Hi Everybody,
Hopefully your Thanksgiving was a nice and safe one! Just as a reminder, I will be giving feedback on this week's posts later today and tomorrow. Remember also that you will have two more posts due next Tuesday, and feedback for those will happen next Wednesday. Just hang in there--we're almost done the semester.
This is the perfect time to start thinking about your blogging community: how well have you researched and read blogs in your subject area? Attempt to read 1-2 new blogs a day for the next week or so--then you will really have a nice selection of community members to choose from.
See you in a week!
Julie
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Watch that Tone!
There are all sorts of ways one can manage the tone of their writing online. When it comes to blogs, however, the tone can feel much more informal, a "hey you!" message yelled IN ALL CAPS for effect rather than a more subtle "I really mean to grab your attention." These stylistic differences can certainly be seen in blogs.
Blogs can be both personal and professional, political and apolitical. It all depends on the person and the context of the post. I, for one, tend to have a semi-informal approach in the writing of my blog. While the context this semester is politics, I'm no expert on foreign policy, I'm no Rhodes scholar, I'm just a composition professor who happens to be addicted to politics. So my tone is most likely "academic-lite." What does that really mean? It means that I attempt to pay attention to the words I use as I articulate points, considering both my audience (this class) and the genre of blogs. It's a tricky balance sometimes to say the right thing the right way. When writing about politics, being too obnoxious or verbose can turn a reader off.
Like Stephen King has said, "The road to hell was paved with adverbs" (Moncur). Adverbs, those "-ly" words, litter our writing, especially academic writing and, as the case may be, strangely, romance novels. Where else would you find him staring longingly at her heavingly ample bosom? Where else, but in a blog or online, could you find out that someone was "really, really republican" or even "two very-nearly-Democratic-Party-house-organs" (whatever that means, see Kinsolving for a clearer explanation)?
Most blogs, it can be pointed out, like The Drudge Report, are light on the professional tone and would rather get down and dirty, more like The Enquirer than The New York Times. For example, the big headline (with, unfortunately, no front-page story to go with it) says "100,000 Citizens Resist Obama in First Week." What does that mean? He's the president-elect. What can one resist at the moment? It's not as if we can re-do the elections. The sneaky part of that front-page headline is that it's an advertisement, asking readers to sign up to oppose a "socialist" Obama. Really, now? We've gone to the Marxist argument again? (How's that for a shift in tone?)
Then there are regular blogs like "Just Another Political Blog," in which our author, Canadian Zach Hall, provides thoughtful and philosophical-esque commentary about not just Canadian issues but, rather, about global conundrums such as the environment. I think our class blogs should strive to be more like Hall than The Huffington Post and Drudge. First of all, in ENG 112 we don't have ample supplies of copywriters at our disposal; we aren't paid big salaries to blog; and we haven't the archive to rely on previous work or the vitriolic ire of political party affiliation. That said, what is impressive about a one-person blog like Hall's is that it sets an appropriate tone: concerned citizen, intellectually curious, not afraid to use a thesaurus as he educates us about his understandings of politics.
In the end, the tone of any piece of writing should match the content and context of the piece. If one is writing about the war in the Congo, descriptions of murder and rape will appear. You can't and shouldn't be squeamish about telling the truth. If one is writing about relationships, it could be a mixed bag of psychology and emotional dialogue. Just remember: there are good samples and blogs to mimic, especially in your genre. Find them, peruse them, comment on them. You'll never know until you really venture out how your blog fits in to the rest of your community.
References Cited
Blogs can be both personal and professional, political and apolitical. It all depends on the person and the context of the post. I, for one, tend to have a semi-informal approach in the writing of my blog. While the context this semester is politics, I'm no expert on foreign policy, I'm no Rhodes scholar, I'm just a composition professor who happens to be addicted to politics. So my tone is most likely "academic-lite." What does that really mean? It means that I attempt to pay attention to the words I use as I articulate points, considering both my audience (this class) and the genre of blogs. It's a tricky balance sometimes to say the right thing the right way. When writing about politics, being too obnoxious or verbose can turn a reader off.
Like Stephen King has said, "The road to hell was paved with adverbs" (Moncur). Adverbs, those "-ly" words, litter our writing, especially academic writing and, as the case may be, strangely, romance novels. Where else would you find him staring longingly at her heavingly ample bosom? Where else, but in a blog or online, could you find out that someone was "really, really republican" or even "two very-nearly-Democratic-Party-house-organs" (whatever that means, see Kinsolving for a clearer explanation)?
