MOVE 1: suspend judgement

Seek to understand the subject you are analyzing before moving to a judgement about it.

MOVE 2: define significant parts and how they’re related

• Divide the subject into its defining parts, its main elements or ingredients
• Consider how these parts are related, both to each other and to the subject as a whole

MOVE 3: make the implicit explicit

• Explicit (overtly—openly stated)
• Implicit (suggested, implied)

MOVE 4: look for patterns

• Look for a pattern of repetition or resemblance
• Look for organizing
• Look for anomalies
• Look for binaries

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LINK TO EXTROPIAN PRINCIPLES--PRINCIPLES 3.0

LINK TO IMAGE #1--SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE

LINK TO IMAGE #2--ADBUSTERS IMAGE

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A Personal Word Map of Bell's "Cyberculture's Reader: A User's Guide"

Help with Jargon

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/

Help with Definitions

Merriam-Webster Online

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary.htm

Cyberspace
Digital communication
Information technologies
Multi-user domains
Virtual reality
Decentralized
Non-linear

Rhizomatic

            http://www.english.vt.edu/~siegle/Comp/

Fractal geometries

           http://www.gcschool.org/history2.html

Hardware
Software

Wetware

            http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/w/wetware.html

Hypertext

Focus our attention most squarely on human interactions with (and within) these emerging cybercultural formations.

Each reader will be able to construct his or her own network of readings

However, most of the essays range across such contexts, and endless reshuffles could produce infinite variations, spiraling out like fractal geometries. But that's the reader's job, not the Reader's: not to begin on page one and read through to the last word of the volume, but to flick and flit, to find and chase your own hot links, to trace each rhizome, each thread, and to make connections that work for you--to construct your own hypertextual web.

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Reading Susan Clerc’s Estrogen Brigades

Questions:

• What are Amateur Press Associations (APAs), Letterzines, and Newsletters--and how do they fit into media fandom?
• Who writes almost all fan fiction?
• Who is Mary Sue?
• How did Mary Sue get on-line?
• Once online--who posts most, women or men? Why?
• According to Susan Clerc, who is more likely to attain a sense of community newsgroups or mailing lists

http://www.fanfiction.net/subcats.php?categoryid=208

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.buffy.Europe

STRIKING QUOTES

Unlike the vast majority of print fan fiction, a lot of on-line stories are written by young men, many of whoch have no knowledge of the off-line community and the history of fan fiction written by women. Opinions of the quality of their on-line fan fiction tend to be low among woment with experience in fandom,

Paramount demanded that America Online and Prodigy pull Star Trek fan fiction from its databases and prohibit their customers from posting any more.

Some series have following only because fans incorrigibly tape and share.

MORE QUESTIONS

What is the problem with J. Michael Straczynski--the creator of the television Babylon 5 and the group rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5?

What is the controversy surrounding David Duchovny of The X-Files and the individuals who post of the David Duchovny Estrogen Brigade?

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Taking Our Mini-Essays to the NEXT LEVEL

Things we might should think about:

• Few writers can arrive at their best ideas before they begin to write. If you expect to have all the answers before you start, you are more likely to settle for relatively superficial ideas.
• When you try to conduct all of your thinking in your head, you may arrive at an idea but not be able to explain how you got there.
• A common assumption about evidence is that it is "the stuff that proves I'm right." Although this way of thinking about evidence is not wrong, it is usually limited--and--in terms of learning to write analytically--very limiting.
• Don’t assume that you can't begin writing until you have arrived at an idea you're convinced is right, because only then could you decide which evidence to include.
• Thinking like this will close down your thinking instead of leading you to a more open process of formulating and testing ideas.
• Mini-essay #1 (and this class) is about exploring topics, formulating, and testing ideas.
• Mini-essay #1 is about exploring a topic, arriving at an idea, AND explaining how you got there.

A VERY USEFUL IDEA: A Mini-Essay built around a detailed analysis of your most telling example is far more likely to take you to a good idea than is a paper that keeps saying the same thing about a large number of examples.

Analyzing Evidence

Here is an example from Writing Analytically written by a student writer--two paragraphs of analysis of a single episode from The X-Files in which the writer:

• Scrutinizes what she takes to be especially revealing details
• Argues for seeing the details as part of a coherent pattern of like detail
• Offers a theory about what the pattern signifies by drawing out its implications.
  

EXCERPT FROM "Seeking the Truth and Stumbling onto the Spiritual in The X-Files"

More strikingly, however, The X-Files has presented the abduction experience as marked by a specific, transgressive, and unsupportable connection between women. This connection has been staged over several episodes through the association between Scully and the women of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). Although Scully meets these women as if for the first time, they themselves recognize her as having been part of their own abduction experiences: like Scully, all have had metal implants removed from their necks. Although Scully initially reacts to their recognition of her with denial and a palpable attempt at dis-identification, she eventually espouses the connection in “Memento Mori," the episode in which her cancer was diagnosed; in that episode, she learns that in the eleven months that have passed since she met them, all but one of the eleven women have died. Scully joins the remaining woman, Penny Northern, and begins treatment by the same doctor that has been treating Penny. Through the course of the episode, Scully and Penny develop an intense connection concretized in a scene in which Scully awakens from a dream regarding her abduction to find Penny holding her hand. While her eyes remain closed, Scully remembers that "someone was doing something bad to me” but that Penny was there to help her. Penny affirms that she was with Scully "during the tests” and that she "held and comforted Scully.” As soon as Penny validates Scully's experience in this fashion, however, Scully opens her eyes and retreats from her own statements, rebuffing Penny with the statement that she is “not ready to hear this now.” (TXF, "Memento Mori").

Through the play between Scully's identification and dis-identification with her fellow abductees, The X-Files suggests a simultaneous need to locate abduction within a connection between women and to keep that connection tightly controlled, both by Scully herself and by the overarching narrative of The X-Files in general. Not only does Scully acknowledge her connection with Penny only within the realm of dreams rather than waking life, but also the connection with Penny proves both ephemeral and short-lived; she dies by the end of the episode, leaving Scully the sole woman of the eleven she met at the MUFON meeting to survive her cancer. Furthermore, the episode itself evinces a retreat from the connection created between the two women: although a voice-over vocalizes most of "Memento Mori" through Scully. the final few scenes clearly situate the viewer with Mulder and outside of the connection between the two women. The camera follows Mulder into the hospital and with him looks through a door at Scully and Penny as they stare into each others’s eyes; with Mulder, the viewer waits in the hallway until Scully emerges with the news that Penny is dead. In its suggestion that the knowledge arising from abduction creates a specific connection between women that must always be fleeting, The X-Files both assigns that knowledge to a space between women and marks that space as insupportable.

Writing Analytically gives us a way to tighten up our essays:

1. Narrow your focus.
2. Select a representative example.
3. Provide in-depth analysis of your representative example (10 on 1).
4. Test your results in similar cases.

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MONDAY, APRIL 28TH

Thinking About reading Scott Bukatman's "Terminal Penetration"

Telepresence: a robot wiredinto the phenomenological experience of the robot.

In his book Virtual Reality, Howard Rheingold demonstrates that VR represents an incredible fusion of simulations technologies.

Timothy Leary: "The screen is where the perceptual wetware groks the informational output of the cyberware."

As each article on the burgeoning VR phenomenon is published, the scientists and , researchers who comprise the virtual reality community frequently 'gather' electronically on the WELL (the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link --an electronic message exchange system) to discuss the implications of the latest coverage.

Articles stressing the long-term implications and overall seriousness of the project are praised, while rampant speculations about virtual war games and virtual orgies are viewed with suspicion. What frequently, although not always, eludes the professionals is precisely the attraction of cyberspace and the 'seriousness' of such play and playful speculation. On at least one level, virtual reality is a ludic engagement with the space of the computer that refigures it as a perceivable and physical environment. Many of the designers of NASA's virtual reality system had, as a matter of fact, once worked as game designers for Atari.

Virtual reality represents an immersion in a computer-constructed space that obvi- ously holds a strong appeal (although one anticipates a strong Luddite backlash from critics who reify the 'natural' qualities of contemporary reality and worry about becoming 'lost in cyberspace'), and it might be possible to regard the desire to play in the virtual playground as a simple desire for escape, for an alternative environment without the daily pressures of life in 'the real world'.

Yet just as the desire for cinematic pleasure bears deeper psychosexual and political implications, so the fascination with virtual reality reveals something more complex. As with the early cinema, the major fascination now lies with the technology itself, rather than with the specific fantasies/realities generated therein. I would therefore contend that virtual reality speaks to the desire to see the space of the computer, and to further figure it as a space one can move through and thereby comprehend.

The Data Glove is only one of the virtual environment tools offered up by the tech- nology of the computer. Most prevalent are the games which line the shelves of every computer store. When Case jacks in to cyberspace in William Gibson's Neuromancer, he enters a realm which 'has its roots in primitive arcade games'.

