going places..

Here is the list of places I have visited, where I have been writting and written, in my one-semester journey with engl 106:

Blogger. Delicious. Bloglines. Mail.yahoo.com. google. Friendster. ourmedia. Facebook. webmail.purdue.edu. podcast. Flicker. Gmail. purdue.edu. urban dictionary. A9. webpage. Library of congress. TTLB. Stat Counter.
MSN Messenger. wikipedia. padang.org. permias purdue website

The Editing Process

This is the practical example to the previous blog.

Original post:

As I have been working on finding online examples of writing in engineering workplace, I took a break and headed down to the mailroom in Meredith Hall, When I opened my box, I had a magazine in there. The magazine is called the Purdue Engineering Magazine (PEM). This is a great example of how writing is important to engineers. The PEM has information about new technology, current projects, and information about Purdue’s engineering program. PEM is a great magazine for engineering, and it’s a start to my project. Here are two of the covers from PEM which I will turn in with my project.

Recognizing the topic sentence:

This is a great example of how writing is important to engineers.

Rearranging the sentences:

As I have been working on finding online examples of writing in engineering workplace, I took a break and headed down to the mailroom in Meredith Hall, When I opened my box, I had a magazine in there. The magazine is called the Purdue Engineering Magazine (PEM). The PEM has information about new technology, current projects, and information about Purdue’s engineering program. PEM is a great magazine for engineering, and a great example of how writing is important to engineers. It’s a start to my project. Here are two of the covers from PEM which I will turn in with my project.

Re-examining the mechanics:

While working on finding online examples of writing in engineering field, I took a break and headed down to the mailroom in Meredith Hall. Inside, I found a magazine called Purdue Engineering Magazine (PEM). Having information about new technology, current projects, and information about Purdue’s engineering program, PEM is a great magazine for engineering. It is a great example of importance of writing in engineering. It’s going to act as introduction to my project. Here are two of the covers from PEM, which I will turn in with my project.

Project Two Bonus

“Those who hand in a kind of ‘worksheet’ demonstrating their application of this process of attachment to their project two packet will receive a favorable reception from me. That favorable reception will reflect on my predisposition toward the grading process in a manner commensurate with the apparent investment made in the work of editing”

-Mary Godwin

This instruction, given by my English professor sounds way too complicated. Having taken a few minutes to digest it, I hope this will be a helpful way to rephrase it.

In other word, Mary is looking forward to student giving significant, noticeable editing process in their project two. The procedure of this editing process is as follow:
1. Read the whole paper without pausing, grasp the main idea of the project
2. Note paragraph that needs further edit, but, leave them for now
3. List down the topic sentence of each paragraph
4. (With these topic sentences in mind,) Put the paragraphs in a correct order, i.e where the ideas connect and develop.
5. Now, concentrate on just one paragraph
6. Note certain sentence that needs further edit, but, leave them for now
7. (Having had the topic sentence in mind,) Rearrange the supporting sentences
8. Finally, address the mechanic

Structure your Thinking!

Writing is a ticket to the success of whatever career you choose. However, who would deny English Composition not being their ‘easy A’ subject? Writing is definitely not a piece of cake. Many details need to be address for one to be a good writer. While understanding the grammar, utilizing wide range of vocabulary and employing complex sentence structure are some of details, there are one thing on top of that which has to be mastered in the first place: the ability to structure your thinking.

Defining writing, we can come up with tons of way but the main idea might be this: expressing your thought in words. The rudimentary purpose is for the reader to understand what you are thinking. Therefore, using complex sentence structure alone without the awareness of this purpose will leave a hollow impact in your reader. An example is when you exchange the position of subject and object as in passive voice; it should only be done if you want to emphasis on the action rather than who did it. ,so is the diction used. We should not use heavy word merely for the sake of its weight, but whether or not the word give a more vivid comprehension of what we are telling the reader. Thus, before all those tools should lie a solid reason which born out of strong mastering of the topic and, in turn, thoroughly structured thinking.

We need to structure our thinking as to figure out what the main and subsequent supporting points we want to address first. This will be reflected in our organization of the words in sentences, sentences in our paragraphs, and finally, paragraphs in the essay.
Yes, it is not an easy skill to master. It seems inevitable though. In fact, I just realized that we are faced with this challenge everyday of our lives: when we speak. Perhaps, when you get what I mean with this, you will be more willing to take the trouble to really mastering the skill.

