HANDOUT 2

In my view every kind of writing should be well structured, logical, cohesive, coherent, clear, precise and concise. Once a text follows these key features allows the reader to understand better not only the topic but also to find pleasure during his reading. I think a blog post should follow the template of an essay, i.e. it should have an introduction, a body and a conclusion. A blog post is a short piece of writing and the best way to save time and to say everything is just to use the standard scheme I presented above.
I read the blog posts I have written so far and nearly all of them follow the structure of an academic writing. Every time I write something I try to help the reader to understand me. I am not very concise and I tend to dwell on what I’m writing. The rules written in Handout 2 have been really useful for me and helped me to understand what I can do to be more clear and effective. However, It is not so easy to change the writing style of someone.
During the Easter Break I read some abstracts or books chapters in the field of Public Relations. Here are the titles of the books I found in order to collect material for my thesis and to understand how academic writings are developed: “Political Persuaders”, “Gender Advertisements”, “Political Communication Report”, “Management of corporate communication: From interpersonal contacts to external affairs”, “Excellence in Public Relations and communication management”.
First of all, the similarities between my posts and the texts I read are that of presenting a similar structure, that is an explanatory introduction of the topic, a body, where the topic presented in the introduction is analysed in details and a conclusion, where everything that has been previously said is summed up in short sentences.
Anyway, my posts are different from these academic writings not only in their style and accuracy but also in their linguistic level. I am not an English native speaker and I use to much sentences to say something that could be said in a few lines. Indeed, I am not so concise and my texts are not so fluent as academic texts. Moreover, I don’t use short, detailed and well-connected sentences and what I write is not always well expressed and easy to understand.
In spite this, I see the tasks of this 2nd semester as a personal linguistic challenge. I am aware of the improvement I did from October up till now. During the first semester, I was really embarrassed as I couldn’t write in English, because of the interference with the German language and the year of study in Germany. Now, I want to use these academic writings as models to follow and to assume for a more effective improvement of my English skills.



In step 2 I analysed some chapters of the book “Political Persuaders” by Dan D. Nimmo.

· Does it follow the hourglass structure? The text follows a hourglass structure where at the beginning there is a general introduction and then a detailed description of the single parts that constitute the topic introduced at the beginning and then a conclusion. For instance, I decided to write the structure of the Preface of the book. As you can see below, I decided to quote the main sentences of the introduction, main body and conclusion. All the book follows the hourglass structure, starting from the preface to the last chapter of the book.

Introduction: “In the last decade students of politics- journalists, political scientists, and practitioners- have expressed an increasing interest in the role played by political campaigns in American elections. There are a number of reasons for this: election campaigns reveal the full range of human ambitions and frailties in stark focus; and, too, we intuitively expect that, since so much time, money, intelligence, and emotional effort is expended on campaigning, it must have an effect on our lives that is worth exploring; finally, the behaviourist movement in the social sciences since World War II has stimulated scholars to examine campaigns as a major dimension of broader area of inquiry loosely designated political participation”.


Main Body:
1)“However, no single contemporary work brings together the results of the many recent studies of individual campaigns and campaigning techniques. This book, although not a summary of all the recorded evidence on political campaigns, does endeavour to recognize a substantial number of insights”.
2) “This exploration of modern campaign technology relies on numerous case studied, published and unpublished, of specific presidential, statewide, and local campaigns (…).


Conclusion: ”In addition to those who contributed their insights during these interviews, I should like also to acknowledge the following for their assistance (…)”.
“Finally, I thank Peter Grenquist and Roger Emblen of Prentice-Hall for their interests in the project (…)”.

· Is there a logical flow of ideas? Give reasons, and examples, for your answers.

As you can see the introduction has a “road –map”, in which the author describes the different topics he intends to develop. Firstly, “the interest in the role played by political campaigns in American elections”; secondly, “human ambitions and frailties during election campaigns”; thirdly, “the effect of time, money, intelligence and emotional effort on campaigning” and finally, “the behaviourist movement activity in social sciences”.
Then the author explains, the purpose of his research in the following parts of the main body. For instance, in the first paragraph he says: “However, no single work brings together the results of the many recent studies of individual campaigns and campaigning techniques. This book, although not a summary of all the recorded evidence on political campaigns, does endeavour to recognize a substantial number of insights”. In the second paragraph, the author describes the sources he used to do his research: “This exploration of modern campaign technology relies on numerous case studied, published and unpublished, of specific presidential, statewide, and local campaigns (…)”. At the end he concludes, thanking who helped and supported him in dealing with his work: “: ”In addition to those who contributed their insights during these interviews, I should like also to acknowledge the following for their assistance (…)”; “Finally, I thank Peter Grenquist and Roger Emblen of Prentice-Hall for their interests in the project (…)”.
Also this preface is an example of large scale argument, as the topic is divided into different parts, who provide evidence to the main topic stated at the beginning of the text. The arguments are linked by metalinguistic signalling devices such as “however”, “in addition” that are a contribute to the overall thesis.


