Post 11

            Mirabelli begins his article “Learning to Serve:  The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers” by describing a website, and testimonials therein, that involve waitresses and their treatment in the workforce.  He includes excerpts from this website:  a bit of hate mail, and the rebuttals of two waitresses.  This opening varies considerably from those of the other authors we have recently read.  Mirabelli’s article looks much more informal in contrast.  However, his article does still seem academic in its overall construction, citing previous work on the subject, then narrowing the focus down to explain what his study adds.  From this introduction, we can infer that he has two intended audiences:  academics and the general public.  I think that Mirabelli is trying to appeal to a wider audience with the use of excerpts from the website bitterwaitress.com.  They seem less formal and more focused on telling a story than making a dense academic argument.  However, these excerpts relate back to statistics and theories that have been previously established.  These more concrete details appeal to a more academic audience by providing a sense of authenticity and quantifiable data.  Mirabelli’s purpose in “Learning to Serve” is to establish that waitresses and more broadly, those who are involved in face to face service positions, have a highly advanced literacy.  Their literacy is based on presentation and identity; the ability to manipulate themselves and others in order to achieve success in the field.  This message can be interpreted as another view of literacy, but also as a statement to those who may be the ones discriminating.  Mirabelli points out that there is a stigma related to these “in person” service occupations.  Many of the people who subscribe to this idea are probably in academic field (like those who would read this article).  Not only does this article explore a discourse community, it also demonstrates a valuable lesson for a group of people who are often disrespected for their work.

Discourse Community Ethnography Proposal

          For the Discourse Community Ethnography project, I intend to examine the co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega (APhiO).  This community has around four hundred members on campus, but is also divided into families and committees which each form a genre of the group.  I will assess this group according to Swales' six characteristics of a discourse community, and have outlined the application of each.  

            Swales tells us that, "a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals." APhiO aims to provide community service for the benefit of those in need and its members.  Participants should increase leadership and service skills.  The second quality of a community dictates that it contains, "mechanisms of intercommunication among its members."  APhiO uses emails through listserv and website sign-ins that correspond to personal sign-ins at service events.  Members are aware of these mechanisms and are expected to make use of them.  Furthermore, sign-ins at chapter meetings ensure members are in attendance.  Powerpoints are used to convey information to a large number of members during chapter. Swales' third requirement of a discourse community requires, "participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback." Members who participate in service are expected to uphold the values and behavior that are discussed in chapter and in out of chapter communication.  Voting occurs regularly on issues that impact members. Ombudsmen request information on various issues regarding membership issues.  Suggestions are requested during chapter. Furthermore, "a discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims." To this end, during chapter, each executive member is expected to have a slide on a powerpoint, highlighting their announcements.  These announcements go in a specific order and are expected to last a certain amount of time. Similarly, each committee within the fraternity has a set of language specific to their needs. Swales also requires that a, "discourse community has acquired some specific lexis." Language used to describe service events allows for shorter meetings.  Listerv allows for faster communication between members.  Website information is compressed into shorter terms that allow members to navigate it quickly and efficiently.  Like other fraternities and sororities, some Greek jargon applies.  Bids are used to inform hopefuls of acceptance into the pledge process.  Pledges fulfill requirements to become actives, or in APhiO brothers. Finally, "a discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise." Membership size is limited by space for meetings.  Interviews are held to pare down the number of applicants. In order to have a large number of members that is also efficient, the pledge process teaches members the language they will require as actives.

            My interest in this discourse community stems from my own participation.  I think that it will be interesting to view this group in a new light after participating for a year. The jargon that we use has become so familiar to me that it would be interesting to see how much of it is actually exclusive to this group.

            With regards to interviews, I believe it would be beneficial to talk to the head of a committee, since they represent their own genre within the group.  Furthermore, I think that the average, highly involved member would be a good source of information. In addition, there is almost no end to the set of texts that are available to members.  I would draw from the powerpoints used during chapters, emails sent via listserv and the website for the fraternity.  

Post 10

Swales tells us that, "a discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals." APhiO aims to provide community service for the benefit of those in need and its members.  Participants should increase leadership and service skills.  The second quality of a community dictates that it contains, "mechanisms of intercommunication among its members."  APhiO uses emails through listserv and website sign-ins that correspond to personal sign-ins at service events.  Members are aware of these mechanisms and are expected to make use of them.  Furthermore, sign-ins at chapter meetings ensure members are in attendance.  Powerpoints are used to convey information to a large number of members during chapter. Swales' third requirement of a discourse community requires, "participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback." Members who participate in service are expected to uphold the values and behavior that are discussed in chapter and in out of chapter communication.  Voting occurs regularly on issues that impact members. Ombudsmen request information on various issues regarding membership issues.  Suggestions are requested during chapter. Furthermore, "a discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims." To this end, during chapter, each executive member is expected to have a slide on a powerpoint, highlighting their announcements.  These announcements go in a specific order and are expected to last a certain amount of time. Similarly, each committee within the fraternity has a set of language specific to their needs. Swales also requires that a, "discourse community has acquired some specific lexis." Language used to describe service events allows for shorter meetings.  Listerv allows for faster communication between members.  Website information is compressed into shorter terms that allow members to navigate it quickly and efficiently.  Like other fraternities and sororities, some Greek jargon applies.  Bids are used to inform hopefuls of acceptance into the pledge process.  Pledges fulfill requirements to become actives, or in APhiO brothers. Finally, "a discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise." Membership size is limited by space for meetings.  Interviews are held to pare down the number of applicants. In order to have a large number of members that is also efficient, the pledge process teaches members the language they will require as actives.