In Steven Levy's history of the minicomputer, Hackers, games are very significant. 'Games were the programs which took greatest advantage of the machine's power -put the user in control of the machine -made him the god of the bits and byte& inside the box.' After buying a new game"; a kid could 'go. home for what was the essential interface with the Apple [Computer]. Playing games'. Levy's glibness does not hide the validity of his observation. Games are far more than an idle recreation for many 'users', they in fact represent the most complete symbiosis generally available between human and computer--a fusion of spaces, goals, options and perspectives. 'To see tomorrow's computer systems, go to the video game parlors!' proclaims the acclaimed systems designer Ted Nelson.2O Games literally test the user, and in more than just eye-hand coordination.

but they were experiencing what no human had ever known before, a sensory bandwidth thousands of times normal. For seconds that seemed without end, their minds were filled with a jumble verging on pain, data that was not information and information that was not knowledge. To hear ten million simultaneous phone conversations, to see the continent's entire video output, should have been a white noise. Instead it was a tidal wave of detail rammed through the tiny aperture of their minds. ...He controlled more than raw data now; if he could master them, the continent's computers could process this avalanche, much the way parts of the human brain preprocess their input. More seconds passed, but now with a sense of time, as he struggled to distribute his very consciousness through the System.
(Vinge 1987: 95-6)

MOVE 2: define significant parts and how they’re related

• Divide the subject into its defining parts, its main elements or ingredients
• Consider how these parts are related, both to each other and to the subject as a whole

MOVE 3: make the implicit explicit

• Explicit (overtly—openly stated)
• Implicit (suggested, implied)

MOVE 4: look for patterns

• Look for a pattern of repetition or resemblance
• Look for organizing
• Look for anomalies
• Look for binaries

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Wednesday, APRIL30TH

Bruce Sterling

CHEAP TRUTH--THE CYBERPUNK ZINE

"Cyberpunk," before it acquired its handy label and its sinister
rep, was a generous, open-handed effort, very street-level and
anarchic, with a do-it-yourself attitude, an ethos it shared with garage-
band 70s punk music. Cyberpunk's one-page propaganda organ,
"CHEAP TRUTH," was given away free to anyone who asked for it.
CHEAP TRUTH was never copyrighted; photocopy "piracy" was actively
encouraged.

CHEAP TRUTH's contributors were always pseudonymous, an
earnest egalitarian attempt to avoid any personality-cultism or
cliquishness. CHEAP TRUTH deliberately mocked established "genre
gurus" and urged every soul within earshot to boot up a word-
processor and join the cause.

CYBERPUNK IS SCIENCE FICTION OF "REAL QUALITY"

SF's struggle for quality was indeed old news, except to CHEAP
TRUTH, whose writers were simply too young and parochial to have
caught on. But the cultural terrain had changed, and that made a lot
of difference. Honest "technological literacy" in the 50s was
exhilirating but disquieting -- but in the high-tech 80s, "technological
literacy" meant outright *ecstasy and dread.* Cyberpunk was *weird,*
which obscured the basic simplicity of its theory-and-practice.

CYBERPUNK IS WHATEVER CYBERPUNK WRITERS WRITE

Rucker, Shiner, Sterling, Shirley and Gibson -- the Movement's
most fearsome "gurus," ear-tagged yet again in Shiner's worthy article,
in front of the N. Y. TIMES' bemused millions -- are "cyberpunks" for
good and all. Other cyberpunks, such as the six other worthy
contributors to MIRRORSHADES THE CYBERPUNK ANTHOLOGY, may be
able to come to their own terms with the beast, more or less. But the
dreaded C-Word will surely be chiselled into our five tombstones.
Public disavowals are useless, very likely *worse* than useless. Even
the most sweeping changes in our philosophy of writing, perhaps weird
mid-life-crisis conversions to Islam or Santeria, could not erase the
tattoo.

WHAT IS NOT CYBERPUNK

Consider FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley, a wellspring of
science fiction as a genre. In a cyberpunk analysis, FRANKENSTEIN is
"Humanist" SF. FRANKENSTEIN promotes the romantic dictum that
there are Some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. There are no
mere physical mechanisms for this higher moral law -- its workings
transcend mortal understanding, it is something akin to divine will.
Hubris must meet nemesis; this is simply the nature of our universe.
Dr. Frankenstein commits a spine-chilling transgression, an affront
against the human soul, and with memorable poetic justice, he is direly
punished by his own creation, the Monster.

A CYBERPUNK VERSION OF FRANKENSTEIN

Now imagine a cyberpunk version of FRANKENSTEIN. In this
imaginary work, the Monster would likely be the well-funded R&D
team-project of some global corporation. The Monster might well
wreak bloody havoc, most likely on random passers-by. But having
done so, he would never have been allowed to wander to the North
Pole, uttering Byronic profundities. The Monsters of cyberpunk never
vanish so conveniently. They are already loose on the streets. They
are next to us. Quite likely *WE* are them. The Monster would have
been copyrighted through the new genetics laws, and manufactured
worldwide in many thousands. Soon the Monsters would all have
lousy night jobs mopping up at fast-food restaurants.

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• ·         Asks clear, insightful questions about the topic;
  
• ·         Analyzes the topic logically and purposefully;
  
• ·         Demonstrates that the writer has seriously looked for patterns of repetition and organizing contrasts in the data, as well as looking for anomalies, and asking questions about what these peculiarities in the object being analyzed might mean;
  
• ·         Uses an engaging voice, with appropriate word choice and varied sentence structure;
  
• ·         Edits meticulously for standard written English.

READING DEBORAH LUPTON'S "THE EMBODIED COMPUTER USER"

My Computer And I Are One

I am face-to-face with my computer for far longer than I look into any human face. I don't have a name for my personal computer, nor do I ascribe it a gender. However, I do have an emotional relationship with the computer, which usually makes itself overtly known when some- thing goes wrong. Like most other computer users, I have experienced impatience, anger, panic, anxiety and frustration when my computer does not do what I want it to, or breaks down. I have experienced files that have been lost, printers failing to work, the display monitor losing its colour, disks that can't be read, a computer virus, a breakdown in the system that stopped me using the computer or email.

Fear of Abandoment

I live in fear that a power surge will short-circuit my computer, wiping the hard disk, or that the computer will be stolen, and I assiduously make back-up copies of my files. I have written whole articles and books without printing out a hard copy until the penultimate draft. I cannot imagine how it must have been in the 'dark ages' when people had to write PhDs and books without using a computer. I can type much faster than I write with a pen. A pen now feels strange, awkward and slow in my hand, compared to using a keyboard. When I type, the words appear on the screen almost as fast as I formulate them in my head. There is, for me, almost a seamless transition of thought to word on the screen.

The Body is a Drag!

A central utopian discourse around computer technology is the potential offered by computers for humans to escape the body. This discourse of disembodiment has been central in the writings of influential 'cyberpunk' novelist William Gibson and the cultural theorist and feminist Donna Haraway.

In cyberwriting, the body is often referred to as the 'meat', the dead flesh that surrounds the active mind which constitutes the 'authentic' self. The demands of the fleshly body compel computer users to distract themselves from their pursuit to seek nourishment and quell thirst and hunger pangs and, even worse, to absent themselves to carry out such body maintenance activities as washing, expelling bodily wastes and sleeping.

Leave the Body Behind--NOW!

The dream of cyberculture is to leave the 'meat' behind and to become distilled in a clean, pure, uncontaminated relationship with computer technology.

Cyberpunks Look Nerdy?

'Hackers' and 'computer nerds', the very individuals who are frequently represented as spearheading the revolution into cyberspace and the 'information superhighway', may be admired for their intellectual capacities (that is, for their 'brain' or 'software'), but the common representation of such individuals usually suggests that their 'bodies' or 'wetware' leave much to be desired.

According to the mythology, computer nerds turned to computing as an obsession because of their lack of social graces and physical unattractiveness. Due to their isolation from the 'real' world they have become even more cut off from society. Lack of social contact has exacerbated their inability to communicate face-to-face with others, and a poor diet and lack of fresh air and exercise does little to improve their complexions or physique.

Are You Married To Your Computer?

One Australian newspaper article on Macintosh computers used headline, visual image and recurring tropes to draw an analogy between one's marital partner and one's PC (Withers 1995).

The article was headed 'No time to divorce your Mac', and was illustrated with a cartoon bride planting a kiss on a bridegroom with a smiling Macintosh screen for a head. The article went on to assert,

Choosing to buy a Macintosh or any other specific personal computing platform such as Windows is a little like getting married. In both cases you are signing up for a long-term partnership that can be costly to leave. The happily married among us can testify to the benefits of such a relationship, but they don't appear at the outset. 'Come grow old with me, the best is yet to come' applies to both situations.

Is Kevin Mitnick a CYBERPUNK?

Site dedicated to Kevin Mitnick

http://www.gulker.com/ra/hack/

Wired Article about Kevin Mitnick

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/catching.html

Hacking--a Power Trip?

When asked about what motivates him and other hackers, he replied: 'A person who hacks into a system wants to get a degree of power, whether the power is real or fallacious. This is you controlling the world from your Macintosh. It's an incredible feeling.'

Beyond The Body--HOPES & FEARS OF THE CYBERPUNK

Computer users, therefore, are both attracted towards the promises of cyberspace, in the utopian freedom from the flesh, its denial of the body, the opportunity to achieve a cyborgian seamlessness and to 'connect' with others, but are also threatened by its potential to engulf the self and expose one's vulnerability to the penetration of enemy others.