Being a non-native English speaker, the need of structured thinking in even everyday conversation is greatly emphasized. Having been growing up in Indonesian culture for sixteen years, I stumbled over sheer barrier in communicating in English. If you have ever learn language other than the one you grow up with, you would probably be able to identify with me this: you understand what the other person is saying, but when it is your chance to speak, you found yourself at lost of word. What this tells me is that my difficulty in communicating in English lies not in my lack of vocabulary, but in the structure of my thinking. Language actually reflects the way of thinking of each culture. This is further confirmed as I feel the difference when I am talking in Singlish (Singapore version of English, which is Chinese-based) and American English. In spite of the obvious similarity- the words used, it took me a minute or two to re-structure my way of thinking before I can switch from Singlish to American English.

This interesting fact serves to proof the importance of mastering the skill of structuring thinking in being a good writer. Just as talking and speaking gets you a place in the society, writing gets you a place in the company. So, train your thinking!

technorati tags:
writing, paragraph, languistic

My First Corner of The Project II Triangle- Research

This is the starting point of my second project : sending out email.

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Thank you for taking the time to complete the following questions. The information you provide will be used for research on how far the proficiency of writing contributes to the success in today’s job.


I. How do you perceive the significance of writing in you career?

II. How had you view it then? How had the call to write evolved as the world become more digitalized and globalized?

III. Is writing an important hiring consideration? Is it one of the promotion criteria? Could you reflect on how writing has brought you to your current position?

IV. What are the various kind of writings expected in the job today, particularly, in the world of food industry?

V. How far does writing contribute to the composition of your company public identity? Would you include samples of writing that have been done in your company? (advertisements, commercials, newsletters, etc)

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Typography

According to the Wikipedia, typography is the art and technique of selecting and arranging type styles, point sizes, line lengths, line leading, character spacing, and word spacing for typeset applications. The purpose of typography is to add more impact to the reader s they can deeper grasp the very essence of the word.
Here is a link to the simple typography I did.

technorati tags:
typography, writing

Rearrange This!

In my English 106 class, I was given the following un-organized paragraph:

In an article describing the preparation of a dictionary for schoolchildren, Alma Graham recounts the imbalance discovered in schoolbooks in all subjects in use in the early 1970's. In general, the pronouns he, him, and his outnumber she, her, and hers by a ratio of four to one. Not only are women put off, they are also put down, numerically and otherwise. In the real world, women slightly outnumber men. The numbers alone tell us a lot: men outnumber women seven to one, boys outnumber girls two to one; girls are even in the minority in home economics books, where masculine pronouns outnumber feminine ones two to one. But the world created for American schoolchildren presents a different picture. A computer analysis of five million words in context revealed many subtle and not-so-subtle clues to the status of women in American Society.

Rearranging the sentences, I have come up with this new paragraph:

A computer analysis of five million words in context revealed many subtle and not-so-subtle clues to the status of women in American Society. In an article describing the preparation of a dictionary for schoolchildren, Alma Graham recounts the imbalance discovered in schoolbooks in all subjects in use in the early 1970's. Not only are women put off, they are also put down, numerically and otherwise. . The numbers alone tell us a lot: men outnumber women seven to one, boys outnumber girls two to one; girls are even in the minority in home economics books, where masculine pronouns outnumber feminine ones two to one. In general, the pronouns he, him, and his outnumber she, her, and hers by a ratio of four to one. . In the real world, women slightly outnumber men. But the world created for American schoolchildren presents a different picture

technorati tags:
writing, gender, paragraph

Comprehensive Online Research Education

In my school back in Singapore, students were required to take the subject Social Studies where we studied about Singapore growth from time to time while reflecting on the brief history of the world in general.

One of the test we had to take for this subject was Source-Based Test. Given three to four sources- newspaper report, interview, speech, street survey, we were expected to evaluate them. I still remember the four very fundamental check-lists we have to address when evaluating sources: content, purpose, provenance, cross-reference. Although three of them are more or less inter-related, examining all three will give us different insight into a source.

For example, when the question ask "how reliable is source A?" The first thing we do is looking at the provenance, i.e the origin of the sources. Does it come from a credible person or press release? Does this provenance have any reason to speak for the interest of one party? This biasness can also be observed in the content. The diction used allow us to derive the tone of the speaker- persuading, educating, or simply matter-of-fact, which in the end tell us the neutrality of the source. Furthermore, when evaluating a source, it is also important to look at the piece from afar in order to sense the impact the writer hope to achieve in the reader, i.e. the purpose. Usually, a source whose purpose is to inform has higher reliability, of course, we still have to keep in mind all other aspect mention previously. Lastly, we are never justified to dismiss a source as unreliable before we cross-reference them with other sources that discuss the same topic.

I had never quite grasped the significance of this skill of evaluating source until I was given the task by my professor to read, learn and take the quizzes in Comprehensive Online Research Education (CORE). In the digital age where we are swamped with overwhelming information, it is highly important to be able to discern the reliable source from the unreliable one.