Blog Post 6 - A press sphere ...

Comparing the New York Times against Hot Air and Rotten Tomatoes? They are wildly different in almost everything other than the fact that all of them provide some sort of news. New York Times is updated regularly – ‘regularly’ meaning as soon as an article can be posted up. Rotten Tomatoes is the closest to the New York Times in this category. It updates frequently, not as often as the New York Times, but it is definitely closer than Hot Air. All of them are updates frequently enough to be a good news source though.

The New York Times is thorough while both Hot Air and Rotten Tomatoes are not. The Times’ purpose is to inform about everything and is therefore very thorough about the topics it pulls up. It has its own sections of traditional news, news that you expect to hear (example: global events), and it has its fair share of entertainment news that includes all topics from politics to books to music and movies. Hot Air and Rotten Tomatoes are specific. They address political and movie issues respectively.

These differences are actually good, in a way. This is because while the New York Times covers what it sets out to, the information presented is much more general because of its global reach. Addressing movies, Rotten Tomatoes is much more specific and therefore more detailed. The same is true for Hot Air which addresses issues in politics. So, if one wanted to find movie or politic specific information, the blogs would be their best bet, while if they wanted to know world events, the Times could help them. Or they could read both blogs and the Times. These differences actually work together to create a “press sphere” as Jarvis would define it since people would go to different sources of news to get detailed news on their pick.

Post 5 ... Jarvis and Sullivan

I read through Sullivan’s article again – all nine pages of it. I’m not sure why other than I was feeling very “academic” but it did help towards making this blog post. As I read, I looked for any relation to Jarvis’ model of the press sphere and our discussions of it in class. The first relation I saw was at the bottom of page two.
It reads, “But what? Like any new form, blogging did not start from nothing. It evolved from various journalistic traditions. In my case, I drew on my mainstream-media experience to navigate the virgin sea. I had a few early inspirations: the old Notebook section of The New Republic, a magazine that, under the editorial guidance of Michael Kinsley, had introduced a more English style of crisp, short commentary into what had been a more high-minded genre of American opinion writing. The New Republic had also pioneered a Diarist feature on the last page, which was designed to be a more personal, essayistic, first-person form of journalism. Mixing the two genres, I did what I had been trained to do—and improvised.”
This passage from Sullivan clearly shows a positive relation to Jarvis’ model of the press-sphere. Sullivan talks about his first experience as a blogger and his search for material to put in his blog post. He says that no form of writing starts from nothing. Blogging, for example, started from journalistic traditions. This compares to our discussion of Jarvis’ press sphere is class. Everything seemed to relate to something else: peers to “me”, the internet to peers, etc, etc. So, like any other form of news, blogging borrows from something that existed prior to it.
“The blog remained a superficial medium, of course. By superficial, I mean simply that blogging rewards brevity and immediacy. No one wants to read a 9,000-word treatise online. On the Web, one-sentence links are as legitimate as thousand-word diatribes—in fact, they are often valued more.” This passage from Sullivan too relates to Jarvis’ post. However, it retains a negative sense. Jarvis’ model of “The way it was” and “The way it is now” is shown in this passage. Blogs by their very definition are meant to be superficial and brief and this while good in that it motivated interest from all peoples, also could be bad as anything and everything can be written about anything with complete shallowness which are often put up in the same pedestal as published material.
I like Jarvis’ press sphere that relates to “me” personally. Even though the chart was crude and incomplete, it portrayed what it set out to do - that we now get our news from a variety of sources with our peers heading the list. I found this very accurate as it relates to my life. I don’t go after news. I let it come to me and that’s what the chart portrays.

Blog Post 4 - Unit 2 ... Press-Sphere

The world still changes. Even the way we get our news has changed and this is exactly what Jeff Jarvis points out. Jarvis provides five charts to portray the change that has happened to how we get the news today. The first chart is a simple projection on the “way it was”. News was transmitted to people by the filter of the press with limited other options. This has dramatically changed in the way people get their news today. Jarvis’ second chart emphasizes his point by showing how what once was just the press has changed into the “press sphere” where companies, sources, data, government, archives, witnesses and observers play a part in the gathering of news besides the press itself.

