assignments in college and was confident in my ability to write well.  The assignment called for summarizing and analyzing a scientific journal article on plasmid cloning.  Although I was not familiar with the topic, I worked through the article until I understood the methods and concepts.  I then tried to simplify what I found and satisfy the additional criteria in the prompt using a writing style I was comfortable with.  I was pleased and confident with my final product, especially after receiving good feedback from the GSI on my draft and doing the minor revisions she had suggested.  However, when the papers came back I was appalled at the grade I received.  The GSI had ripped it to shreds and shot down every defense I tried to make.  I was marked down the most on writing that wasn't concise and the sentence structures that were not clear.

 The next paper was a report on an experiment regarding plant competition we had done in lab. It involved interpreting a large amount of messy data and drawing conclusions from it. Since my confidence in my writing was demolished after the first paper, I struggled to even get a draft of the second assignment.  I felt overwhelmed by the vast amount of information to analyze and the level of perfection that the writing was going to be held to.  Once I finally worked through a first draft, I struggled with the strict page limit we were held to.  However, this required me to address my issue of conciseness when spending an immense amount of time revising.  I finally eliminated any nonessential wording even though it violated my perception of good writing.  I ended up receiving a much higher score although not a score reflective of the time I spent mulling over the assignment.

I believe these writing assignments definitely tarred my impression of the class.  I thought the assignments were too vague and then graded to a ridiculous level of perfection for an introductory biology course.  I learned about writing in the specific style that was expected in the class and improved my ability to write concisely.  However, I have never struggled so much on a writing assignment as I did with the second paper.  Although I spent a great deal of time on it, I don't feel like my writing improved much as a result.  I became extremely familiar with the specific experiment and article we analyzed, but I didn't feel like this reflected learning.  I think the reason that I felt that I didn't learn a lot from this writing experience was the lack of constructive feedback.  The first feedback on my draft was positive but then the final was extremely negative.  I felt that this was not conducive to learning or fair.  The second paper I received vague feedback in office hours that did not translate to what I needed to improve my writing.

Although I have been arguing that my learning was compromised by lack of sufficient feedback from the instructor, another theory of learning states self-provided feedback in writing as a characteristic of learning.  Writing does allow the writer a unique chance at self-feedback through reading and revising their work.  However, writers are plagued with a selective blindness when reading their own writing.  Awkward phrases, bad sentence structure, and flaws of many types are glossed over because the writer knows what he is trying to communicate.  This blindness is the danger of self-feedback and reflects the benefit of constructive feedback from instructors and peers.  

This is my Bio 173 rant.  I hope to learn from it what I can but not dwell on what is done.

Kaitlyn

Who to interview?

            I have two professors that could be interesting interview candidates on writing in science. They are both associated with the field of movement science, but have very different perspectives in the field. 

The first professor I have in mind is Professor Peter Bodary, Ph.D.   He teaches exercise physiology and statistics in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan and is head of the Vascular Biology Lab.   He has done extensive research on thrombosis, adipose tissue, insulin resistance, and vascular disease in mice.  He is also working on translational research to clinical populations.  Dr. Bodary has contributed to 28 published articles in accredited journals such as the British Journal of Sports Medicine and the Journal of Applied Physiology among others. His profile and CV can be found at the School of Kinesiology website. 

Interviewing Dr. Bodary would give me an interesting perspective on writing in a scientific field due to the number of publications he has been involved with.  Since he is listed as the first investigator in many of the articles, he was likely integral in the writing process.  Dr. Bodary also has set up a website for his Vascular Biology Lab.  This site includes an overview of his research and summarizes his main projects as well as including links to his publications.  I found this intriguing because it fits with the argument of my last paper, that science writing should be accessible to a broader audience.  It would be interesting to ask him why he decided to create this kind of website and what he considered when summarizing his research in simpler language. 

