Being at the Mercy of Mother Nature

One of the major issues we have to contend with when writing blogs for academic credit or work in a college class is dealing with technology. Sometimes the technology is at fault: I can't say how many times I've punched my laptop or slammed down the screen in frustration or despair when it freezes. Contending with the limitations of technology means that we have to work within its constraints, even when I have a brilliant idea that must be rushed. If I've overloaded my computer, or haven't defragmented it recently, it's likely, then, that, according to Murphy's Law, my computer will freeze; my Internet connection will break down. I'll close without saving, or click away from the screen...

So often it's human error that causes the problem. If you look at science fiction books (and movies of the 1980s), who was really at fault? Was it the humans or HAL in 2001, A Space Odyssey (I blame both society and the programmer)? Who really was at fault in dealing with the zenomorph in Alien (the Corporation)? The humans, of course. We are not perfect beings, and we create as much cacophony as we create harmony. Blogs invite cacophony due to the potential in voices and interaction, but also the technology, which is so instrumental in connecting writers and the world, can get in the way. And so writing a blog means that we're trying to do quite a few tasks in a 3D environment. We're writing argumentatively; we're hoping or expecting RORI (return on reader investment, through comments and interaction); we engage with the world through the one technology that is evolving faster than any one blogger can keep up.

And so what happens when Mother Nature gets added into the mix? Events like Hurricane Sandy recently have proven that the power of the environment is much mightier than any human has control over. Here in the Washington, DC, area, many of my students lost power, and a few have asked for extensions on their weekly posts. There was no way I could say "no." While I didn't lose power, I'm not immune to seeing the news and hearing the stories of those who did, and it's pretty horrifying. Will we ever be able to revert back to pre-technology writing situations?

Blog writing allows writers to connect to the wider world, but it does take us out of our writing element. How many people write by hand anymore? What happens without a quick save of a file? A lack of a comment? I must acknowledge that blog writing can create writers who are overly focused on the technology; and, at the heart of things, technology isn't always our friend. Writing that is good must stand on its own, be it in hard copy form or even written by hand on a napkin from the local BBQ Chicken and Beer. All the hyperlinks, graphics, and fancy images in the world will not suffice for a little bit of Mother Nature. Students must be prepared to get back to basics. To unlink. To write by hand. To try something old. It can be new again. So when the next Frankenstorm hits, they'll light a candle, whip out a notebook, and get on with Plan B (the to-do list for a Zombiepocalypse).

How to Blog about Your Content Community

As I was reading my weekly motivational dose of "Mr. Money Mustache," I noticed that he does a fine job of highlighting his content community members in different posts. Mustache's Guest Post, "Guest Post: Why You’ll Become Busier After Retirement," by Darrow Kirkpatrick, highlights others on the Web who are willing to report their financial tricks and tools with the goal being earlier retirement.

After reading the October 6 guest post, I then scrolled down through the comments and found a link to Kirkpatrick's own blog, "Can I Retire Yet?" His August 31st blog, "Don't Miss These 6 Investing and Retirement  Blogs if You're Serious about Financial Dependence" is a serious summary and analysis (in short form) of current financial blogs with the same goal as Kirkpatrick and Mustache. Not only does Kirkpatrick summarize blogs like "Financial Mentor" and "Oblivious Investor," but within each entry he highlights important articles and topics on each blog.

One of the keys to good blogging is highlighting our content communities. Both Mustache (through guest blog posts) and Kirkpatrick (through highlight posts) show the breadth and depth of financial and early retirement discussions taking place in real time on the Web. Mustache is the more radical blogger and financial activist: but Kirkpatrick has been blogging longer. Each have broken down their sites with FAQs, about, and searchable sections to make finding subtopics for the reader even easier. Their sitemaps are user-friendly, and their goal is the same: to share their stories and knowledge and create fun but educational blogs to help readers learn to save, invest, and have a potential future where work isn't a necessary evil but an option that one can fit into a lifestyle filled with financial security.