Computer Ads and POWER

http://www.sbrowning.com/vintage/index.php3?p=11

The Pleasure and The Pain

The user-computer relationship is therefore characterized not only by pleasure and a sense of harmonic blurring of the boundaries between human and machine, but is also inspires strong feelings of anxiety, impotence, frustration and fear.

Our Computers AND Our Brains are Super-rational

[B]oth the computer and the brain become representable as entirely 'rational' entities in a move which, on the one hand, obscures the fantasies attached to computing (e.g. the dream of mastery) and, on the other, portrays human mental activity as a mode of digital processing, entirely ignoring processes like joking, wishing, dreaming or imaginative vision and speech.

Hackers and the Law

http://www.cybercrime.gov/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/blame/crimelaws.html

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CLASS 15
Monday, May 5th

QUESTIONS:

• WHAT SHOULD A GOOD READER BE ABLE TO SAY ABOUT THE READINGS OUR SEARCH TEAM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR?
• WHAT IS IMPORTANT ABOUT THE READINGS OUR SEARCH TEAM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR?
  

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CLASS 16
Wednesday, May 7th

Search Group Task:

• Come with up with good questions--three per member--for the exam.
• Save them to our folder on Coltrane

OBJECTIVE:
To have your search team contribute to the MIDTERM READING EXAM.

SKILLS YOU WILL USE:

• EVALUATING SKILLS--What are the most important ideas in a reading? The most important terms? What should every reader take away from a reading of the essay?
• WRITING SKILLS--Can you come up with a clear way of stating your question so that the reader with a good grasp of the reading can understand what information you are looking for?
  

CHALLENGE: Can you formulate clear answers to your questions--so that the reader with a good grasp of the readings will agree with your reading?

COMMENT BY ONE OF THE SEARCH TEAMS

• A good reader should be able to tell you the main ideas and points of the piece of writing. Know the claims the author makes.
• All make claims and have evidence vital to our analytical work in this class, and in the understanding of cyber space.

Does your team--agree or disagree?

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THE QUESTIONS SO FAR--

Deborah Lupton’s – “The Embodied Computer/User”

The computer is like person, a friend. Also be able to explain what a “Hacker” is.

Q1- What is a Hacker?
A1-

Q2- What about the computer makes Deborah Lupton feel like it is saying good morning to her?
A2- When it beeps when its turned on.

Q3- Why should you make back up copies of files?
A3- Power surges, or computer could be stolen.

Susan Clerc’s “Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ threads”.
Media fandom was around even before the internet. Woman are more prominent in offline fandom and men are more prominent in online fandom.
Q1- Who wrote “Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ threads”?

Q2- In this essay, what is “con” an abbreviation for?
A2- convention

Q3- What does the “‘Big Tits’ thread” refer to?

Interface Culture
Ch 4, Links
Steven Johnson

1. How is ‘surfing’ an accurate metaphor for TV, but not for the internet?
2. What points does the author make in using the writings of Charles Dickens as a metaphor for exploring the internet?
3. How does Vannevar Bush’s Memex system conform to the user’s personality better than the internet?

David Bell
The Cybercultures Reader: A User’s guide

1. Where is cyberspace? Where are you physically when you explore it?
Answer; cyberspace is a network of computers, modems, communication links, nodes, and pathways.
2. Give an example of a cyberpunk/cyberfuture movie and explain what makes it fit into that genre.
3. Who coined the term cyberspace & cyberpunk?

Writing Analytically Chapter #4

Define or explain a strong thesis.

Briefly explain why the 5 paragraph essay is flawed.

What is the role of the concluding paragraph?

Who is Pat Cadigan and explain her role in the webzine Infinite Matrix?
What picture is depicted in the article?
Who detained them for questioning?
What is Bitmapping?
What is an interface?
What article did Doug Engelbart stumble across, as he was waiting for his ship to come back to the United States after WWI?
What are unsubstantiated claims?
Name two types of evidence and describe what they mean?
What is pointless evidence?

Bruce Sterling “Cyberpunk in the Nineties”
http://www.eff.org/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/Interzone_columns/interzone.06

1. What does Bruce Sterling mean by “Cheap Truth” in his essay “Cyberpunk in the Nineties”
2. Describe Cyberpunk era in the 80s and how it differs from the 90s according to Bruce Sterling?
3. What is the “C” word according to Bruce Sterling?

WA chapter 3
1. Name two different types of weak theses that are common among writers
2. What does W.A. cite as a possible downfall of using binaries?
3. Words like “are” and “is” in W.A. are reduced to equal signs, what mathematical symbol does W.A. propose a writer should make in their thesis statement and give some possible reasons why.

WA chapter 3
4. Name two different types of weak theses that are common among writers
5. What does W.A. cite as a possible downfall of using bianaries?
6. Words like “are” and “is” in W.A. are reduced to equal signs, what mathematicl symbol does W.A. propose a writer should make in their thesis statement and give some possible reasons why.

Writing Analytically: Chapter 1

Q. What does it mean to think analytically?
A: Asking what, when, why, how, and where.

Q. What are the five moves that are used to think analytically?
A: Suspend judgment, define significant parts, make the implicit – explicit, look for patterns, and ask questions.

Q. What is an anomaly?
A: Something that doesn’t fit in or is out of the ordinary.

Vanevar Bush

Q. What is the Memex?
A: Theorized invention that would make it more easy to understand, and remember, large amounts of information (Computer)

Q. What decade was this article written in?
A: 1940’s

Amish: Look who’s talking

Q: What modern day technological convenience did the Amish adopt?
A: Cellular Telephone

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CLASS 17
Friday, May 9th

PREPARING FOR THE MIDTERM

Study Guide

Chptr. 13 “Cybercultures Reader: Estrogen Brigades and the ‘Big Tits’ Threads”
By Susan Clerc
This essay is about media fandom “ a community or social network of small groups and individuals created and maintained through…ties to each other”. The ties that bind these individuals are their fannish activities, such as talking about their common interest. Susan Clerc compares online fandom (newsgroups, mailing lists, Internet, Usenet, America Online, Genie, online forums, etc.) and offline fandom (Amateur Press Association’s “APA’s”, letterzines, newsletters, conventions “cons”, etc.) (pg 216). She states that offline fandom has been around longer and the majority of participators in offline fandom are women. She also states that women are the pioneers of Fan Fiction (“fictional stories written by fans of a certain television series about the characters in the series”), and although men are writing a lot of Fan Fiction, women are very critical of these new Fan Fictions written by men (pg 225). She states that the majority of participators in online fandom are men. There are many reasons why she believes that women are turned away from online fandom, one of them being the abundance of ‘Big Tits threads’ (posts to online forums from immature boys that are all about actresses breasts)(pg 220). Some of the other reasons that women are not so prominent in online fandom are because they feel that they are already “extremely well-connected to a large number of other fans” offline that they do not need to get online to meet more fans, and women have less money to “experiment with modems and software they aren’t familiar with”. (pg 219)

· media fandom= a community or social network of small groups and individuals created and maintained through ties to each other. (pg 216)

· fannish activities= The ties that bind fans. Activities such as talking about their common interest, discussing characterization, expressing affection for/dislike of characters, analyzing the events in specific episodes, compiling lists of useless information, and alerting each other to appearances of the actors on talk shows, etc. (pg 217)

· online fandom= Ways for fans to connect online. Such as newsgroups, mailing lists, Internet, Usenet, America Online, Genie, online forums, etc. (pg 216) The majority of participators are men. (pg 218)

· offline fandom= Ways for fans to connect offline. Such as Amateur Press Association’s “APA’s”, letterzines, newsletters, conventions “cons”, etc. (pg. 216) The majority of participators are women (pg 218)

· Fan Fiction= Fictional stories written by fans of a certain television series about the characters in the series.(pg 224)

· ‘Big Tits threads’ = Posts to online forums from immature boys that are all about actresses breasts. (pg 220)

POSSIBLE TEST QUESTIONS

Q In her essay “Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ Threads, what does Susan Clerc say that “con” is an abbreviation for?
A Convention

Q In “Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ Threads, what does the term ‘Big Tits’ threads refer to?
A Posts to online forums about actresses breasts.

Q In her essay “Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ Threads, who does Susan Clerc say is the majority of participators in offline fandom? In online fandom?
A Women are the majority in offline fandom and men are the majority in online fandom.

“The Universe on the Table” By: Michael Swanick

Two people are interacting with one another in a conversation. One of them is the creator of a hydrogen atom that is an artificially created pocket universe. The person explains that the universe continuously develops and expands into more planets, but if you let it go too long, intelligent life is formed. The intelligent life will then get into mischief by moving stars, rebuilding galaxies, and so on. To prevent intelligent life from getting loose, each star must be blown up. Before the creator does so, he/she waits for the civilization on one of the planets to create their own pocket universe, because “it is a lot more fun when the little bastards see it coming.”

Possible Questions:

1. According to the creator, how will the intelligent life get into mischief?
2. According to the creator, what is the only way to prevent intelligent life from getting loose?
3. Why does the creator wait for the civilizations to create their own pocket universe?

The Embodied Computer/User Study Guide
By Deborah Lupton

*The questions on the study guide are not exactly written as given in class.

1. In the essay, The Embodied Computer/User by Deborah Lupton, she relates to the computer like a human friend. What is something she says about it that makes the computer seem human?