Jarvis gets more focused onto the change into the world today by his third chart. This chart portrays the world as it should be: focused on the public. When this is seen, we see exactly how the people today get their news. A little of it comes from the press, true. But the major source of news today for the individual is peers. Media, links, government, search, companies, and work are also major sources of news, some of which are bigger than the press itself.

Jarvis’ next chart shows how stories were once made and are made today. Jarvis argues that stories before were immediate: were news came in and stories came out, were text and photos comes in and the paper goes out. Everything was done instantaneously. Now, however, the story is just a small phase of the entire cycle which begins with ideas, discussions, questions and ends with corrections, comments, or and follow-ups.

Jarvis’ last chart is related to the fourth. It shows the components of a story. It lists quotes, links, feed, corrections, comment, narratives, video and photos all as components that make up a story today. Jarvis’ charts are crystal clear in what they try to convey even if his words got a bit confusing at times, which I suspect is the reason for his chart inputs. The world is still changing. News as we had once known it just from the press has now changed to encompass the press-sphere.

Unit 2 - Blog Post 3 .. My experiences with the Times

Reading the news can be described in one word: interesting. It’s a weird feeling suddenly realizing and knowing or being actually aware of the events and forces that happen around you. It has also been different from the news I am used to reading through Yahoo. News at Yahoo is made to be interesting. They do post important topics up there, but one can notice that they prefer to put up relevant articles that are interesting. The New York Times on the other hand seems to have information before entertainment and this has made it a very interesting read, even with lack of the entertainment I’m used to. I’ve noticed stories that made the headlines. You can almost call me irritated at the amount of news available and neatly classified. It is frustrating to know that even if I spend a two or three hours reading, I can still be uninformed about something. So, I just take it easy on myself and read the headlines just because it is deemed as the most relevant and important information by the editors. Today, the news I read were all in the headlines – ‘Small Business Faces Sharp Rise in Costs of Health Care’, ‘Obama Declares Swine Flu a National Emergency’, and ‘Pakistani Army Captures Taliban Stronghold’ are some of the articles I read today. I may have missed many other important stories that I should probably know about and I accept that just because I know that to function as an individual in society (or to finish my homework), one cannot simply sit at home and read news forever. Reading the New York Times this past week has definitely influenced the other things I do. For example, I’ve noticed that I’m a lot more open to reading (actual reading and not skimming) after I accepted that I needed to have the patience to read the Times every day, at least for class. I’ve also been a bit more open to doing work for my coursework that I was before.

Blogs Analysis

The two blogs I chose were Hot Air http://hotair.com/ and Rotten Tomatoes http://www.rottentomatoes.com/. In Hot Air, there is no famous sponsoring organization but Hot Air seems to get its facts straight and right. It is mainly composed of videos of news and the audience’s comments following. And the videos were basically news and short clips and all the actual news material is already documented, so its facts are good. I like the website’s design very much. It is simple, short, with limited advertisements and yet delivers all that it intended to. The design is split in three parts – Headlines, Top Picks, Blogs – a very simple classification, yet effective. The site has expanded to include blogs from various people and its main purpose is to keep people informed about political topics. It does so by videos, news, and blogs.

The only limitation I see with this site is its blogging feature. While it is good, not many sources are cited there and it is purely opinion. The discourse community for this site would be politically interested people who follow this site every day. Some key phrases are Headlines, Revealed and Obamateurism.

Rotten Tomatoes is mainly a movie site where one can see reviews, gossip about celebrities, clips, trailers and some community features. There is no famous sponsoring organization behind Rotten Tomatoes and the information is mainly related to movies. Reviews of movies don’t need any sources since they are but opinion and so not many sources are seen. The website’s design is very appealing but less so than Hot Air’s. This is because there are more advertisements thrown around the screen in Rotten Tomatoes than there are for Hot Air. The main classification of Rotten Tomatoes is Home, Movies, DVD, Celebrities, News, Critics, Trailers and Pictures and finally Community. Rotten Tomatoes’ main purpose is to provide information about specific movies to people who want to watch something.

