Lumps And Splits

"A well-constructed tree gives everything a place"

"Each thing gets only one place"

"No one category should be too big or too small"

"It should be obvious what the defining principle of each category is".

These quotes represent the requirements that Weinberger lists for a tree of information. However it also shows the limits of this medium, limits that are not found in the third order of order. In the digital order, there are no rules or restrictions. As Weinberger notes, trees require us to "make binary decisions about where things go. Ideas, information, and knowledge shouldn't have to suffer from that limitation". Luckily with the third order of order, they do not have to. A leaf can hang on multiple branches and can be different for every individual. We have already established in the previous chapter that technology has destroyed our sense of the geography of knowledge, but now it has also destroyed its shape, allowing each of us to create our own trees of knowledge.

The Geography of Knowledge

Does knowledge have a geography? Sure, back in the day when people actually used libraries for its books rather than its study space, but after reading Weinberger's third chapter about the digital disorder, I would have to say technology has eradicated that geography. What interests me though is how this lack of geography is going to affect generations to come. Even though we have all grown up with technology, it wasn't as important to our society as it is today. My generation still utilized the geography of knowledge, understanding that To Kill A Mockingbird belongs in a completely different section than the biography of George W. Bush, and that every book has its own unique place. But as websites such as Amazon, which is built upon the idea that knowledge can be organized in as many ways as possible, expands, future generations may loose their sense of what makes different pieces of writing, well different. At a bookstore, when we are in the fiction section, we can trust with a high degree of probability that we are only going to be browsing through fiction stories. However, out on the world wide web, clicking the suggestions for a fiction story might contain both fiction, not fiction, and reference entries. Therefore, the third order of order's plethora of routes of information may not only change the way future generations go about seeking information but also the way they organize their own knowledge-geography maps.

The Possibility and Actuality of Visual Argument

In one sentence: Advertising sells everything but the product.

Advertising sells a image, a location, a feeling, a desire, a fear, a lifestyle... but not the product.

It feeds our subconscious and we devour it eagerly and unknowingly.

What does this picture have to do with Pepsi as a product? Nothing......

Brainstorming the Digital Arguement

Obey

1. What are three or more concerns you have - political/ economic/ personal/ cultural/ educational -now?

2. List any visual images that come to mind when you look at what you listed in #1

3. which images from #2 seem most compelling to you? Why?

4. What colors do you associate with what you listed in #1?

4a. Why do you associate with what you listed in #1?

5. What association might other people make with the images you listed in #2?

5a. What might you do with the images you listed in #2 to help other people make similar associations as you do? Who are these people (the audience) anyway?

Interview With Deedee

What is an Essay? What is a Composition?

Here at Hofstra, we are constantly writing. We write long academic papers, short homework assignments, text messages, emails, journals, blogs, facebook comments and tweets. Are all of these writings the same? Of course not, academic papers are long, tedious and structured, while text messages are fast, messy and full of abbreviations such as "brb" and "lol". However all forms of writing, I believe, have one commonality: they are compositions. When I first began investigating what a composition was, and how it differs from an essay, I turned to Webster's Dictionary for a definition. The dictionary listed seven different possible definitions for the term, and left me with the impression that it is not concrete; a composition is an abstract idea that composers use to define their creations. Therefore, I expanded my thinking to not only how compositions and essays differ, but how they relate to one another.

Essays are scary. Everyday, students pray that the word doesn't escape their professor's lips, for they know what is in store for them once the essay is issued: endless researching and procrastinating, followed by writer's block and attempts to drag out a boring subject to fulfill a five page quota. However, if you were to take any of these students phones and accumulate all of the text messgaes they sent over the past day, there is a high probability there would be enough text to fill 5 pages. And yet, this form of writing comes so easy, so what is it about essays that cause such hardship? There are several reasons, primarily the structure of the writing. With an academic paper, there is little room for creativity and imagination. Your task is to write five pages about a subject that , most of the time, has little to no interest to you. Furthermore, you are also bound by guidelines. Perhaps you are writing an essay on the Swine Flu Pandemic and have to discuss the ways the virus infiltrates and affects the human body. However, as a Public Relations major, you are far more interested on the affect of the Swine Flu on our daily lives, such as school closings and other preventative measure that have been taken. Unfortunately, you are bound by the guidelines of your professor and cannot write about an aspect of your topic that truly interests and engages you. Therefore, the biggest problem with essays is that you are not the authority. Essays oppress students' free will to write about what they truly desire. And as we have learned throughout history, people to not enjoy being oppressed. We like to be free to do, feel, and write, as we please. The rigid structure and oppressive nature of essays not only makes writing them more difficult, but on some level creates a resentful attitude towards essay writing that is not found in compositions.

A composition is any creation that is assembled by seperate parts to create one complete piece of work. It is also free of form and medium. Unlike an essay, a composition, has less guidelines, leaving the composer free to create something original and satisfying. There is no dictator in composing; you are the authority; you decide when, what, and how you will compose. Additionally, compositions are not constrained to paper and pen. A composition can be a film, a piece of music, a poem, a play, or even an epic novel. There is no limits to the possibilities of compositions. However, having total authority also gives you total responsibility. In an essay, there is structure and you know that you have completed the task when you have reached the assigned guidelines. However, in a composition, you are only bound by the limits you set for yourself. While this may be freeing for some, it may also put pressure on those who are accustomed to relying on others to tell them how to complete an assignment.

While comparing the differences between essays and compositions I realized that, based off my definition, an essay is simply a form of a composition. Each individual letter, makes up words, which make up sentences, which make up paragraphs which makes up the essay. Therefore, every-time a teacher asks for an essay, they are also asking for a composition. Unfortunately for the students, the essay is probably the most rigidly structured and least creative of all of the forms of composition, however it is a composition all the same.

What Do You Write? Why Do You Write What You Do?

When started to think about what I write, the first things that came to my head were academic writings, such as essays, lab reports, and the like. However, when I really started to think about it, I use writing much more than I realized in my personal life. Rarely do I ever put my pen to paper outside of the classroom, but I compose an enormous amount of digital writing. I first discovered this when looking at my iPhone. Now there may be people out there who do not consider texting a form of writing, but those people have simply never had an iPhone. The phone organizes all of your text messages with each individual person into one seamless flow of dialogue. Furthermore, there is no limit to the amount of texts that can be stored in this seamless flow, allowing a endless narrative of events between two people. The same is also true for Facebook status updates and tweets on Twitter. Individually they are just short blurbs about one's life and experiences. But cumulatively they are a digital autobiography of notable moments or events in one's life.