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.