Smitherman

“God Don’t Never Change: Black English from a Black Perspective” was written by Geneava Smitherman to informs the reader on black English and how it is used in society as well as it being taught in the classroom. There are negative connotations with black English because it can be seen as grammatically incorrect and may cause exclusion amongst people who use  the black language.  She uses various examples to explain what black English  while also giving a few of white English. She states that not all agree with black English and states that most view it as unscholarly. She holds a strong opinion of her own to black English and asks the audience “ Can the concept of God exist in a perfectly logical language?” And replies with the answer of “God don’t never change.” She also states that just because black English has grammar errors doesn’t mean it is not language. She argues that conformity isn’t the answer and people should be more understanding of others differences.

After reading the article, I felt compelled to agree with Geneava. Language is being able to communicate a message between others. Whether it is black English or white, both get the point across just as well the other. I can see why others look down upon black English because of the grammatical errors, but those were just rules set by old stingy people way before our time. The rules realistically don’t mean anything. Yes they can affect your grade on a paper, but as long as you feel you got your point across that’s all that matters. I believe that people should be able to express their language in any way they want. People will always be there to judge its just our job to learn on to not let it affect us. 

McCloud and Berger

“Vocabulary of Comics” was written by McCloud to show how humans are fascinated with cartoons than actual real photographs. He explains that people have been exposed to comics since childhood and how we are self-centered creatures and see ourselves in the comics. Rather than a real photograph, comic is a blank canvas to our brain allowing it to wonder off and form assumptions. For example in the comic, a circle with two dots and a line are drawn and our brain recognizes it as a face even though it is just marks on a paper. McCLoud claims that the similar the drawing the easier it is for our mind to see ourselves in the comic. In the article “ Ways of Seeing” by John Berger, Berger studies how men and women are culturally represented. He notices that men and women are looked at differently. Men are looked at by their power and what all they can achieve, while women’s potential is only seen by her and not by others. This could be because women are more self-conscious than men and are always aware of their actions. Berger argues, “Men act while women appear”.

            “The Vocabulary Comic” and “Ways of Seeing” can be related in a way of how humans see the world around them. The comic describes how we are self-centered creatures and try to find ourselves in anything. Berger can say this for the article because woman are always conscious of what they are doing and only thinking of how others view them, while men are trying to glorify how people perceive them. Both ultimately only thinking of themselves and how others view them, not how they view others.  For example, in the comic it states how we are aware of who we are holding a conversation with because they are directly in front of us but we are consciously thinking of how we appear to the person even though we have no idea how we look. We just make an assumption. 

Synthesis

The introduction of “Writing About Writing” informs the reader about the scholarly articles that are found in the book and how they may appear as challenging reads. Thankfully, the introduction provides very helpful tips that will guide the reader through the articles to help them comprehend and gain a better understanding. The article written by Rosenberg is more of a narrative on how her readings of scholarly articles took a turn for the best. She as well gives helpful tips to try and make these long articles a little more enjoyable. Both the introduction and Rosenberg’s articles are very helpful for students trying to excel in their scholarly article reading capabilities.

Library questions: 

1.    What is your chosen research topic? Why did you choose it?

  

 Grammar rules because there is a lot of information available as well as the fact that I would actually like to learn about the grammar rules considering the fact that I am HORRIBLE at grammar.

2.   Complete the "Brainstorming" Questions on page 167 of WAW below (obviously, make the questions relevant to your writing construct):

1.   What is your idea of good writing?

I believe good writing involves a clear idea that is described in numerous perspectives, has flow, easy to read, inviting and of course grammar plays a huge role in tying the paper together.

2.   Where do your perceptions of good writing come from?

My perceptions come from my English teachers in the past. They taught me the rules and I listened and tried to follow them.

3.   Can you think of a time where your conception of good 

Writing didn’t work or seem “right” in context?

 There a have been a number of times where I thought my paper was very well written but the teacher disagreed giving me a lower score than I anticipated.

4.   Is your conception of writing limiting in any way?

My conception of writing is very limiting. I always feel a pressure whenever I write because of all the rules and regulations you must follow in order for your paper to be accepted as “well written”.

