Sydney's Group A at work on 30 Oct 08
November 06, 2008
October 22, 2008
Lemon Face, Lion Face?
This blog entry is part of a Fall 2008 blogging exchange between University of Sydney and Stanford University. To read all the entries, follow this thread; be sure read the earliest entries first.
This satirical message about lemon and lion faces has been removed. We applaud the creativity and humor of the two Sydney University students who posted the message and hope that they will henceforth publicise their important research in another forum.
A Rhetorical Potpourri [group C]
This blog entry is part of a Fall 2008 blogging exchange between University of Sydney and Stanford University. To read all the entries, follow this thread; be sure read the earliest entries first.
At a world class research university like Stanford, the diversity of academic pursuits is overwhelming. Every day on campus there are countless events and speakers representing the entire academic spectrum. Our PWR2 oral communications class mimics this campus-wide diversity but on a smaller scale. Here are some of the projects we are working on this quarter analyzing rhetoric in a variety of settings.
Those Things You Cannot Say (Group A)
This blog entry is part of a Fall 2008 blogging exchange between University of Sydney and Stanford University. To read all the entries, follow this thread; be sure read the earliest entries first.
We walked into our PWR2 class this fine Monday afternoon to find the whiteboards littered with comments written on students’ papers in peer review. They ranged from “okay” to “weak” to “oh for f---’s sake,” spanning perhaps the gambit of human emotion that can be expressed about Research Based Arguments.
Our group is divided on the effectiveness of peer review in a classroom setting. We all agree that in theory it can be rewarding, but some of us feel that in practice, social norms prevent us from expressing our true feelings. It’s in no one’s best interest to hold back constructive criticism, yet somehow the cat of culture has got our tongue.
Peer review represents a very narrow forum--it’s one person conversing with another person about one project. In real life, however, hundreds upon thousands of people may read a single document. Being politically correct has become a nationwide concern, and in our environment of Stanford University, the student body is quite conscious of what can and should be said in a public setting.
More on this PLUS a video, after the break.
Let Sleeping Dogs Lie [Group B]
This blog entry is part of a Fall 2008 blogging exchange between University of Sydney and Stanford University. To read all the entries, follow this thread; be sure read the earliest entries first.
Hello,
The three of us are very excited to meet you. Unfortunately, we’re sleepy. You probably are too. Actually, because of time zones, you may be sleeping right now. If that is the case, we’re jealous. We believe that this may be having a detrimental effect on our powers of creativity and cognition. Furthermore, while we know that we are supposed to introduce ourselves as well as discussion topics based on our research experience, we’re still at a bit of a loss as to exactly what to write. We’ll attempt some individual introductions, we guess.
October 20, 2008
Productive Procrastination (Group E)
This blog entry is part of a Fall 2008 blogging exchange between University of Sydney and Stanford University. To read all the entries, follow this thread; be sure read the earliest entries first.
We are writing for the Program in Writing and Rhetoric class The Rhetoric of Research.
Our eight page essay on rhetoric and research was due today. We all wrote it yesterday. As a result of our procrastination, we are writing this on a substantial amount of sleep debt. While writing this, we are procrastinating. It took us at least 20 minutes to decide on a suitable title and topic for this blog post.
In the process of sharing experiences, we discovered remarkable similarities in our methods of procrastination. Foremost among our discoveries was that research is a prominent and vital part of the procrastination toolkit of the Stanford student. Some of us use the web, some the library, but the motivation is the same. We are never satisfied with the amount of information we have. As we research, we change our interests and our ideas about our research topic. Because of this constant change, we put off the actual writing of the paper until the very last possible moment.
The Editor's Safety Net [Group D]
This blog entry is part of a Fall 2008 blogging exchange between University of Sydney and Stanford University. To read all the entries, follow this thread; be sure read the earliest entries first.
We are Carlos Shimizu, Yong Liang Tan, and Nathaniel Shar, and we're studying the "rhetoric of research" -- analyzing the ways people talk to each other about academic topics. Carlos' current research project aims to illustrate how various genres of music utilize rhetoric for a specific agenda, and to show how their use of rhetoric may or may not differ with the 5 traditional canons of rhetoric. Yong's project compares the rhetoric of Western and Chinese perspectives of female infanticide in China in the late 20th century. Nathaniel's research investigates the relationship between the rhetoric of mathematics teaching and the prevalence of innumeracy in American society.
Despite our diverse interests, all our papers will have one thing in common: they will all be revised, perhaps multiple times. Peer editing is an integral part of this process. This year, we will be conducting our peer edits online rather than in person.