I don’t see any limitation with Rotten Tomatoes as it accomplishes all it sets out to do along with an extensive library of movies. And there are many positive qualities about this site, one of which is the Tomatometer which is basically movie ratings. The discourse community for this site is those that visit it regularly for movie information. Some Key phrases are Rated, Genre, Critics, Synopsis and Starring.

Mine and Theirs

I should have expected it but I didn’t. Apparently, most of my classmates get most of their news from their parents or friends. Almost all of them were passive news audience meaning that they let news come to them, rather than going after it. This holds the same for me. I follow my classmates approach when it comes to news and how it is absorbed. My parents usually bring up news that really affects us and so it is in actuality a little more important than a lot of the news that doesn’t. Also, from my parents, comes a stream of opinions and viewpoints that I’m used to and expect so I’m very comfortable of talking with them and formulating my own opinions and ideas.

The other major source of news for my classmates is through the web or TV. While this may seem to be active news-gathering, it is in reality not. This is also my other major source of news. My homepage (Yahoo), face book are chiefly my sources of my information on the web. I see them when I skim past them and sometimes, if they are interesting enough, I look up the story. For example, I saw a facebook status that was my first indication of the boy in the balloon story. I did nothing until I saw the same story put up in Yahoo News. This tickled my curiosity enough to make me get up and do some active-news searching for this story.

Trying to relate this generation’s sources of news and civic literacy is quite simple. What Hedges and Carr talk about is quite evident in the world. We see what is brought to us – simply. There is not much in depth news analysis of news going on with this generation and our news-gathering just deals with the surface of in-depth stories that are forcibly shown to us.

Blogs I'm going to follow ...

If there isn't a political-related blog in the list of blogs that we are required to follow,
I'll go with Hot Air - http://hotair.com/
and
Rotten Tomatoes - http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

I chose Hot Air because it was the least confusing political blog I could find and I chose Rotten Tomatoes because, well, I love movies and this blog can actually entertain me while doing homework

Unit 2 - Blog Post 1

NEWS. Something that is very important yet ignored too often. I am not totally unaware of the forces and events happening today, but I am sometimes unaware of important events – some of which that even impact my life. I do not go out of my way to read sources of information such as The New York Times though I recognize the importance of doing so.

If there is something that really affects the life around me, I can usually rely on my parents to tell me something about it which, if important enough, can get me off the couch and into reading about it. Otherwise most of my information comes as I browse the web - Usually from friends and from the Yahoo News. Facebook is actually a great source of information, if you know that all that you hear may not be true. Even then, you hear information that you may not have heard before, especially if it affects people you know.

The Yahoo News is very brief and nicely classified. It is my homepage, so whenever I open a browser window, I see the highlights and if they aren’t related to politics, I usually explore them. For example, today, some pages in Yahoo News that I explored were “Billionaire Arrested”, “Leaders meet underwater” and “Ground Offense Begins in Pakistan Al-Qaida haven”. These webpages show my interests are mainly important events that affect a great many people but I also look at “Baby Likes Loud Music” and other entertaining/informative webpages.