Follow how the professional bloggers refer to and create content communities in your own posts. It will only enhance the community "web" and allow you to potentially expand both your knowledge base and readership. I would never have found Kirkpatrick if I hadn't read Mustache; use the hyperlinks from one community member to another to really take journey within your topic on the web. There are so many blogs out in the blogosphere now; use your expert sources to guide you to new ones.

You Say Tomato...

Writing a blog has never been easy, at least not for me. I do it not for fun (although at times it can be quite enjoyable), but I do it to show my writing students what conversations can be had in the blogosphere. I have reminded myself time and time again that there is one subject, both on blogs and in the papers that students write, that comes up. And that's this: how do professors deal with controversial topics in the classroom, ones in which students and faculty might align themselves on opposite ends of a discussion or issue? What can you constructively say when you think the writer is wrongheaded, or stubborn, or clearly ill-informed?

This happens to me every semester.  I read and evaluate a students' argumentative texts (be it essays, blogs, or even classroom discussions), and it is my job is to evaluate the strength of their arguments based on argument structure, evidence, and so forth. In Aristotle's On Rhetoric, he outlines three distinct types of persuasion: pathos (appealing to the emotions of the reader), ethos (the character of the author), and logos (the data and details that can make an argument credible), and I think his categorization was pretty spot-on and relevant to this day, even in the era of the technical online writer. I often find in my freshman students' writing that we get a wide variety of all three: there are a lot of emotional appeals to readers in an attempt to reach out and relate. For example, students in one of my online ENG 3 courses happen to write about U.S. health care reform, and often they use anecdotal evidence of their experiences with and without health care coverage. These circumstances can often be harrowing to read, especially when a student talks about his father's heart attack or another her mother's drug overdose and the type of health care responses that followed. Pathos allows these students to share feelings and thoughts with readers, and to let readers "empathize." Students often write with ethos in mind when they highlight their career goals and ambitions and describe their own experiences in their field. Ethos in writing can range from a cover letter highlighting the credentials of the writer, to an essay writer keeping their tone controlled and congenial and not overly aggressive when writing for a wide range of readers on a hot topic. Finally, every semester I cajole students into providing supporting information through the use of logos: those bits of reliable data and details that scaffold an argumentative position. 

So, if students have these three persuasive tools to choose from, how is it that sometimes I just am not convinced, no matter the data delivered, the emotional appeal provided, or the credential of the author and their expertise satisfied? I wonder if it is in human nature to disagree? (Of course it is.) I think of the political power couple of Mary Matalin and James Carville, both strategists for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively. If they can stay married knowing their own political polemics, how hard can it be to accept the validity of a student's written truth, even if that truth is far and away not a truth that I can accept?

It comes down to understanding, I think, that the very heart of an argument is a thesis: the arguable position one takes. Persuasive tools aside, a student writer/blogger must make their case, to support that thesis with rational, reliable evidence. And to do that with ethos, they must use the best and freshest, most credible sources and examples they can find, through in-depth research, which we must model in the classroom learning space. Students should use pathos sparingly: it works in small doses and can enhance the connection and dialogic between writer and reader, but overkill can mask a lack of ethos and logos. And, above all, students must be able to understand good data, and that there is a difference between data. How does one create a survey? Who is surveyed? What type of test, or participant-observation, or interviewing, or historical research was done, by whom, and for what reason? Does this data really fit the student's argument? Where could it be flawed? 

I think it is easier for me to accept the work of a student with whom I fundamentally disagree, for example, if the student has paid attention to choosing reliable sources, verifiable data, and evidence both personal and of-the-world. These students are welcome to come to alternative positions on the issues. Don't economists? Don't lawyers, and doctors doing tricky surgeries or trying new modes of treatment? Don't historians interpret the events of our shared pasts in a wide variety of ways?

We do not have to agree with our students to help them to make acceptable, nuanced arguments. Based on my own research and understandings of the world, just about half the time I won't agree with a conclusion. And if the conclusion is flawed in a way that I can help the student (by finding better data, by evaluating the credentials of sources, by having additional sources or by thinking of an issue from many opposing sides), I must speak up, out, and pitch in to help the student find firmer ground on which to stand (Hurlbert). We have not had the experience of our students, nor have we shared in all of their research and thought processes. The place from where they "stand" is quite far apart from our own. But if a student puts thoughtful effort and research and comes up with a plausible argument that puts him or her on another side of an issue I am on, I just hope to learn more from them. And, maybe, be invested in the potential of continued dialogue. You never know. Sometimes you can change someone's mind, or at least open up the possibilities...