Answer: When the computer is turned on it makes a little sound (beep) like a good morning. OR The computer monitor is like a face.

When I turn my personal computer on, it makes a little sound. This little sound I sometimes playfully interpret as a cheerful ‘Good morning’ greeting, for the action of bringing my computer to life usually happens first thing in the morning when I sit down at my desk, a cup of tea at my side, to begin the day’s work. In conjunction with my cup of tea, the sound helps to prepare me emotionally and physically for the working day ahead, a day that will involve much tapping on the computer keyboard and staring into the pale blue face on the display monitor, when not reading or looking out the window in search for inspiration. I am face to face with my computer for far longer than I look into any human face. I don’t have a name for my computer nor do I ascribe it a gender.

2. In the essay, The Embodied Computer/User by Deborah Lupton, What are some of the stereotype characteristics she gives a hacker?

Answer: male, late adolescence or early adulthood, social misfits, physically unattractive, thick glasses, overweight, pale, pimply skin, poor fashion
sense.

‘Hackers’ and ‘computer nerds,’ the very individuals who are frequently represented as spearheading the revolution into cyberspace and the ‘information superhighway,’ may be admired for their intellectual capacities (that is, for their ‘brain’ or ‘software’), but the common representation of such individuals usually suggests that their ‘bodies’ or ‘wetware’ leave much to be desired. As they are represented in popular culture, ‘computer nerds’ or ‘hackers’ are invariably male, usually in their late adolescence or early adulthood, and are typically portrayed as social misfits and spectacularly physically unattractive: wearing thick, unflattering spectacles, overweight, pale, pimply skin, poor fashion sense. Their bodies are soft not hard, from too much physical inactivity and junk food. These youths’ and men’s appearance, it is often suggested, s inextricably linked to their obsession with computers in a vicious circle.

3. According Keirnan, in Deborah Lupton’s essay The Embodied Computer/User, what do they call the people who are scamming the people in cyberspace because they believe what they read on their computer screens?

Answers: Con Artists (it is a form of fraud)

An article in New Scientist described the growing numbers of frauds in the US using the Internet for investment scams, pointing to the trust that users invest in the information they receive over the Internet. As one computer expert was quoted saying, “Con artists are flourishing in cyberspace because people believe what they read on their computer screens…People tend to accept it as gospel’
(Keirnan 1994:7)

* Remember the questions on the study guide are not exactly written as given in class. (because I couldn’t remember exactly how they were written)

Megan Fehr
English 203
Study Guide

Writing Analytically - Chapter 1

The main idea of this selection of reading is to introduce the basic ideas of thinking analytically. This chapter lays the foundation of information about what analysis is, and it is reiterated throughout the proceeding chapters. Be familiar with the definition of analysis (p. 2), and the five “moves” offered for thinking analytically (p. 2-7). A reader of this material should have a basic grasp of the terminology used within it and the steps it takes to think analytically.

1. According to, W.A., what does “analyze” mean?
A. To analyze is to ask what something means. It is to ask how and why something is.
2. According to, W.A., what are the five moves to thinking analytically?
A. Suspend judgment, define significant parts, make the implicit explicit, look for patterns, formulate questions and explanations.
3. What is an anomaly?
A. Something that does not fit in.

Interface Culture by Steven Johnson
Ch 4, Links

1. According to Steven Johnson, why is “surfing” an accurate metaphor for TV, but not for the Internet?

Answer: channel surfing is an act of random viewing, while an exploration of the Internet is by way of links of association. (p 109)

2. What classic author, does Steven Johnson suggest, provides a stronger metaphor for the Internet than ‘surfing’?

Answer: Charles Dickens (p 111)

3. According to Steven Johnson, how does Vannevar Bush’s Memex system conform to the individual user better than the Internet of today?

Answer: The user builds a “trail of interest” which is the piecing together of certain sites, pages and comments as the user searches the information. It is a permanent trail that can be retraced at anytime, as opposed to following links that others supply, that cannot be easily retraced. (p 121)

Summary
- As the Internet appeared people took the term “surfing” from TV and applied it to exploring the World Wide Web. It was useful at first because of familiarity but it does not convey the potential of searching the Internet. (p 106-111)
-Steven Johnson suggests a better metaphor comes from the writings of Charles Dickens. He says attributes this to the tool that Dickens uses to connect characters from varying social classes. Feelings of association, the act of “Resolving the half-resemblance, connecting the links, putting a name to the face” (p 112) is what Dickens uses. The links of association that people see in each other is what is capable of happening on the Internet. (p 111-116)
-Vannevar Bush (who wrote As We May Think) theorized about the Memex system. What Bush saw, that the technological market has lost sight of now, is that “what made a nugget of information valuable…was not the overarching class or species that it belonged to, but rather the connections it had to other data.”(p119) (p 116-123)
-Some of the first experimental hypertext uses was in some unsuccessful literature. Hypertext, throughout its history, has been used below par, and has not been explored nearly enough by the corporations that market the technology. (p123- )

Writing Analytically
Ch 6, Making Your Response to Topics More Analytical

1. What is meant by the suggestion, “Reduce your scope” and how does it help with analytical writing?

Answer: It is the method of drastically reducing the generality of your topic, as a way to keep from including to much general information. It is an attempt to stay away from a broad coverage of a topic that takes away from the analytical aspect.

2. What is a “focused freewrite?”

Answer: It is a freewrite that stays focused on a more narrowly defined subject. It is a useful way to move in to a more specific idea of a topic.

3. What is a danger of using binaries?

Answer: Reductive Thinking, which is oversimplifying a topic, eliminating alternative options between the two extremes.

Summary
-You should BECOME CONVERSANT with the material (be able to talk about it and answer simple questions, and be able to converse with the material by seeing and asking questions)
-Six rules for handling complexity: 1. Reduce Scope 2. Study the Wording of Topics for Unstated Questions 3. Suspect Your First Response 4. Begin with questions, not answers 5. Expect to become interested 6. Write all of the time about what you are studying. (p192-194)
-Prewriting tools (freewriting, focused freewriting, journals) (p197-197)
-Pieces of analytical writing; Summarizing a topic, Personal response to a topic, Agree/Disagree with a topic, Comparison/Contrast and Defin

Summary: “Cyberpunk in the Nineties,” by Bruce Sterling.

First of all, in his article, Sterling constantly refers to term Cheap Truths (CT) several times throughout the article, so I thought I would give you a brief background of what he meant by that term. Cheap Truths (CT) started as a group of writers eager to oppose conventional beliefs and writing styles. The movement began with the onset of a newsletter devoted to counterculture and free thought.
The term “Cyberpunk” (CP) grew from CT in the 1950's to the mainstream science fiction genre of the 1990's. The writers wanted to write science fiction (SF) that was "`good' and `alive' and `readable.”
The "punk" part of the label “cyberpunks” (CP) implies a rebellious individual whose principles are contrary to the majority of the population—CP exists as a battle against the norm. The primary characteristic of CP is to be innovative and original and everything should be placed in a Science Fiction (SF) category, but rather a classified in a genre of its own.
According to Sterling, CP strives to show that there are "no sacred boundaries to protect us from ourselves". Also, that cyberpunk is usually at odds with some all-powerful, Big Brother-type organization: the police, the government, you name it.

1. What is the “C” word according to Bruce Sterling in his essay, “Cyberpunk in the Nineties?”

Answer: “Cheap Truth”

2. What is Bruce Sterling referring to when he uses the term “Cheap Truth” (CP) in his essay “Cyberpunk in the Nineties?”

Answer: CT was a newsletter devoted to counterculture and free thought that was started by a group of young writers – opposing conventional beliefs.

3. According to Bruce Sterling’s essay, “Cyberpunk in the Nineties” what is the primary characteristics of CP?

Answer: To be innovative and original and everything should NOT be placed in a Science Fiction (SF) category, but rather a classified category or genre all on its own.

Chapter 2 Writing Analytically Analyzing Evidence

The possible questions are:

1) Q: What are unsubstantiated claims?
A: claims that lack supporting evidence.

2)Q: Name two types of evidence and explain what these types are.
A: ~Statistical evidence- using proven statistics as evidence
~Anecdotal Evidence- using a story or a personal experience as evidence
~Authorities as evidence- using the thinking of an expert on your subject as
evidence
~Empirical Evidence- where the evidence is reasoned from observations of concrete data
~ Textual evidence- instances in which the language itself is of fundamental importance and this language is used as evidence
~Experimental Evidence- evidence by the careful attention to the procedure it requires, usually scientific

2) Q: What is pointless evidence?
A: Presenting a mass of evidence without explaining how the evidence relates to the claim

Summary:
This chapter covers the different types of evidence and how they can be analyzed effectively. The types of claims that you want to avoid are unsubstantiated claims because they do not have any supporting evidence. The kind of evidence that should be avoided is pointless evidence because it does not add anything significant to your paper.
Another aspect that is covered in this chapter is the use of 10 on 1 instead of 1 on 10. Using ten ideas with one piece of evidence allows you to look deeper into your subject and avoid overgeneralization. This kind of overgeneralization leads to inductive leaps that do not have evidence to support them.
There are six different kinds of evidence that can be used to write analytically. These are listed above for the answer to the second question.