Most blogs, it can be pointed out, like The Drudge Report, are light on the professional tone and would rather get down and dirty, more like The Enquirer than The New York Times. For example, the big headline (with, unfortunately, no front-page story to go with it) says "100,000 Citizens Resist Obama in First Week." What does that mean? He's the president-elect. What can one resist at the moment? It's not as if we can re-do the elections. The sneaky part of that front-page headline is that it's an advertisement, asking readers to sign up to oppose a "socialist" Obama. Really, now? We've gone to the Marxist argument again? (How's that for a shift in tone?)
Then there are regular blogs like "Just Another Political Blog," in which our author, Canadian Zach Hall, provides thoughtful and philosophical-esque commentary about not just Canadian issues but, rather, about global conundrums such as the environment. I think our class blogs should strive to be more like Hall than The Huffington Post and Drudge. First of all, in ENG 112 we don't have ample supplies of copywriters at our disposal; we aren't paid big salaries to blog; and we haven't the archive to rely on previous work or the vitriolic ire of political party affiliation. That said, what is impressive about a one-person blog like Hall's is that it sets an appropriate tone: concerned citizen, intellectually curious, not afraid to use a thesaurus as he educates us about his understandings of politics.
In the end, the tone of any piece of writing should match the content and context of the piece. If one is writing about the war in the Congo, descriptions of murder and rape will appear. You can't and shouldn't be squeamish about telling the truth. If one is writing about relationships, it could be a mixed bag of psychology and emotional dialogue. Just remember: there are good samples and blogs to mimic, especially in your genre. Find them, peruse them, comment on them. You'll never know until you really venture out how your blog fits in to the rest of your community.
References Cited
Kinsolving, Les. (2008). Round 1: The Barack-Hillary Feud. Accessed November 17, 2008, from http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=40362
Moncour, Michael. (2007). The Quotations Page: Steven King. Accessed November 17, 2008, from http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Stephen_KingThursday, November 13, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Facebook: An Election Frontier/Faceoff
I have been quite surprised by the anxiety and animosity that has been swirling around in this postelection week. Both with my family and with friends, what could have been a surprisingly exciting time for celebration (Obama, according to the Associated Press, won by over 8 million votes) has turned into a post-win funk. This should have been a time for gratuitious champagne drinking and general deep sleeping at night. Instead, the Facebook/home faceoff has begun.
First, let me speak to family political affiliations. It just so happens that I'm the child of two retired military professionals; both raised by lifelong Democrats but both of whom vote Republican (one for military reasons, one for who knows what). My sister is a mixed-bag of political affiliations: she once worked for the Dukakis campaign, and she's both voted for Gore and Bush Jr. My brothers are staunch Republicans, probably because of their father's politics. And then there's me: a very liberal liberal who admitedly voted for Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Kerry, and Obama. I've even gone the red route on occasion.
So why are family relationships so tenuous during election season? It can all be summed up by law student Megan Bode, in "After You Vote, Please Leave Politics at the Polls" for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The honeymoon phase of trying to convince our partners, aunts, cousins, or pals that their candidate isn't the right one fades, and we are left with just bitterness, anxiety, and stress. My sister called me to explain her vote to me on Wednesday morning. I had just had a stunningly long day at the polls the day before, and so the call (and the admission of which candidate she chose) was surprising. Then came the litany of reasons why. Of course, I didn't agree with her explanations about foreign policy and general experience (because if I did, I would have voted for McCain, too). I wondered why she was unloading so much on me. Did it really matter? Then came the zinger. She said, "You'll just have to get over your dissapointment in me." Was it dissapointment, or shock, or something else? I still haven't tied an emotion to it. It was too late to convince her otherwise: she had already voted, and the election done. Yet this revelation, more than my brother's snarky text that he'd jokingly "decided Obama--psyche!" really got to me. I guess I had expected more.
One would think that once the election is over, that the feelings of anger would subside. Not likely if you were to read Jezebel's Online's article "How Facebook Status Updates Are Ruining Your Post-Election Social Life" by a blogger that goes by "Hortense." I never realized how much animosity I still harbored when I would view friends from college or high school or my last job posting comments on the social networking site about bunkering down in Idaho, running out to get a gun, the Democrats taking everyone's 401K, or what a charlatan Obama is. Really? Has it gotten that bad? Obama seems to be coming off in some of these anti-Facebook groups as a communist or the antichrist (if you can believe it, there are at least 5 Facebook groups touting this one). Of course, there is free speech, and I'm sure there have been many who have also accused Bush of being the bearer of Armegeddon as well, but I wonder: is all this displaced anger going someplace?