Work Cited

Hurlbert, Claude. “A Place in Which to Stand.” Relations, Locations, Positions: Composition Theory for Writing Teachers. Ed. Peter Vandenberg, Sue Hum, and Jennifer Clary-Lemon. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2007. 353–58. Print.

Writing in an Everywhere Space

Like my students, I have had to transition into blog writing from a more "traditional" academic space of masters and doctoral English classes. I am fairly skilled at MLA style, argumentative structures, Toulmin's model for Argumentation, and the like. But what about writing in a 3-D space, one that invites dialogue, disagreement, and what I would like to call "live" writing (writing that has not ended because its potential through a blog and through continued potential audience interaction allows it to continue to "breathe" on the Internet)? What can students learn from blog writing that will benefit their academic life? And what from their academic life can benefit the blogosphere?

Take the advice of master fictioneer Stephen King. In his Second Foreword in On Writing, he suggests that On Writing is short ecause "most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do--nor why it works when it's good, nor why it doesn't when it goes bad" (11). I think that King could be talking about nonfiction writers in academia, too. I remember most of my work back in the day, up to and including the very recent present with my final dissertation defense. I know what environment I set to write that text (Centreville Library cubicles, laptop, a heavy bag full of books and a Diet Coke, and T-minus three hours until I was back on baby duty). But I don't know how I did what I did, really. I cannot look in on my brain and decipher step-by-step actions in the writing of academic texts. Really, all I can do is share a feeling that I was setting the stage in an appropriate way. I worked with feedback from my director, and went back to the library. I would research and read mostly at night, in bed before I fell asleep; and I would write in the mornings and during the quiet afternoons when my daughter was asleep. Sometimes at home I'd work on it with a big glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. In the end it worked out.

That text said a lot about how students writing blogs was a good thing; that students created "artifacts" that continue to speak to those who interact with those artifacts. So now I encourage students to write blogs in my ENG 112 classroom. I tell them to choose a newsworthy and researchable topic (as the best topics I've found are those that the authors are interested in but aren't experts--not yet).

So what works with these online artifacts? 

1. They can absolutely be academic. By the very nature of topics chosen, students can quickly link to current trends in IT, in neuroscience, in healthcare policy, in the environment. 
2. Students can write conventionally; they can choose academic phrasing and structure, making their texts more like academic papers than newspapers or social blogs/social media Twitter responses.
3. Blog discussion can fuel an edit and an enhancement of text, which mirrors peer-to-peer or instructor-to-peer classroom feedback on early drafts of academic papers.
4. Blog writers can learn burgeoning Web technologies that will help transition them to real-world writing experiences (because, really, not all student writers will land careers in academia).
5. Blog writing is the great equalizer: there is no peer-review, and fresh ideas can be published by anyone with access to the Internet.

Of course, there are issues with online writing, too:

1. Students can adopt the writing of the personal on the Web. Slang, misspellings, fragmented sentences, and a lack of clarity of argument can fill the spaces of a blog post. Student writers can forget audience and imagine that they are writing an online diary and not an academic text.
2. Freedom in blog design can support some students but throw other students off (those without an "eye" for pleasing design. Strange blog layouts, color combinations, small fonts (all the creative, visual things an academic paper strips from students' work are available on blogs) can distract from even the best argument.
3. When students don't research well (the first few hits on a Google search is quite different from a real in-depth research of Lexis-Nexis or other a college's educational databases), their arguments can seem trite, "too safe," or just plain ill-informed.
4. Student blog writers can find argumentative blogs to emulate that have no real substance, creating a never-ending loop of false support. 
5. While blog writing is the great equalizer, a lack of peer-review can affect not just the quality but the quantity of texts one has to wade through. Making quality works more difficult to find in a saturated blogosphere.