revised Final draft

Elvis Joseph
Mr. Leake
English 105-07
14 October 2009
Revolutionary Literacy
We are changing. Stopping the relentless pull of time is impossible, but what we can do is see how we have changed during that period. We can look back into ancient days when man began putting down ideas and see the reactions society had to that new idea. We can also look at other literary inspirations, for example, Gutenberg’s printing press. Here we can examine peoples’ reaction to the change in writing and reading habits and can compare that to our own changes (Carr). Now we exist at another focal point of change where we can draw upon past human experiences and see how the future may turn out. Now is the age of quick, accessible information – when people can stop remembering information because it is easily available.
Various opinions have been made on how the internet is changing us and especially how it changes the way we think. Some of these opinions come from some notable writers such as Clive Thompson, Chris Hedges and Nicholas Carr. Carr asks if the internet has totally transformed humans in ways that we have yet to realize. “What if I do so much reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed” (Carr). In this simple statement, Carr summarizes his entire article and at the same time expresses a profound concept and way of looking at this situation. Carr argues that humans are inevitably “not only what we read. We are how we read” (Carr).
Carr argues that the new web age has brought about a transformation not just in how we collect information, but also in how we read material. Carr says that now we just “zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” This quote effectively captures Carr’s point – we just “bounce” from webpage to webpage, lacking the patience to read anything in depth at all, while not thoroughly reading anything. This has apparently changed the way and the pace at which we absorb information and thus the way we think. Carr mentions previous literary landmarks such as the invention and popularization of writing and the easy availability of books being made – both of which were frowned upon but ultimately ended up being the giant that the dwarf sat on to be taller than the giant (Carr).
I have seen the proof of Carr’s opinion in my own life. Before summer break, I usually spent my free time just cooped up near the fireplace, soaking up a good fantasy book – not browsing through social networking sites. Then when school was done, I put down the books and delved into the intricacies of the web (particularly Facebook). This, I led myself to believe, was a radical change in myself, something I was proud of. That was until school started again and I brought The Devil’s Highway with the intent of immersing myself in it. It turned out that I could not last 3 pages without either falling asleep or changing my facebook status.
Frantically, I ditched the new book for one of my long-time favorites - The Lord of the Rings. I can only describe the feeling as true horror as I discovered that I could not read the way I used to anymore. After the first few paragraphs, I would unintentionally start to skim and before long I would give up on my reading. That was about when I was introduced to Carr’s article as an assignment. I admit that even though I found the subject very interesting and pertaining to my situation, I skimmed the last few pages. In my own way, I have proven that which Carr talks about – the change in the way we think – is true and I have come to realize and accept this truth. I’ll confess that I changed my facebook status to “I HAVE TO DO THIS OR I WILL DIE” just as I was about to get this paragraph finished.
Chris Hedges is on Carr’s side on the civic literacy issue. Both Hedges and Carr say that the new literary standpoint we have come upon is a terrible one that signals death in reading and writing (Carr) (Hedges). In Hedges’ article Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy, he is overly pessimistic about the United States and the new generation. He starts out by stating that newspapers are on the rapid decline. Hedges then observes newspapers’ important role in society. In Hedges’ words, “Newspapers, when well run, are a public trust. They provide, at their best, the means for citizens to examine themselves, to ferret out lies and the abuse of power by elected officials and corrupt businesses, to give a voice to those who would, without the press, have no voice, and to follow, in ways a private citizen cannot, the daily workings of local, state and federal government” (Hedges). These veritable facts shown in the print cannot be compared to the writings on the internet, especially those of bloggers, according to Hedges. This, Hedges notes, is because of the lack of credibility, resources, time and training of bloggers. No one fires the bloggers and they almost never acknowledge their own faults (Hedges).
