my research progress

I was very excited about my research progress. I believe in the benefits different global cultures offer eachother, and I have a strong interest in the notion of positive cultural-bridging. I say "positive" because in the past, conquests of one nation on another is an example of bridging, but is a forced situation that i have trouble considering positive. From here i constantly hit a wall trying to narrow in on my actual social action question, and a plausible direction to take this. I decided to do an ethnographic study on the international students that travel to iup. My goal is to try and get a scope on the different realities we all share that make up life.

paraphrase practice

While taking notes, it has been shown that students will often use to much of the authors original word choice in their own final research project. As a generally accepted rule of thumb it is only proper to use 10% of the authors phrasing. This makes it vital for students to make sure that they are more careful when taking notes, rephrazing the authors main point into their own words.

final blog on the tipping point

One type of social change i would like to contribute to community is to try and destroy the racial borders that have become a part our society. I had to go to iup punxy branch campus for the first year and at first i was very upset. However, when i got there i learned that everyone there had that same common disdain for there situation and it ended up being a bonding experience. In one house party you would see inner city students on scholarships mix it up with rural white students with completely different upbringings. I feel I made many friends there that i would not have been able to make here on campus, due to the fact that here there are enough people where cliques and groups of similar backgrounds form, hindering the possibility for friendships. In punxy the social barriers were broken down by the small size of the dorms and the bonding experience of being in the same odd situation of being in rural PA. I know there is a way to break down the barriers on a larger scale, but it would take alot more too accomplish.

My favorite chapter was at the end of the law of the few. I loved the findings of the physical synchrony between people when they interacted. When slowed down, it shows that inaudible communication is majorly integrated with audible communication.
I will take alot with me after reading this book. I was always interested in why things are the way they are, this book helps introduce a very important topic in understanding the world.

chp 6 discussion questions

Chapter 6 discusses and is entitled "rumors, sneakers, and translation". It uses the examples of the popularity of airwalks in the early 1990's, what tipped the airwalks into such a success (and ultimately its failure). The obvious first step was to go into the diffussion model, which is a way of looking at how an innovation moves through a population. There are 2 kinds of people in the early stages of a mass movement, the innovators and the early majority. The innovators are the people in California who first started wearing airwalks. these were the skaters and trendsetters that may have strived to find something new and different (its not quite new and different if those around you are trying to be new and different as well, but regardless they wanted to set themselves apart from the norm.) However, its interesting to look at what happened to turn this shoe companies somewhat loyal fanbase into a popular shoe worn across america and the world. The early majority are the types of people who tweak what made it cool to make it popular. They act as a buffer to make it alright for the sheep-like people to feel its okay to wear. However, in the book, Gladwell describes these two kinds of people as incompatible. Looking back in the book can help explain what links these two necessary types of people together to create an epedemic. The link comes from the law of the few, some extraordinary people (connectors, mavens, and salesman) that are essential in the translation process. they are the people that stand out from both groups and can put in progress the motion of events that start an epidemic.

Conference

I was only able to make it to one conference today, but it was excellent and i heard some great peices of work from three students. The first was a girl who wrote a "flash fiction" piece called flies on the wall. First off I never heard of flash fiction. It is a small chunk of story that can stand alone without any background knowledge on the charecters or what led up to the story. I like this idea as sometimes I have an idea i believe is great that would just be bogged down with any additional plot points that would just be there to serve the purpose of setting up the main idea. Anyway, this was a story about an upper income family in an undisclosed point of time that on the outside looks like a well functioning family but in reality is falling apart. I thought the title was my favorite part of this story as the story was not told through the eyes of the family, but the maids and servants who work in the estate. The second story was by someone i met while playing bass in the rocky horror picture show, but we only called him by his lastname, conrad. His was called the big and was quite possibly the most moving peice of literature I ever heard from someone in my age range. The word choice, smooth transitions of thoughts, and the ability to put unexplainable emotions into action was amazing. The third was a story called sips. It is about a girl at a party who is feeling emotions that are new to her towards a friend of hers. The writer did a great job with setting up a strong visual aspect and also threw some poetry into the story which helped strengthen the feeling of love.

Chp 2

In chapter 2 he explains the first of three key factors in his equation for an epedemic to become widescale. He believes there are three types of people who possess the abilities to move along a message, trend, virus, etc. The first are people called connectors. He examined his circle of friends and realized when he traced his relationships to their origin it was not a circle, but pointed to one main person that caused him to directly or indirectly come into contact with the rest of his friends. This one person is a connector. They possess the people skills necessary for bringing something into contact with a large amount of people. The second character type is mavens who are the knowledgable type. They make it a point to have well informed ideas on a subject and while they might not be as sociable as a connector, they are a prominent figure in peoples lives. They do not usually come off as "know it alls" but instead genuinely have a care for the person they are spreading the information to. The third is the salesmans. these are the people who could convince you to not to do something stupid, or more importantly convince you into something comprimising. Even if they do not have the knowledge on the matter as mavens do, they have the ability to influence people with their unique personality type. These three types of people are the key players in any type of epedemic.

Chp 1 summary

Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point is geared towards explaining the phenomenon of "epidemics" or how mass trends come to be and function in our lives. This subject directly affects everybody, but is sort of set aside in our minds, as it happens so much that it almost feels as a given. He does a very good job in the beginning of the book setting up this notion of epidemics with real life examples, From syphillus outbreaks in Maryland, to the popularization of hush puppies all over america. After the intro, he begins talking about three key factors in epidemics. First is the law of the few. This explores the fact that in order for a trend or virus to be become wide spread it does necessarily matter how many people it affects in the beginning, but that it comes in contact with a vital player in its progress. There are people in this world that have rare and powerful traits that can put something in motion more. The second trait is the stickiness factor. A commercial can be played at prime time on the highest rated network but will not necessarily be successful. He used the example of coke being the official olympic sponsor. After the olympics people were asked if they knew who the official sponsor was, and a surprisingly few viewers knew, and even more surprisingly a handful though pepsi was. This implys that in order for something to be effective, it must have a certain appeal that will cause it to perserve. The third is the power of context. Obviously, the message or virus that is being spread must be sound enough to carry its own weight through the process of being passed along. He used the example of PCP growing into a real problem as appossed to something our bodies used to be able to handle. This first chapter sets up the framework for his very valid and sound argument.