I can't be alone: almost 20,000 views of the Facebook faceoff from the Jezebel site show that the topic is timely. For those of you with Facebook, have you almost lost your cool with a family member or friend who has been I-moting (Internet emoting) politically spurious comments that leave you speechless, uncomfortable, or even crazed? What do we do about it? Confront our family members and friends? De-family/friend them? Ignore the behavior? This is a question I don't know how to respond to. Any feedback would be helpful!
First, let me speak to family political affiliations. It just so happens that I'm the child of two retired military professionals; both raised by lifelong Democrats but both of whom vote Republican (one for military reasons, one for who knows what). My sister is a mixed-bag of political affiliations: she once worked for the Dukakis campaign, and she's both voted for Gore and Bush Jr. My brothers are staunch Republicans, probably because of their father's politics. And then there's me: a very liberal liberal who admitedly voted for Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Kerry, and Obama. I've even gone the red route on occasion.
So why are family relationships so tenuous during election season? It can all be summed up by law student Megan Bode, in "After You Vote, Please Leave Politics at the Polls" for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The honeymoon phase of trying to convince our partners, aunts, cousins, or pals that their candidate isn't the right one fades, and we are left with just bitterness, anxiety, and stress. My sister called me to explain her vote to me on Wednesday morning. I had just had a stunningly long day at the polls the day before, and so the call (and the admission of which candidate she chose) was surprising. Then came the litany of reasons why. Of course, I didn't agree with her explanations about foreign policy and general experience (because if I did, I would have voted for McCain, too). I wondered why she was unloading so much on me. Did it really matter? Then came the zinger. She said, "You'll just have to get over your dissapointment in me." Was it dissapointment, or shock, or something else? I still haven't tied an emotion to it. It was too late to convince her otherwise: she had already voted, and the election done. Yet this revelation, more than my brother's snarky text that he'd jokingly "decided Obama--psyche!" really got to me. I guess I had expected more.
One would think that once the election is over, that the feelings of anger would subside. Not likely if you were to read Jezebel's Online's article "How Facebook Status Updates Are Ruining Your Post-Election Social Life" by a blogger that goes by "Hortense." I never realized how much animosity I still harbored when I would view friends from college or high school or my last job posting comments on the social networking site about bunkering down in Idaho, running out to get a gun, the Democrats taking everyone's 401K, or what a charlatan Obama is. Really? Has it gotten that bad? Obama seems to be coming off in some of these anti-Facebook groups as a communist or the antichrist (if you can believe it, there are at least 5 Facebook groups touting this one). Of course, there is free speech, and I'm sure there have been many who have also accused Bush of being the bearer of Armegeddon as well, but I wonder: is all this displaced anger going someplace?
I can't be alone: almost 20,000 views of the Facebook faceoff from the Jezebel site show that the topic is timely. For those of you with Facebook, have you almost lost your cool with a family member or friend who has been I-moting (Internet emoting) politically spurious comments that leave you speechless, uncomfortable, or even crazed? What do we do about it? Confront our family members and friends? De-family/friend them? Ignore the behavior? This is a question I don't know how to respond to. Any feedback would be helpful!
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
The Election ... Amazing!
This will be a somewhat teary, emotional, adrenalin-filled post. I ran a Virginia election precinct today and it was overwhelming. Weeks of training and reading up on Virginia Laws, preparation all day yesterday at our voting site, and up at 4 a.m., at the precinct at 4:45, opening the polls at 6 a.m., calling the registrar about 50 times with voters in the wrong locations, not registered, having moved, missing absentee ballots, and a myriad of other issues. Calling an election polling station hectic is a kindness. It was a monster. I just got home at 10:30 p.m.
There were times of silence; after 9:30 a.m., as the trickle of voters came in small groups instead of a deluge. And there were times of anger, especially when democratic and republican election officials try their best to do their best to protect voters and at the same time don't think of voters as real people but an "ideal." There will be more of that in another post.
I am proud of my country. I can admit that I've always loved America, but there have been times I've been mighty confused by racism, poor economic decisions, certain political actions past and present, ignorance of civil rights for hundreds of years, and so on. But there has been so much more beauty than anything else. Just seeing the smiles of the volunteers at the Fairfax County Government Center is but a small example: standing the rain, on their feet for 14 hours, easily giving a smile and a helpful hand with all our precious materials: our votes.
I hope we can become a more unified country. I know it will be hard. It will take years of a crushingly bad economy and two wars in which we must support our soldiers and all innocent people in war zones. I'm not a preachy, emotional person, but I'm crying my eyes out tonight. Happily.
