Responding to Dorothy Winsor

Winsor’s article describes knowledge in a retroactive and present tense. She describes knowledge as “certain: if someone is unsure of an idea, we don’t usually call the idea knowledge.” By using the example of the faulty O-rings that led to the explosion of the Challenger, Winsor indicates that evidence does not surmise knowledge. The events leading up to the incident weren’t just caused by a culmination of ignorance, circumstantial factors show that MTI formed a taskforce exclusively to test the O-rings prior to the launch. The employees’ awareness then leads to a validation of social influence of knowledge; does social acceptance strengthen knowledge? Or does social acceptance increase because we are aware that knowledge “exists”?

To better articulate her arguments and criticisms for social constructivism and logical positivism, Winsor introduces the idea of “Truth Will Out Device” which states that the truth will eventually be recognized by a consensus of what is correct. Of course, the downside of this theory is that knowledge can only be categorized as such based on a retroactive perspective and based on the time upon which an idea is looked back on, even wrong facts can be conceptualized as knowledge.

As Winsor analyses how knowledge exists, she describes the passing of knowledge as the “conduit model of communication.” A misleading representation in the sense that information transposed from one individual to another is evidence, not knowledge. Despite logos and ethos being present in the exchange one individual’s pathos may differ, altering the perception he takes on factual evidence. The lack of a “capacity to impress their reality on the reader” leaves evidence without presence. It is important for the second individual to accept the gravity of the situation in order for the evidence to become undisputed knowledge.

Winsor, Dorothy. (1990). “The Construction of Knowledge in Organizations: Asking the Right Questions About the Challenger.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 4.2 (1990): 7-20. Web

Analyzing Hawthorne

What Evelyn Hawthorne wishes to achieve in her article is to deconstruct the work of Danticat through it literary and historical affiliations in order to better understand the general strategies employed by postmodernist black Caribbean writers in general. According to Hawthorne, the three primary differences between contemporary Caribbean writing and the more historical work of Paule Marshall are “linguistic, cultural, and political circumstances.” Though both parties hail from similar experiences, the fractured history of the Caribbean creates so many tangents that postmodernists like Danticat can approach slavery, colonialism, and American assimilation with a fresh perspective. She further explores these differences by explaining the “political unconscious” topics that Danticat explores; Rather than focusing on economic oppression like Marshall, Danticat and her contemporaries ostracize their characters through political exile.  

                        Krik? Krak! provides exemplary examples of this shift in writing thanks to Danticat’s understanding of the paradoxical nature of Haiti. Her accounts are largely driven by her “need to testify and witness.” Most importantly, the characters in Krik? Krak! aren’t racially defined stereotypes but actual people whom the readers care about.  Danticat takes great care to characterize her characters through small, subtle details, like Suzette’s initial disdain for her mother’s customs modulating into some form of acceptance either for her own heritage or for her mother’s traditions.

Hawthorne, Evelyn. "Sites/Sights of Difference: Danticat's 'New York Day Women', Haitian Immigrant Subjectivity and Postmodernist Strategies." MaComère: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars 6 (2004): 40-8. Web. 

"New York Day Women" Analysis

New York Day Women is singular among the stories found in “Krik? Krak!” insofar as it is distinguished by its setting. Moving her story to New York while retaining the themes of motherhood and Haitian heritage allows her to dwell on the impact of cultural assimilation. Suzette follows her mother around New York and her description of her begins indignant of her traditions and ends with a tinge of admiration. We understand Suzette may not care much for her heritage but her bond with her mother binds her emotionally to Haitian culture nonetheless.

                Seeing Suzette’s mother interact with the city is revelatory in the way it shows us how one is capable of maintaining a clear identity despite the influence of a more modern culture. She obviously doesn’t bother hiding her heritage as she and her friends look like a “Third World Parent-Teacher Meeting Association.” This helps provide a contrast between New York City and her mother’s native Haiti. As a microcosm it really provides a contrast between the U.S. as a whole and Third-World Countries. Suzette’s mother exclaims, “Why should we give to Goodwill when there are so many people back home who need clothes? We save our clothes for the relatives in Haiti.” This brings into context how she may interpret the word “relatives.” Because we later learn she has lost six sisters, making relatives a wider encompassing term than simply blood relation.

