I just posted the draft of my paper to Google docs for peer review. Yippee!
It's still missing a couple of sections of text, but I'm not too concerned about that. I just hope I don't have to do too much revising -- I'm pooped! I've spent a lot of time on the research and writing and I'd really like to get it done. Soon. This week. Now!
Monday, December 1, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Shortest Blog Post to Date!
I'm completely absorbed in getting the draft of my paper done for tomorrow. In fact, I've spent a gazillion hours on it during the last three days. Whew!
Anyway, I have been doing the reading for tomorrow night's class, which entail a feminist perspective on rhetoric. I'm really enjoying these articles because I did a women's studies minor as an undergrad, and the readings are bringing back fond memories of those days.
I liked Choudhury's article on "adverts" in India and what they're doing to shape people's beliefs and expectations. I'm about half finished reading the Brasseur article, which I find is a little less helpful because it seems to be a recipe for developing a women in rhetoric class, which I have no plans to do. It does contain some valuable nuggets, though, and I'm actually using a quote from it in my paper!
More tomorrow.
Anyway, I have been doing the reading for tomorrow night's class, which entail a feminist perspective on rhetoric. I'm really enjoying these articles because I did a women's studies minor as an undergrad, and the readings are bringing back fond memories of those days.
I liked Choudhury's article on "adverts" in India and what they're doing to shape people's beliefs and expectations. I'm about half finished reading the Brasseur article, which I find is a little less helpful because it seems to be a recipe for developing a women in rhetoric class, which I have no plans to do. It does contain some valuable nuggets, though, and I'm actually using a quote from it in my paper!
More tomorrow.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Readings on Online Environments
Although, again, most of these articles were quite dated, I did enjoy the one by Stephen Bernhardt titled "The Shape of Text to Come: The Texture of Print on Screens." It was a good refresher on strategies for writing for the web, which, as Bernhardt stresses, is vastly different than writing for print.
One excellent point he made is that "there can be no assumption that the reader has built up a model of the logical relations of the text from processing pages in a linear order," and therefore each chunk of the text needs to be able to stand alone.
Another point I related to was "Writers of paper texts are always constrained by length...writing is a process of selection, cutting paring away at what is non-essential or redundant." Due to the current backlash in the workplace against the enormous amount of electronic text people have to read, the paper newsletter is making a comeback. In fact, I write one and collaborate on another in my job. I have definitely gotten out of the habit of having to fit everything that needs to be included into a four-panel newsletter, and it's tough -- especially when I've got an issue laid out and then somebody decides that there needs to be one more story or photo or announcement or whatever added.
The Paradis article, "Text and Action: The Operator's Manual in Context and in Court," was interesting enough for a technical discussion, but the amount of errors in the layout made it frustrating to read. There were lines missing, entire pages repeated, and lines that ended mid-sentence at the bottom of a page. Also, I didn't see a date on this one, or the publication in which it was printed.
The Mirel article, "Writing and Database Technology: Extending the Definition of Writing in the Workplace," was an incredibly detailed analysis of what, to me, is a simple task: including tables of data within a text. I wouldn't have thought this seemingly humble topic could have warranted so much attention, even though I agree that college writing programs could do a better job of teaching people to set up data in graphical formats.
With regard to Racine et al's "Getting to Know Audiences in Cyberspace: A Usability Approach to Designing Skill Centers for Online Writing Centers," I didn't feel that I got a lot of useful information out of this article. The concept of allowing users to help design websites was a good one, but the package it's wrapped in (college writing centers) was directed toward a very specific audience, and therefore, I didn't feel like I was able to glean a lot of information that can be broadly applied.
One excellent point he made is that "there can be no assumption that the reader has built up a model of the logical relations of the text from processing pages in a linear order," and therefore each chunk of the text needs to be able to stand alone.
Another point I related to was "Writers of paper texts are always constrained by length...writing is a process of selection, cutting paring away at what is non-essential or redundant." Due to the current backlash in the workplace against the enormous amount of electronic text people have to read, the paper newsletter is making a comeback. In fact, I write one and collaborate on another in my job. I have definitely gotten out of the habit of having to fit everything that needs to be included into a four-panel newsletter, and it's tough -- especially when I've got an issue laid out and then somebody decides that there needs to be one more story or photo or announcement or whatever added.