Writing Analytically: Making the Thesis Evolve (Chapter Four)
Summary

· A strong thesis moves; it evolves.
· A weak thesis is static; it is unchanging.
· To say that a thesis evolves is to say that it changes as a paper progresses; it is progressively reformulated.
· Your ability to discover ideas and improve on them in revision depends on your attitude toward evidence.

Developing a Thesis is More Than Repeating an Idea
· Like an inert material, a weak thesis neither affects nor is affected by the evidence that surrounds it.
· By contrast, in nearly all good writing the thesis evolves by gaining in complexity and, thus, in accuracy ass the paper progresses.
· Weak thesis statements are most easily detected not only by their repetitiveness but also by their predictability.
· A thesis that functions as an inert formula closes down a writer’s thinking rather than guiding and stimulating it.

What’s Wrong with Five-Paragraph Form?
· Procrustean: tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means
· Although it has the advantage of providing a mechanical format that will give virtually any subject the appearance of order, it usually lops off a writer’s ideas before they have the chance to form, or stretches a single idea to the breaking point.
· The two typical problems it creates are: (1) The introduction reduces the remainder of the essay to redundancy (2) The form arbitrarily divides content; the format invites writers to list rather than to analyze, to plug supporting examples into categories without examining them or how they are related.
· Its division of the subject into parts, which is only one part of analysis, has become an end unto itself.
· To check your essay: (1) Look at the paragraph openings (2) Compare the wording in the last statement of the paper’s thesis with the first statement of it in the introduction.

Developing a Theses through Successive Complications
· The process of finding a thesis—an idea about the facts and ideas in you subject—begins only when you start to ask questions about the material, deliberately looking for a place where you detect some kind of problem to be solved.
· Faced with evidence that complicates your thesis, the one thing not to do is run away. The “problem” you have discovered offers an opportunity to make you thesis evolve.
· A good concluding paragraph reflects back on and reformulates you paper’s initial position in light of the thinking you have done about it.

The Reciprocal Relationship between Thesis and Evidence: The Thesis as Camera Lens
· One function of the thesis is to provide the connective tissue, so to speak, that holds together a paper’s three main parts—beginning, middle, and end. Periodic reminders of your paper’s thesis, its unifying idea, are essential for keeping both you and your readers on track.
· A better way of envisioning how a thesis operates is to think of it as a camera lens. While the lens affects how we see the subject, the subject we are looking at also affects how we adjust the lens.
· Not only does the thesis direct the writer’s way of looking at evidence; but also the analysis of evidence should direct and redirect the thesis.
· Procedure for evolving a thesis: (1)Formulate an idea about your subject (2) See how far you can make this thesis go in accounting for evidence (3) Locate evidence that is not adequately accounted for by the thesis (4) Make explicit the apparent mismatch between the thesis and selected evidence (5) Reshape your claim to accommodate the evidence that hasn’t fit (6) Repeat steps 2-5 several times.
· As an overarching guideline, acknowledge the questions that each new formulation of the thesis prompts you to ask.

Placing the Thesis in the Final Draft
· The position articulated in the fully evolved thesis is in most cases too complex and too dependent on the various considerations that preceded it to be stated intelligibly and concisely in the introduction.
· Writing is a matter not just of communicating with and persuading readers but also of communicating with and persuading yourself.
· The history of your various changes in thinking is, in many ways, the thesis of the essay (and in some cases, the essay itself).

The Evolving Thesis and Common Thought Patterns: Deduction and Induction
· Deduction is based on inference from accepted principles of the process of drawing a conclusion from something known or assumed. Deduction reasons from the general to the particular.
· It is important to note that the general principles stated at the beginning of the paper and the idea stated as the paper’s conclusion are usually not the same.
· An inductively organized paper typically begins not with a principle already assumed to be true, but rather with particular data for which it seeks to generate some explanatory principle. Induction moves from the observation of individual cases to the formation of a general principle.
· Whether the overall shaper of the argument—its mode of progression—is primarily inductive of deductive, it will still gain in complexity from beginning to end.

The Evolving Thesis as Hypothesis and Conclusion in the Natural and Social Sciences
· Papers in the humanities are inclined to proceed inductively, and papers in the natural and social sciences deductively.

The Evolving Thesis and Introductory and Concluding Paragraphs
· If you find yourself writing a page-long introductory paragraph in order to get to your initial statement of thesis, try settling for a simpler articulation of your central idea in its first appearance. As you move through the paper, substantiate, elaborate on, test, and qualify your paper’s opening gambit.
· The most important thing to do in the introductory paragraph of an analytical paper is to lay out a genuine issue, which is to say something that seems to be at stake in whatever it is you are studying.
· Your concluding paragraph will offer the more carefully qualified and evolved version of your thesis that the body of your paper has allowed you to arrive at.
· The concluding paragraph should leave readers with what you take to be your single best insight, and it should put what you have had to sy into some kind of perspective.

Revising the Thesis in an Exploratory Draft: Applying the Six Steps
· Step 1: check for multiple theses
· Step 2: see how far you can make the theses go i accounting for evidence
· Step 3: locate evidence that is not adequately accounted for by each thesis
· Step 4: make explicit the apparent mismatch between the thesis and selected evidence
· Step 5: choose the claim that seems to account for the most evidence, and then reshape that claim to better accommodate evidence that doesn’t fit
· Step 6: repeat step 2 thorough 5 as necessary

Knowing When to Stop: How Much Revising is Enough?:
· Getting the thesis to account for all rather than just some of your evidence does not mean that you need to discuss every detail of the subject.

Facing the Fear
· You need to realize that avoiding evidence that doesn’t easily fit with your thesis will not make that evidence go away.
· If you are worried that acknowledging complications in you evidence will cancel out ideas, you need to understand that qualifying or limiting your claim is an advantage, not a liability.
· Thesis statements are the lines that allow us to see the constellations rather than just the separate stars.

The Evolving Thesis and Logic: Three Common Errors
· Equivocations: confuses an argument by slipping between two different meanings for a single word or phrase. Weasel Words are those that have been used so loosely that they cease to have much of any meaning.
· Begging the question: to argue in a circle by asking readers to accept without argument a point that is actually at stake.
· Overgeneralization: an inadequately qualified claim. Sweeping generalization occurs when a writer overextends the reach of the claim. Hasty generalization is when you move prematurely form too little evidence to a broad conclusion.

Reading Quiz Questions—Technology and Self-Image Group

Writing Analytically, Chapter Four

1. Define/explain a strong thesis. What does it do? (pgs. 109-110, 115)
A strong thesis is derived from closely examining your subject in order to arrive at some point that would not have been obvious to readers. Also, it evolves and is reformulated as the paper progresses. The thesis holds the parts of your essay together.

2. Briefly explain why a five paragraph essay is flawed. (pgs. 111-113)
This type of essay usually lops off a writer’s ides before they have the chance to form, or stretches a single idea to the breaking point. The simplistic scheme blocks writers’ ability to think deeply or logically, restricting rather than encouraging the development of complex ideas. It is redundant and divides the content (list rather than analyze).

3. What is the role of the concluding paragraph?
The concluding paragraph reflects back on and reformulates your paper’s initial position in light of the thinking you have done about it. It will offer the more carefully qualified and evolved version of your thesis that the body of your paper has allowed you to arrive at. It should leave readers with what you take to be your single best insight, and it should put what you have had to say into some kind of perspective.

Steven Johnson Interface Culture
Preface, Bitmapping

Preface

The Preface opens up the book to the experience that we are going to read. It says it is an extended attempt to think about the object world or technology as though it belonged to the world of culture. It brings up that technological jargon is a part of are life today and we see words like technoculture on very other page of wired magazine. It says technology is where it is at today only because of, Speed.

Bitmapping

In 1968 a man named Doug Engelbart created the first modern interface. It was one of the most influential moments of this last century that has set forth a huge step forward for technology as we know it today. Engelbart got his idea of the interface from reading Vannevar Bush’s As we May Think. The book calls the interface a word that refers to the software that shapes the interaction between user and computer, it serves as a translator, mediating between two parties, making one sensible to the other. The term computer itself derives from low-tech roots: computers were human calculators in the days before digital code, workers skilled with the slide rule and oldfashioned long division. Graphic Interfaces are what we know today like Windows or MAC. We live in a society that is increasingly shaped by events in cyberspace, and yet cyberspace remains for all practical purposes, invisible, outside our perceptual grasp. Bitmapping is kind of hard to grasp but the book calls it an alliance of cartography and binary code you can check it out more for yourself on page 20. Engelbart’s passed his interface on direct manipulation, which was having control over the images and your text, it is like pointing your mouse to an icon double clicking and a document opening up.

MIDTERM QUESTIONS (FINAL)

1. Q In her essay “Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ Threads, what does Susan Clerc say that “con” is an abbreviation for?

A Convention

2. Q In “Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ Threads, what does the term ‘Big Tits’ threads refer to?

A Posts to online forums about actresses breasts.

3. Q In her essay “Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ Threads, who does Susan Clerc say is the majority of participators in offline fandom? In online fandom?

A Women are the majority in offline fandom and men are the majority in online fandom.

