From the NPR News Blog comes this, “Obama Campaign Skewers Clinton E-Mail Statement.” It’s kinda funny stuff and I certainly agree with the Obama camp’s points here, but jeez, I just want this to wrap-up already….
Recap of Friday’s plagiarism talks
I went to a spiel/mini-symposium/keynote speech deal over at the University of Michigan on Friday that was kind of a recap of a conference they had there about plagiarism last year, and also a celebration for the book Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age. An interesting afternoon, and as an aside, it is one of those things that makes me think about living in the long shadow cast by the University of Michigan. Most people (including some of the out-of-towners who were at this thing) are surprised to learn that EMU is only about 10 miles away from U of M, though, as my visit to the pristine and beautiful Angell Hall reminded me for the millionth time, U of M and EMU are worlds apart. But the upside of living right next to U of M is events like this come up every once in a while, not to mention all the other cool stuff in Ann Arbor and on campus, the libraries, etc., etc.
Anyway, the speeches were from Linda “on the home team” Adler-Kassner, Rebecca Moore Howard, and Chris Anson. The three of them have a chapter is in this book, too. Linda AK’s talk was about Turnitin.com and she pointed out something that I guess is kind of obvious once you start looking but something I had not thought of before: just about everything you see about plagiarism in the popular press seems to come from these people at Turnitin.com. That’s kind of like everything about the overblown dangers of drinking and driving coming out from Budweiser or something. It’s a nasty business to be sure, but you’ve got to hand it to John Barrie and these other people: they’ve been incredibly able to convince folks that a) plagiarism is this horrific plague on the educational process, and b)Turnitin.com is the solution. And they’ve done all this with essentially no expertise on the matter.
Rebecca Howard’s talk was mostly about a research project she’s working on called “The Engaged Reading Project,” which is a fairly complicated and detailed analysis of how students are using/misusing sources. One of the things she pointed out as part of her talk was some of the ways in which Turnitin.com doesn’t work when it comes to “catching” things less than 40-some-odd characters, and what Turnitin really is is a “copy detection” system, which is not the same thing as plagiarism. I appreciated this because while all of the ethical and other problems with plagiarism detection schemes are of course important, it frankly annoys me to no end that these people are making millions of dollars off of a product that fosters bad teaching and, just to top it off, it doesn’t really work that well.
Anyway, most of what Howard did was talk about how her research is trying to approach the problem from the opposite direction, to find out what it is that students are doing with their sources, etc. I think a lot of what she was talking about is that students who are misusing sources and doing a sort of “patch writing” are just not that engaged in the reading and the assignment. So in that sense, plagiarism (but not really plagiarism, more like not using sources well and/or not according to the rules) really is a learning problem and not a policing problem.
Chris Anson talked about a couple of examples of plagiarism– or not really plagiarism so much as “borrowed writing”– that occur all the time in the “real world.” One was in the Army, where it is (apparently) common for officers to copy each others’ memos without attribution in order to relay a message to the troops. Mike at vitia had a series of posts which start here about this in November that sort of address this kind of thing. But for me the more interesting example was when he was talking about how there’s all this language on the web that people “borrow” from each other all the time. The example Anson had that stuck with me was the kind of language that a number of different web sites use about how to drive in the snow and ice. For example, if you do a Google search for these two sentences–
— (as I did if you follow the link), you’ll see lots of web sites use either the exact language or something pretty close to it in describing icy driving. Now, is this plagiarism? Hell if I know. I mean, it seems to me there are only so many ways you can uniquely word something like “use your brakes cautiously,” which maybe gets into some territory about what counts as “common knowledge” of something that doesn’t need to be cited, or some kind of language that cannot be copyrighted or owned per se, like most recipes.
At the end of the day, and I think this was Linda’s main point, “plagiarism” is a problem that really is a stand-in for lots of other problems and fears we have about the (mis)education of youth. Plagiarism is a hot topic again as a result of technology, but is it actually a “problem” because students can so easily just “copy and paste” stuff from the web, or is it really a problem because this technology throws such an enormous wrench into concepts of ownership, knowledge, access, collaboration, connections, etc. It’d be interesting to find out if there were previous plagiarism scares with the development of previous technologies, like the dangers of the typewriter making writing so much easier to copy.
Anyway, great and thoughtful stuff. I bought the book and I hope to use it a bit next year when I teach about plagiarism again in 516.
Sweded version of Star Wars: so awesome, so many ideas
Via my friend Chris and via boing-boing comes this “Sweded” version of Star Wars:
Oh, where to begin?
First off, this is why I want to very much see the here and gone almost immediately movie, Be Kind Rewind. As the wikipedia entry suggests, the plot of the movie involves the characters remaking the videos in a rental store, and, when customers complain about the remakes, which are like the one above, the excuse offered is that the videos are from Sweden. Or something like that– I have yet to see the movie.