I'm confident that students blogging can overcome these negatives and come up with a series of texts that dig deeply enough on a topic that they will have gained benefit from their research and writing. I don't know if I can tell a student how to write a blog any better than I can tell them how to write an academic essay. Each student has to grapple with context: What is the topic they chose? What position do they take on the issue? Why? What don't they know about the issue? What can an audience be educated about so that they can be persuaded ethically? These are the questions writing professors can and should ask. But it doesn't really change when writing for the Web. Those questions are still important. The benefit, though, is that students get an audience with potential, much wider than that of a 16-week college classroom. The benefits of those online audience members, and of the potential academic artifact, expand into possibility.

Work Cited

King, Stephen. On Writing. New York: Scribner, 2000.

Blog Writing: Coming up with a Workable Idea

This semester is another one in which my students are diving into blog writing for our semester in ENG 112 (second semester composition). I have seen a variety of topics over the years, to include politics, the environment, cultural differences ("fish out of water," stories, for example). The paranormal, movie reviewers, and South Asian entertainment have also been tackled. What drives students to these topics? How do they choose them and sustain them over the course of a semester? Some students key in on a topic they're comfortable with, something that they read about or watch or study in their spare time. That was true when I did my semester blogs on home improvement and personal finance. Others choose a topic they want to learn more about, allowing them to benefit their personal interest by tying it to an academic assignment.

One of the main goals I try to drill into students is that when they have a choice in the topics they write, they should choose a topic that has personal interest to them. But I also want them to be challenged. If a student is into fashion, I don't want a basic fashion blog. I want each student to challenge their understandings and assumptions of fashion and write about what they don't fully know about. For example: for the fashion student, how hard would it be to get a design off the ground? What time, tools, education, connections, luck, finances, and skills would a designer need? This student could also research how fashion magazines key in on trends; how having celebrity spokespeople helps or hurts a brand; even the commodity of fashion could be discussed. 

Any blog writer must be determined to build their archive of posts to show a depth of discussion, time studying the topic, an understanding of a dual audience (classmates and those interested in their topic), both academic and real-world writing conventions (citations/references for academic-style posts, and hyperlinks and clear citations for the blog-oriented posts). Writers should encourage discussion and debate and build additional posts based on these dialogues. 

Remember: blog writing is community-oriented writing. Your audience will appear; they'll make themselves obvious through their comments, and they'll let you know what they think about your content. You can make that a benefit and continue to grow as a writer through all of that interaction. Take a chance with blogging and see what comes of it...

Back to the Grind...

My husband and I are in a competition for April: whomever does the most running/walking mileage wins. I don't know what we're shooting for, but I think he wants a Kinect and I want to get bikes so we can cross-train. Either way, we're still working out. But I realize now that I, at least, have to be working out differently so that I can continue to run throughout and beyond this time of injury.

What keeps athletes going through an injury? Is it desire to win, or an addiction to the "runner's high"? That's not even a fiction. According to Gina Kolata, in her article in The New York Times, she suggests that

The runner’s-high hypothesis proposed that there were real biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. Chemicals were released that could change an athlete’s mood, and those chemicals were endorphins, the brain’s naturally occurring opiates. Running was not the only way to get the feeling; it could also occur with most intense or endurance exercise.

The problem, though, was that to test runners on this, researchers would do spinal taps (think epidural but testing fluid from the spine, not injecting numbing medication), which for some reason cannot be performed immediately prior to a workout. But Kolata notes that German researchers 

using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.

The more some people run, the better they feel. Kolata reports in her article that the researchers, who studied long-distance runners, could "even see it in [the runners'] faces"--that the runner's high was not only psychological but manifested physically as well. But not all researchers interpret the "high" in the same way. According to Lenny Bernstein in his article "Endorphin-Fueled ‘Runner’s High’ Is Taken as Fact in the Gym World. But Is It?" in The Washington Post, he notes that

Researchers then blocked endorphin receptors in some subjects but found no difference in the effects of exercise on mood changes. Others tested the blood of subjects after strenuous exercise and discovered lots of endorphins, which are also produced by the adrenal glands, Raglin said. The problem is that these hormones don’t effectively cross the barrier that keeps most of the blood supply out of the brain. And there are other hormones, as well as temperature and blood pressure changes, that may be part of unusual feelings after a hard workout.