“The Universe on the Table” By: Michael Swanick

Two people are interacting with one another in a conversation. One of them is the creator of a hydrogen atom that is an artificially created pocket universe. The person explains that the universe continuously develops and expands into more planets, but if you let it go too long, intelligent life is formed. The intelligent life will then get into mischief by moving stars, rebuilding galaxies, and so on. To prevent intelligent life from getting loose, each star must be blown up. Before the creator does so, he/she waits for the civilization on one of the planets to create their own pocket universe, because “it is a lot more fun when the little bastards see it coming.”

4. According to the creator, how will the intelligent life get into mischief?

5. According to the creator, what is the only way to prevent intelligent life from getting loose?

6. Why does the creator wait for the civilizations to create their own pocket universe?

7. In the essay, The Embodied Computer/User by Deborah Lupton, she relates to the computer like a human friend. What is something she says about it that makes the computer seem human?

Answer: When the computer is turned on it makes a little sound (beep) like a good morning. OR The computer monitor is like a face.

8. In the essay, The Embodied Computer/User by Deborah Lupton, What are some of the stereotype characteristics she gives a hacker?

Answer: male, late adolescence or early adulthood, social misfits, physically unattractive, thick glasses, overweight, pale, pimply skin, poor fashion sense.

9. According Keirnan, in Deborah Lupton’s essay The Embodied Computer/User, what do they call the people who are scamming the people in cyberspace because they believe what they read on their computer screens?

Answers: Con Artists (it is a form of fraud)

10. According to, Writing Analytically., what does “analyze” mean?

Answer: To analyze is to ask what something means. It is to ask how and why something is.

11. According to, W.A., what are the five moves to thinking analytically?

Answer: Suspend judgment, define significant parts, make the implicit explicit, look for patterns, formulate questions and explanations.

12. What is an anomaly?

Answer: Something that does not fit in.

13. According to Steven Johnson, why is “surfing” an accurate metaphor for TV, but not for the Internet?

Answer: channel surfing is an act of random viewing, while an exploration of the Internet is by way of links of association. (p 109)

14. What classic author, does Steven Johnson suggest, provides a stronger metaphor for the Internet than ‘surfing’?

Answer: Charles Dickens (p 111)

15. According to Steven Johnson, how does Vannevar Bush’s Memex system conform to the individual user better than the Internet of today?

Answer: The user builds a “trail of interest” which is the piecing together of certain sites, pages and comments as the user searches the information. It is a permanent trail that can be retraced at anytime, as opposed to following links that others supply, that cannot be easily retraced. (p 121)

16. What is meant by the suggestion, “Reduce your scope” and how does it help with analytical writing?

Answer: It is the method of drastically reducing the generality of your topic, as a way to keep from including to much general information. It is an attempt to stay away from a broad coverage of a topic that takes away from the analytical aspect.

17. What is a “focused freewrite?”

Answer: It is a freewrite that stays focused on a more narrowly defined subject. It is a useful way to move in to a more specific idea of a topic.

18. What is a danger of using binaries?

Answer: Reductive Thinking, which is oversimplifying a topic, eliminating alternative options between the two extremes.

19. What is the “C” word according to Bruce Sterling in his essay, “Cyberpunk in the Nineties?”

Answer: “Cheap Truth”

20. What is Bruce Sterling referring to when he uses the term “Cheap Truth” (CP) in his essay “Cyberpunk in the Nineties?”

Answer: Cheap Truth was a newsletter devoted to counterculture and free thought that was started by a group of young writers – opposing conventional beliefs.

21. According to Bruce Sterling’s essay, “Cyberpunk in the Nineties” what are the primary characteristics of CP?

Answer: To be innovative and original and everything should NOT be placed in a Science Fiction (SF) category, but rather a classified category or genre all on its own.

22. Who is the father of the modern interface?
Answer: Doug Engelbart
23. What is an interface?
Answer: Software that shapes the interaction between the user and the computer
24. What article did Doug Engelbart stumble across, as he was waiting for his ship to come back to the United States after WWI?
Answer: Vannevar Bush’s “As we May Think”
25. What are unsubstantiated claims?
Answer: Claims that lack supporting evidence.
26. Name two types of evidence and describe what they mean?
Answer:: Statistical Evidence-using proven statistics.
· Anecdotal Evidence-Using a story or a personal experience
· Authorities as Evidence- Using the thinking of an expert on your subject as evidence
· Empirical Evidence- Where the writer reasons from observations about concrete data
· Textual Evidence-Instances in which the language itself is of fundamental importance.
· Experimental Evidence-Evidence by the careful attention to the procedure it requires, scientific evidence.
27. What is pointless evidence?
Answer: Presenting a mass of evidence without explaining how it relates to the claims.
28. Writing Analytically names five different kinds of weak thesis statements, Name four of them:

Answers:

· The thesis makes no claim.
· The thesis is true or a statement of fact
· The thesis restates conventional wisdom
· The thesis offers personal conviction
· The thesis makes an overly broad claim.
29. According to Writing Analytically what is the problem with this thesis sentence:

I’m going to write about Darwin’s concerns with evolution in The Origin of the Species?

Answer: The thesis makes no claim

30. What, according to Writing Analytically, is wrong with this thesis statement?

The jean industry targets its advertisements to appeal to young adults.

Answer: This thesis is a fact.

31. What are unsubstantiated claims?

Answer: claims that lack supporting evidence.

32. Name two types of evidence and explain what these types are.

· Statistical evidence- using proven statistics as evidence
· Anecdotal Evidence--using a story or a personal experience as evidence
· Authorities as evidence--using the thinking of an expert on your subject as evidence
· Empirical Evidence--where the evidence is reasoned from observations of concrete data
· Textual evidence--instances in which the language itself is of fundamental importance and this language is used as evidence
· Experimental Evidence---evidence by the careful attention to the procedure it requires, usually scientific

33. What is pointless evidence?

Answer: Presenting a mass of evidence without explaining how the evidence relates to the claim

34. According to Steven Johnson in Interface Culture how is the cathedral like the Internet?

Answer: Pg. 42: Machines like cathedrals because they are an implied way of looking at the world. In the old Cathedrals could read the story of Christ in the stone carvings, and you had the ability to zoom out far enough to see the cathedral in relation to the town surrounding it. This is like the Internet, it provides the ability for one to gain information through text, and “zoom” out into the world beyond and see/learn about far way places.

35. Le Corbusier once described a house as, “a machine for living in.” How do our machines today seem to be on the verge of becoming houses?

Answer: Pg. 57 -60: Our computers today are similar to our homes. Today the computer holds mail that we correspond with friends and loved ones. It contains valuable data pertaining to school and work and allows us to spend leisure time playing games and interacting with others on the Web.

36. According to Steven Johnson, what are the major innovations of the last 100 years that have made it progressively easier to avoid contact with individuals who aren’t colleagues, family or friends.

ANSWER: Pg. 64: The automobile created the isolated clusters of suburbia; the telephone and the television kept us firmly implanted in out domestic spaces.

37. Define/explain a strong thesis. What does it do? (pgs. 109-110, 115)

ANSWER: A strong thesis is derived from closely examining your subject in order to arrive at some point that would not have been obvious to readers. Also, it evolves and is reformulated as the paper progresses. The thesis holds the parts of your essay together.

38. Briefly explain why a five paragraph essay is flawed. (pgs. 111-113)

ANSWER: This type of essay usually lops off a writer's ides before they have the chance to form, or stretches a single idea to the breaking point. The simplistic scheme blocks writers' ability to think deeply or logically, restricting rather than encouraging the development of complex ideas. It is redundant and divides the content (list rather than analyze).

39. What is the role of the concluding paragraph?

ANSWER: The concluding paragraph reflects back on and reformulates your paper's initial position in light of the thinking you have done about it. It will offer the more carefully qualified and evolved version of your thesis that the body of your paper has allowed you to arrive at. It should leave readers with what you take to be your single best insight, and it should put what you have had to say into some kind of perspective.

40. Who was the author of “As we may think?”

ANSWER:

Vannevar Bush

41. What is the Memex?

ANSWER: Vannevar Bush’s theorized invention that would make it more easy to understand, store, and remember, large amounts of information (Computer)

42. What decade was “As we may think” written in and why is the date significant?

ANSWER: It was written in the 1940’s and is significant because it foreshadowed the invention of the personal computer.

43. What modern day technological convenience did the Amish adopt in the article “Look who’s talking”?

ANSWER: Cellular Telephone

44. What is the main criterion that the Amish look for in accepting new technologies into : their lives?

ANSWER: The Amish look for technologies that will bring them closer as a community.

45. What does Writing Analytically mean by the phrase “10 on 1 vs. 1 on 10”?

ANSWER: Writing Analytically says that it is generally better to make ten points on a single representative issue or example (10 on 1) than to make the same basic point about ten related issues or examples (1 on 10).

This idea is offered as a solution to the problem of insufficiently analyzed evidence about which a writer repeatedly makes the same general claim.

46. Give three examples of a binary.

ANSWER: Black and white, Good and Bad, Natural and Unnatural, Happy and Sad

47. Give two guidelines for making your response to topics more analytical offered by Rosenwasser and Stephen in Writing Analytically.

