Writing structures

Summaries

A summary is a brief description of what you are reading. Summaries have become very widespread using them on the internet, job postings, articles and much more. They have become very prevalent in the sharing of information in today’s society.

The article, “Writing Summaries” explains how details are given within the summary of an article to allow a reader to gain facts and information on what will be provided within the material itself. It must be, “accurate” information found within the article. Three forms of summaries are; informational, analytical, and provocative.

Informational summary: is direct and straight to the point to give readers an outline of the story. This allows the reader to determine if they would like to continue reading the story based on the information given.

Analytical summary:  An interpretation of the story that tends focuses more on the analytical side of “why” and “how”. It is an attempt to explain the story from the writer’s perspective.

Provocative summary: Presents the information within the story by expressing the writer’s attitude and opinion of the story in hope to grab the reader’s attention.

 

The “King” of writing in the 21^st Century

 Due to the fast paced nature of today’s society, the sharing of information must be quick, clear, and concise. The way we write has been affected, by the way that we live. Not because of a new innovation, but due to the fast pace society individuals have adapted.  According to Roy Peter Clark in his article Introduction to ‘How to write short: Word Craft for Fast Times’, this is not a new innovation. Short writing styles remain unbroken. There are two sections within this book dividing how and why there is a need to keep writings short.

“The how comprises the rhetorical strategies that make a short text tick”.

“The why reveals the practical uses of short writing over centuries, the ways in which writers use short forms to fulfill their aspirations, from the quotidian to the eternal”.

 

Is your pharmacy healthy?

 I came across an article on msn.com The unhealthiest things in your pharmacy. This articles notates how CVS is making the healthy and “bold” move to remove cigarettes from their stores. Yes, they are banning tobacco sells! It’s about time a pharmacy starts to worry about people’s health. Isn’t that the purpose of a pharmacy?

However, the articles goes on to ask about the other unhealthy products that are sold in pharmacies. Yes, banning tobacco products is the new hype and it is about time that pharmacy’s look at the health issues as a factor, but what about the soda, energy drinks, diet pills, hazards cleaners and other products that are hazards to our health’s and are sold on the shelves of the pharmacy’s?

 

Life changing events

 Children are our life. Once you become a parent your life changes. It’s a wonderful life experience that no one can be ready for.

After reading 10 things I said my children wouldn’t do, I couldn’t agree any more with the quote:

“The people who can raise a perfectly well behaved child are those people who don’t have any children.”

Anyone can say they are going to do this and going to do that, but no one knows exactly what they are going to do until it happens when it comes to children. I too thought my children would be really healthy eaters and that is not the case. I have one daughter is an extreme healthy eater and the other is so picky I am just glad she is eating.

Christina goes on and elaborates on other examples that people might say they will never do as a parent such as be late, have a messy house, have their children pull tantrums in public and so on. If you want to know the truth about motherhood read the article by Christina that was posted on MSN.com for the scarymommy.com. She couldn’t be any closer to the truth and does not hold back.

Semantics, computers, and theories; Oh No!

So far we have learned from Hans Kamp that formal semantics (FST) employs techniques from symbolic logic and mathematical logic to produce characterized theories and meanings for a variety of different types of languages. We have also learned that discourse representation theory (DRT) is a way to take the conversational context to a level of simplicity.

Now, what happens when we combine these two theories of complex languages and simplicity?

Early in the 20th century, a philosopher Bertrand Russell invented type theory. Type theory is a tool used with many programming languages to help ensure that the consistency of information is accurate. Its domain and data structure is moving faster than expected into more complex domains to include security and networking and is shaping our world within the 21^st century computer science (Wright, 2010).

Alex Wright wrote “Type Theory Comes of Age.”  He explains how Type Theory has evolved over the past 100 years. The two most fascinating type theories are called static type theory and dynamic type theory. Static theory catches errors at the time they are compiled opposed to dynamic in which errors are caught at run-time.  According to Wright, researches have dreamed of unifying static and dynamic type systems for a while.  After reading this article I also learned about security type systems. When I first came across this I thought to myself, “Oh gosh another “type” to add to the list of confusion”. But this wasn’t the case, it was quite interesting to learn about these theories. I realized computer speak a language just as well as humans do, it’s all semantics!  Everything I have learned about semantics is correct. Whether it is symbols, images, written, etc. It is all semantics!  How Fun!

