Original thinking or secondary research?
Many of the web blogs that I follow are of a type wherein their contributors excel in reading various media reports, the output of other sources, blogs, etc. Often it is a practice on such blogs for an author to transcribe large portions of another’s work and lace it together with fairly innocuous, segue remarks …usually, a sentence or two of little original content. While this may be a service to those who are unable to find original articles for themselves, the procedure adds little to original thinking.
The most memorable bloggers are those who do primary and secondary research and use that material to generate additional thoughts and one’s who express the conclusions of such thought process in their own words. An occasional quote from another adds credibility to the author’s own conclusions. A reproduction of another’s work adds little to the body intellect.
I have watched the articles published here on Docudharma and am pleased to compliment the authors. For the most part blockquote is used sparingly. Quotes are usually short and germane. The thoughts of the essay writer are the important issue. If a fact, documented by another, is helpful, by all means quote it. However, don’t let’s fall into the trap of measuring our contribution by the pound, especially, when most of the weight is provided by the thought process of another. There are other blog sites where your tonnage is amply rewarded.
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I tend to think that specialization is something that’s not really good in the long run. I look to Aristotle. He may well have been the greatest mind we’ve ever had, and he had his hands in practically everything, and he was good at it. I would say that we need more people who are interested in lots of stuff.
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My preference is to try the original approach, preferably with links to the facts and offering my own interpretation. It’s more fun that way.
Cheers.
Thomas Moore wrote:
“Off I fly, careering far/ In chase of Pollys, prettier far/ Than any of their namesakes are, / -The Polymaths and Polyhistors, Polyglots and all their sisters.”
I know of tin bashing, but that would make for a poor night out.
I know just a little about a bunch of things which doesn’t stop me from offering opinions that may well be full of &*(^%.
i’m not much of a diarist / essayist, so far. but i do feel that this is a very welcoming venue for the not-strictly-political hairball of musing that i’m most likely to cough up.
i find some of the most creative and compelling diaries / essays to be of a philosophical / rhetorical bent; these will draw upon short excerpts from a wide variety of fields of thought (poets, painters, politicians…) to illustrate their way.
oops!
Oh, that kind of specialty.
Cultural/anthropological/historical topics; art history; botany and horticulture; community; silliness of the highest order
I never want to stop learning and intend to add to that list
I like plugging things in to see if they work.
blues on you-tube, and agony caused by those who would post photos of felis catus.
Just left a message to your admin. folks saying that the preview function on the comment/reply thingies was not working; now it is. My bad?
Anyway, here’s what I tried to say previously:
Ph.D in biochem. , BS in chem and bio. , patent in food processing, consultant to industry, have my own chem/bio tutoring business to college/high school students, a genuine pain in the ass to do-nothing mother-fuckers.
“Either lead and solve the problem or GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY BEFORE I RUN UP YOUR BACK!
A real charmer. Enough info? Too much?
And there is the part where I really don’t want to do that kind of thinking much most of the time.
on how to electrocute pickles.
Okay, in all seriousness, I’m a blog leach. I suck the knowledge from others and offer very little in return. Sometimes, I feel guilty/sad about this. But that dissipates rather quickly.
More fun than climate modeling (do that, too). Also am trying to stimulate interest in environment on new dharma-karma blog — blowing own storm horn on essay that is more cut and paste than not, but for a good cause:
Bush Admin to Shoot Endagered Wolves:
http://www.docudharm…
There’s a petition. Free dharma-karma if you sign it.
and I wallow in that role.
he had to see the rattler’s head. None of us who lived in a house with a diamondback rattlesnake nursery in the back could do that. Those goddam heads move so fast.
We had to take John Wayne’s word that he could shoot the heads off rattlers because he didn’t show us. He just pretended.
I think it is bum advice to tell people not to show what they are shooting at. I would blockquote what you actually said but you are plumb against people quoting you like that.
See the problem?
Best, Terry
demolishing the cult of specialization.
I am, among other things, a visual artist, but it has become meaningless to say so. All kinds of people are said to be “artists.”
For decades people pursue the wrong question: ‘what is art,’ thereby lowering the bar to the ground and burying the expectations of ‘what is an artist.’
Case in point: a civil engineer proudly gestures to the refrigerator art of this nephews: “is this art?” he provokes.
I ask this PC: so, your ‘hillbilly neighbor digs ditches (miserably), cobbles marginally functional bridges over them, yarns together fences… since these are all deeds of engineering, does that make him an engineer?
He did not like the thought.
Visual arts… imagine ‘civil engineering for the criminally insane’ or ‘neurosurgery for the grieving.’ But items of visual interest produced in the course of therapeutic programs are likelier to find funding for public display than the thesis of many artists who have mastered geometry, anatomy, optics etc. etc. for decades.
Sure the core of modern art is self-conscious that the art object is an idea of an idea – an abstraction. But most college-educated “artists” do not know how to draw, particularly the human figure. It cheapens their perennial acts of breaking rules they never grasped in the first place.
I see this as an offshoot of an overspecialized society which demands great breadth of none (witness the oval office). Specialization is the norm, not the exception. Ah another insomniac comment and I’m too tired to rant more… but I’m sick of (just for instance) meeting licensed civil engineers schooled in the US who do not know their continent is littered with pyramids (Mexico). They tend to be mud managers, and the better ones will admit it. Another specialization/watering down of learning. In pursuit of civil engineering in many programs one finds they are not required to study any liberal arts. Numbers will do. Our society turns us into mere numbers now; what a surprise.
Oh, the blog. It might go anywhere.
and I can talk like Donald Duck.
by profession.
A learning disabled expert by affliction.
art, do some landscaping for ya, cut down dead trees, make t-shirts, build a nice fire, or play you an improv song on my guitar.
Online specialties are:
promotion, web design, labor issues, mahjong
My specialty is meta, especially meta about ME. That’s “ME” in bold, not “Maine.” Ocassionally I deign to offer snide one-liners about other stuff, but that’s not nearly as important as I am.