My Ghostwriting Experience

Originally I was going to ghostwrite for a roommate of mine who had a paper due in her class about Siberian shamanism the next week. She wasn't very good at explaining her ideas, or giving me facts, and because her primary source was 200 pages long, I wasn't about to spend an entire afternoon and evening catching up on mystical practices in a place I don't know too much about the culture to begin with. Her style was immensely different from mine, and my best efforts to imitate and recreate failed miserably; I sounded like an inverted form of myself.

This headache pushed me to search for other options. My brother had a paper on Honore de Balzac (possibly my favorite name for an author, as mature as that is) due next week, and he was already done with his outline including some quotations pulled out and ready to use. It was nice because I had far too much information about a subject I knew a little about, compared with my first attempt where I had barely any information on something I knew nothing about. I also have a more similiar style to my brother's writing, then to most and this made it easier to attempt and pretend I was him when writing.

In general though, this assignment has really made me question where we get our writing style from? Our favorite author? Our most frequent editor? A teacher? Or does a lot of our writing style come from within?

I think a lot of us would agree that we speak in similiar patterns to our close friends, each borrowing variations on our common language, but we don't often write academically with our close friends. So who is analogus to a close friend in terms of the formation of your writing style?

Fear and Plagiarism

Howard's article made one thing quite clear; the definition of plagiarism is not clearly defined. It bothers me then that so many educators take the approach of trying to scare their students into not plagiarizing , whatever plagiarizing might mean. I feel educators should explain more what they consider plagiarism (or cite a more subject oriented definition), explain why one does not do it, and explain the consequences if one does plagiarize. At higher institutions, like the one we attend, we are certainly mature enough to agree and follow anything that makes sense if it is logically presented to us. Students should be scared of the consequences, but in order to nip plagiarism in the bud educators should convert their students by reason and fear, not fear exclusively. Let's just hope every educator has an original explanation of plagiarism and if not, they cite their sources. . . .

On "Artful Deception"

Baruch's article struck a chord with me, especially in the opening paragraph when he points out that students who pay others to write for them are often expelled. It's weird to think that as a society we care more about honesty in students' inconsequential term papers then when we drop thirty bucks for a novel that a well-known name "wrote."

I'd like to know what others think about this, as well as the backlash upon this questionable activity. I think the music industry might offer some insight...

When file sharing became prevalent a few years ago, album sales dropped, and record labels were, and still are, furious. Personally, from what I've witnessed, the more a musician was deemed an "artist" by their fans, the least they were outraged and affected. Everyone downloaded the flavor of the month songs without thinking twice about it; we all know it's crap, and while fun to dance and party to, these songs will be readily replaced in the next month or so and consumers see no point in dropping fifteen bucks on an album with one song they want, only to have that song fall out of grace shortly after. I feel that people still buy, to varying degrees, their favorite artists' music because they want to support them. Radiohead fans amply rewarded their latest release when revenues were based on optional donations. I feel we are beginning to see a shift towards paying explicitly only for music we feel is deemed credible, unique, and original.

I wonder if our society might not see something similar with books; especially those which are ghostwritten. I wonder if these works might be pirated more often, since we feel ok not paying for a book that the alleged author didn't write. Electronic books are not nearly as popular as electronic music files, but I feel it will be interesting to see how both media forms, and the way consumers pay for them, evolves as electronic forms become even more prevalent.

Can We Trust Machines to Trust?

In Rheingold's Smart Mobs: The Power of the Mobile Many an interesting idea, while perhaps not the focus of the article, is established; that a formula for 'trust' could be made to link together people with commonalities to further both parties endeavors through mobile technology. Rheingold cites Kortuem et al. (on pg. 43 of the course packet) and their experimental system WALID. The idea of WALID interests me because it offers efficiency to the mundane errands we loathe. As a society we already look for ways to make these errands simpler, from drive-thrus at many stores to common purchases collected together at 'convenience' stores, however WALID lumps individuals together to trade favors to further efficiency. The novelty rests in technology determining the trust and relative payoffs of each action.

It's hard enough to know whom one can trust, let alone if face-to-face contact has been minimal. So I wonder, can humans know how to program a machine to determine trust between individuals? For actions as simple as picking up milk for a little known neighbor around the corner, most likely, but beyond that how far would this trust extend? When do the risks outweigh the payoffs?

While many of the ideas in Reingold's article are fairly abstract and years away, they are certainly interesting to think about as even today we increasingly let machines shape decisions about our lives.

What makes an author/writer/poet great?

Thoreau’s words has never struck much of a pleasant chord with me, and for him to say, “the works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them,” as he is quoted in the Howard article, really makes me question his own command of the language. For how can one be “great,” yet not have a large affect on mankind? Shouldn’t a “great” poet be one that is accessible to people of all walks of life; their work is so relatable and of importance that both readers of “low” and “high” literature marvel at it? I think perhaps what Thoreau meant when he said “great” is a poet who can maximize and pull together characteristics from a small number of similarly “great” works that are read incestuously by the intelligentsia of “high” literature.

I similarly draw back a step to question whenever I’ve encountered a literature teacher that Howard describes in the closing of this article. Howard states that, “students are imagined as having lowbrow reading tastes that must be elevated,” indicating that we are treated as those who have never really “read” the work of the “great poets.” I certainly agree with Howard that student are “placed not on the shoulders but in the shadow of [literary] giants,” for I’ve never encountered a student that has felt at least the potential to be one of these “great” poets someday. Though, then again who would want to be one of these types of authors? One who knows many words, and complex arrangements to maximize the essence, or some other similarly cheesy word, of an expression only to have a few relatively narrow minds decode the meaning from your “genius”? Wouldn’t one rather aspire to be a great communicator? One that shapes the peoples’ lives around them whether poor or rich, highly educated or minimally, fan of literature or not, and create works that speak to people instead of making people attempt to lean into the meaning of one’s writing?

For me, someone like Hemingway encapsulates what it means to be a “great” author. His simple prose, yet complex movements underneath the text offer many of the same things for both members of “high” and “low” literature, if there are such classifications. A twelve year-old kid can emulate Hemingway’s simple, yet direct style, and never be the wiser to the stir of emotions lingering under the words he reads. Then when read again later, much more is noted, much more is appreciated, and yet still one doesn’t have to be a “great poet” to understand.

Thoreau may have never envisioned a writer with such capabilities, and believe me by no means do I mean Hemingway is the only one. Thoreau was a product of his time and place of ideally incestuous intelligentsia, and perhaps he does know that the greatest of “poets” can really only be understood by their own kind, much like the “best” chefs make some of the weirdest tasting food and are really only understood and appreciated by chefs of the same caliber. However I tend to believe when we read works included in the literary canon, their reputation must be abandoned, if possible, and must be looked at to see if their message is conveyed clearly, eloquently, and with justification just as much as one would look at any other work to determine if it is great. For a teacher, or any other authoritative figure, to say one work contains more genius that another, and thus is in the literary canon, is to perpetuate the idea that only the great communicate with the great; which is something I just can’t buy into.