Putting in the Hours

         Putting in the Hours is an essay written by assistant professor at Assumption College James M. Lang. In his essay Lang describes five different labels for college professors dealing with their office hours. The five different labels include the early bird who makes his hours very early hoping that no one will show up. The door closer is another label used to describe the professor that hopes to intimidate his students by giving the false illusion that he is hard at work so they will not bother him. The councilor is the stereotype of the professor that wants nothing more than for you to come to his or her office and spill your guts to them. The chatterer enjoys taking whether they have students in their office or not, they will talk to who ever will listen. The final professor type described I the fugitive. The fugitive has so much going on at home that he deeply enjoys being at work for the peace and quiet. 

         I found this essay to be very entertaining and true. I have observed my current professors and all but one of them could easily fit into one of these categories. My favorite stereotype for a professor would have to be the fugitive. I am certain that my science professor fits perfectly into that category. Its clear to see that he thoroughly enjoys being on campus and I couldn’t picture him happy anywhere else. 

Putting in the Hours

Collegiate Life: An Obituary

Collegiate Life: An Obituary by Arthur Levine and Jeannette S. Cureton is an essay about college students. The essay tells of how colleges and their students are moving away from the original ideal. The authors state that college life has changed because the students have changed. Students now attending college are much more diverse than previous generations. Current college students don't fit in the ideal image for a few reasons. The ideal image is a students 18-22 years old living on campus attending full time and not having a job. Now-a-day the vast majority of the student population doesn't fit in that category. 

This essay compares college to a bank "We know what we want: an ATM on every corner. And when we get to the ATM, we want there to be no line. We also would like a parking spot right in front of the ATM, and to have our checks deposited the moment they arrive at the bank..." I do not agree with this statement. To me college is an experience, and a great one at that. So in my opinion if college was like this ideal image of a bank students would be missing out on a great deal of the college experience. Students aren't going to college to go to class and then back home. Students are attending to engage and get involved and enjoy the ride. 

Overall i strongly disagree with the opinions shared in this essay. Statements such as "students are coming to college overwhelmed and more damaged than in the past" really struck a cord with me. The authors are trying to sound like they know all about college students but really they can in no way relate. They are much older than the student body and in my opinion know nothing about us. Who is to say who is "damaged"?

99.9% of Proper Grammar Is Obsolete

David Wertheimer's entry on Digital Web Magazine is an eye opening essay. His essay is a light hearted and entertaining parody on how online grammar is rapidly deteriorating. "Proper sentence structure may look and work all right, since mainstream publications still use capital letters, subject-verb agreement, and full-length words on a regular basis. But outside these rigid environments, the necessity of all that hoo-hah is already starting to decay.". Wertheimer speaks about how all informal writing on the internet including im's and emails have become simplified by using u instead of you as an example. It is all about making communication as simple and short as possible. the short cuts used in im's and emails work because of the 4 or 5 years they have been in use. People all across the world have been exposed to these short cuts and they are actually encouraged because of how much time and effort they save. New users of online communication devices are being introduced to this new type of speaking and are becoming more and more accepting of it which is helping it spread further and faster than before.
I think that this essay is a great way to humorously inform readers of such a phenomenon as this "Im-Speak". Although I don't completely agree with this essay. From my experiences my peers have began to move away from this short cut type writing on the internet and in text messaging. I believe that we have realized how childish and confusing the shorthand is. I know that in my group of friends if you say something like "g2g" or "ttyl" online or in a text message you get made fun of for it, no one really types like that anymore. We have begun to write complete and proper sentences most of the time even in short text messages.
I truly enjoyed haw the author made light of the situation and kept me entertained throughout the whole essay. I must say that my overall favorite part is the ending when he is speaking about the "cure". Some examples of cures include ditch periods and kill capital letters.

"Growing Wikipedia Revises its "Anyone Can Edit" Policy"

In Katie Hafner's "Growing Wikipedia Revises its "anyone can edit" Policy" she writes of how Wikipedia advertises and attracts many people to the site because anyone can edit the entries on the website but they have changed things up so that some posts cannot be edited at all and some may take 4 days after registering to be able to edit them. She states "Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia that "anyone can edit". Unless you want to edit entries on Albert Einstein, human rights in China or Christina Aguilera.". Wikipedia has become very successful mainly because after a post is first made available it becomes more and more accurate as time progresses because more and more people stop by the post and edit it until there is nothing else to add and the post rivals any other encyclopedia. The site is not simply a collaboration of many peoples ideas, it is checked and edited constantly by a small group of individuals for accuracy and to keep tabs on slander and such that may be posted, this group of individuals may also see it fit to make some posts un editable due to constant changing by people for one reason or another.
After reading this essay I realized that I agree with Wikipedia on their policy on making some posts impossible or difficult to edit. It seems very appropriate that some posts that are hot topics or that are very controversial should be difficult to edit because otherwise people will ruin the posts and type very inappropriate things in the entry that some may find offensive. Overall I think that Wikipedia is a great thing and it is a true wealth of information but for the reasons discussed earlier I do not think this encyclopedia should be used for school research for there is a small chance that the information could be highly biased or just plain incorrect.

Clustering and Concept Mapping

In chapter 3 a main section of the text is on clustering and concept mapping which are very useful tools for generating ideas for an essay or paper. "in a cluster or concept map, you construct a visual representation of your ideas--how they might connect to each other." A cluster map is used by having one main idea in the center and simply stem ideas from the main idea for example if you have a main idea of animals some of the stems could include things such as habitat and predators. Concept maps are also very useful for being a more clear representation of cause and effect such as how two things are related. Another useful tool for generating ideas is the flowchart.
Flowcharts are visual representations of how an idea or event flows. "a flowchart indicates how things move throw a system. An example of when a flowchart would be useful is when describing the process of a relationship, meeting the person - dating the person - marrying the person.
In my opinion concept mapping and flow charts are very useful when designing and writing an essay or paper for school or another reason including as a citizen, as a professional and as a friend or family member. By creating a concept map or flowchart your ideas are much clearer and easier to see and there for they make it easier to organize your thoughts into one flowing paper.

ED'S GIRL ON THE HUNT

Ed's Girl on the Hunt written by "Ed's girl the Second" is a blog posted by the author about how she received a one in a million job as an intern at her favorite magazine. The author goes into detail about how she never thought this would happen to her and how when the magazine called her and asked if she wanted the internship she didn't even think about her answer she just blurted out the words "Yes. Of course" and then hung up. She then called everyone she could possibly think of and said something like "Did I really just accept?" at this point she didn’t even know if she wanted the job it was just a gut reaction to accept it. After speaking to all of her friends and family "…with all of the congratulations rolling in from the other line, my smile grew." they convinced her to start thinking it was a terrific thing and she was extremely excited from then on.
I believe that the blog format was the best medium for the authors writing. "Ed's Girl the Second's writing fits perfectly with the blog atmosphere and allows others to stay posted on her current situation from the beginning when she was first searching for a job and how she stated that she would have settled for working for any magazine even one she completely disagreed with because it was her passion although she doesn’t have to worry about that now that she has her dream job at her dream magazine. I enjoyed how the author used the blog as a format for teaching others the cut throat world of magazines and I don’t think the writers writing would have been read and appreciated by the same amount of people if the authors writings were to have been placed somewhere else and its enjoyable to see a positive situation unfold before your eyes like the authors story.