ANSWER:

1. Start with questions rather than preconceived notions. Don't settle for your first responses or ideas.

2. Experiment with prewriting. Find out what you think you.

3. Analyze the topic by uncovering unstated assumptions and questioning key terms.

4. Seek out uncertainty and complexity. Look for multip possibilities to negotiate rather than a single "right" answer.

5. Drastically reduce scope.

6. Ask "So what?"

7. Complicate binaries. Get past either/or formulations.

8. Test definitions against evidence.

9. Avoid turning comparisons into pointless matching exercises.

1. According to Writing Analytically, there are five different types of weak thesis statements that can be made. Please state four of the five.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Answer: Makes no claim, are obviously statements of fact, restate conventional wisdom, offer personal conviction as the basis for the claim, or the thesis may make an overly broad claim.

2. What does Writing Analytically say that all of these types of statements have in common?

Answer: They are not ideas whereas an actual thesis would have a clear idea.

3. For a thesis that makes not claim, what does W.A. offer as a solution?

Answer: Raise specific issues for the essay to explore.

4. For a statement of fact as a thesis, what does W.A. offer as a way out?

Answer: Make an assertion with which it would be possible for readers to disagree with.

5. When a writer uses conventional wisdom for their thesis, what should they do according to W.A.?

Answer: Do not use it unless it can be qualified or used to introduce a fresh perspective on the thesis.

6. What should a writer do if they have a thesis statement that is one of personal conviction as a basis for their claim?

Answer: A. says they should try other points of view and analyze them thoroughly and honestly. The writer should teat their own ideas as a hypothesis to be tested rather than obvious truth.

7. How should an overly broad claim be fixed according to W.A.?

Answer: Use the evidence that has been gathered to create categories for starting points for the paper. Make these starting points as specific as possible and look for an angle to offer some sort of complexity.

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CLASS 19
WEDNESDAY, May 14th

Mini-search essay #2

DUE: Monday, May 19th at beginning of class

Getting Experience Evaluating & Using Evidence

Goal:  to get comfortable with examining and evaluating evidence and claims using the tools of analysis recommended in Writing Analytically.  

Write a four- to five-page essay that looks at--and evaluates--the evidence you’re finding on your topic for this quarter.  In this essay, you will you will document your exploration of the evidence and what claims it might be leading you to make.  You will also demonstrate your ability to use the strategies recommended in the second chapter of Writing Analytically. 

• Learn to recognize unsubstantiated assertions, rather than treating claims as self-evident truths. Whenever you make a claim, offer your readers the evidence that led you to it.
  
• Make details speak. Explain how evidence confirms or qualifies your claim, and offer your reasons for believing the evidence means what you say it does.
  
• Say more about less rather than less about more, allowing a carefully analyzed part of your subject to provide perspective on the whole.
  
• It is generally better to make ten points on a representative issue or example than to make the same basic point about ten related issues or examples.
  
• Argue overtly that the evidence on which you choose to focus is representative. Be careful not to generalize on the basis of too little or un-representative evidence.
  
• Use your best example as a lens through which to examine other evidence. Analyze subsequent examples to test and develop your conclusions, rather than just confirming that you are right.

Timothy Leary

His use of definitions

Cyber means "pilot."

A "cyberperson" is one who pilots his/her own life. By definition, the cyberperson is fascinated by navigational information—especially maps, charts, labels, guides, manuals that help pilot one through life. The cyberperson continually searches for theories, models, paradigms, metaphors, images, icons that help chart and define the realities that we inhabit.

"Cybertech" refers to the tools, appliances, and methodologies of knowing and communicating. Linguistics. Philosophy. Semantics. Semiotics. Practical epistemologies. The ontologies of daily life. Words, icons, pencils, printing presses, screens, keyboards, computers, disks.

"Cyberpolitics" introduces the Foucault notions of the use of language and linguistic tech by the ruling classes in feudal and industrial societies to control children, the uneducated, and the under classes. The words "governor" or "steersman" are used to describe those who manipulate words and communication devices in order to control, to bolster authority—feudal, management, government—and to discourage innovative thought and free exchange.

WHO IS THE CYBERPUNK?

Cyberpunks use all available data?input to think for themselves.

You know who they are.

Every stage of history has produced names and heroic legends for the strong, stubborn, creative individuals who explore some future frontier, collect and bring back new information, and offer to guide the human gene pool to the next stage. Typically, these time mavericks combine bravery, and high curiosity, with super self?esteem. These three characteristics are considered necessary for those engaged in the profession of genetic guide, aka counterculture philosopher.

http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/thinkers.html

---

CLASS 20
FRIDAY, May 16th

Mini-search essay #2

DUE: Monday, May 19th at beginning of class

QUESTION: Is Bart Simpson a cyberpunk?

Leary:

Typically, these time mavericks combine . . .

• bravery,
• and high curiosity, with
• super self?esteem.

These three characteristics are considered necessary for those engaged in the profession of genetic guide, aka counterculture philosopher.

This poster says:

These FEMALE REBELS AND MAVERICKS are audacious women, who--

• break the rules
• are adventurers
• wantons
• witches
• heretics
• freethinkers
• lesbians
• women who pass as men
• radicals
• insurgents
• activists
• visionaries
  

THE MANIFESTO

Create a manifesto for your Search Group. How does your group define itself and the topic it is looking at? What stand do the individual members take? What part do the members play in the on-going larger culture going on in cyberculture?

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CLASS 21
Monday, May 19th

Manifesto writing continues--

What is a MANIFESTO?
A written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer

What is a Search Team Manifesto?
A written statement that declares to the class your intentions, motives, and views of your Search Team.

Why write a Search Team Manifesto?
To prepare your search team to give a brief oral presentation on the views of your Search Team on Tuesday, June 10th during our Final Period.

HERE'S THE ORIGINAL ASSIGNMENT--

Give a Final Search Team Presentation on Tuesday, June 10th.

This presentation will be your Search Team's chance to document the exploration the members performed this quarter to understand and analyze the topic they chose.

These presentations will each be ten minutes long and will receive team grades.

All Search Teams will give their presentations during the classes Final Time on Tuesday, June 10th.

Let's begin with a FOCUSED FREEWRITE. We'll write for about five minutes without stopping on what you as an individual part of your Search Team has come to understand about your topic this quarter--how you understand it and where your analysis has carried you.

THE SPIKE--

What is it?

Where do we stand on it?

---

CLASS 22
WEDNESDAY, May 21st

Manifesto writing continues--

CHILDREN IN A WIRED WORLD

Daniel Hagins
Cindy Vrieling

Memo to Class
We are debating among ourselves as to where we would like to go with our essays. We are finding a lot of conflicting evidence that is making it difficult to decipher what to take as factual. We began with our focus on the parents as being totally responsible for the upbringing of today's children, but now we are finding many other influences that are outside of the parent's control. We are trying now to focus on the many environmental influences that kids in today's society are facing. We feel the first six years of the child's development may be responsible for a lot of the problems that we are focusing on in our papers.

---

Manifesto of the Technology and Self-Image Group

Motives:
To raise awareness about the dangers of striving to achieve the impossible images portrayed by the media.

What is Self-image?:
How you perceive yourself and how you perceive others to perceive you.

Overview:
People are going to dangerous measures to achieve an image that is unattainable. The culture that we live in creates unrealistic ideals and leads us to believe that we are never good enough. Communication technologies/media shove these images in our faces continuously, thus making the public believe that these images are normal.
Recommendation:
Communication technologies should portray real people! Humans have flaws! We should realize that this is okay!

---

Plastic Culture:

We first thought that if someone wants to get plastic surgery, there is
no reason to look down on them for it. That would be hypocritical
because society pressures us to look like an ideal body type which is
almost impossible to reach without altering our natural appearance. We
all alter our appearance by wearing makeup, tanning, working out…etc.
But when we look into the world of plastic surgery further, we find
that a number of individuals seeking cosmetic surgery have
psychological disorders. These individuals suffer from Body Dysmorphic
Disorder. It allows individuals to never be satisfied with their
appearance. With the newest advancements in technology, there is no
stopping these people from receiving multiple procedures at a time. We
believe there should be more regulations for these people, including
psychological evaluations. If a person has no deeper issues behind the
surgery, then we have no problem with their decision to receive
cosmetic surgery.

---

From: Sounds of the Web

Concerning: Group Manifesto’s

We, Sounds of the Web believe that downloading music and supporting technology is the wave of the future. We are pro-download individuals that believe downloading is more helpful than harmful. The record industry needs to see that downloading music is a viable resource for distributing music to the masses around the world.

---

Megan, Julian, Ian

Our group set out to explore online communities. We entered the experience with varying backgrounds and familiarities with these communities. Consequently, we each brought varying opinions and viewpoints on the issue. As a result of our study on forums, chat rooms, and online dating, we have come to a fairly unanimous conclusion: With moderation, online communities can be a healthy hobby.

---

Our group is looking at how people are being educated in new and
exciting ways. On the path to educational paradise, in which the
education system(s) will be transformed, improved, and upgraded. The
individual members see the use of technology in education in a hopeful
but skeptopic way. We are eager to see certain changes, but
understanding that technology and humanity are not ripe (unwilling to
accept/imagine a non-institutionalized system) for all the changes
necessary to reach Edutopia. Our group sees education as an integral
part of forming any culture. With desire an innovative education
system that promotes the use of technology and the advancement of
cyberculture through it.

