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Technical Writing · Exposition & Argumentation · Non-fiction Creative Essays · Grammar and Usage of Standard English · The Structure of English · Analysis of Shakespeare
Analysis of Literary Language · Advanced Professional Papers · The History of the English Language · First Internship: Tutoring in a Writing Workshop · Second Internship: Advanced Instruction: Tutoring Writing
Visual Literacy Seminar (A First Course in Methodology) · Language in Society (A Third Course in Methodology) · The Writer's Guild
UMBC'S Conservative Newspaper: "The Retriever's Right Eye" · UMBC'S University Newspaper: "The Retriever Weekly" · Introduction to Journalism · Feature Writing · Science Writing Papers
Communicative Objective #1 (CO1): The Re-patent · Presentation/Gaming Activity: "Shopping Happens" · The History of "this" Space: UMBC Food
Blackboard Weekly Posts (A Bulletin Board Community)
Explanation of How to Read "This" Objective · Parameters for Recontextualizing Authorless Text · Photos of the Authorless Text Artifacts
The Authorless Text Narrative · The Authorless Text Goals, Choices, and Process Narrative-Sketch · The Authorless Text Rolling Credits
The Authorless Text Lost and Found · The Authorless Text that was Researched, Tested, and Abandoned
Authorless Text Blackboard Community Post
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Last Update July 19, 2006
Workshopping Round One · Workshopping Round Two
Workshopping Round One 04/11/2006
I thought I had four ideas going on but there seem to be only three. Once again I am not sure if I am understanding the assignment correctly. My first problem is six to eight different kinds of text.
Topic One
This will probably be the first of the ideas to get dumped. Something to the effect of "Footnotes and Notes for the Foot." This came about from the card in my wallet for foot massage. In the UMBC Writing Center there are two handouts for MLA and APA style guides. We all know there are many various style guides out there:
These I found with little digging on the web, the above cited works are all authorless text.
As far as Notes for the Foot a brief look showed me I could find all kinds of authorless text about feet, foot health, foot problems, and other useful knowledge. I am really not clear as how these types of text weave and categorize together other than by a play on words and that the bottom of the page in publishing is a footer.
Topic Two
The next thought is no less bizarre than the first. I wrote a narrative last summer about myself and the twists and turns I went though in my education from one field to the next but all had some kind of connection to each other. I thought I was writing something interesting. Maggie in ENGL 407, Communications in Society, heard me talk about this in Shipka’s office and thought the topic would have been an interesting tale for a history, obviously a small glimpse of my own personal history and that this tale had something to offer to more youthful peers. I wasn’t thrilled with this because I am not really comfortable with talking about myself as a topic or a focus of analysis. I prefer artifacts or things versus people especially personal stuff. I was trying to get published and many of the journals are calling for this memoir stuff which was why I wrote the essay. Shipka in 407 Tuesday informed us that when students were asked to write abut their college experience, out of hundreds read, only three types actually existed. Shipka called them the "Rocky" essay (against all odds), "Before Eve" (I can’t think of what this is now, so I have to ask Shipka to clarify), and "Amazing Grace (Shipka didn’t clarify this one either but I am thinking "Lost" but "Found"). When I think of the essay I now think my essay that I thought said something falls into the category of "Amazing Grace" though it could be "Rocky." I thought of it more as the ending music of the Jetsons where he gets trapped on the conveyor belt.