So it could be endorphins, or it could be "an increase in body temperature" (Bernstein), or any of a variety of factors. The truth of the matter is that "runner's high" is a combination of our present mood, succeeding a difficult workout, body temperature, endorphins, and the natural mixture of our very individualized chemical make-up. 

So no matter what the combination, if you feel better after a workout, you can call it whatever you like. I prefer to keep mine "runner's high," and I'll probably never know the exact reason it happens, just that it does often enough to keep me working out for 6-8 hours a week in my laundry room. I think "runner's high" brings injured runners back to the sport, including myself. There is something to be said about getting up, going into my laundry room, and running for two hours a pop that doesn't generally make a lot of sense unless there was a reward of some sort. The lighting is dingy and fluorescent; I stare at shelves; the laundry is often loud and knocking around. And it's pretty hot in there, too. But I run, now, 20+ miles a week (last distance: 9 miles). If it's not runner's high, then, what could it be?

Works Cited

Bernstein, Lenny. "Endorphin-Fueled ‘Runner’s High’ Is Taken as Fact in the Gym World. But Is It?" Washingtonpost.com. Washington Post. 14 June 2011. Web. April 7, 2012.

Kolata, Gina. "Yes, Running Can Make You High." Newyorktimes.com. New York Times, 27 Mar. 2008. Web. 7 April 2012.

There Are Plenty of Options...

Yesterday I had my MRI review meeting with my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Andrew Parker. I brought in the MRI, and we went over the radiologist's interpretations before Dr. Parker showed me the actual MRI images of my right knee.

There are multiple issues at play: (1) bits of cartilage have broken off and are floating around (but they're quite small at the moment); (2) I'm losing cartilage, esp. behind the kneecap; (3) I'm developing osteoarthritis; (4) I have a lot of fluid build-up all around the patella; and (5) I have scar tissue buildup from my previous 1,984 other knee surgeries (slight exaggeration on the number), in addition to some calcification of tissue around the kneecap. 

Dr. Parker suggests that this means: my knee is an utter and absolute mess. But I have options. They are: (1) knee replacement (not quite yet--like "killing an ant with a bazooka"); (2) arthroscopic surgery to clean out debris, calcification, and some of the scar tissue (but this won't guarantee lessening of swelling and/or pain); (3) injections of OrthoVisc, a "joint fluid treatment" that treats osteoartritis for months at a time; and (4) taking Glucosamine Condroitin and Aleve (for inflammation). 

As you can see with the above list, I've organized it in order or horrendousness (worst first). But the good news is that I start with (4), move to (3) in a few months, and keep repeating (3) for the next few years. I have been told I can continue to run. But, alas, I cannot run "a lot": maybe 20 miles a week, or 25. But I'll never marathon or ultramarathon, the real hope I had when I started blogging on this topic. 

It's funny: in the last ten years I've had no problems with my knees whatsoever. I knew I had these surgeries and I have the scars to prove it. But I had bounced back, and I felt a bit bionic. I laughed when my mother cringed as she asked me, "how many miles did you run today?" As if it was all a dream, the previous injuries. But at my age (38) it was just a matter of time. Those injuries would eventually come back. I think this is akin to hearing my grandfather-in-law, at 93, just this week was diagnosed with lung cancer. He quit smoking in the 1950s, but it eventually caught up with him.

In my research I've found plenty of articles on overuse injuries for ultraendurance athletes. Consider the article by O'Toole et al.: Overuse Injuries in Ultraendurance Triathietes from the American Journal of Sports Medicine. The injuries to the athletes were common and random (not all athletes had the same injuries). The bad news is that I am not an Ironman competitor: my last actual elite sports competition was in 1994. 

The good news is that these athletes, who do dangerous and outrageous sports feats, keep doing it. So I might have to get injections with a horse needle into my knee every couple of months to keep running. And I will.