Hedges observes that the Internet cannot take up the mantle of newspapers mainly because the internet is made for browsing not reading and, according to Hedges, it shows. People spend much less time on newspaper sites than they do on newspaper themselves – a point that Carr supports in his article. Carr would argue that it is because of the change in the way we think that we do not read newspapers or even read newspaper sites thoroughly (Carr) (Hedges). Therefore, Hedges thinks that these are “bad days for newsrooms” (Hedges). However, Hedges’ article has lacked substance in that he never does any serious research and most of his statements either aren’t validated at all or aren’t validated with proper sources. Whenever Hedges quoted any sources, he validated information not critical to proving his point, but rather some statistics to prove the obvious – such as the decline of newspapers. This is the biggest limitation in Hedges article and it considerably decreases the value of Hedges’ writing. Carr, on the other hand, isn’t as pessimistic as Hedges is even though they back each other’s points up. Carr also documents each and every source of information he uses to prove his point and makes sure that he does not just document random pieces of information. Carr supports key information for his points on civic literacy. Also, Carr keeps room for negotiation on his views unlike what Hedges does. This really helps Carr show his point in a positive light, something Hedges fails to do miserably.
William Badke follows Hedges and Carr’s line of thought. He too believes that the internet has degraded our critical thinking and research capability. Badke writes, “Encountering the library's information environment is like facing raging beast after raging beast until you pathetically retreat to the info desk, forced to explain your ignorance and raw fear to a stranger”. Badke uses this sentence to show the ignorance and lack of use of libraries by today’s youth, who instead prefer to use Google for all research if possible.
Badke then notes that the “older” generation today has failed the younger generation. He says that his generation has “failed to explain to this generation what kind of information they were dealing with when they threw words into Google's search box. They were not terribly familiar with the mechanisms that were in place earlier to achieve quality control and to determine what could be viewed as scholarly, or even reliable, information. They had no means to distinguish the essential difference between traditional publications and the average website” (Badke). Badke then cuts down to the heart of the matter saying that there is a breakdown of knowledge and a sudden increase in inadequate research because students nowadays prefer using any website off Google over the scholarly paper written by the seasoned university professor (Badke). This backs up the points by Carr and Hedges where the focus is on the break-up of civic literacy in the world today. Like Carr, Badke’s article is well supported with appropriate sources that show strength in his point.
As if to shed a positive light on the issue of civic literacy, Clive Thompson’s article brings about it not just solid facts but hope for a better future. Thompson quotes, Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, whose opinion is based upon a study of college students between their academic and social writing. Thompson pulls up a new idea that there is an ongoing “literacy revolution the likes of which we have not seen since the Greek civilization”. Thompson is very optimistic in his piece compared to Hedges, who is completely pessimistic of everything and everyone, Carr and Badke. Thompson writes that most students today write much more than students did fifty years back. Also, he writes that there is no destructive change in academic writing as a result of the new forms of short-hand typing such as texting or Twitter updates (Thompson). This is against the points Hedges, Badke and Carr make as the primary focus of their articles was how literacy was dying in the modern world.
The readers and writers of today are much different from those who lived a generation ago. We rely much more on the web than we thought and our dependence maybe our greatest achievement or our greatest undoing. We are becoming more impatient as both writers and readers and this is becoming readily apparent in our blog posts and in our inability to read from un-condensed passages. However, I think that there is a huge advantage here that is not readily visible. An advantage that may lead us into writing and reading into a whole new, radical way that is very benefiting to literacy as a whole (along with Thompson’s point). Even though many, such as Badke, Carr and Hedges may not see the different and better path that writing and reading on the web offers that benefits literacy as a whole, I believe that there is benefit (a whole new, radical way of the expression of thought), like the benefits of previous literary landmarks, that remains largely unrecognized.
In my opinion, this new form of reading and writing (brought on with the dawn of the internet) is our greatest achievement, because in just the same way humans put thoughts into writing and made published writing more available through the Gutenberg’s printing press, we are now making our own great literary landmark – writing and reading on the internet – even though it may have its own short-term disadvantages (the prevalence of “pancake people” who know very little about a wide range of topics, and the change in the way we think) the same way other literary landmarks had. Indeed, the change in the way we think may also be one of the great advantages that happen during this period of literary change as it is a new and radical way for the expression of thought that may turn out to be beneficial in just the same way that previous changes in thinking were.