I travel by bus everywhere because I can’t afford a car and pay tuition. I would collect bus schedules and recontextualize mass transit schedules. Then it occurred to me Monty Python did a skit spoofing Masterpiece Theater and it was something like Murder on the 5:38 to Brighton, known as the
Topic Three
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Okay, time to put on your tin foil hat again. When I was a reporter for the Retriever, somehow all the articles on food that semester were being fielded to me. I became the "Food Man" on campus. If it dealt with food, my name was on the article. The Authorless text seems to be heading in that direction once again. Being the "Food Man" or writing about food was NEVER something I EVER considered. I consider myself a picky eater but maybe I’m not as picky as I think. At some point in time when I lived in New York, my group of eccentric friends developed this oddity of running to a restaurant at the drop of a hat. But not just any restaurant, it all depended upon what someone said they were hungry for. If someone said they wanted a cheeseburger we would run down to Virginia to a special place. If someone said Chinese in an hour we were crossing the Manhattan Bridge to enter Chinatown and would eat only at Wo Hops, 17 Mott Ave., and specifically in the basement. If one dumps the search term “Wo Hop” into the search engine one receives dozens of hits all saying the same thing. Click here to see some reviews posted at http://www.menupages.com/If someone said, "souvlaki," back in the cars off to Bayville on the North Shore of Long Island. If someone said Mexican food we were on a plane to Bloomington, Ill. If someone said chicken in a black Bean sauce we’d scurry over to Hicksville, NY. We were mapping out the entire Continental U.S. with our stomachs. We did it because we could. Now the fascination may exist because I don’t have enough money to buy food and I’m hungry all the time. I started to think of all the take-out restaurants around me here in my travels in Arbutus and Catonsville and there are a lot. I went out and collected take-out menus. I have no idea why but again Monty Python came into my head and it was the skit of the three Australian Bruce’s. At the same time I thought of the image of Kilroy who was from the WWII era and painted everywhere. He always looks like he is peering over the edge of a fence. I did a search on him and found variations of his image. I thought maybe I could use him to hold the menus. Why not weave a text of the Three Kilroy’s who attended UMBC and became the experts in Catonsville/Arbutus Take-out. I might be able to weave scenes of them in one restaurant bugging the restaurant owner for extra cat or dog in their Chinese take-out or how two of the Kilroy’s admonish the third and banish him form the dining table because what he chose looks awful and stinks literally but he loves to eat it there because he says that it’s the best made.
Topic Four
This topic in my mind is the most boring but maybe does the most work as far as categorization. The authorless text would consist of business cards. First, this text is probably one of the most overdone types of text in this class. If I consider the work business cards do in goals and choices I become nervous because this authorless text may not provide a great deal to write about. I have a small binder I have maintained over the years not for collecting purposes as one of my brother-in-law’s has done over the years but this was a "working portfolio" with several categories within the collection. Some categories might fall short of six so those may have to be negated but this would also end up in goals and choices as to what was trimmed out and why. Various categories would be Automotive Suppliers, Dealers, Software Sales, Computer Sales, Doctors, Dentists, Chiropractors, Therapists, Record Stores, Antique Glass Dealers, Universities, Veterinarians, Pet Stores, and there are probably still more all of which are from different states. I think some of the cards would have their own stories and some would mark out interest phases also.
Evaluation of Choice of Path
Reflecting upon the four possible projects now collected on paper, all in the same space, and after a night’s rest the most likely path appears to be the business cards even though this may have been done ten thousand times before. I have a book of business cards and looking at my desk there are 20 more cards that have still need to be filed. The business cards become a work in classifying. With such a large array of cards a new problem is introduced cross-genre cards. As an example, the genre is business cards. I will now focus on one Class: Record stores. Within record stores there can be the big corporate retailers such as Best Buy, Tower Records, etc. Next could be Mom Pop Stores such as Slipped Disk, X,Y,Z Record Store, etc. These could even be organized by the state they came from: NY, PA, MD, etc. Then there is a sub-category of rare, hard to find, and out of print dealers. With these dealers one calls on the phone after searching all the other dealers and retailer, tells them what you want and for a locators fee, they go out and find it for you. The late seventies fragmenting from Corporate record labels and producing music on independent labels created this fragmentation making some music extremely difficult to find hence all types of specialty stores grew up. Even though the cards themselves are mundane, the work involved and decisions in cataloging become extremely complex. What I first thought would not create much work in Goals and Choices may do the most work in attempting to classify/catalog them. The presentation itself may not look like very much when viewed but what the observer does not see is all the invisible work done in attempting to categorize the cards which will produce a vast amount of writing in Goals and Choices. The final product to the viewer looks like, “So what? It’s a bunch of categorized business cards," but behind the scenes there is tremendous work and decision-making going into categorizing. In other words, “I smell wood burning, are you thinking again?” Yes I am thinking and I am burning down forests.
Method of Presentation
As far as how to display the project this project regardless of which I choose I believe will work nicely for a web site within my own web site or several pages broken up into various categories. I think this assignment may lend itself quite well to scanning and digitizing.