There were times of silence; after 9:30 a.m., as the trickle of voters came in small groups instead of a deluge. And there were times of anger, especially when democratic and republican election officials try their best to do their best to protect voters and at the same time don't think of voters as real people but an "ideal." There will be more of that in another post.
I am proud of my country. I can admit that I've always loved America, but there have been times I've been mighty confused by racism, poor economic decisions, certain political actions past and present, ignorance of civil rights for hundreds of years, and so on. But there has been so much more beauty than anything else. Just seeing the smiles of the volunteers at the Fairfax County Government Center is but a small example: standing the rain, on their feet for 14 hours, easily giving a smile and a helpful hand with all our precious materials: our votes.
I hope we can become a more unified country. I know it will be hard. It will take years of a crushingly bad economy and two wars in which we must support our soldiers and all innocent people in war zones. I'm not a preachy, emotional person, but I'm crying my eyes out tonight. Happily.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Most Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Polls...
At this point in the election cycle, I'm generally pacing up and down, and back and forth, spending hours talking about politics (I got a call from Moveon.org today with a request to volunteer this weekend) and then surfing political blogs to find out the latest tidbit of news on what will happen to America over the next four years once we know who our president will be and the direction our country will inevitably go.
The website that crunches every number in sight is FiveThirtyEight.com. The site's authors and contributors, Nate Silver and Sean Quinn, pour over statistics and polls done by the major U.S. Polling Agencies, from Zogby to AP to Gallup. They crunch the numbers from a variety of polls, whose methods are sometimes interesting and strange. For example: say you're 20 and haven't voted before in a presidential election. In some traditional poll models, you might be excluded from the data because you don't have a track record. In this upcoming election, polls like that would exclude millions of new registered voters, 350,000 alone who were registered in Virginia between January 1 and October 1 (this excludes all those last-minuters who turned in forms in the wee hours of October 5th or 6th, the last days to offically register) (Raising Kane, 2008).
What's so great about this poll projections website is the vast amount of data that one can pour over: what are Virginia's numbers? With 13 electoral votes, we're holding at 95% odds to swing to Obama, 5% to McCain, say Silver and Quinn. But those numbers, like the polls themselves, update daily, sometimes several times a day. It all depends on who picks up the phone. And for most of us who predominantly use cell phones as our only phone, it won't be us that they call. My sister, who has a landline and lives in Gainesville, has gotten, at last count, 13 polling calls. I've gotten none. Check out this great article highlighting some interesting statistics on cell-only users at Politics and Technology. The thing to pay attention to is what will happen to polling in the future: more and more people are dropping land phone service and are moving to cell-only service. And because it a federal (FCC) law that doesn't allow solicitation on cell phones, we generally get polling peace and quiet. This quiet will eventually skew phone polls unless the federal laws are updated.
Of course, I can't tell you in one short blog everything you would want to know about presidental voting polls. But I can tell you that sites like DailyKos.com, who prominently display daily tracking poll numbers (today it's Obama 51%, McCain 40%) do draw my attention. And that's no surprise: in the land of the 59 cent burrito and "Zero Money Down" on a house or car, it seems as if America has a love affair with numbers of the right variety. It also just so happens that because I have already voted for Obama (no secret there), I have to say that I'm pretty pleased about how these numbers are tracking. But then again, they'll have to hold for 8 more days. And crazier things have happened.
Reference Cited
Raising Kaine PAC. (2008). 350,000 New Registered Voters in Virginia Since January 1, 2008! Retrieved October 26, 2008, from http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=16521
The website that crunches every number in sight is FiveThirtyEight.com. The site's authors and contributors, Nate Silver and Sean Quinn, pour over statistics and polls done by the major U.S. Polling Agencies, from Zogby to AP to Gallup. They crunch the numbers from a variety of polls, whose methods are sometimes interesting and strange. For example: say you're 20 and haven't voted before in a presidential election. In some traditional poll models, you might be excluded from the data because you don't have a track record. In this upcoming election, polls like that would exclude millions of new registered voters, 350,000 alone who were registered in Virginia between January 1 and October 1 (this excludes all those last-minuters who turned in forms in the wee hours of October 5th or 6th, the last days to offically register) (Raising Kane, 2008).