· Is the text cohesive? What is done to make it cohesive? Provide examples.
The two pages of Preface are cohesive and it is easy to follow the flow of ideas as there are references forward and back to other ideas. The Preface is made up by four paragraphs, and each of them is a micro text, where information are connected and come one after the other. There are metalinguistic elements in paragraph two and four and these are: “However” and “In addition”. Anyway, the author manage to connect the second and the third paragraph using only a simple sentence: “This exploration of modern campaign” that develops the topic presented in the previous section. Indeed, in the second paragraph the author asserts that his book’s function is that of bringing together the results of the many recent studies of individual campaign and campaigning techniques and that of showing the impact of new techniques of political campaigns in 1970s. Therefore, the third paragraph is linked to the second only with the sentence “This exploration of modern campaign”, as the author wants to carry out his study emphasizing what kind of means he used to research new technologies of political campaign in 1970s.
What is more, the use of punctuations helps the reader to understand better what the text is speaking about. For instance, the first paragraph makes use of dashes, colons and semicolons to link ideas within the same paragraph, beside giving more emphasis using metalinguistic signals (finally) and coordination elements (and, too). Here is a part of the first paragraph: “In the last decade students of politics- journalists, political scientists, and practitioners- have expressed an increasing interest in the role played by political campaigns in American elections. There are a number of reasons for this: election campaigns reveal the full range of human ambitions and frailties in stark focus; and, too, we intuitively expect that, since so much time, money, intelligence, and emotional effort is expended on campaigning, it must have an effect on our lives that is worth exploring; finally, the behaviourist movement in the social sciences since World War II has stimulated scholars to examine campaigns as a major dimension of broader area of inquiry loosely designated political participation”.


· Is the writing clear or complex? Again, provide examples.
The writing is clear and there is not sign of wordiness in it. The reader has not problems in understanding the flown of ideas and the author make his work readable to everyone.
For example in the first part of the second paragraph, the reader understands clearly what is the purpose of the author’s book. “However, no single contemporary work brings together the results of the many recent studies of individual campaigns and campaigning techniques. This book, although not a summary of all the recorded evidence on political campaigns, does endeavour to recognize a substantial number of insights”. The language used is basic and known by everyone. The author’s target is indeed that of making his study readable to everyone, who wants to broaden its knowledge in the subject.

· Who is the text’s assumed audience? What indications of this do you have? How does this influence how the text is written?
In my view the text is addressed to everyone who is involved in the field of study of political communication. Indeed, the text aims to bring together all the results collected about the topic in order to show what discoveries has been done so far. The book tends also to be a guideline for everyone who is keeping on studying the impact of mass-media and new technologies in political campaigning. Anyway, the language is clear and not complex and it can be read also by not specialist readers. Here is again the first part of the second paragraph that provide evidence to my statement. “However, no single contemporary work brings together the results of the many recent studies of individual campaigns and campaigning techniques. This book, although not a summary of all the recorded evidence on political campaigns, does endeavour to recognize a substantial number of insights”.



This done, do you think a blog post should follow some or any of these points? Yes, no, why?
I think that a blog post like any other piece of writing – academic and not- should be well structured, logical, cohesive, clear, precise, concise and coherent.
Firstly, a well structured blog helps the reader to see how the writer develops and widens his ideas. In this way, it is possible to find trough a quick reading key words and main concepts. Moreover, when the flown of ideas is logical connected, the reader catches immediately the purpose of the text. In addition, a blog post should present clear and precise information that go straight to the point and avoid the reader to waste time on understanding what the text is dealing with. In conclusion, if the text is coherent in all its parts, the reader follows the author through key terms and other technical words, without spending time in further researches trying to understand what the writer intended to say.

HAPPY EASTER YOU ALL!!!

I HAD SOME PROBLEM IN USING MY PC, ANYWAY I WANTED TO WISH YOU HAPPY EASTER .

ENJOY THE WEATHER AND HAVE FUN AND RELAX FOR SOME DAYS. SEE YOU NEXT WEEK.