 The other professor I am considering interviewing is Amanda Sonnega Ph.D.  She earned a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Public Health Psychology and currently teaches scientific writing in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan.  She is especially interested in social and psychological factors that influence health and well-being and has a publication on social security research at the Michigan Retirement Research Center.  She is also a reviewer of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.  Dr. Sonnega's profile and CV can also be found at the Kinesiology website.  

Interviewing Professor Sonnega would give me an interesting perspective on writing in the sciences since she teaches an undergraduate class on scientific writing.  I would ask her about how she approaches introducing young college students to this new discourse and what she thinks the biggest challenges are.  She would also have an interesting angle on publication since she is a reviewer for a scientific journal.  

Both of these professors have such different and intriguing perspectives on scientific writing that is going to be very difficult to choose who to interview.  I have had both of them as professors and am very comfortable with each of them.  I am going to begin formulating interview questions and this may help me with my decision.  

"Trespass vision"- a personal offense

Trespass- to commit an offense against.  Vision- the ability to see or the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.  These two ideas are so different that their combination into a single entity is seemingly unnatural and creates almost a state of unease upon reading.  Yet the term "trespass vision" was coined by Tillie Olsen and has been powerfully used in rhetoric ever since.  

Royster uses the term in her speech "When the first thing you hear is not your own" to illustrate her frustration with others that speak with an authority that they don't have.  I think of vision as having passionate and innovative ideas backed with logic.  Vision needs to be cultivated, not necessarily by books and facts, but by thoughts and experiences.  Through this shaping, it becomes extremely personal.  This vision guides the journey to authority and understanding, legitimate and honest power. Trespassing is an offense, but has a stronger connotation.  Trespassing is a violation, not of the law in this context, but more personal. 

I think that "trespass vision" is so enraging to Royster because she perceives it as such a personal offense.  To listen to someone who assumes that they know and understand a perspective in which they have no background or a superficial background can be intolerable, especially if you understand the truth they are trying to fake.  

As I break this concept of "trespass vision" down further, I can see how it relates to plagiarism.  Plagiarism is the ultimate "trespass vision" because it entails assuming an authority that the writer has not earned. It is skipping the journey and benefiting from the end product.  However, when there is not time to take the journey, this is an enticing option.  This is where problems in interdisciplinary writing come into play.  Due to the sheer amount of time and effort it would take to learn and understand the discourse of another discipline, students and writers are more likely to slip into habits of plagiarism.  

Unfortunately, time is often a limiting factor in learning and in life.  It is an inevitable element of the journey. Plagiarism appears to provide a shortcut to the destination, but the land is plastered with keep out signs.  Thus presents one of the great academic moral dilemmas, the choice to trespass and trod upon the visions of those who have completed the process or conquer the journey set before you.  

A niche in a new community

The desire to fit in is almost an innate trait in human nature. It is the need to find a niche that is your own yet integrated within the larger community.  It starts in childhood, is exaggerated in the teenage years, and becomes nearly life-consuming in the transition to college.  When first starting college, students are immersed in a different culture, an academic world.  The rules are not the same as high school and the sooner this is discovered, the better.  This brings the concept of adapting to a new community,yet again finding your place.  This time the roles and the identities may not be as clearly defined or simple as in high school.  The rules are no longer clear-cut, and this is not just referring to curfew.  Ideas, concepts, and peers become broader and often more abstract.  This phenomenon be enlightening, frightening, or often a little of both.

Bartholomae captures this process of adapting to a new community in his writing "Inventing the University." He  outlines the struggles that first-year writers face as they attempt to fit  the academic discourse when writing. Since they may not feel ready to be included in this community and lack the experience they feel is necessary to fit in, students will alter their writing to fit what they feel is appropriate for the context in which they are writing.  It is a process of determining how to use different voices for different roles and allow each to develop.  This may require elimination of the "clean" shallow writing which may be safe but does not fit the ultimate discourse of academia.

