Artifact Exchange

After reading through what Nicole had written about our interview process and all the ideas and observations she took down on my tattoo, it was refreshing to see how appreciative and sentimental she was. It was nice to have someone else really appreciate something so special to me, much as you might feel when someone really enjoys a painting you have made or some sort of art piece you've constructed. Nicole and I have been friends for quite awhile now so I expected our interview to go smoothly in that manner, but never did I realize we could learn that much more about eachother through a simple observation/interview assignment.

I learned a couple things about myself as an interviewer. As an outgoing person with somewhat of a creative mind I like to think that I am a fairly good interviewer. I can be personable or serious, and I always manage to find good details and background information on whatever it is im trying to interview about or discuss with the informant. However, I believe my main weakness that I discovered was my ability to write fast enough to keep a steady interview. I need to work on either a short hand for myself to read, or have a laptop with me when taking notes and asking question simply so I can remain at a good pace during the interview process. One other weakness that I ran into was my preconceptions of tattoos during our interview. Being that I have 2 of my own, it was easy to use my own experiences to make assumptions about Nicoles, which sometimes I hit the head on the nail and other times I missed completely. It's going to be important for me, from now on, to keep a clear mind and open mind in any interviewing circumstance so I'm able to adequately get all of the details of someone else's experience rather then utilizing my own.

Although I have known Nicole for a fairly long time now, there are still times when I learn something new about her and this time was no different. When I tried to find something of hers that I imagined could have some meaning to her I ran into some difficulty, but soon noticed the tattoo on her right ring finger. I had known it was there, but I realized that I've never really asked her about it, so it ended up being the perfect "artifact."

The tattoo is located on the outside ride side of her right ring finger, bewteen her knuckle and the middle of her finger. It is about the size of a dime and is in black ink, but it's also slightly faded. It is a peace sign symbol, which i recognized as something very fitting to Nicole's personality and style. I figured that the tattoo ranged between $20 and $50 and I was almost dead on as Nicole informed me that it cost her $45 total. She actually got it done back in May of 2008, which could explain some of the fading. It was done at a small hole-the-wall parlor during a beach trip she took to Outer Banks.

Most tattoos that people get are symbolic of a person or experience or even an emotion, so it was obvious to ask her if the tattoo had any meaning behind it and how important it was to her. Nicole explained to me that a huge reason why it is important to her is because her and 3 of her friends, Caitlin, Nikki, and Kat all got one together, in the same location. She cares about them each alot so this was a great way to forever embody those feelings. They originally all wanted the same thing in the same location, but soon discovered that deciding on one thing between all of them would be way too difficult. They settled on just getting different symbols in the same location, and Nicole ended up being the last to go. This was mostly due to the fact that she was still slightly nervous about her mother's reaction and also just a general worry of how painful it would be. Luckily, she claimed it wasn't painful at all and took very little time. In fact, all she had to do was sit in a normal chair, but she twisted her hand slightly backward to give the tattoo artist the best angle in which he could adequately tattoo her finger.

Nicole lastly clued me into the fact that it was actually the 3rd of her tattoos, following a star on her foot, and 2 more stars added at a second tattooing appointment. Nicole was also quick to mention that she definitely plans on getting a fourth or possibly more. "It's expressing yourself," she calmy explained.

February 10 Blog

Textbooks for different subjects are obviously written for the purpose to teach people the in's and out's of whatever subject that textbook falls under, but it is interesting to look at what textbooks do and how they do it when considering the opinions of Charles Bazerman.  After reading through his writing on genres and the like, I consider typification and social activity to hold strong roles in the use of textbooks within their features, functions, and student activity.

Textbooks are usually written by professors or those that are skilled in the field in which the textbook is about, so after reading the text within the book, it is safe to say that one will immediately believe that text to be factual. The standard formats of typification within textbooks will help educators get points across to students that will aid them in other situations that they will run into later in life.  For instance, when you find yourself in a Biology class, the scientific genre of text is going to aid you if you find yourself desiring a position within a health research field or perhaps a physical therapy career later in life.  

Features that a Biology textbook will include will be the obvious lessons that cover different topics that fall under that specific field. Also, it will probably point out important terms that students should be aware of by bolding the font when the come up on the page.  Features of a Biology book may differ from that of a different subject because of such a strong need for graphics to help convey ideas and scientific processes.  Individualistic of a science subject textbook will also include experiments to help students learn in a hands-on manner.

The functions of a Biology book are seemingly obvious, because the purpose that they serve is to educate and prepare students with knowledge that will aid them in any Biology related field or career, or even an upper level class that requires previous and probably basic background knowledge in the subject.  It will also serve to aid those who are doing research in the Biology field so that they can come up with solutions to illnesses or even to produce new and usable technology.

Lastly, textbooks will obviously include social activity that will help increase a student's awareness of the particular subject.  Biology books will use review questions at the end of different chapters to help students go back over information given within the chapter.  This will help every student retain the information so that they are able to put it to good use at a later date.  Specific to science subjects, as I mentioned earlier, will be scientific experiments.  Some people obviously learn better through hands on activities rather than just reading texts.  Typifying things beyond textual information will include social activity within the classroom.  For example, this could be the case when having students work in groups together on said experiments.  

The textbook, an interesting genre of professional writing, can be viewed in many different ways and analyzed through different aspects, but however one goes about doing so, I believe these features, functions, and student activities will remain the same.

Feb. 3 Blog

When considering a scholarly article that utilizes different aspects and uses of prior publications, I find it best to look back to Jack Selzer's piece on Nelson, the engineer. Prior publications played a large role in many of Nelson's projects and reports that he completes. Whether he used a small portion of a particular text to form a new one, or a massive part of a prior text to form a new one, the previous "building block" texts were part of Nelson's process to writing a report or project before he even puts pen to paper or fingers to keyboards. By that I mean that using previous texts came so natural to Nelson and he utilized them so often, it was almost an everyday thing for him to break out prior completed projects to help him form new ones, especially when forming new documents for similar or previous audiences!

I firmly believe that Nelson is a perfect example of a professional writer that has acquired an accurate and strong use for intertextuality. He considers all angles of a project for perhaps hours before even starting to do any physical work on a project, which means that he considers what old texts are best to use for whatever audience, how to use them, how they will affect him and the project, or even how they will be viewed by outside audience members. Although the book states that we hardly notice when intertextuality can occur, I find it to be obvious and apparent when analyzing Selzer's study of Nelson.