The Paradis article, "Text and Action: The Operator's Manual in Context and in Court," was interesting enough for a technical discussion, but the amount of errors in the layout made it frustrating to read. There were lines missing, entire pages repeated, and lines that ended mid-sentence at the bottom of a page. Also, I didn't see a date on this one, or the publication in which it was printed.
The Mirel article, "Writing and Database Technology: Extending the Definition of Writing in the Workplace," was an incredibly detailed analysis of what, to me, is a simple task: including tables of data within a text. I wouldn't have thought this seemingly humble topic could have warranted so much attention, even though I agree that college writing programs could do a better job of teaching people to set up data in graphical formats.
With regard to Racine et al's "Getting to Know Audiences in Cyberspace: A Usability Approach to Designing Skill Centers for Online Writing Centers," I didn't feel that I got a lot of useful information out of this article. The concept of allowing users to help design websites was a good one, but the package it's wrapped in (college writing centers) was directed toward a very specific audience, and therefore, I didn't feel like I was able to glean a lot of information that can be broadly applied.
Monday, November 17, 2008
More than I ever wanted to know...
...about the engineering of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers is what I'm reading in preparation for my paper. I've learned about different kinds of loads (lateral, gravity and wind loads), slurry walls, and the difference between heat and temperature (well, not that I completely understand the thermaldynamics of it). I've also learned that 60 workers were killed in construction accidents while the WTC was being built.
But perhaps the most notable bit of information I've come across in my research is that ownership of the WTC was transferred to a group of investors headed by Larry Silverstein, a guy who already controlled more than 8 million square feet of NYC real estate. So what's interesting about that, you ask? How about that this all happened on July 24, 2001, just six weeks before the terrorist attack, and that Silverstein not only got $98 million out of his original $124 million down payment back after 9/11, but he also got two times the payout from the insurance carriers because two planes hit the buildings, and a jury considered them separate occurences. Plus, he received $861 million in insurance claims for WTC 7, which also collapsed that day, even though he only paid $386 million for it. That's a profit of about $500 million. Further, Silverstein gets to keep the "ground zero" property to rebuild on it.
How's that for a return on investment? It's no wonder conspiracy theories abound.
But perhaps the most notable bit of information I've come across in my research is that ownership of the WTC was transferred to a group of investors headed by Larry Silverstein, a guy who already controlled more than 8 million square feet of NYC real estate. So what's interesting about that, you ask? How about that this all happened on July 24, 2001, just six weeks before the terrorist attack, and that Silverstein not only got $98 million out of his original $124 million down payment back after 9/11, but he also got two times the payout from the insurance carriers because two planes hit the buildings, and a jury considered them separate occurences. Plus, he received $861 million in insurance claims for WTC 7, which also collapsed that day, even though he only paid $386 million for it. That's a profit of about $500 million. Further, Silverstein gets to keep the "ground zero" property to rebuild on it.
How's that for a return on investment? It's no wonder conspiracy theories abound.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Reflections on Workplace Studies Articles, Continued
Moving on to the other two articles in this week's reading.
"What We Learn from Writing on the Job" (Faigley and Miller). This article is the oldest of the four readings for this week: it was published in October 1982. To put it mildly, writing on the job has changed a bit since this was written. As Rebecca points out in her blog, reading this piece is anachronistic. Personally, I find it quite a blast from the past. I was working as a secretary before the dawn of the word processing and computer eras, and I remember having to retype one or more pages of a document every time my boss made so much as a one-word change. Plus, there was still a lot of carbon paper being used, which was a whole 'nother nightmare in itself. When Liquid Paper and photocopiers appeared on the scene, it was like a gift from above! And then they came out with those newfangled typewriters that would store a whole line of text so you could go back and fix typos before hitting "return" at the end of the line. Such progress!!
Anyway, enough bashing of the bad old days of technology. It really floored me to read about how some universities had abolished their writing programs before the mid-1970s because "high-school graduates no longer needed such training" (Faigley and Miller, 557). Good lord! That was my era, and I remember the frustration my high school English teachers used to suffer over their students' writing abilities. One thing I thought was odd, even at the time, was that grammar and punctuation went by the wayside by the time I reached eighth grade (1967-68). That's the last time I remember having to diagram sentences, at least until my undergrad linguistics classes. It was awful, boring stuff, but I did learn quite a bit about structure.