He also discusses the struggle of writers to create truly original material.  When so much has already been said, the "off-stage" voices of previous writing and text mars the originality of most writing.  I think that this is why science fields are so intriguing to me.  After you spend time learning to do science and think science by studying what has already been done, lies an open frontier.  New discoveries retain originality and can be reported without overtones of other voices.  This opportunity for invention is why I am pursuing science.

However,  Bartholomae's idea that students must engage in "artificial work" before truly being integrated into the academic community holds for science as well.  Students must be subject to hours of "knowledge telling" before reaching the next level.  I wish this process could somewhat be altered to focus toward making larger connections between concepts.  Breaking through the glass ceiling between classroom and the field would be revolutionary to education and student knowledge.

Of course, this would involve overhauling our entire education system.

But it is a thought.

An intriguing thought.

Bridging the gap

I was just writing my paper comparing two genres of writing in the field of exercise science when I decided to switch gears and do some blogging.  As I was reading the essay on public intellectuals and how they should function in society, I was shocked with the similarities to the paper I was just writing.  I am trying to portray the gap between science research and the reading and practice of the general public.  There is so much being discovered on the scientific end that doesn't get filtered down to a broader audience.  This is extremely comparable to the role of the "public intellectuals"- people who can bridge the gap between academia and communities to use research to address social issues.  I feel like this gap between academia and the human condition has been widening and the longer it goes unaddressed, the more difficult it will be to bridge.

In this time when the economy is so bad and jobs are scarce, there are tons of articles on "hot jobs" in fields that are in demand and growing.  Yes, our society is going to need more engineers and doctors but I have yet to see "public intellectual" listed as a booming career.  Public intellectual is not so much a job title but a role in society.  Public intellectuals can have many job titles but must be intelligent, good communicators, and be willing and able to think abstractly and break down behavior and idea barriers.  Bridging the science-humanity bridge takes more than pure engineering but an element of creating connections between people and ideas.  This is idealistic in theory but in reality is very difficult to achieve.  Not many are able to understand this delicate balance, especially with the unintentional yet well defined class system in society.

At first I was at a loss as to how to identify public intellectuals in my field since the traits seemed too abstract to simply research.  However, I called my mom who is a senior center director and listened to her input.  She comes in contact with many people who are extremely educated yet are willing and able to make their work accessible to the audience they are addressing.

One example is Dr. Leslie Neuman who is a neurologist that specializes in Parkinson's Disease at St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Rapids.  He is a very accomplished researcher yet holds conferences open to Parkinson's Patients such as Meet the Researchers held last November.  He has even made multiple trips to Cadillac to speak with the Parkinson's support group.  He does a great job of tailoring his presentation to his audience by making it understandable to patients and caregivers.  This makes facing the disease a lot easier for these people who are frightened and overwhelmed.

These are the kind of public intellectual that our society needs and will always be a "hot career"- not for the money but for the benefit to society.  I hope that I don't lose sight of this idea as I delve deeper into academia.

Kaitlyn

Scientific literature as argumentation?

Scientific literature has a unique reputation in today's society.  I feel as though the vast majority of people rarely interact with scientific journals directly and many may feel intimidated by the scope of publications available and complexity of the language.  However, some will attempt to navigate this field of academia to look for a specific topic to satisfy a curiosity, an assignment, or just a quest for knowledge.

However, even among those who frequent PubMed or Nature, I believe that few (including myself) would immediately associate scientific literature with argumentation.  However, when I began to think of scientific literature as argumentation, I could make strong associations and see the inherent connection.

A scientific paper is a very structured argument about why the researcher's proposed hypothesis is correct.  The methods and results provide a context for the information presented and the discussion states the reasons backed by the evidence already presented.  It is beautifully logical.  However, not all scientific articles that attempt to make an argument are set up this way.

For example, I came upon a scientific article that was of special interest to me entitled, "Iron supplementation in athletes- first do no harm" that appeared in the journal Nutrition.  It was not primary literature but a review that covered many elements of iron supplementation to make the claim that iron supplements should be more tightly controlled and only used by athletes who are clinically iron deficient.  The reasoning behind this claim was that additional iron supplementation when normal (or even low) iron levels existed had no benefit on performance.  Additionally, higher iron levels may damage the liver or heart and increase the risk of diabetes.