                Danticat’s serves its purpose by stating the prevalence of culture and how, even when disregarded can shape us as individuals. It also provides a critique of the problems that are prevalent here in the U.S, compared to the struggles of Third-World Countries. In short she brings the existence of Haiti, its problems and blessings to the forefront.  

Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! NY: Vintage Books. Print.

"Between the Pool and the Gardenias"

As the narrator unfolds her family history in “Between the Pool and the Gardenias,” we become aware that she is of Josephine’s lineage. Having read “Nineteen Thirty Seven,” the intertextuality is revealing of her arduous and pained history.  Taken within the context of her past, the dead child she recovers then becomes significant not only as a motif of her burdens but the burdens of her past relatives.

Marie, like her mother and her mother before her, suffers for her womanhood. “It’s so easy to love somebody, I tell you, when there’s nothing else around.” (Danticat 96) Based on that statement, we understand that because of her womanhood or her ancestry, Marie has already been rejected by society. All her love is easy to relate to the dead child, whom like her, has been abandoned by a society that either cannot or will not support her. Rose helps Marie vent her problems and either unaware or resiliently ignorant of the child’s condition, Marie comes to believe she is responsible for taking “on her soul as my own personal responsibility.” (Danticat 98) Eventually she is doomed to be wrongly accused of the child’s fate, just like her grandmother before her.

Danticat’s stories are intertwined to best represent Haitian oppression of women regardless of time and place. By relating characters as well as motifs she establishes a genuine sense of history. It also enables us to see a different side to view things through a different point of view. In Nineteen Thirty-Seven the dead baby was a bane to Josephine’s mother; For Marie it provides a mean to release her worries through imagination.    

Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! NY: Vintage Books. Print. 

Analyzing "I Wasn't Me, Was It? Plagiarism and the Web"

Though they don’t conduct a study per se, Annette Rosati and Danielle DeVoss use their student’s experiences as a means to understand the changing landscape of plagiarism tactics and practices. Thanks to the Internet, students have a large and readily available stream of information. They can easily locate a sample essay on a subject they are writing about and claim it as their own. The temptation to simply cut and paste is also present, particularly if the student is writing hastily or has a hard time rewording the original ideas.

The article is interesting as it analyses the mindset that students accrue as a result of the demands of their teachers. When teachers ask students to create a new idea, the students are forced to research sources that will not only provide them a new idea, but will present it within the confines of a “correct” interpretation. In order to assuage their professor, the students then use plagiarism not only to ease their job, but as a way of “patchwriting” or “kidnapping.” Thinking of plagiarizing as kidnapping implies that the source text is borrowed to assimilate one’s own writing with the author’s ideas and style.

Finally, DeVoss and Rosati seek to resolve plagiarism issues by explaining the concept of intellectual property. Intellectual property refers to the creative output of another person. Though its definition can be skewed and blurred, it is essentially an idea that belongs to someone else, whether it be a design, a template, text, or art. Proper knowledge of what belongs to whom and the practice of citing sources the right way are effective ways to prevent a student from plagiarizing. 

DeVoss, Danielle & Annette C. Rosati (2002). “‘It wasn’t me, was it?’ Plagiarism and the Web.” Computers & Composition 19.2 (2002): 191-204. Web

"Let My Dataset Change Your Mindset" analysis

Rosling’s presentation constitutes him transferring his student’s mindset into a literal dataset. He does this as a means to present their argument in a visual manner. To them the dynamics of world issues are inherently us vs them, the developing world against impoverish countries. Their view has largely been assimilated and structured by the dataset most primed in their teacher’s youth.

Using data compiled by a census, Rosling criticizes the irrelevancy with which his students approach global issues. Their bias is to look down upon third-world countries as divergent and dated. When the dataset analyses individual countries, we see how vast of an improvement has been made by underdeveloped nations like Mexico and Singapore. Further dividing regions into more specific data shows that not all statistics are dependent on economy and development but on socio-cultural circumstances like war and prevalent diseases. An unfortunate limitation faced by this study is the possible inaccuracy of the data collected. When collected as a census, the possibility of pseudo-factual information or incomplete data is of a higher risk.     

Rosling presents the notion that “underdeveloped” countries actually undergo social development much faster than some of the leading powers of the world; a convergence factor that sees conditions escalate on par with U.S. conditions rapidly. Upon viewing his presentation, it seems foolish to divide nations into two categories when there are many traits present within each country.