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.

I read alot of (infotainment), informational type literature whether its a magazine or book. I like national geographic, my parents had a subscription for as long as I can remember and I still like to read it when I see a copy out and about. I also like to read lots of reviews and previews on various hobbies that interest me. The internet makes it very easy to read unbiased reviews that otherwise may have been skewed by a seller (although I'm sure the practice of glorified reviews is still out there, the internet offers many sources to filter out the garbage reviews.) I play bass and my old amp and cabinet are on the fritz and I am very excited to purchase a new one. Before i make an appointment to try one out, the internet has helped inform me on where i should begin.

I loved Narong's topic about cross cultural communication and how it can enrich societies. Due to the fact that America is a large mix of different cultures (although mostly European) its hard to say that there is an inherently American culture (accept our strong redneck heritage haha). I think that is an awsome topic and i look forward to seeing how it shapes out. I have a couple of ideas floating in my head, but i'm very fickle and have a hard time deciding what would be most beneficial and pertinent. On the sad side, I have lost a couple of friends to suicide and many more to drug addiction. Its more of a tragedy than a valid topic for an academic project and I'm leaning more towards a positive project that will hopefully enlighten. I saw a film "Tokyo!" and the premise is supposed to be "do we shape cities or do cities shape us?". I was thinking of researching people and their surroundings and the outcomes of these surroundings, but this is still very vague and seems like it will be hard to put into practice and the more i think about it, it may be a little to simple and abstract in this context so i will have to do much revision. cheers

I did not write much before I began college, and the papers for highschool i did write did not have the sense of gravity that left a rewarding feeling after being written. I wrote a couple of papers that i felt proud about, from philosophy and political science papers to reflective papers about novels and personal experiences. I enjoy the process of collecting thoughts and putting them on paper, hopefully in a fluid and valid way. However I find it takes me a long time to write, i look around and see long paragraphs flowing out of people. I may get stuck on one word in a sentance that expresses what i want to say, or i get stuck on how to connect one sentance to another to create a coherent order of points that lead to the premise and reason for my argument or essay. I also find that by the end of most of my papers that it is to short and i still have things i wanted to add, but by that time it is hard to go into the paper and find where it would fit without bringing down the quality of the paper.

test

I said at the beginning of class that i do not typically enjoy writing but that did not feel quite accurate. Recently I have been jotting down little 'poems' that i feel are interesting and creative. I greatly enjoy writing music and for the first time i have recently had song ideas that center around my lyrics instead of centering around my bass or guitar riffs.