However, I feel like the argument was rather one sided and weak as it failed to recognize that some non-deficient athletes can be helped by supplements and it did not attempt to address the issue of appropriate dosages.  I believe it was meant to be read by doctors and health professionals who work with athletes as well as researchers interested in iron regulation.  However, the audience may include ambitous athletes who took it upon themselves to learn about professional recommendations in iron supplementation.

I found the argumentation of this article especially interesting because of my own research on iron regulation in female runners this semester. I am working on a project investigating elements that effect iron regulation.  We are focusing on hormonal control as well as monocyte recycling.  This article made no mention of hormonal control or variations in recycling mechanisms.  This is likely because it was published in 2004 before this newer research had been released yet.

I have a unique perspective on the issue as I am a runner who is taking iron supplements after an experience with severe anemia as well as a researcher in the field of iron regulation.  I think that this article does a good job of summarizing relevant research in the field but makes a one sided argument. It gives many examples of situations where supplementation is not helpful but I think it is lacking in showing how prevalent an issue it is in certain populations.  I agree with many of the points that were made but I think the article fails to recognize what a complex issue this is.  Obviously the first objective is to "do no harm," but in this case the long term harm is silent and latent but the potential harm by not supplementing may be an impeding sacrificed competitive season.   Iron supplementation only given to the clinically deficient is like waiting for a problem to occur and then fixing it.

Reading this article makes me want to sit down with the researchers and writers and ask them about their claims.  Since there is still a lot of grey area in this field, I am really curious on other's ideas and perspectives.  It is enjoyable to be able to read a scientific article with a critical eye because usually the scientific jargon and level of understanding of material is beyond the scope of my current knowledge.

I will revisit this issue in the future as this iron research project is ongoing and I am hoping that this blog can help me to share my findings and ideas.

Kaitlyn

Collision of science and rhetoric

After reading my previous blog post, I would like to use this post to refine my claims of death of mature reasoning in our society.  Although it may appear like mature reasoning is on the decline after following politics or watching certain television shows, perhaps mature reasoning is just taking different forms.

As I familiarize myself with blogs, I am finding more and more quality material written with mature reasoning.  They definitely don't fit my first perception of mature reasoning, but I think that may be why they are an intriguing media form to analyze.

I came upon a very intriguing blog on exercise physiology today called The Science of Sport.  It is kept by Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas who both earned Ph.D.'s in exercise physiology from the University of Cape Town.  I think this is an example of blogs at their best.

The self-proclaimed blog of "scientific comment and analysis of sporting performance" does a great job of combining science with engaging commentary.  The contributors post about current developments in physiology and shed light on common myths and misconceptions.  They will often take on common arguments in the field and state the facts of both sides and support their own opinion.   Therefore, there is no "main argument" of the blog but arguments of each post.  I perused arguments ranging from barefoot running to outlandish advertising claims for performance and wellness products.  Each argument addressed possible counter-arguments, and did so conversationally while retaining a level of professionalism.

  It was definitely written to be informative and enjoyable for people who are intrigued by the field.  These are the people who will likely become followers.  However, I can see this site as being a great resource for those who are seeking information on a certain topic, even though it doesn't reach "article" status.

Although rhetoric basically means "the art of argument" across genres, the techniques definitely differ.  This blog utilized links, differing styles of text, and headings to separate ideas.  I think this would only be effective in this "blog genre."  It is extremely effective in this context but if it was put in a more scientific setting, it would immediately lose credibility.  However, for the purpose and context of the blog, the techniques and writing were very effective.

I thought this was an interesting collision of rhetoric and science.  Making science readable and enjoyable for the general public is a huge step in the right direction.  I am hoping to analyze this blog further in my genre analysis paper coming up.

Kaitlyn