Second, I think this would be a fun way to spend the afternoon with Will and some of his friends. Not this particular afternoon, but I can see the film maker in me yet….
And third, I actually think this might be a kind of cool assignment for some of the writing classes I teach, particularly English 328. I am imagining something like asking students, working in small groups, to make a 2 minute or less “sweded” version of something. It could be a pop movie, or, if I wanted it to fit more in the theme of the class, maybe it could be of a style and/or grammar rule, maybe a writing “tip” of some sort. We have the cheap cameras and (I think?) things like iMovie to make this work. Then students would have to write about the experience in terms of the process, what this different kind of “writing” says about more conventional “words in a row” writing, etc.
I don’t know, I think this is just crazy enough to work.
A slightly dissenting view of the cool and groovy Google office
I’ve seen these sorts of stories/videos about the offices that Google has around the world before:
They are inviting and cool and groovy and everything, and believe me, I’d rather work in a space like this than the shit-hole that is Pray-Harrold Hall. (BTW, if you the time, do follow that link to the “EMU Historic Tour” entry on Pray-Harrold. I think its pretty darn funny. Notice the “earlier”– presumably when they building opened in 1969– picture is not a whole lot different than the “today” picture, except that it looked a little more shiny in ’69. It’s like that on the inside– once shiny and new, and now kind of overcast and harshly lit. And the architecture style described as “International;” is that code for “Orwellian?”) Education at all levels might work better if it was a bit more playground-like, though frankly, I’d settle for just a window, a reasonable heating/cooling system, and a space that didn’t smell like old building.
But as inviting and cool and groovy and everything that this Google office actually is, I have to wonder if it would actually be a good place to work in the long-run. I am sure that someone has done some kind of study or analysis of this, how spaces in these “don’t be evil” corporations like Google actually are kind of, potentially at least, evil. One obvious draw-back of this design is that it’s set up this way so you never have to or want to leave– all the toys to play with, the slides, the exercise facilities, the free food, etc. Besides the fact that this is also the premise behind prison– though prison is obviously a lot less comfy and a lot less voluntary– isn’t this a problem for people who have families and lives outside of work? And don’t companies like Google want workers who have some kind of outside of work lives? Or if they don’t want those kinds of workers, isn’t that kind of a problem?
I have to wonder if I could get anything done in there. If I had to work there, I’d be the old man yelling “hey, turn down you damn X-box and stop playing ping-pong– I’m trying to freakin’ WORK here!” Damn kids…. And thank you, but stairs and elevators work better for me than poles or slides in going from floor 2 to floor 1.
Icky
Woman sits on boyfriend’s toilet for two years. I can’t really add to this.
Wishful thinking
I haven’t seen the whole piece, though this might be one I will actually track down through the library or through the paper version we get in the English department: see “U. of Iowa Writing Students Revolt Against a Plan They Say Would Give Away Their Work on the Web” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The gist of it (at least I think) is in these two sentences: “Graduate students in the University of Iowa’s writing programs are up in arms. A new university procedure, they fear, will make their novels, plays, and other creative works—done as dissertations—freely available on the Web.”
Thus the title of this entry.
I was an undergraduate and English major at the University of Iowa way back when, and the creative writing program was of course as legendary then as it is now. In fact, I am sure that the whole vibe was what inspired me to pursue an MFA in creative writing. I applied to the Iowa program and of course did not get in– probably because my submission just simply did not rank, but I like to think that they also didn’t want folks from Iowa because they could draw from anywhere. At the end of the day, I went to VCU, I had a great experience there, and, in hindsight, I’m kind of glad I didn’t get into Iowa. Going to a lesser-known program gave me a chance to actually think about writing and not think about the “big contract,” which, rumor had it, was the problem with the Iowa program: too many of the students were looking too far ahead.
Anyway, the path to hell is paved with completely unpublishable MFA dissertations theses, and while I realize that the Iowa students are (arguably) the cream of the crop, I don’t really know where these folks are coming from here. Newsflash: if your goal of going to graduate school is to make money, go to medical school or business school or law school or something. And if you want to make a bunch of money and/or be famous as a writer, well, who knows the formula for that? I know it’s not getting an MFA just by itself. The two people I studied with the most at VCU didn’t have MFAs. Didn’t J.K. Rowling get her start as an unwed mother living on the UK’s equivalent of welfare? Didn’t Stephen King write his first novel while working in a laundromat? Didn’t Faulkner write As I Lay Dying while he was a night watchman at a power plant or something?