Our intention is to show people the benefits that can be brought with
technologic applications to education, but to also warn them of some of
the consequences of such uses.

love,
Josh & Matt

---

QUESTIONS--

• DO THESE MANIFESTOS HAVE A THESIS?
• IS THE LANGUAGE OF THESE THESES CONCRETE, SPECIFIC?
• ARE THEY FOCUSED?

---

CLASS 23
FRIDAY, May 23rd

Manifesto of the Technology and Self-Image Group
Technology and Self-Image is working to raise awareness about the dangers-- eating disorders, over-exercising, steroid use, depression, and lack of self-esteem--of striving to achieve the 5’9” 110 pound supermodel-look such as Kate Moss portrayed by the media. We are analyzing stereotypes associated with beauty including weight, height, skin color and body shape. These images are propelled by the media, which creates an unrealistic portrayal image of the ideal man and woman. By analyzing the individuals whom strive to achieve perfection, the Technology & Self-Image group has found that many self-image issues are linked to psychological disorders, such as Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Eating disorders
Over-exercising
Steroid use
Depression
Lack of self-esteem

---

Child Development in the Wired World

Daniel Hagins
Cindy Vrieling
Child Development in the Wired World
Child Development in the Wired World is looking at how a child’s growth is affected by today’s marketing strategies and technological advancements. At age six, a child has progressed through the majority of growth that will affect them in their adult years. Child Development in the Wired World would like to focus on the first six years of the growth of a child. Due to the economic situation that requires parents to work more, kids are turning to Playstation, Nintendo, and television for their developmental needs. Parents not being able to be with their kids along with the increase of the popularity and addiction of the various means of entertainment, intimacy is being replaced by entertainment.

---

Connecting Emotionally

Connecting Emotionally has looked at many online communities this quarter, among them: Face the Jury, Yahoo Personals, Match Dot Com, The Next Level, and The Fanitsu Project. A virtual community is a gathering place online where people communicate through instant messengers, such as AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, and MSN., e-mail, forums, and newsgroups. Relationships of all levels, ranging from love to hate, are formed in these virtual communities. What relates these types of communities to each other is the fact that they begin with people simply logging onto their computers and interacting through a computer screen. Even though these relationships are formed online, they are treated the same by the users as any other relationship offline.
Connecting Emotionally

---

Plastic Culture:

Plastic Culture is focusing on the influences of society on personal appearance and how it relates to the growing popularity of cosmetic surgery. We are researching the advancements in plastic surgery technology and how it is both beneficial and hazardous depending on the individual. Plastic Culture will explore the current regulations for cosmetic surgery and the intentions of the patient. The patient may have deeper issues that should be evaluated by a psychologist before turning to cosmetic surgery for a quick fix.

---

Sounds of the Web

We define ourselves as a group of anti-authoritarian individuals that believe that downloading music and supporting technology is the wave of the future. Technology has done amazing things and will continue to in the future. We are curious to see where technology will take us and encourage its ongoing expansion into our everyday lives. We believe individuals have the right to explore the downloading threshold and share want is community property with others around the world. These downloading communities have become a vital subculture to the larger picture of cyberculture, and has helped expand the growth of the cyberculture through these communities.

---

Education Without Classrooms

Education Without Classrooms is looking at how education in the United States—Kindergarten through College—can be transformed by internet classes and the possibility of virtual reality put to educational uses. . Education Without Classrooms wants to research ways that technology can be used to create a learning environment where all focus is put on learning and not test scores (Edutopia).

Education Without Classrooms thinks that the use of internet classes and virtual reality can vastly improve the education system in place today, but they will not create Edutopia on their own. In order to work to their full potential, all citizens in the US (whether inside or outside the education system (whether students going through school and companies hiring graduates)) must be willing to accept new practices of attending online classes and entering virtual reality to attend school.

Today, Internet classes have many downfalls including, lack of quality audio, or visual attempts at conveying information.

Some changes that we want to see come about: The removal of the classroom through the internet and upcoming technologies not yet in the mainstream (virtual reality). The evolvement of online classes as the exist today, including a conformity to a standard equal or greater to a conventional classroom setting.

Some of the downsides to be avoided include: lack of support for students when they need help from teachers who might live across the globe. Students being educated in a technological convenient system that is no longer in place when they complete it. Certain technologies that would isolate children during their development, replacing needed time interacting with peers.

---

Cloning

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/cloning/cloning.jsp?id=ns99993600

Cryonics

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56448,00.html

Moore's Law

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/Moores_Law.html

Damien Broderick

http://www.booksnbytes.com/authors/broderick_damien.html#AuthInfo

---

CLASS 24
Wednesday, May 28th

QUESTION:

Concerning The Spike--Are You a Utopian, a Skeptopian, a Skeptic, or a Distopian?

TOPICS:

• Arriving at Conclusions (finally)
• Making Judgments
• Knowing our positions and why we hold them

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/cloning/cloning.jsp?id=ns99993600

http://corethics.tiscali-business.it/index.asp

http://corethics.tiscali-business.it/document.asp?id=CPR.041202.htm&se=2&st=4

Ray Kurzweil

http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html

Hans Moravec

http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/

---

CLASS 25
Friday, May 30th

Recap:

• We Start with Exploration
• We Employ the Moves on the Material
• We Arrive at Conclusions--Eventually
• We Begin Making Judgments
• Finally--After Self-Reflection (evaluating our own writime) We Begin To Know Our Own Positions And Why We Hold Them

Joining The Conversation

THE SPEAKERS

• Ray Kurzweil http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=2
• Octavia Butler About Octavia Butler
• Harlan Ellison http://harlanellison.com/home.htm
• John Harrison Harrison Interview
• Michael Cassutt Cassutt Biography

Joining the Discussion

• Anti-distopian
• Skeptic
• Skeptopians
• Utopians

QUESTIONS:

Based on our positioning ourselves as Anti-Distopians, Skeptopians, Skeptics, and Utopians--

What is our response to . . .

the possibility of The Spike?

the future of Internet Downloading?

transformations of our educational environment due to powerful new technologies such as the web and virtual realitiy?

the pressure communication and body augmentation technologies will exert on the self-image of human beings?

the stresses that increasingly powerful entertainment technologies will exert on the development of children?

our ability to transform the way we look with the use of increasingly more powerful and more available medical technologies?

REMEMBER: TRY TO MAINTAIN THE POSITION YOU ADOPTED TO RESPOND TO THE SPIKE--FOR ALL OF THE QUESTIONS!

Have we learned anything from this exercise?

---

CLASS 26
Monday, June 2nd

ORAL PRESENTATION EVALUATION SHEET

STRUCTURE OF PRESENTATION

Objectives of Presentation Are Clear
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Focuses On a Few Main Points
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Uses a Simple Structure--and Helps Listeners Follow That Structure
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

DELIVERY OF PRESENTATION

Explains Subject Matter Well
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Holds Listener's Attention
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Maintains Eye Contact
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Creates Effective Transitions Between Speakers
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Seems Well Prepared
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

PARTICIPATION POINTS
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
(Divided by number of team members in Search Team)

RESPONDING TO DRAFTS

Give Your Search Team Feedback About Their Essays. Can you give them feedback about where they are in the drafting process?

Does their draft have . . .

• A clear, insightful thesis or hypothesis that controls the whole essay?
• Fresh, complex ideas that fully support the thesis with examples, reasons, illustrations, etc.?
• A logical and purposeful order that follows from the thesis with smooth connections among major points?
• An engaging voice, with appropriate word choice and varied sentence structure?
• Meticulous editing for standard written English?

QUESTIONS:

Based on our positioning ourselves as Anti-Distopians, Skeptopians, Skeptics, and Utopians--

What is our response to . . .

the possibility of The Spike?

the future of Internet Downloading?

transformations of our educational environment due to powerful new technologies such as the web and virtual realitiy?

the pressure communication and body augmentation technologies will exert on the self-image of human beings?

the stresses that increasingly powerful entertainment technologies will exert on the development of children?

our ability to transform the way we look with the use of increasingly more powerful and more available medical technologies?

REMEMBER: TRY TO MAINTAIN THE POSITION YOU ADOPTED TO RESPOND TO THE SPIKE--FOR ALL OF THE QUESTIONS!

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CLASS 27
Wednesday, June 4th

DUE ON TUESDAY--

• Journals

Turn in only those journals entries you've created since we collected journals at midterm. Make sure journals entries are stapled together and clearly identified with your name.

• Final Essays with Collaborative Introductions
• Group Presentations

COLLABORATIVE INTRODUCTION

Collaborative Introductions will contain. . .

• The Search Group's MISSION STATEMENT
• Each member's synopsis of their part in the group

Think of the collaborative introduction as a cover letter for your final essay. Therefor, place the collaborative introduction on a single sheet before your final essay.

GIVING PRESENTATIONS--Some Links

http://www.abacon.com/pubspeak/

http://www.aresearchguide.com/3tips.html

http://set.lanl.gov/programs/cif/Resource/Presentation/GenTips.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WWU
English Department
English 203

WRITING ABOUT
THE WORLDWIDE
WEB
AND
CYBERCULTURE

Instructor,
Mark Sherman