I enjoyed Faigley and Miller's passage that stated "Journals and diaries do not seem as prevalent as they once were, judging from the extensive nineteenth-century diary collections in some historical libraries" (562). I agree with that observation, but only up until the recent birth of social networking (a.k.a. blogs). After all, what is this I'm writing if not a journal entry? Of course, I rather doubt it will show up in any historical library collection a couple hundred years from now. ;-)
I also loved this gem: "Codified rules will not teach proper writing skills. Reading good writing finally ingrains good practice" (Faigley and Miller, 564). I believe this wholeheartedly, and I often advise people who are less than confident in their writing skills to READ, READ, READ. The more often we see things written properly, both from a grammar and a punctuation perspective, the more we absorb through "osmosis." I truly believe that it was my voracious reading habit -- as opposed to any formal education process -- that really taught me to write.
Another point I thought was important is "...college graduates need to know more than just the basics. They need to be able to write well in novel situations and to master a number of different styles. They especially must be able to write for different audiences" (Faigley and Miller, 564). When I hire communications professionals, I include as part of the interview process both an editing test and an impromptu essay. The editing test is a bear, because not only do applicants need to be able to correct an error, but they need to be able to explain why it was an error in the first place. (Wicked, ain't I?) But I've found that it's the writing test that really throws people. One woman I interviewed a couple of years ago for a mid-level communications job took herself out of the running because she wasn't comfortable with composing a simple one-page essay. And she was an experienced professional writer!
"Frameworks for the Study of Writing in Organizational Contexts" (Harrison). I found this article to be the most fascinating of the four. I work for a large health care organization with 55,000 employees in eight states. Harrison's discussion about the idiosyncrasies of organizations could have been written about my employer. Because we're a Catholic organization, and a non-profit to boot, we have a vested interest in maintaining our "we provide the very best care because we're carrying on the work of Jesus Christ and we don't need to make any money for doing it" image. The organization's non-profit status means we're exempt from paying taxes (which makes it a little less difficult to stay in business, especially in the current economy), but it also means we have an obligation to provide a great deal of charity care and other types of community benefit -- and prove that we're doing so.
To help project that "vow of poverty" image, about four years ago we adopted a rhetorical stance that uses terms such as "Unified Enterprise Ministry" to describe the organization as a whole, and "Ministry Organization" to refer to individual hospitals. "Employees" have become "associates" and the "Corporate" Office has changed to the "Home" Office. When we write, we use "dot" points instead of "bullet" points, and we "implement" rather than "execute" plans. We have "reflections" before every meeting, and we structure each meeting around one of the six "Guiding Behaviors" (notice the initial caps). We refer to the December festivities as "Christmas" parties rather than "holiday" parties, even though we pride ourselves on our commitment to diversity and inclusion. One of the first things I did after being hired four years ago was to attend the organization's annual Fall Conference, and was rather startled to learn that we have own song!
It's true that, in my organization's case, we "...invent ideologies...that encompass expectations about the organization, its environment, and the probable success of alternative actions and then use these ideologies to justify why certain courses of action are needed to solve a particular problem" (Harrison 12). In fact, my employer has a whole department called Mission Discernment that is responsible for reviewing important business decisions before they're implemented in terms of the organization's mission, Catholic sponsorship, and nonprofit status.
As you might expect, my employer's specialized ideology mandates a very specific framework for organizational discourse. As Harrison suggests, we "are conscious of and accommodate the idiosyncratic constraints imposed by [our organization] in the production of...documents, as well as the expected constraints of subject matter" (4). It took me, as a newly hired writer, some time to understand and internalize the rhetorical traditions of the organization, but after four years I can honestly say it's deeply ingrained. If I find it necessary to take a job with another company in the future, I believe it will be easier for me to understand the concept of the organization as rhetorical context, but perhaps a bit difficult to shake off my employer's own peculiarities.
"What We Learn from Writing on the Job" (Faigley and Miller). This article is the oldest of the four readings for this week: it was published in October 1982. To put it mildly, writing on the job has changed a bit since this was written. As Rebecca points out in her blog, reading this piece is anachronistic. Personally, I find it quite a blast from the past. I was working as a secretary before the dawn of the word processing and computer eras, and I remember having to retype one or more pages of a document every time my boss made so much as a one-word change. Plus, there was still a lot of carbon paper being used, which was a whole 'nother nightmare in itself. When Liquid Paper and photocopiers appeared on the scene, it was like a gift from above! And then they came out with those newfangled typewriters that would store a whole line of text so you could go back and fix typos before hitting "return" at the end of the line. Such progress!!