Post 9

In “From Pencils to Pixels” Dennis Baron Argues that although technology has advanced dramatically in recent decades, this increase in innovation does not necessarily indicate that there will be an equally dramatic change in literacy.  In the previous articles that we have read regarding literacy, authors suggest that advances in technology have made an equally big impression on (especially children’s) ability to learn various types of literacy.  I agree that Baron shrugs a bit at technology in this article.  One way that he does this is by looking at past examples of revolutionary steps in literacy.  For example, Baron discusses the church and its role in allowing or prohibiting the ability of the people to read and write.  However, I think that he reaffirms his point in another way.  Baron discusses the pencil as a technology in one section of his article.  He explains here that when people began to write things with the pencil, the gap between spoken language and written language widened.  Even in classes today, the notes or essays we write contain completely different language and structure than our spoken words.  He writes that “human witnesses are interactive” in contrast to written language, which is not.  By pointing out these basic facts about written language, Baron establishes that even if technology provides a new way to record literacy, it will have the same pitfalls as previous methods of writing.

Post 8

Reading “The Future of Literacy” has confirmed for me a few trends in technology that I have seen increasingly in schools recently.  For me personally, in school technology always outweighed my computer usage at home.  My family only recently upgraded to high speed internet from dial up so I didn’t have much access to the internet unless I was at a friend’s house or at school.  However, my elementary school involved us heavily in technology from kindergarten.  I remember learning to type as before I learned how to write in cursive.  In fact, my school system taught typing throughout elementary, middle and high school as a required class.  In addition to general computer information, in elementary school, we were also taught computer literacy through programming a type of robot that required coding.  While I feel that I learned most of my technical literacy at school, I believe that the most important factor that contributed to my visual literacy was the environment at home.  My parents stressed reading at a very young age.  I read every day with my parents until I was able to read on my own.  My parents also expanded my visual literacy by including it outside of our home as well.  On vacations when I was younger we would generally go to the beach or an amusement park, but no matter where we went there would be a trip to a museum or historical landmark at some point.  I consider myself very lucky to have had the advantage of learning literacy both at school and at home.

Post 7

In “Sponsors of Literacy” Deborah Brandt describes those who teach others how to become literate are more like sponsors than teachers.  Brandt claims that like the sponsors on TV or in magazines, those who teach literacy always stand to gain something from sharing their expertise.  Similarly, Brandt also states that many times, this relationship can be mutually beneficial for both sponsor and student.  To support these claims, Brandt uses teachers as one example of a sponsor.  Although a teacher may sponsor a student’s literacy to help the student, the teacher is also benefiting from the student’s knowledge through employment.  Another example Brandt gives in the school system involves a school’s sponsorship of literacy.  Schools often promote literacy because it generally translates to higher standardized test scores, which earn a school more money.  While in both of these examples the sponsor profits financially, Brandt does note that sponsors can be motivated by a desire to see others succeed as well. 

Just as sponsors provide literacy for their own benefit, Brandt also discusses how some people in positions of power in churches or governments can benefit from preventing literacy.  For example, a government may prevent its citizens from learning to read and write in order to keep them from being able to read about the freedoms that other nations enjoy. 

In my experience some sponsors of literacy profit more than others.  For example, my parents may have taught me to read so that I could become independent, while teachers may have been more interested in monetary gain.  I think the most obvious sign of the educational system’s benefit in sponsoring literacy is through standardized tests. I certainly did not receive as much support from the school in high school as those who struggled to read because I would be able to achieve on standardized tests.

The Effects of Error in Wikipedia

           In academia, Wikipedia has often been criticized for being too changeable, inaccurate or shallow with respect to its articles (Purdy).  However, the academic practice of peer reviewing plays a large part in the processes required to edit or add an article in Wikipedia.  Furthermore, we can see that changeability often keeps information up to date, inaccuracies are thoroughly explored by experts, and articles are constantly being expanded to give readers a deeper understanding of a topic.  With this in mind, we can see that Wikipedia gives us the chance to reassess the meaning and impact of error by becoming actively involved in a different kind of academic community.

            Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, provides users with a chance to explore and actively share information on nearly any topic.  Everyday, more articles are being added, while existing articles are being corrected.  By looking beyond the default “read page” the processes that allow for this constant change are visible and accessible to everyone.  Editing is the most common way to add to the compendium of knowledge.  In order to provide editors contact with one another, Wikipedia provides a “talk page” which is more or less a forum for people who are interested and knowledgeable in the topic of the article.  In this “talk page”, editors and interested parties can discuss what needs to be added to an article, why something was deleted, why sources are relevant and more.  This type of public acknowledgement of changes lends authority to people who are truly interested in a subject.  Furthermore this “talk page” often leads to editing that improves an article.  All edits can be seen on the “edit page” of an article.  This page shows every change that has occurred on a topic, who made the change and when it was changed.  The “edit” and “talk” pages of an article serve as a sort of peer review which strengthen the credibility of the information on a specific topic.  In addition to this peer reviewing, Wikipedia requires articles to have appropriate and reliable sourcing.  If an article is not sourced or sourced reliably, then it may be removed from Wikipedia entirely.  Although most of us use Wikipedia regularly, these editing processes usually go unnoticed, despite the fact that they are responsible for providing the credible information on which we rely.

            With the processes and abilities of a Wikipedia page in mind, we can begin to see that the misconceptions held by many academics are not always rooted in reality.  In Joseph M. Williams’ “The Phenomenology of Error” we can see that in all forms of academic writing, error is simply a construct built over many years but based on arbitrary rules.  According to Williams, “we are all locating error in very different places.” This, he asserts, is the source of our problems with error.  For example, an error in grammar does not always reflect an error in content.  In fact, “when we read for typos,” Williams claims, “…content becomes virtually inaccessible” (Williams).  With this in mind, we must decide what we consider to be an error before approaching a piece of writing.  Furthermore, if an error goes unnoticed we can assume that it is not an error at all.  Certainly, a paper with a typo can be equally as informative as one without as long as the misspelling doesn’t hinder the intended meaning.  Williams uses his article itself as an example by including deliberate grammatical errors (Williams).  His meaning and purpose come across clearly despite the errors—which go largely unnoticed. 

As a result of the ideas presented in this reading we should consider that not all errors indicate that a piece of writing is unreliable, including writing on Wikipedia.  “The Phenomenology of Error” can provide us with a larger understanding of the meaning of error.  For example, as I previously described, academia frequently points out that, “articles [on Wikipedia] can display incorrect information” (Purdy).  However, Williams reminds us that if we look for error we will find it (Williams).  Thus, by excluding Wikipedia as a source altogether, we can lose a valuable source of correct information.  Rather, we should recognize that Wikipedia could help us understand error by actively allowing us to correct it.  By taking advantage of the “edit” and “talk” pages we can create a massive peer review community that can improve everyone’s knowledge of a topic.  Finding an error in an article does not mark it as unreliable, it simply provides room for improvement and growth.

            Another criticism of Wikipedia that I touched on earlier was its changeable nature.  However, in my experience with Wikipedia, I feel that changeability contributed to making articles more reliable.  For example, it is obvious that our world is constantly changing.  When changes occur, editors on Wikipedia can alter articles instantly to reflect current events.  I noticed this in my article selection for our own Wikipedia edits.  In my case, the number of children who were affected by a Canadian Bill was brought into question.   The editors of the article discussed on the talk page how the number was inaccurate and determined that a source was outdated.  This type of continuous interaction with other editors and public sources is not possible in academic journals or standard encyclopedias.  In this case (and I suspect many others) Wikipedia’s changeability is a positive rather than a negative.  Additionally, I discussed previously that many people feel that Wikipedia’s articles are too shallow and provide only a simple overview of a topic (Purdy).   While many articles are very brief, others go into incredible detail.  Furthermore, the sourcing on Wikipedia is generally closely patrolled and can provide readers with sources beyond the article page.  The talk page can also provide additional sources for information from experts.  Thus, although Wikipedia is like all other encyclopedias in respect to the general overview of its content, our search for information does not need to end with the article itself (Purdy).  Wikipedia is, in this respect, superior to other sources and encyclopedias because of its ability to provide information beyond the superficial “read” page.

            Wikipedia has certainly suffered its fair share of criticism since becoming a popular source for information online.  However, after becoming a part of the editing community, I feel that Wikipedia can contribute largely to our understanding of error.  Furthermore, I now see that an article’s “read” page is only the beginning when I am looking for information. Rather than relying on a completely independent search for information, I believe that we can count on Wikipedia for both sourcing and large supporting community.

Bibliography

Purdy, James P. "Wikipedia Is Good for You!?" Writing Spaces. Vol. 1. Parlor. 205-24.Writing Spaces. Web. 27 Mar. 2012.

Wiliams, Joseph M. "The Phenomenology of Error." College Composition and Communication 32.2 (1981): 152-68. JSTOR. National Council of Teachers of English. Web. 29 Mar. 2012.