Examining my conscience :)

Hello all,

as anyone can see from my previous posts, me and my classmates are working a lot on sources' evaluation, reliability, writing and readability...So, as Sarah suggested, I want to think about my blog. I mean, I want to analyse if my blog posts respect some or any of the following characteristics: hourglass structure/well structured, logical, cohesive, clear, precise, concise and coherent.

As I go back and take a look to my first posts (e.g. Language Learning post) I realize that I made a lot of mistakes concerning:

• grammar,
• paragraphing,
• post length,
• use of conjuncts & subordinators (despite making myself clear, I used them too much!).

However, the more I go on writing and learning new things about text structure, the more it seems to me that I make better posts...Hope you've noticed that :) In the last posts I think I've managed to be precise and concise at the same time, which - afaic - it's very important in blogging. I myself get bored while reading everlasting and repetitive posts!

I think that blogging, unlike traditional writing, give us the possibility to be concise and precise without a lot of effort. Let's think about technical words or acronyms...you just put a clickable link on them and at the same time:

• people who know the meaning of that word just go on reading without any problem, and you don't bother them with an unwanted and verbose explanation;
• people who don't know the meaning of that word just click on the highlighted word and will find all the needed information, and you don't increase your post's length.

BTW, let me know what you think about that!

Bye
Giorgia
(photo source)

Clear as crystal!

As we've learned through Sarah's handout2, any text should be easy to follow and clear in meaning, especially when analysing complex subjects (i.e. academic papers). A crystalline and readable writing should be:

• well structured,
• logical,
• cohesive,
• clear, precise and concise,
• coherent.

Let's see if the academic paper I've chosen follows this guideline...I'm going to do this asking myself some questions presented in handout2.

1.Does the paper follows the hourglass structure (iow, well structured: intro,body,conclusion)? Yes, the paper follows the hourglass shape. It stars by summarizing the content and forecasting the conclusions; it also highlights the key words. Then, the body develops each of the topics presented at the beginning, providing examples. At the end, the paper sums up the content and exposes the conclusions.
2.Is there a logical flow of ideas? Yes. Since argument is large-scale, the paper body is broken down into parts, each one dealing with a different topic. However, each part is logically linked, even without using a large amount of metalinguistic signaling devices. The logical link is provided by introducing briefly an issue in the paragraph that precedes the 'real' paragraph on this issue.
3.Is the text cohesive? Yes; the ideas and information's flow is clear and easy to follow. Nothing is left unsaid; obviously the reader has to have a basical notion of what PLEs and e-learning are. However, the cohesiveness is provided by a sufficient amount of references forward and back (e.g. In the introduction I said; these tools; moreover).
4.Is the writing clear or complex? The content is clear and well exposed; however, as I've just said above, any reader should have at least a basic knowledge of PLEs, social software and e-learning. Most of the times the writer refers to specific concept just using their acronyms; therefore the writing turns to be sometimes difficult, but - I would say - not obscure.
5.Who is the text’s assumed audience? What indications of this do you have? How does this influence how the text is written? I think that the paper is intended for someone who has basic notions about the subject. I wouldn't say that is intended only for experts because I myself understood almost everything. As I said before, the academic influence comes out when the writer uses technical terms and acronyms to specific concepts. Anyway, the researcher - at the beginning - provides a list of key words so that one can go and search for them and their acronyms.

Ops, I've been talking too much... :)

Bye
Giorgia
(photo source)