Works Cited
Badke, William. "How We Failed the Net Generation." Online 33.4 (July 2009): 47. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 28 Sep. 2009 .
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?." Atlantic Aug 2008. 28 Sep 2009.
Hedges, Chris. "Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy." 21 July 2008. Truthdig, Web. 28 Sep 2009. .
Thompson, Clive. "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy." 24 Aug 2009. Wired Magazine, Web. 28 Sep 2009. .

revised Final draft

Elvis Joseph
Mr. Leake
English 105-07
14 October 2009
Revolutionary Literacy
We are changing. Stopping the relentless pull of time is impossible, but what we can do is see how we have changed during that period. We can look back into ancient days when man began putting down ideas and see the reactions society had to that new idea. We can also look at other literary inspirations, for example, Gutenberg’s printing press. Here we can examine peoples’ reaction to the change in writing and reading habits and can compare that to our own changes (Carr). Now we exist at another focal point of change where we can draw upon past human experiences and see how the future may turn out. Now is the age of quick, accessible information – when people can stop remembering information because it is easily available.
Various opinions have been made on how the internet is changing us and especially how it changes the way we think. Some of these opinions come from some notable writers such as Clive Thompson, Chris Hedges and Nicholas Carr. Carr asks if the internet has totally transformed humans in ways that we have yet to realize. “What if I do so much reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed” (Carr). In this simple statement, Carr summarizes his entire article and at the same time expresses a profound concept and way of looking at this situation. Carr argues that humans are inevitably “not only what we read. We are how we read” (Carr).
Carr argues that the new web age has brought about a transformation not just in how we collect information, but also in how we read material. Carr says that now we just “zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” This quote effectively captures Carr’s point – we just “bounce” from webpage to webpage, lacking the patience to read anything in depth at all, while not thoroughly reading anything. This has apparently changed the way and the pace at which we absorb information and thus the way we think. Carr mentions previous literary landmarks such as the invention and popularization of writing and the easy availability of books being made – both of which were frowned upon but ultimately ended up being the giant that the dwarf sat on to be taller than the giant (Carr).
I have seen the proof of Carr’s opinion in my own life. Before summer break, I usually spent my free time just cooped up near the fireplace, soaking up a good fantasy book – not browsing through social networking sites. Then when school was done, I put down the books and delved into the intricacies of the web (particularly Facebook). This, I led myself to believe, was a radical change in myself, something I was proud of. That was until school started again and I brought The Devil’s Highway with the intent of immersing myself in it. It turned out that I could not last 3 pages without either falling asleep or changing my facebook status.
Frantically, I ditched the new book for one of my long-time favorites - The Lord of the Rings. I can only describe the feeling as true horror as I discovered that I could not read the way I used to anymore. After the first few paragraphs, I would unintentionally start to skim and before long I would give up on my reading. That was about when I was introduced to Carr’s article as an assignment. I admit that even though I found the subject very interesting and pertaining to my situation, I skimmed the last few pages. In my own way, I have proven that which Carr talks about – the change in the way we think – is true and I have come to realize and accept this truth. I’ll confess that I changed my facebook status to “I HAVE TO DO THIS OR I WILL DIE” just as I was about to get this paragraph finished.
Chris Hedges is on Carr’s side on the civic literacy issue. Both Hedges and Carr say that the new literary standpoint we have come upon is a terrible one that signals death in reading and writing (Carr) (Hedges). In Hedges’ article Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy, he is overly pessimistic about the United States and the new generation. He starts out by stating that newspapers are on the rapid decline. Hedges then observes newspapers’ important role in society. In Hedges’ words, “Newspapers, when well run, are a public trust. They provide, at their best, the means for citizens to examine themselves, to ferret out lies and the abuse of power by elected officials and corrupt businesses, to give a voice to those who would, without the press, have no voice, and to follow, in ways a private citizen cannot, the daily workings of local, state and federal government” (Hedges). These veritable facts shown in the print cannot be compared to the writings on the internet, especially those of bloggers, according to Hedges. This, Hedges notes, is because of the lack of credibility, resources, time and training of bloggers. No one fires the bloggers and they almost never acknowledge their own faults (Hedges).
