Idea Warehouse

Book Push

After that ridiculously long delay and carrot-dangling Pearson put me through, I am hoping my book will have a new home soon.  Renamed slightly as Due Credit: Avoiding Plagiarism in a Remix Culture, this 7-chapter text should be heading out the door today again. Every time I work on it, I like it all over again. 

Getting interested in a related topic as well: ghostwriting. After reading up on it, I am beginning to realize how muddled the authorship is within medical research journal ranks.

Podcasting in Education

Ever since I accidentally put a Podcast link on this site, I've been trying to figure out --WHAT is podcasting? Why would anybody want to podcast? Why would people listen? How does it work? I think I've successfully taken off the link to have this blog (or the single blog entry) podcast, but I've been surfing around a lot, finding some interesting links on podcasting in Education:

• Educational Podcasting
• Knowledge Media Labs
• Podcast channel Shakespeare, otherwise known as Shakespeare-upon-ipod
• Podcasts for Educators weblog

Teens and Content Creation

A Nov. 2 report from Pew Internet & American Life reports that more than half of all teens have created content online. Nineteen percent have their own blogs, while 38 percent of all teens read blogs.  Another report mentions how not very Americans know what podcasting or phishing is. Count me in.

Composition Studies Review

I was looking through the journals that are available online the other day and I wondered if the latest issue of Composition Studies had come out, and sure enough, it had. It's still weird to see my name at the top of an alphabetic list even after ten years of having switched from a "W" last name to an "A." But there it was! I had almost forgotten that I had written that review of Writing New Media, but it was there, front and center. I still haven't seen too many other reviews out there on the book besides mine and Elizabeth Monske's. Motivates me to write more again for publication, even though I've been so tired and exhausted lately.

Almost nearing the end of the semester-- two final class days: 1 in Business Writing and the other in College Writing Skills, and 3 exam days left. But, oh, the work that looms ahead! :(

I'll be happy by the end of next week!!

Friday evening

Not quite 8 p.m. on a Friday night. . . and yet I'm still in school mode. Mentally making a to-do list for the weekend, a list that is quite full, and a week ahead that is fuller still. Or is that still more full? My bookmarks this week are quite interesting: Cool Web Women, Rules for the Wired, Virtual Communities and Social Distance, Blogs and the Workplace, The New River, Interactive.Theory.Bibliography, Craig Baehr's "Online Publishing" Syllabus at Texas Tech, frAme Journal of Culture and Technology, and Dr. Lesko's homepage--i.e., Plagiary.

Faculty Web Pages

I've been staying awake at night lately thinking of (of all things!) how I should change my faculty web page. It's getting old--at least to me, and while I still have 19 papers left to grade before grades are completed, this is the thought that steals my precious rest. Go figure. Meanwhile, I pulled out Robin Williams' jam-packed book, and the other one I like Don't Make Me Think by Krug, and then I started collecting bookmarks of faculty page designs I liked.

• Becky Howard's bright and cheery page
• Barclay Barrios' cool, minimalist entry point
• Michael Salvo's page
• Ellen Zimmer's clean and simple design

I'll add more later as I go along. One more end-of-semester resolution: This will be an Academic Blog from now on, and not a spill-all, here's-how-I-feel-today journal type site. At least once a week (or more, if I can), I intend to post on here. Maybe I should call this "Monday Moanings"...he, he, if it helps me to post on Monday mornings.

No Time for Contemplation

As I am in the throes of final revision for this as-yet-unnamed book, I realize how difficult it is for us nowadays to simply reflect. I would love to read new books, keep up with scholarship, but I'm not sure how it is with other composition teachers, but there's simply NO time. I wonder if I just don't manage my time well, but I don't know what other comp teachers do. I am working 24/7 it seems. Oh well, back to the mines. Next time I'll have something more significant to say.

Last Days of Summer

It's Wednesday the week before school starts and I'm tweaking my syllabi still. Have overhauled the course goals in Technical Writing to be more up to date with the direction the field is going. The most recent issue of STC's Technical Communication has an article that is very helpful in this regard. As for 101, I'm fine-tuning the daily schedule, trying to make sure we can side-step the 4th-5th week slump. Meanwhile, Dan and I sent in an article to Intercom and I'm sure to hear from my editor any day now about the first round of reviews.
On my desk now are 6 CDs: The Very Best of Sheryl Crow, Madonna: The Immaculate Collection, Bruce Springsteen's Greatest Hits, The Temptations/Four Tops, Don Henley's The End of the Innocence, and Daryl Hall and John Oates' Greatest Hits. I guess I'm not very current, except for maybe Sheryl Crow, and even that is popular more with my age group, I'm sure.

Writing the Book Marathon

Today I have to really put the push on for the book I'm writing: AVOIDING PLAGIARISM. It's hard to work at home sometimes because it feels as if I need to get up and clean the living room or do the laundry, and also I get cooped-up feeling a lot. I also have to watch my Weight Watchers points and not munch all day as I write. Diet Coke already works as a fuel, but that isn't so good for me to consume in large quantities. Anyway, today I will be finishing the 10 types section and setting up a lot of the exercises. I pulled off a lot of sample pieces that I could use for plagiarized /non-plagiarized examples, so I have to mess with those. Examples and exercises and features---need lots of those, as well as to finish ch. 3. I believe I also need to complete the last section of ch. 4. Tomorrow I'll figure out which pieces have been given permission and which still need it, and request those. Kimberly Chase wrote me from Israel, and I have Richard Posner's article and a few others. Should be rolling along now. I need to cook less, write more, websurf less, write more, read less, write more.....etc. Brandon, if you're reading this, I'm working hard. One of these days I need to put my syllabi together but that will have to wait until the book is done. Plus, Nick, I need more illustrations.