ELENA

The Easter Bunny (or Easter Hare) is a mythical character depicted as an anthropomorphic rabbit. In legend, the creature brings baskets filled with colored eggs, candy and toys to the homes of children on the night before Easter. The Easter Bunny will either put the baskets in a designated place or hide them somewhere in the house for the children to find when they wake up in the morning.
(Taken from Wikipedia)

Immage taken from Google Immage:

Handout 1

If I have to think of writing on the Internet something that is not necessarily ‘derived from academic work’ what comes to mind are Instant messages, Chats, Personal Blogs. Advertisements, newspapers articles and some websites and blogs might have an academic support on the basis of their purpose. If I find the advertisement of a cosmetic on the Web I have to consider what there is behind it. First of all, the advertised product aims to a specific share of sales leads and it is put on the market after a in-depth market analysis and research. I think that nothing is done by chance, indeed there is always a market strategy or a clear purpose, even in a tabloid.
It is not easy to judge if the content of something found on the Web is reliable or not. There are for instance some well written tabloids that offer news that seem being true and having certain references. At first sight, readers can be deceived by the big amount of information found on the Internet. However, there are some aspects to take into account such as who is the author. Only using “Google” it is easy to find if the information has been written by an expert or an anonymous. Anyway, also articles published by specialists can be worthless and without reliability. Therefore, a second step to see if the source found is trustworthy is to check where it was published. Did it appear on a academic journal, on a scientific website or newspaper? Then, when was it published? This is an important question in order to see if the information is updated. Finally, it is of significance to find the purpose of the information found. On the basis of these four questions it becomes easier to judge reliable or not the content of an information.
In spite this, there is another aspect to consider that is the concept of “scholarly”. Not all information on the Web are scholar even if written and published by learned persons.
Scholarly journals always cite their sources in the form of footnotes or bibliographies. The affiliations of authors is written at the bottom of the first page and the language is that of the discipline covered. The main purpose of scholarly journals is to report an original research or study and to make it available. An example of scholarly journal is the “American Economic Review”.
However, there are also substantive news periodicals and the "Economist” is an example. The aim of these kind of periodicals is that of bring updated information to a broad audience. The language fits for any educated audience and sometimes they cite also sources. Furthermore, there are popular periodicals such as “Vogue”, where they rarely cite sources. The language is very simple and it aims to a minimal education level. The content is very poor and their purpose is to sell products. Finally, there are sensational periodicals such as the “Weekly Worlds News”. They appear with the newspaper format and the language used is very elementary and the main purpose is to arouse curiosity.
I found these information on this Website.

Task:

1) Surfing the Internet I found a really interesting book “Political Persuaders”, written by By Dan D. Nimmo, scholar and teacher, who worked hard in the field of political communication, leaving a legacy of fifty years of scholarships and giving the basis of how to study political communication. He wrote this book, which is considered the ur-text of political communication.
The Author collaborated with the Research Center of the University of Missouri at Columbia, with Roy Pfautch of Civic Service, with Michael W. Mansfield, who shared with him information about public relations in Texas and with James L. Rose, who gave a detailed description about vote delivery in local and state wide elections. Important was also the support of Peter Grenquist and Roger Emblen of Prentice- Hall and Mrs. Janet Hughes for her editorial assistance.

3) The purpose of this book was of bringing together the results of individual campaign and campaigning techniques. The impact of mass media in political campaign. What affected the changing of elections in 1970s .

4) This research book was published in 1970 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The work originated around 1964-1969, when Lyndon Johnson won elections (1964), Martin Luther King and R.F. Kennedy were assassinated (1968), Richard Nixon remerged in Republican Politics.

5) “Political Persuaders” was first of all a case study research on specific presidential, state-wide and local campaigns. References appear in footnotes. Moreover, it was a national wide and state-wide opinion surveys of voting behaviour and media exposure. What is more, there are references of experimental findings about the impact of political communications on attitude change and perceptual shifts. Some of these findings are based on interviews carried out by Professor Dan Nimmo in 1967-1969. The assertions based on these interviews have no references in order to protect the informants’ anonymity. Summing up, this research was both a quantitative and a qualitative study.

6)In my view, it was small scale, as Mr. Dan Nimmo was the first, who studied the impact of mass-media in political campaign and how these new means of communication affected negatively the system of political elections. The author didn’t research using the Internet, as the book was published in 1970, but using the Research Center of the University of Missouri at Columbia, the Civic Center and collaborating with researchers, who shared with him information about public relation in Texas and information about vote delivery in local and state wide elections.

