Archives for the Month of November 2007 on Matthew Pernell's Online Journal
Efficient Writing
“Two fish, blue fish”, this is a phrase that takes me back to my days of kindergarten; my readings were simple and my writings were simpler. I can even remember when I first learned to make a paragraph in the 3rd grade. Every one of them was five sentences exactly so I could indent and take up more space. The days of huge fonts and 1.5 spaced sentences are long past, however. Now a freshman in college my writings are far different than before. After three months of college I have met many students and by getting to know them, I have gotten to see how much writing changes from major to major. This raises the question, why?
“In your first paragraph, you need an engaging intro with three supporting sentences followed by a thesis”. As many students can tell you, this is one of the first lines one hears when they learn of the “five paragraph essay” format. I myself find it hard to not think of that line when I began to write. But a friend of mine named Kathleen cannot think this way. She has recently declared her major in political science and her writing is far different than my own. In one of her political science classes, she was instructed specifically to avoid the “five paragraph essay” style. Kathleen also showed me her syllabus where the professor expresses his disdain for this style in questionable words such as “don’t give me that B.S…if you want to use [the five paragraph essay], then take an English class.” Because of this her papers are structured differently.
For example, she has had to write a paper where she read an article and analyzed it. Rather than using the intro, supporting sentences, thesis style, she simply summarizes the articles and uses no more than one sentence for her thesis. The rest of the paper supports the argument. Something like this would not hold up in any of my previous classes. However, this type of writing seems to work best for political science which deals with arguments. Perhaps this is why changes in writings can be seen in different majors. Another colleague of mine, Peter, has also declared his major in business management. As his major differs, so does his writing.
One of the classes he takes it management 250. In this class, he sometimes must analyze court cases; usually corporate. In his assignments he must pick a side and support it. In this sense, his writing is very similar to Kathleen’s. However, his writing includes many other topics as well. He also must write about things such as what are your goals in ten years or what makes you unique. These types of writing are much more relevant to management which requires goals and understanding one’s own skills. His style of writing is also different. His writing is more detailed rather than straight to the point.
Though we are all college students, our writing varies in our majors. This is because certain types and topics of writing are more efficient for some majors than others. By analyzing the writings of other students it is possible to gain a lot of insight into their major’s values.
The True Archivist
At some point in time, a student must venture to …“that place with books”. Not by free will but because they must. They received an assignment a month ago and its due in 30 minutes. “Pause….Sigh….Crack fingers….Its “B.S-ing” time”. But First!!! They must look at that librarian that always tells them to keep their barely audible voices down and gaze in pity. For they are unfortunate to be more boring than this assignment due in half an hour. However, next time you must “B.S” a paper, or maybe you actually care, I suggest you salute them. Not because they can take being so boring (give them a chance geeesh!), but because they have a job that few can do. After I visited the Botanical Gardens in Cleveland Ohio, I realized just how demanding and significant a librarian’s job is. Were it not for them, the sharing of writings could not happen at the level it is today.
The recording of one’s findings, stories, or thoughts is what created the written history we see and learn from today. However, written history would be pointless if no one could read it because it was destroyed, lost, or illegible. This is where the librarians come in. Written history is obviously extremely extensive, as it goes back for many years. Preserving these works takes much care and knowledge. My class visited the Botanical Gardens and the (not so boring) librarian, Gary Esmonde, gave us an overview of his job and all it entails. A big part of his job was preserving books that date over 100 years. These books have to be stored in room at a specific temperature and be handled a specific way. An example is that originally there was a fountain in the library. Sounded great and looked beautiful but according to Esmonde the moisture endangered the books. Without such knowledge, these books would have been worn away and we would have lost valuable pieces of writing. Despite the librarian’s skills however, he cannot do everything himself, he must pass on this knowledge to others.
Esmonde has many employees and even more volunteers; literally hundreds. In order to teach them all he must give them procedures. They must write manuals and procedures for others to follow. Esmonde stated that before he arrived, there was no orientation for new employees. In fact, upon receiving his job, he was simply shown the place and left to his vaguely described duties. Another problem that arose was that tour guides had almost no instruction and some found themselves rather unsure about certain details. As a result, some of the tour guides began making up information. To solve this problem, Esmonde wrote up job descriptions for the employees and volunteers. Along with job descriptions, he wrote policies, agendas, and schedules. He continues to write new policies to this day. Already, the job of a librarian seems daunting, but this merely scratches the surface.
There are millions of books from millions of places. Yes, finding the newest Harry Potter book wouldn’t prove to be very difficult. But for the adventures who want to read the stories that can’t be found at Barnes and Nobles or Borders, the task is much harder. What makes this easier for us however, is organization. If one were to go into any library, the books will be organized through some system. Scientist have yet to prove that books can arrange themselves, so some had to the job; the job of a librarian. Esmonde told my class how he had to rearrange all the books in his library into a new system with the help of only one other person. As if this wasn’t enough, he realized that the bibliographical records for his books were accurate 40% of the time. So he had to check and correct over 15,000 books! Another challenge that he faced is that he wanted to put all the books on an online catalog. So those same 15,000 books had to be listed and then arranged on a website as well.
For those librarians who feel underappreciated, I assure you a few more people appreciate what you do. As for others, I hope you now realized how intense the job of a librarian can be. Giving you a hard time may what they need to get through the day. Though many jobs were listed above, there are still more not mentioned here. Understand, that a librarian's job is one of respect.