February 12, 2008 Archives

In about four pages, make an argument defending something of value in oral culture, which is threatened by manuscript culture. (For this particular assignment, I'm less interested in ways that digital culture disrupts oral culture, but I'll accept the occasional foray into print culture.)

I am not requiring outside research, but I do want you to demonstrate your comprehension of the assigned readings by including brief quotations and references to the assigned readings. Rather than include a long paragraph and then summarize it in your own words, I'd much rather see you make connections. Use multiple citations to support general statements. For instance, instead of, "It is commonly accepted that chocolate is a better ice cream flavor than vanilla" you might write:

Authors who prefer chocolate (Choynowski 45; Ulicne 234; Sawyer 121) often focus on its sweetness, while those who offer different opinions include vanilla purists (Rodriguez 23; Barrick 123) and those who prefer a hybrid, like Rocky Road (Knight 131) or mint chocolate chip (Jerz 234).  We may, with Cristello, presume that "authors who state no preference have none" (125), but only at the risk of what Prichard calls "privileging the politics of preference" (53).

Note the density of the above paragraph -- even small claims are sourced; the main idea is not interrupted with long quotations. even when the reference includes no quotation at all, it nevertheless places the current idea within a framework that maintains an awareness of existing thought.

Through your blogging, on a regular basis, I have been asking you to respond to ideas you have encountered in your peers' writing. Academic prose encodes a similar network of specific references.  This assignment asks you to demonstrate your ability to synthesize (see Bloom's Taxonomy).