Note: To see what my colleagues were coming up with in the forms of authorless text and recontextualization designs refer to this link: Shipka's Blackboard Prompt #7
Workshopping Round Two 04/13/2006
Topic Five
I wrote auto parts catalogs for ten years. Automotive catalogs are authorless text. I am not going to pursue this route of classifying because I no longer have copies of the catalogs I wrote and even though I work at Pep Boys, there are not enough spare catalogs lying around to be used for this exercise. Classifying was what we did all day long, by Asian or European car, by Country of origin (Japan, Korea, Germany, Sweden, etc.), Manufacturer, (BMW, Mercedes, Audi, etc.), then by function with the automobile (Ignition, Brakes, Drivetrain, Engine, Emissions, etc.), still further down in say Ignition, is the object a cap, rotor, ignition wire, spark plug, etc.). Basically, this was the same work Western Science does, breaking down a car to it’s smallest components, placing the information into a catalog so the counter-person could take care of his/her customer. Reflecting on this thought, the entire operation was categorized with authorless text.
Topic Six
Our research library of where to obtain these auto parts was cataloged in authorless text. One consulted a book that indicated the date of the catalogs and was broken down similarly to the parts catalogs. Country of origin, parts the manufacturer supplied, etc. This is also impossible because I do not have access to the information.
Topic Seven
The Sign! As I walk to UMBC Friday evening to collect the remaining food take out menus for that possible authorless the idea of signs snacks me in the face. Signs are practically invisible. One pays no attention to them unless one needs to. Driving in vehicles one is even less aware of them. Walking and being mindful of “Authorless Text,” I notice there are millions of them out there that can be placed into distinct categories. All the signs I see could be photographed, scanned to digitize, and manipulated on a web page for cataloging/categorizing purposes by the type of work they do. This has been immediately dismissed due to two of the three main constraints of any project: cost and time. Scope I don’t see as a problem as there will be tremendous variation doing a walking tour from my rented room to my destination the UMBC library. Cost is the prevalent factor in avoiding such a project. I would have to shoot vast amounts of film and processing costs that I cannot afford. If I was fortunate enough to own a digital camera or knew someone who would trust me with one I could do such a project. As things are I do not have access to a digital camera and would have to work with 35mm and is not within my budget. Time could become another problem factor because I have to use mass transit to get anywhere. This could slow down productivity and turn around time by having film processed. The goal is not the end product but the content of Goals and Choices. The topic has been dismissed but will be entered into Goals and Choices.
Evaluation of Choice of Path
Reflecting upon the four possible projects now collected on paper, all in the same space, and after a night’s rest the most likely path appears to be the business cards even though this may have been done ten thousand times before. I have a book of business cards and looking at my desk there are 20 more cards that have still need to be filed. The business cards become a work in classifying. With such a large array of cards a new problem is introduced cross-genre cards. As an example, the genre is business cards. I will now focus on one Class: Record stores. Within record stores there can be the big corporate retailers such as Best Buy, Tower Records, etc. Next could be Mom Pop Stores such as Slipped Disk, X,Y,Z Record Store, etc. These could even be organized by the state they came from: NY, PA, MD, etc. Then there is a sub-category of rare, hard to find, and out of print dealers. With these dealers one calls on the phone after searching all the other dealers and retailer, tells them what you want and for a locators fee, they go out and find it for you. The late seventies fragmenting from Corporate record labels and producing music on independent labels created this fragmentation making some music extremely difficult to find hence all types of specialty stores grew up. Even though the cards themselves are mundane, the work involved and decisions in cataloging become extremely complex. What I first thought would not create much work in Goals and Choices may do the most work in attempting to classify/catalog them. The presentation itself may not look like very much when viewed but what the observer does not see is all the invisible work done in attempting to categorize the cards which will produce a vast amount of writing in Goals and Choices. The final product to the viewer looks like, “So what? It’s a bunch of categorized business cards," but behind the scenes there is tremendous work and decision-making going into categorizing. In other words, “I smell wood burning, are you thinking again?” Yes I am thinking and I am burning down forests.
Method of Presentation
As far as how to display the project this project regardless of which I choose I believe will work nicely for a web site within my own web site or several pages broken up into various categories. I think this assignment may lend itself quite well to scanning and digitizing.
Note: To see what my colleagues were coming up with in the forms of authorless text and recontextualization designs refer to this link: Shipka's Blackboard Prompt #7
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