Hedges observes that the Internet cannot take up the mantle of newspapers mainly because the internet is made for browsing not reading and, according to Hedges, it shows. People spend much less time on newspaper sites than they do on newspaper themselves – a point that Carr supports in his article. Carr would argue that it is because of the change in the way we think that we do not read newspapers or even read newspaper sites thoroughly (Carr) (Hedges). Therefore, Hedges thinks that these are “bad days for newsrooms” (Hedges). However, Hedges’ article has lacked substance in that he never does any serious research and most of his statements either aren’t validated at all or aren’t validated with proper sources. Whenever Hedges quoted any sources, he validated information not critical to proving his point, but rather some statistics to prove the obvious – such as the decline of newspapers. This is the biggest limitation in Hedges article and it considerably decreases the value of Hedges’ writing. Carr, on the other hand, isn’t as pessimistic as Hedges is even though they back each other’s points up. Carr also documents each and every source of information he uses to prove his point and makes sure that he does not just document random pieces of information. Carr supports key information for his points on civic literacy. Also, Carr keeps room for negotiation on his views unlike what Hedges does. This really helps Carr show his point in a positive light, something Hedges fails to do miserably.
William Badke follows Hedges and Carr’s line of thought. He too believes that the internet has degraded our critical thinking and research capability. Badke writes, “Encountering the library's information environment is like facing raging beast after raging beast until you pathetically retreat to the info desk, forced to explain your ignorance and raw fear to a stranger”. Badke uses this sentence to show the ignorance and lack of use of libraries by today’s youth, who instead prefer to use Google for all research if possible.
Badke then notes that the “older” generation today has failed the younger generation. He says that his generation has “failed to explain to this generation what kind of information they were dealing with when they threw words into Google's search box. They were not terribly familiar with the mechanisms that were in place earlier to achieve quality control and to determine what could be viewed as scholarly, or even reliable, information. They had no means to distinguish the essential difference between traditional publications and the average website” (Badke). Badke then cuts down to the heart of the matter saying that there is a breakdown of knowledge and a sudden increase in inadequate research because students nowadays prefer using any website off Google over the scholarly paper written by the seasoned university professor (Badke). This backs up the points by Carr and Hedges where the focus is on the break-up of civic literacy in the world today. Like Carr, Badke’s article is well supported with appropriate sources that show strength in his point.
As if to shed a positive light on the issue of civic literacy, Clive Thompson’s article brings about it not just solid facts but hope for a better future. Thompson quotes, Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, whose opinion is based upon a study of college students between their academic and social writing. Thompson pulls up a new idea that there is an ongoing “literacy revolution the likes of which we have not seen since the Greek civilization”. Thompson is very optimistic in his piece compared to Hedges, who is completely pessimistic of everything and everyone, Carr and Badke. Thompson writes that most students today write much more than students did fifty years back. Also, he writes that there is no destructive change in academic writing as a result of the new forms of short-hand typing such as texting or Twitter updates (Thompson). This is against the points Hedges, Badke and Carr make as the primary focus of their articles was how literacy was dying in the modern world.
The readers and writers of today are much different from those who lived a generation ago. We rely much more on the web than we thought and our dependence maybe our greatest achievement or our greatest undoing. We are becoming more impatient as both writers and readers and this is becoming readily apparent in our blog posts and in our inability to read from un-condensed passages. However, I think that there is a huge advantage here that is not readily visible. An advantage that may lead us into writing and reading into a whole new, radical way that is very benefiting to literacy as a whole (along with Thompson’s point). Even though many, such as Badke, Carr and Hedges may not see the different and better path that writing and reading on the web offers that benefits literacy as a whole, I believe that there is benefit (a whole new, radical way of the expression of thought), like the benefits of previous literary landmarks, that remains largely unrecognized.
In my opinion, this new form of reading and writing (brought on with the dawn of the internet) is our greatest achievement, because in just the same way humans put thoughts into writing and made published writing more available through the Gutenberg’s printing press, we are now making our own great literary landmark – writing and reading on the internet – even though it may have its own short-term disadvantages (the prevalence of “pancake people” who know very little about a wide range of topics, and the change in the way we think) the same way other literary landmarks had. Indeed, the change in the way we think may also be one of the great advantages that happen during this period of literary change as it is a new and radical way for the expression of thought that may turn out to be beneficial in just the same way that previous changes in thinking were.




Works Cited
Badke, William. "How We Failed the Net Generation." Online 33.4 (July 2009): 47. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 28 Sep. 2009 .
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?." Atlantic Aug 2008. 28 Sep 2009.
Hedges, Chris. "Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy." 21 July 2008. Truthdig, Web. 28 Sep 2009. .
Thompson, Clive. "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy." 24 Aug 2009. Wired Magazine, Web. 28 Sep 2009. .

First Final Draft of Essay 1 !!!

Link is below.
http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddkxhw7r_2dh6z3zg6

Elvis Joseph