What's so great about this poll projections website is the vast amount of data that one can pour over: what are Virginia's numbers? With 13 electoral votes, we're holding at 95% odds to swing to Obama, 5% to McCain, say Silver and Quinn. But those numbers, like the polls themselves, update daily, sometimes several times a day. It all depends on who picks up the phone. And for most of us who predominantly use cell phones as our only phone, it won't be us that they call. My sister, who has a landline and lives in Gainesville, has gotten, at last count, 13 polling calls. I've gotten none. Check out this great article highlighting some interesting statistics on cell-only users at Politics and Technology. The thing to pay attention to is what will happen to polling in the future: more and more people are dropping land phone service and are moving to cell-only service. And because it a federal (FCC) law that doesn't allow solicitation on cell phones, we generally get polling peace and quiet. This quiet will eventually skew phone polls unless the federal laws are updated.
Of course, I can't tell you in one short blog everything you would want to know about presidental voting polls. But I can tell you that sites like DailyKos.com, who prominently display daily tracking poll numbers (today it's Obama 51%, McCain 40%) do draw my attention. And that's no surprise: in the land of the 59 cent burrito and "Zero Money Down" on a house or car, it seems as if America has a love affair with numbers of the right variety. It also just so happens that because I have already voted for Obama (no secret there), I have to say that I'm pretty pleased about how these numbers are tracking. But then again, they'll have to hold for 8 more days. And crazier things have happened.
Reference Cited
Raising Kaine PAC. (2008). 350,000 New Registered Voters in Virginia Since January 1, 2008! Retrieved October 26, 2008, from http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=16521
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Back to Politics: Vote 2008
Starting in mid-October I'll be cranking away at this blog again, and I haven't blogged since the midterm elections in 2006 on issues surrounding politics, but if this isn't the perfect time, I don't know when it would be.
I'm now moving from an assistant chief in this year's elections to an actual chief of a polling site. I'm both excited and terrified. Excited to be part of the process and to be taking on a job that I believe allows me to make sure that everybody who shows up at my polling station has their U.S. given right to vote. There are times, of course, in which I've had to turn people away--but it's usually that they showed up at the wrong site, or that they forgot they didn't change their registration after college. I've never had to turn somebody down due to ID purposes (unlike what might happen in Indiana). I'm slightly obsessed and a little bit terrified that I might not get any sleep the night before and be a zombie during the action of the day...
I have seen people being unfairly treated when voting. A woman who happened to be African American was being unduly "processed" at the check-in table before she was given the "a-ok" to vote--I wasn't working this site, just voting at my own polling station, and I think this experience caused me to go volunteer to work the polls. I didn't hear the whole conversation between the woman and the poll workers, so I don't know for sure what went down, but I didn't leave until I saw that she voted. My hope is that it was for a legitimate reason (roll-related) and not racism. I'd like to think that, in Virginia, we don't discriminate, but I've lived in the south most of my life and I know better: discrimination happens everywhere. So I think it's up to us to protect all citizens and make sure not only that they feel safe voting, but that they have every opportunity to vote.
I'm just hoping that this November I get enough sleep the night before and that we get a great turnout. I hope that this process works this time, and that everybody votes. Otherwise, we can't complain about how the world is falling apart if we do nothing to speak up about torture, needless death, environmental protection, illegal wars, a deficit that grows every second, women's rights to their own bodies, better MPG standards on cars, and so on, and on, and on, and on...
I'm now moving from an assistant chief in this year's elections to an actual chief of a polling site. I'm both excited and terrified. Excited to be part of the process and to be taking on a job that I believe allows me to make sure that everybody who shows up at my polling station has their U.S. given right to vote. There are times, of course, in which I've had to turn people away--but it's usually that they showed up at the wrong site, or that they forgot they didn't change their registration after college. I've never had to turn somebody down due to ID purposes (unlike what might happen in Indiana). I'm slightly obsessed and a little bit terrified that I might not get any sleep the night before and be a zombie during the action of the day...
I have seen people being unfairly treated when voting. A woman who happened to be African American was being unduly "processed" at the check-in table before she was given the "a-ok" to vote--I wasn't working this site, just voting at my own polling station, and I think this experience caused me to go volunteer to work the polls. I didn't hear the whole conversation between the woman and the poll workers, so I don't know for sure what went down, but I didn't leave until I saw that she voted. My hope is that it was for a legitimate reason (roll-related) and not racism. I'd like to think that, in Virginia, we don't discriminate, but I've lived in the south most of my life and I know better: discrimination happens everywhere. So I think it's up to us to protect all citizens and make sure not only that they feel safe voting, but that they have every opportunity to vote.
I'm just hoping that this November I get enough sleep the night before and that we get a great turnout. I hope that this process works this time, and that everybody votes. Otherwise, we can't complain about how the world is falling apart if we do nothing to speak up about torture, needless death, environmental protection, illegal wars, a deficit that grows every second, women's rights to their own bodies, better MPG standards on cars, and so on, and on, and on, and on...
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