8) The findings were about the impact of political communications on attitude change and perception shifts. Some of these findings are based on interviews carried out in 1967-69.

9) A conclusion drawn in the book was that “campaign technology is a threat to the democratic system”. I think it is true as the use of mass media was useful for political campaigns but they were ill-used. If I think to the Italian elections, mass-media have overused and Politicians have shown to be more interested on gaining power and fame instead of devoting themselves to the welfare state. Indeed, mass-media has progressively led to a decline in values in the democratic system and I strongly believe, it is necessary to check and supervise their use.



In order to answer the questions of e-tivity 6 I read in-depth the preface and the introduction of the Transaction Edition of "Political Persuaders". Unfortunately, I didn’t found suitable answers to points 2/7/10. Some weeks ago we studied how to find out if an information is reliable or not, using some questions I found again in this week task. Anyway, those listed in e-tivity 6 are more detailed, as this time we had to test with more accuracy, if academic researches are well-written and contain all information we need. Not all academic researches are up-dated and comprehensive. Some are not thorough and are in somehow a repetition of former studies. The book I choose was the ur-research in the field of political communication and I would like to cite what David L. Swanson -Professor of Speech Communication and Associate Provost of the University of Illinois- wrote in Memoriam of Prof. Nimmo: “In his work, Dan steadily expanded the field’s understanding of political communication and of how it could be productively studied. With each new contribution, he showed how political communication in whatever form derived from and expressed essential features of the human condition; he demonstrated how application of concepts from other fields bring to light important features of political communication that others had not noticed; and he showed in every work the great importance of grounding contemporary studies in a thorough knowledge of relevant social, political, intellectual, and literary history” ( Article: "Dan Nimmo’s Legacy to Political Communication").


In conclusion, I decided to keep track of the sources I found using Delicious and I must admit that answer to the list of questions helped me to read more critically every kind of research article I find.



To decide if claims are reliable ask yourself:

• Are the credentials of the author verifiable? (e.g. are they affiliated with a university or established
research organization or government department?) Mr. Dan was a scholar and a teacher and to support its credential I found this article written in his Memoriam.
• What methods were used to gather and analyse the data? Interviews, study researches, surveys and experimental findings.
• Can the ‘facts’ be checked? Facts can be checked on the basis of historical events that affected the publication of “Political Persuaders”. Everything is explained in the Introduction to The Transaction Edition. Anyway, what Prof. Dan studied was carried on afterwards by other students, professors and researchers.
• How do the claims made compare with other research on this topic? Prof. Dan was the first one who started researching new campaign technologies, campaign management, the new uses of voter research, the tactics of persuading voters in the new campaign environment, and the effects of new modes of campaign persuasion. After his publications his students and colleagues required to carry on his studies in order to find how the field of political communication developed and changed.

To recognise assumptions, ask yourself:

• Who is the audience for this text (article/book etc.)? Expert audience.
• Is the motivation for the writing clear? Yes, the writer wanted to stress how impact of mass media affected political campaigns.
• Have assumptions been clearly stated? I believe the author tried to describe clearly what his intent was. Indeed, he collected material through study researches, experimental findings, interviews and surveys, in order to be as much effective as possible.
• Has the author ignored some other possible points of view? If so, why do you think they have? I think the author was exhaustive and he didn’t ignored anything. Indeed, he was the first researcher, who tried to deal with this topic. After the publication of “Political Persuaders” lots of researchers started to develop and to study in more detail this subject matter.

E-tivity 6

In class we discuss the importance of respecting IPR and of avoiding Plagiarism that is "the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one's own original work"(Wikipedia). Some useful tecnics are for example the attribution, the direct quotation and reference, the paraphrase and reference, the summary and reference and the use of links.

Very important is the style used to write citations. The following list contains the essential features of a good citation.

_ Author's name and surname;

_ Date of publication;

_ Title of book/article/journal/chapter/ed.book/title of blogpost;

_ Editor's name (in the case of an edited book);

_ Pages of chapter or journal article;

_ Place of publication;

_ Publisher;

_ Url and date visited.