Anyway, enough bashing of the bad old days of technology. It really floored me to read about how some universities had abolished their writing programs before the mid-1970s because "high-school graduates no longer needed such training" (Faigley and Miller, 557). Good lord! That was my era, and I remember the frustration my high school English teachers used to suffer over their students' writing abilities. One thing I thought was odd, even at the time, was that grammar and punctuation went by the wayside by the time I reached eighth grade (1967-68). That's the last time I remember having to diagram sentences, at least until my undergrad linguistics classes. It was awful, boring stuff, but I did learn quite a bit about structure.
I enjoyed Faigley and Miller's passage that stated "Journals and diaries do not seem as prevalent as they once were, judging from the extensive nineteenth-century diary collections in some historical libraries" (562). I agree with that observation, but only up until the recent birth of social networking (a.k.a. blogs). After all, what is this I'm writing if not a journal entry? Of course, I rather doubt it will show up in any historical library collection a couple hundred years from now. ;-)
I also loved this gem: "Codified rules will not teach proper writing skills. Reading good writing finally ingrains good practice" (Faigley and Miller, 564). I believe this wholeheartedly, and I often advise people who are less than confident in their writing skills to READ, READ, READ. The more often we see things written properly, both from a grammar and a punctuation perspective, the more we absorb through "osmosis." I truly believe that it was my voracious reading habit -- as opposed to any formal education process -- that really taught me to write.
Another point I thought was important is "...college graduates need to know more than just the basics. They need to be able to write well in novel situations and to master a number of different styles. They especially must be able to write for different audiences" (Faigley and Miller, 564). When I hire communications professionals, I include as part of the interview process both an editing test and an impromptu essay. The editing test is a bear, because not only do applicants need to be able to correct an error, but they need to be able to explain why it was an error in the first place. (Wicked, ain't I?) But I've found that it's the writing test that really throws people. One woman I interviewed a couple of years ago for a mid-level communications job took herself out of the running because she wasn't comfortable with composing a simple one-page essay. And she was an experienced professional writer!
"Frameworks for the Study of Writing in Organizational Contexts" (Harrison). I found this article to be the most fascinating of the four. I work for a large health care organization with 55,000 employees in eight states. Harrison's discussion about the idiosyncrasies of organizations could have been written about my employer. Because we're a Catholic organization, and a non-profit to boot, we have a vested interest in maintaining our "we provide the very best care because we're carrying on the work of Jesus Christ and we don't need to make any money for doing it" image. The organization's non-profit status means we're exempt from paying taxes (which makes it a little less difficult to stay in business, especially in the current economy), but it also means we have an obligation to provide a great deal of charity care and other types of community benefit -- and prove that we're doing so.
To help project that "vow of poverty" image, about four years ago we adopted a rhetorical stance that uses terms such as "Unified Enterprise Ministry" to describe the organization as a whole, and "Ministry Organization" to refer to individual hospitals. "Employees" have become "associates" and the "Corporate" Office has changed to the "Home" Office. When we write, we use "dot" points instead of "bullet" points, and we "implement" rather than "execute" plans. We have "reflections" before every meeting, and we structure each meeting around one of the six "Guiding Behaviors" (notice the initial caps). We refer to the December festivities as "Christmas" parties rather than "holiday" parties, even though we pride ourselves on our commitment to diversity and inclusion. One of the first things I did after being hired four years ago was to attend the organization's annual Fall Conference, and was rather startled to learn that we have own song!
It's true that, in my organization's case, we "...invent ideologies...that encompass expectations about the organization, its environment, and the probable success of alternative actions and then use these ideologies to justify why certain courses of action are needed to solve a particular problem" (Harrison 12). In fact, my employer has a whole department called Mission Discernment that is responsible for reviewing important business decisions before they're implemented in terms of the organization's mission, Catholic sponsorship, and nonprofit status.
As you might expect, my employer's specialized ideology mandates a very specific framework for organizational discourse. As Harrison suggests, we "are conscious of and accommodate the idiosyncratic constraints imposed by [our organization] in the production of...documents, as well as the expected constraints of subject matter" (4). It took me, as a newly hired writer, some time to understand and internalize the rhetorical traditions of the organization, but after four years I can honestly say it's deeply ingrained. If I find it necessary to take a job with another company in the future, I believe it will be easier for me to understand the concept of the organization as rhetorical context, but perhaps a bit difficult to shake off my employer's own peculiarities.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Reflections on Workplace Studies Articles
"Wow lady" to you, Rebecca! You really got a jump start on this. Here are my comments on the two of the four articles we'll be presenting to the class on Monday, November 10.