5.   Would you behave differently as a writer if you conceived

of “ good writing” in a different way?

 I believe that there wouldn’t be so much stress put on me as I would write because to me writing should be our own thoughts and opinions written on a piece of paper regardless of the comma errors, run on sentences or how much “flow” there is. Our brain doesn’t think about comma placements when we think, why does our papers have to?

3. Who would be interested in researching and writing about your topic? Identify scholars, practitioners, professionals and other stakeholders with an interest in your topic.

I believe a lot of people would be interested in this form of research because we communicate every minute of our lives and it is important to be able to do it well, and it has been stated that it is hard to communicate well with poor grammar skills. Writer especially would be interested in this topic because their job revolves around the perfection of their writings and grammar is a concrete base for writing.

3.   What academic disciplines are associated with this research area / topic?  Brainstorm a list to give you starting point from which to begin your research (ex. Education, Biology, Psychology, Dance).

Education would be a big academic discipline because they force these grammar rules on students.

I would start by gathering grammar rules that have been established and practiced and then find information that challenges the grammar rules such as a reading we did in “Good English and Bad” by Bill Bryson. 

Porter

In the article,  “Intertexuality and the Discourse Community”, James Porter, the author, expresses his views on plagiarism by supporting his findings with the idea of intertexuality.  He states that all texts have “traces” of other texts within them. This isn’t such a bad thing because people tend to comprehend the concepts and ideas better after being exposed to it before in other texts. This also is an advantage for the authors because they are given concrete ideas in which they are later able to build a stable sharper thought.  Porter takes a step farther and enlightens the readers about the use of intertextuality.  He describes that there is iterability, which is what is described above as having pieces of old texts in a new text, and presuppotion form od intertextuality, which is an assumption made by the text about its reader.  Porter also explains the idea of a discourse community. A discourse community is simply a group of people who share the same values and assumptions and are able to communicate it. Porter believes that it is important for students to write for discourse communities because then they will be able to change the way the community thinks rather than always turning to intertexuality. Intertexuality sometimes   makes it hard to have original ideas that is why it is important to build upon them while trying to tweak the way society thinks.

In Porters article he briefly describes the inspired writer. He states how it is believed that writers are able to sit down and write a piece that changes the audience’s ideas immediately. This of course is never the case because writers build off of each other as we learned this from the term intertexuality. Allen went into more depth on the topic of the inspired writer in her article titled “ The Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer”. Allen remarks on how it takes numerous trial and errors for a writer to get that perfect text. This makes sense because they are constantly doing research and trying to form new ideas from old texts to create something new. It is hard for the audiences thoughts to be changed because we are exposed to many versions of the truth in various texts, that is somewhat of a gradual change as Porter explains.

LIBRARY QUESTIONS: 

Brainstorming Topics

1.    Write down all writing constructs that you may be interested in researching:

-       papers cant be in 1^st person  using I, We, Us, You

-       have to site everything if used from another source or else its plagiarism

-       in order to have well written paper you must follow the grammar rules

2.    Using these research topics, brainstorm a list of searchterms that you will use to search for books and articles.

-        1^st person in papers

-       plagiarism

-       grammar rules

Using the Databases

Directions: In order to practice using these databases, pick one (or multiple) constructs to practice researching and collecting materials over and complete the rest of this worksheet.

JOSTR

1.     Search terms used:  Plagiarism

a.     Select a journal article relating to your research topic and record its citation information (title, author, journal, etc.):

Verity J. Brown and Mark E. Howell

b.     Source annotation: Write a brief (approx. 3 sentences) synopsis of the article and how it relates to your research topic.

The purpse of the study was to see how much an influence the regulations of plagiarism has on a student

Article Plus

2.     Search terms used:

I needed a password for this website and didn’t know where to find it

a.     Select a journal article relating to your research topic and record its citation information (title, author, journal, etc.):

b.     Source annotation: Write a brief (approx. 3 sentences) synopsis of the article and how it relates to your research topic.

Rebecca Howard's Writing Matters Bibliographies

I had trouble with this database and article plus I think I am visiting the wrong websites. I wasn’t here the day we went over this so I am still a little iffy on the research aspect part of this project.