I do know two things though. First, an MFA and its thesis, regardless of how excellent it might be, is a long way away from a meal ticket in itself. Yes, there are these stories and legends about folks who were able to take their theses and turn them into publishing deals, but those stories are very few and far between. Second, it seems to me that if you did have this MFA thesis that publishers were clamoring to buy, having it up online for all to see could only be a good thing. A really really good thing.
So think that the one thing that is going to stop some MFA at Iowa from getting that sweetheart deal is electronic publishing of their theses is silly. Or, as I said to begin with, wishful thinking.
Ten commandments to politicians and sex scandals
You may have heard something about this whole Elliot Spitzer thing out there. The thing that occurs to me is that it probably would be pretty easy to go to a contemporary translation of Oedipus Rex and change it into Spitzer Rex. I don’t have time to try my hand it myself, so you can have that idea for free. If someone makes such a version and/or finds one out there, let me know.
Anyway, besides good posts from Deb Hawhee here (I would never cheat on my wife, but beyond that, I too wonder why all these political spouses, including our own local Mrs. Kirkpatrick, so willingly stand by their man) and here from Alex Halavais, I also found myself somewhat amused with this piece by Erica Jong I found on Huffington, “Morals to Be Drawn From Spitzer’s ‘Case’.” It is far from the best piece of writing I’ve seen on the Internets– actually, it reads more like Jong dictating thoughts off the top of her head than anything resembling coherent paragraphs– but she does have some good/amusing points, especially in the ten rules/commandments that start the piece. For example: “If you are famous for closing prostitution “rings,” don’t frequent them;” “Pay hookers in cash;” “Don’t yell at investment bankers on the phone;” and, one that I’ve cleaned up slightly for this space, while in office, don’t sleep with someone other than your spouse, “unless you are in French politics.”
Well, he ought to know…
Cory Doctorow, who is one of the brain trusts behind one of the 5 or so most popular blogs out there, has a piece in Information Week called “17 Tips for Getting Bloggers to Write About You.” Much of it is common sense and/or about links. Incidentally, the IW site has some of the most annoying ad pop-up gimmicks I’ve seen in a while. I got some weird one just by hitting the back arrow.
Restaurant Review: Achilles Restaurant
What and Where:
Achilles Restaurant | 3075 Packard St | Ann Arbor, MI| (734) 971-2020
Ratings (1=terrible, 5=mind-blowingly great)
Comments
- An occasional feature of my unofficial blog was restaurant and coffee shop reviews, and while I haven’t been going out much lately and I am likely to be going out even less in the near future (as I get more serious about dieting, finally), I decided on a whim today to stop at the unlikely Achilles Restaurant, in part to start the reviews for the quasi-new blog.
- I was also motivated to eat here because of the signage at this place. I tried to take a picture with my cell phone, but it was no use (I am very much looking forward to the day when I can ditch this phone for a better one, but I’m afraid that’s at least two years off). The red awning around the front of the place says BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER on one side of the front door and GREEK AMERICAN MEXICAN on the other (because someone just might be in the mood for any kind of Greek American Mexican meal at any time of the day). There’s also a sign out front with changeable letters intended to advertise specials that has said the same thing for at least six months:
NEW
MANAGEMENT
WELCOME
I believe what they are shooting for here is “Welcome the new management,” but it sounds to me more like a request, as in “New management would be welcome at this place.” - Sadly, Greek/American/Mexican food at Achilles turns out to be your typical coney island food, which is to day Southeast Michigan for “diner.” I think most of these places get their menus from the same warehouse someplace. When I asked about a favorite between the cheeseburger and the chicken gyro, the waitresses disagreed. I went with the chicken gyro. The sandwich was the definition of “okay.” It came with passable a salad, which, once I picked out some of the more questionable parts, was pretty good, and some also “okay” french fries.
- The inside of the place was neat and tidy, though there was a smoking section. I didn’t get too much of a whiff, but smoking sections are still always a downer for me, even in diners. The only person smoking in there while I was eating was this guy who looked to be about 104.
- The waitresses were very nice and the service was prompt. Perhaps this was because of the welcomed new management; perhaps they were aiming to please in order to encourage whatever new management were to happen to come in to feel welcomed.
- All in all, it was one of those experiences that I had so I can now say to people “hey, I’ve been in there.” I probably won’t be back, though I will also admit I am not really a connoisseur of diners/coney islands to begin with. Maybe I should have gotten the cheeseburger, or one of the hot dogs….
Can I get a napkin, please?
Tip o’ the hat to my friend Chris for this, though I would have come across it sooner than later since I have an RSS Feed set up to the fantastic site Improv Everywhere. Here’s video (and a link) to their latest, Food Court Musical:
The entry on the blog about this is interesting because it talks about some of the unusual steps they had to take to make this stunt happen. Funny stuff; reminded me of everyone’s favorite Buffy episode….