"What Experienced Collaborators Say About Collaborative Writing" (Allen, Atkinson, Morgan, Moore and Snow). Like Rebecca mentioned in her blog, I too was amused by the fact that the researchers chose to exclude professional writers. I also was amused at this passage (Allen et al, 80): "He thought his collaborator 'might have taken certain things for granted because of his background that...were not clear enough to a person with a slightly different background.'" This is a situation I run into all the time when I review/edit things written by non-professional writers. Most don't realize the importance of establishing their audience before they begin work, and end up "writing for themselves" (or, in the case of collaboration, each other) and not even realizing it. That is, they take for granted that the reader will know what's going on inside their heads when, in fact, they leave out important or even critical information without which the reader may not be able to grasp their meaning.
Overall, I agreed with the findings of this article because they ring true with my own experience of collaborative writing. Specifically, I thought the researchers were right on when they reported that "attempts at group drafting produced only frustration" (Allen et al, 77). Writing is a very individual activity for most people, and it's rare for even two -- let alone more -- people to be able to form cohesive sentences and paragraphs while working together.
I disagree with the researchers' findings about the "divide and conquer" approach to collaborative writing. While it's true that a group might be able to get more words on paper, and that they can fully contribute their own expertise in this way, having individuals complete sections of a larger work is not always the best way to collaborate. Some people are always going to be better writers than others. Some will have more time to devote to the project. And some are just more engaged. The results can be uneven, requiring one person to tackle the editing for style, tone and parallel construction, which can be more of a chore than if that person just did the work in the first place. (Does it sound as though I've been there?) This is confirmed in the "Ethnographic Study" article I discuss below: the VPs each were responsible for writing a part of the second business plan but failed because some of them "produced incomplete or poorly written sections" (Doheny-Farina, 168).
"Writing in an Emerging Organization: An Ethnographic Study" (Doheny-Farina). I liked Rebecca's word substitutions (discourse for writing and rhetorical situation for social context) because they made it very simple to apply the learnings from last week's articles to understanding this week's.
From a personal perspective, I took considerable satisfaction in the author's comment, "...the complexity and significance of writing in some nonacademic settings often goes unrecognized and is little understood." Amen, brother! One of the things I always say (or, more accurately, whine about) is that organizational leaders often take writing for granted. Many believe that "everybody" can write, so what's the big deal about having professional communicators on staff? In an economic downturn, communicators are often the first to go because, these leaders reason, they themselves can write whatever needs to be written. When this turns out to be a mess, they bring in communication consultants -- ultil they get the bills. After recoving from sticker shock, they hire more staff communicators. Unfortunately, these new people need time to be brought up to speed on the organization and its eccentricities, so in three or four years when they're really valuable the economy starts to rock and roll again....
Anyway, I did enjoy the discussion about the conflict between Bill and the vice presidents. This seemed very authentic to me. In both this article and the "Collaborators" one discussed above, conflict was a major factor in the writing activity. I remember reading several years ago about a group process model that was described in terms of forming, storming, norming and performing. The conflict Bill and the other VPs experienced was obviously part of the storming phase. Like the "Collaborators" article stated, conflict seems to be a positive and even necessary part of the collaborative process because it "generated innovative, hence creative, resolutions" (Allen et al, 83). It was certainly true in this case.
But what was most intriguing to me in the "Ethnographic Study" article were the observations that (1) "the writing process not only influenced the substance of what was written, but also influenced the organization," and (2) "as the writing process enabled a change in the company's authority structure, that change, in turn, affected the writing process" (Doheny-Farina, 167). I couldn't help but relate statement 1 to my own job. The idea that my writing might actually, in some small way, influence my organization was a big "a-ha" moment for me, and it has caused me to think differently about the significance of what I do every day.
My thoughts on the other two articles will appear in my next post.