Since I found this so amusing I decided to take my research to the next level and try to code something myself on Codecademy. No, I am not a pro at coding, so I wasn’t able to create my own website.  But I can say, I had a blast while creating a colorful image of my name using everything I learned about variables, strings, and arrays.

For an example, variables can be stored as numbers or strings. Arrays store a list of data anything between [ ] is an array.  It’s evident that computer language is significantly influenced by type theory. I am astonished to find out that what seems to be so difficult can essentially be so simple. I can’t wait to see the progressions in our future.

Podcasting with Hans Kamp

Hans Kamp is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also an established researcher at the Institute for Natural Languages in Stuttgart.

After listening to the podcast interview a number of times, I found this interview to be a very difficult subject to blog on.  I believe that I have an understanding of who Hans Kamp is, what he does, and what formal semantics is, but the podcast seemed  somewhat dry to me. The verbal communication was hard to comprehend. It almost seemed as if they were too close to the microphone.  It might have been better for the interviewer, Matt Teichman, to use another format of interviewing Hans Kamp other than Podcasting. In my opinion the podcast is in dire need of visuals or subtitles for better comprehension.

I found myself trying to research on the matter with the anticipation in finding something that included subtitles or a visualization of the interview itself. I even tried the website address that was announced during the podcast, but found that to be a dead end as well. However difficult this podcast was to hear and understand I did note that formal semantics explains how the meaning of a sentence feeds on the words within the sentence itself.  Hans’ examples gave a better understanding of Semantics as a whole

“John and Mary got married”.

“John and Mary both got married”.

Both of the above examples imply that John and Mary got married, but the question stands as to if they got married to each other. Not including the word both insures the reader that John and Mary were married to each other. Including the word, “both” could imply they were both married but not necessarily to each other.

The traditional thought of philosophers has been taken to a formal level with Hans Kamp. His new idea is called discourse representation theory is a way of transforming conversational context to the level of simplicity.

Gadgets in the court room

I read an article on udayton.edu today called, “Google, Gadgets and Guilt”. This article expresses how some Judges prohibit tweeting during trials, but with the explosion of social media this is becoming problematical and difficult to prohibit.  The concerns with an impartial jury are erupting due to this rapid growth of social media.

Thaddeus Hoffmeister author of “Social Media in the Courtroom: A New Era for Social Justice“, explains how the case of George Zimmerman has taken an unusual step to sequestering Jurors to assure a fair trial. In my opinion, this sounds very expensive, but with no other alternatives, how else should this be handled?

Hoffmeister also offers many steps to take if jurors are to disobey the rules and regulation. This is something I believe needs to be addressed. With new era of social media we need to make sure every aspect has been analyzed and researched to provide a conclusion on how to handle not only the case mentioned, but all cases that rise in the future.

 

Innovative Journalism

Social media influences our engagement with breaking news alerts. After reading the article, “Journalist Live Tweet from the Courthouse” by Jim Armstrong, it made me appreciate the how Social Media is shaping  the modern era of communication. Armstrong tweeted live from the courthouse on the Whitey Bulger trial. He was able to record live during breaks, and while the courthouse was in session, Armstrong prevailed up-to-the-minute news broadcast of the live trial via Twitter.

I’m not one to consider the former years of Journalism absolute. I only see it progressing. Journalism seems to be expanding by linking itself further with the domains in the world of technology.  Not only will the journalist receive credit for being so quick to be updated and on the spot, the public is aware of what is going on within their society.

Reading this article, reminds me of how Journalism has exploded with the advancements in technology. In the past, if a person would like to report on an article or breaking news it would take days for the people to see.  There were procedures and processes to adhere before the public eye were able to see it. Journalists were also considered to be either in the field of print journalism or broadcasting journalism. Now, with the progression of the digital age, this field is considered to be unbiased when it comes to the news of journalist. There is a need to be ready and willing to produce material at anytime and anyplace.

I remember as a child in elementary school my class decided that candy cigarettes were a bad influence on children and promoted smoking for the young. With the intent to band candy cigarettes, we scheduled at field trip to the First Coast News Station with Jeani Baylock.  This article was not aired that day. It was scheduled to be aired. My parents were even able to tape our actions at the studio as it aired a few days later.

Per this article and many others a new era has arrive and only expects to expand within time. Being a Journalist involves a lot more than just writing and reporting.