I learned that Plagiarism is considered as achademic dishonesty at University and it is punished with expulsion or academic censure. Moreover, there is a slighlty difference between plagiarism and copyright violation. The first one is an act of false claim of autorship, whereas the second one is the infringment of the rights of a copyright holder, when material protected by copyright is used without consent.
In my view it is not so an easy task to avoid plagiarism. Everytime I write papers I am terrified of falling in the error of saying something already said by someone else. When I was in Germany as Erasmus student I had to be really carefull when I wrote papers, as teacher managed to discover immediately someone who had copied and pasted something from a book or an online source. I agree with them as I think that to be original and to write something that is the result of a study or a research is more rewarding than anything else. To respect others and their works is a mark of respect and it must be punished. I believe that one thing is to show to know different authors, citing them with their works and another is to copy them to spare time or to show what a creative thought we have. On the other hand, in Italy it is not used to teach how a student should write a paper and what are the moral values a student should respect. At first sight a students' honor code seemed to be exagerated but it isn't so. It is very important to consider the role of the student as a profession and as any profession is concerned there are specific rules to respect. Students have to demonstrate respect to professors and peers and I would be in favor of introducing "Turnitin" and a code of respect also in the Italian School System. Here is an example of honor code Sarah gave us to read and to reflect on.
Intellectual property rights are becoming even more important in the global world as it becomes even less easy to protect its own ideas. I will try to be keep in mind that there are the IPRs to respect and to be more confident with myself and my capabilities.
I saved on my delicious page this real interesting book about IPRs in the global economy, than I found the official Website about IP and a futher explanation on Wikipidia .

E-learning. Italian Districts In The International Economy

Reflective Blogging N° 2: Critical reading. My specific case of study.

Italian Districts in the International Economy

Good afternoon guys!
On Sunday I finished my task writing what I learned in the lesson of last week. As you already know , I can use different tools to search pieces of information I need. Google Books, Google Blogs, Google Scholar are some example.
I’m learning to use the Internet in a more accurate way, focusing attention on what I need and skipping what is irrelevant.
Last Thursday, Sarah asked us to search for articles or abstracts useful for our thesis. I think I’ll deal with Italian Districts in the International Economy. I surfed the Internet and I found some interesting articles in Del.ici.ous. Nevertheless, today I found this paper written by Rodolfo Helg. I’d like to analyse it in order to see if I can consider this piece of information reliable or not.
Here the url: http://www.biblio.liuc.it/liucpap/pdf/68.pdf.

Who is the Autor? The information is given under the title. The autor is Rodolfo Helg
When did he write this paper? He wrote it on November, 19th, 1999.
Where did he publish the paper? He published it in the Liuc Papers n. 68 Serie Economia e Impresa.
Why did he write it? He wrote it to analyse the role of Italian Districts in the International Economy.
Dear friends, I tried to apply the knowledge acquired last week. Try to do it too! You spare time and in few minutesyu can select and pick up useful data. In this way you can judge the data found and say if they are trustable or not. The paper I found is an autoritative source protected by copy right. Rodolfo Cattaneo is a teacher at "Carlo Cattaneo" University. Here is further link about Prof. Hegl:
http://www.confindustria.it/docixi.nsf/(all)/6DA5F725F8775C2DC12572D5002AE5C9?Opendocument&MenuID=2E32A72C2E23911BC1257126005AD8B2
Have a nice afternoon.
ELE

Reliable or not reliable? That is the problem !!!

Last week, in class Elisabetta and I tried to think about the criteria we consider when we surf the Internet looking for information. Indeed, on the basis of the these criteria it is easier to see if the information found on a Website, Journal, .pdf files, .doc, abstract or citation is reliable or not. The list we made had four questions we should ask ourselves:

_ Who is the author?
_ When was it published?
_ Why was it published?
_ What kind of style, accuracy, structure and content is offered?

In debate Sarah invited us to read the Websites below in order to judge what other students consider when they are looking for reliable information.

http://www.essex.ac.uk/myskills/skills/research/criticalUseInternet.asp#09
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/EvalSrcW/index.html
http://infodome.sdsu.edu/research/evaluate/evaluate.shtml#questions

I agree with the criteria listed in all these sites. In order to filter data found in the Internet, I used to use "google search" but fortunately after the lesson of last week I found out about other also other tools such as :
Google Blogs (http://blogsearch.google.com/),
Google Books (http://books.google.com/books),
Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.it/),
the Directory of Open Access Journal (http://www.doaj.org/)
Online Catalogue of Padua University (http://www.cab.unipd.it/).

Summing up, I can say that what I can do for now is to search for the information I need for my thesis with some criteria that allow me to speed up the reading, skim through and skip over unimportant information. The new tools of support in my research are not only some general search engines such as Google Advanced but also the five Websites I put on the list above.

The Legendary Angela Lansbury Talks about Murder, She Wrote