"What Experienced Collaborators Say About Collaborative Writing" (Allen, Atkinson, Morgan, Moore and Snow). Like Rebecca mentioned in her blog, I too was amused by the fact that the researchers chose to exclude professional writers. I also was amused at this passage (Allen et al, 80): "He thought his collaborator 'might have taken certain things for granted because of his background that...were not clear enough to a person with a slightly different background.'" This is a situation I run into all the time when I review/edit things written by non-professional writers. Most don't realize the importance of establishing their audience before they begin work, and end up "writing for themselves" (or, in the case of collaboration, each other) and not even realizing it. That is, they take for granted that the reader will know what's going on inside their heads when, in fact, they leave out important or even critical information without which the reader may not be able to grasp their meaning.
Overall, I agreed with the findings of this article because they ring true with my own experience of collaborative writing. Specifically, I thought the researchers were right on when they reported that "attempts at group drafting produced only frustration" (Allen et al, 77). Writing is a very individual activity for most people, and it's rare for even two -- let alone more -- people to be able to form cohesive sentences and paragraphs while working together.
I disagree with the researchers' findings about the "divide and conquer" approach to collaborative writing. While it's true that a group might be able to get more words on paper, and that they can fully contribute their own expertise in this way, having individuals complete sections of a larger work is not always the best way to collaborate. Some people are always going to be better writers than others. Some will have more time to devote to the project. And some are just more engaged. The results can be uneven, requiring one person to tackle the editing for style, tone and parallel construction, which can be more of a chore than if that person just did the work in the first place. (Does it sound as though I've been there?) This is confirmed in the "Ethnographic Study" article I discuss below: the VPs each were responsible for writing a part of the second business plan but failed because some of them "produced incomplete or poorly written sections" (Doheny-Farina, 168).
"Writing in an Emerging Organization: An Ethnographic Study" (Doheny-Farina). I liked Rebecca's word substitutions (discourse for writing and rhetorical situation for social context) because they made it very simple to apply the learnings from last week's articles to understanding this week's.
From a personal perspective, I took considerable satisfaction in the author's comment, "...the complexity and significance of writing in some nonacademic settings often goes unrecognized and is little understood." Amen, brother! One of the things I always say (or, more accurately, whine about) is that organizational leaders often take writing for granted. Many believe that "everybody" can write, so what's the big deal about having professional communicators on staff? In an economic downturn, communicators are often the first to go because, these leaders reason, they themselves can write whatever needs to be written. When this turns out to be a mess, they bring in communication consultants -- ultil they get the bills. After recoving from sticker shock, they hire more staff communicators. Unfortunately, these new people need time to be brought up to speed on the organization and its eccentricities, so in three or four years when they're really valuable the economy starts to rock and roll again....
Anyway, I did enjoy the discussion about the conflict between Bill and the vice presidents. This seemed very authentic to me. In both this article and the "Collaborators" one discussed above, conflict was a major factor in the writing activity. I remember reading several years ago about a group process model that was described in terms of forming, storming, norming and performing. The conflict Bill and the other VPs experienced was obviously part of the storming phase. Like the "Collaborators" article stated, conflict seems to be a positive and even necessary part of the collaborative process because it "generated innovative, hence creative, resolutions" (Allen et al, 83). It was certainly true in this case.
But what was most intriguing to me in the "Ethnographic Study" article were the observations that (1) "the writing process not only influenced the substance of what was written, but also influenced the organization," and (2) "as the writing process enabled a change in the company's authority structure, that change, in turn, affected the writing process" (Doheny-Farina, 167). I couldn't help but relate statement 1 to my own job. The idea that my writing might actually, in some small way, influence my organization was a big "a-ha" moment for me, and it has caused me to think differently about the significance of what I do every day.
My thoughts on the other two articles will appear in my next post.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Biesecker Has Brought Me to my Knees
I've taken two runs at Biesecker's "Rethinking the Rhetorical Situation from within the Thematic of Differance," and am still scratching my head. I feel like there's a disconnect between where I am on the knowledge scale about this topic, and where I would need to be to have this make any kind of sense at all.
First of all, there are the terms. "Deconstruction" is a biggie in this paper, but Biesecker is not clear on what is meant by the term. So I went to Wikipedia for (hopefully) an English-language translation but instead found a 19-page site that, in my opinion, is just more of the same. (It's interesting to note that there's a box at the top of the site that claims that "All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear." Yeah, no kidding! This site refers to some more of the terms used in Biesecker's paper, such as "phenomenology." So I Googled that too, and found a 13-page Wikipedia site. Hmmmm...I seem to see a pattern developing here.
So if we set aside for now my confusion about the terms, the next thing I notice is that Biesecker seems to be trying to find out how many big words she can string together and call it a sentence. I'm sure her statements are clear and meaningful to her -- and probably to other rhetoricians thinking up there at the top of the mount -- but we poor slobs who are just trying to get through a grad school class end up wanting to commit hari kari. ESPECIALLY since I and one of my fellow students have been charged with explaining this 12-page academic enigma to the class tonight!!
Now, don't get me wrong. I've been a reader and writer all my life, and I like to think I have adequately functioning gray matter up there (at least, Mensa thinks I do). But when I try to make sense out of passages like the following I feel like a non-native speaker:
"Symbolic action (what has historically been a linguistic text) is almost always understood as an expression that, wittingly or unwittingly, shapes or is shaped by the constitutent elements of the situation out of which and for which it is produced. This long-held conception of the rhetorical situation as an exchange of influence defines the text as an object that mediates between subjects (speaker and audience) whose identity is constituted in a terrain different from and external to the particular rhetorical situation."
You might object to my argument that this passage is nearly unintelligible to normal humans because I've quoted it out of context. If you don't know this particular paper, you may think this passage is buried somewhere deep within it, and that the potential for understanding has been established by previous explanation. But, my friend, you would be incorrect. This passage is out of the paper's introductory paragraph! Believe me, it gets worse. Several pages in we are presented with:
"The transitory character of one's choice of foundational terms is precisely that which any text cannot admit if it is going to make anything like 'truth' appear; however, the text's own provisionality is also that which the language of the text repeatedly performs, despite all efforts to conceal it. We are continually reminded that although our own desire for unity and order compels us to 'balance the equation that is the text's system,' the textuality of the text itself 'exposes the grammatological structure of the text,' and reveals 'that its 'origin' and its 'end' are given over to language in general.'"
Huh?
Reading (or, more accurately, trying to read) this paper has been a truly humbling experience.
First of all, there are the terms. "Deconstruction" is a biggie in this paper, but Biesecker is not clear on what is meant by the term. So I went to Wikipedia for (hopefully) an English-language translation but instead found a 19-page site that, in my opinion, is just more of the same. (It's interesting to note that there's a box at the top of the site that claims that "All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear." Yeah, no kidding! This site refers to some more of the terms used in Biesecker's paper, such as "phenomenology." So I Googled that too, and found a 13-page Wikipedia site. Hmmmm...I seem to see a pattern developing here.
So if we set aside for now my confusion about the terms, the next thing I notice is that Biesecker seems to be trying to find out how many big words she can string together and call it a sentence. I'm sure her statements are clear and meaningful to her -- and probably to other rhetoricians thinking up there at the top of the mount -- but we poor slobs who are just trying to get through a grad school class end up wanting to commit hari kari. ESPECIALLY since I and one of my fellow students have been charged with explaining this 12-page academic enigma to the class tonight!!
Now, don't get me wrong. I've been a reader and writer all my life, and I like to think I have adequately functioning gray matter up there (at least, Mensa thinks I do). But when I try to make sense out of passages like the following I feel like a non-native speaker:
"Symbolic action (what has historically been a linguistic text) is almost always understood as an expression that, wittingly or unwittingly, shapes or is shaped by the constitutent elements of the situation out of which and for which it is produced. This long-held conception of the rhetorical situation as an exchange of influence defines the text as an object that mediates between subjects (speaker and audience) whose identity is constituted in a terrain different from and external to the particular rhetorical situation."
You might object to my argument that this passage is nearly unintelligible to normal humans because I've quoted it out of context. If you don't know this particular paper, you may think this passage is buried somewhere deep within it, and that the potential for understanding has been established by previous explanation. But, my friend, you would be incorrect. This passage is out of the paper's introductory paragraph! Believe me, it gets worse. Several pages in we are presented with:
"The transitory character of one's choice of foundational terms is precisely that which any text cannot admit if it is going to make anything like 'truth' appear; however, the text's own provisionality is also that which the language of the text repeatedly performs, despite all efforts to conceal it. We are continually reminded that although our own desire for unity and order compels us to 'balance the equation that is the text's system,' the textuality of the text itself 'exposes the grammatological structure of the text,' and reveals 'that its 'origin' and its 'end' are given over to language in general.'"
Huh?
Reading (or, more accurately, trying to read) this paper has been a truly humbling experience.
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