Nowadays, more and more machines are taking humans' job on the golf courses. They are faster, and of course, cheaper. However, the best courses are still maintained by hand. Take Scioto Country Club,where I did my internship for example. All the greens and tees are mowed by walk-behind mowers. All the 82 bunkers are hand-raked everyday(God, I remembered so clear!!) Fairways and roughs are mowed by machines, but all the divots are fixed by hand. As I recall, most of my time spent on the course was wandering around with a basket full of sand and seed mix, fixing divots all day long. Is it really necessary to do all these job by hand? Does it worth?
In Scioto Country Club, we have 4-5 long-term workers and 6-7 temporary workers in the summer breaker, which makes approximately 11-12 labors working for the course. Each of us get about $1500 per month, which means about $18,000 labor cost one month, 216,000 per year, not including the lunch fee, health insurance or other welfare.
While on a low maintained public golf course, the "green-keeper" group usually consists of 3-4 people. This leads to $72,000 per year of labor cost, about 1/3 of a labor intense golf course. And this all achieved by mechanization.
The cost of machines can be very high. For example, a new Toro Greenmaster Triplex reel mower would have a price about 20,000. However, to achieve the same work with hand, we need two walk-behind mowers, which is around 8,000 each. There is not much money saved on the equipment. By the way, a second-hand triplex could get a price at about $5,000 and a second hand walk mower 2,000, even less difference there.
Money is saved with machines and less labor work, but there are still courses use human hand to do the job, because definitely human are more flexible than machines. More detailed and fine job could be achieve with hands. This is what superintendents with too much money to spend on the course would think. But with the development of computers and the artificial intelligence, I wonder how long this advantage will last.
Every aspect in our world is getting more and more digital. So is the golf turf maintenance industry. Now it is not that obvious, but we should be well prepared that one day mowers with GPS with positioning and navigation system will take our job. There are already some computer and mechanic geeks working on this project. What should we do then? Just remember it is always better to keep your eyes open, because with the power of the information exchange capacity of the Internet, everyday is a new era.
In my opinion the ability of telling a good story is not only useful for television or radio media, it can be applied to many other aspects in your life. Everyone needs to be a good story teller. It is essential to get yourself heard and have your thought broadcast.
From the radio, we can abstract the two main characters of a good story. First, the sequence of actions. You can "grab" your audience by making them feel like your story is something which is still taking place, at least to them who have no idea of the consequence. You take advantage of the audience's curiosity and make the best use of it by arranging suspense. " What on earth is going on?" is the first commend you ever want to achieve from your listeners. Another thing of a successful story is the "reflection", the answers to all the questions you have laid out. You can present them all at once to provide kind of a mind-blowing/astonishing ending, or you can unveil them each at a time with some new questions arisen to make the audience feel like drifting in the turbulent current created by you. They have no escape but riding with your fast-moving story.
One example I want to present is a famous application currently, called Vine. It is amazing because all the users can only post a 6 second video each time. How could you tell a whole story only in 6 seconds and still be attractive? First of all, the story is presented in time sequence, which is apparent because they are mini videos with no room for flashback. Second, the scene changes rapidly with reasonable logic. Questions rise whenever there are changes in the scene. Some of the answers you can find at the end of the video, some of them can be found in the title. In my opinion,these 6-second mini video posts succeed because of those dramatic changes within only seconds makes people want to watch again and again without being bored.
I think I would like to talk more about why we all have to be good story tellers in the next blog. Perhaps, I could also write a story to see how well I do except for all these theoretical things.
The topic of this week's blog is our opinion about the video above, called 'Annotative Bibliography Assignment'. I do not know others' situation, but I am struggling getting information from this video because of all the broken sentences and strange pronunciations. It is a great video with a load of useful information, so I decided to put a transcription of it. It took me some time. I hope my action could help others who have difficulty understanding this video and almost missed the true meaning of this extraordinary work.
M=Male F=Female
M: Our first
assignment is an annotative bibliography. What is an annotative bibliography?
What does annotative mean?
F: We have to choose 5 articles in our major. They should be
on the similar topic. Then we should have to summarize each of them in 5 sentences,
and write another 5 sentences evaluating each summary. So each summary is 10
sentences time 5 is 50 sentences, more or less.
M: Why do they have to be on the same topic? Why can’t we
just choose any 5 articles?
F: It makes your life and this class easier, because if you
choose articles on the same topic you can use them for out of the course. In
the next paper, you will have to write a critical reviewing. You can choose 2
or 3 of your summaries to compare and evaluate, then you can write a research
paper using the information from all the articles. See, easy.
M: So how do I get started?
F: First, you have to read the whole article. You can use
articles you have to read for other classes if you want. Don’t just read the
abstract or the summary because that is written in a different way than you
need to write for this course. First you need to identify the key problem in
the article and focus on how the author tried to solve the problem. Life is
easier here if all the articles address the same problem but you don’t have to
do that.
M: How do I organize the summary?
F: The summary is organized into three parts. The first part
is a descriptive summary where you write one sentence summary of the article.
Then you can write 4 or 5 informative sentences where you summarize the key
issues or problems and what the author wrote about them. Then you need to write
5 sentences giving your own opinion.
M: How is the sentence written?
F: Each sentence has its own form. A descriptive sentence
begins with the name of the author, then a reporting verb, and then the direct
object. For example, the author discusses finding a solution to the traffic
problem. Notice that I choose the word ‘discusses’ as my reporting word. ‘Discuss’
is a very objective report that describe what the paper is about. Also, notice
that it only takes a direct object ‘traffic problem’. If you want more information,
you can look at the work sheet of the descriptive verbs on the course pallet
wall.
M: And what is a reporting verb?
F: In the first part of your summary, you are summarizing
what the author thinks, so you have to attributing every time the name of the
author, so it is clear that the idea is from the author, not yours. So you have
to start each sentence with the name of the author or a pronoun or some way
acknowledging that this sentence is taken from the article. Then you have to
paraphrase the idea you want to report. Finally you have to choose a reporting
verb to link the author’s name and the idea.
M: I still don’t know what a reporting verb is? L
F: If you don't know the idea of the author, you still can
express your idea about it. Later in the course, you are going to use the ideas
of the author to either to make your own claims, support your claims or show
how your work is different from the author’s. The reporting verb in the case,
is what your attitude towards the claim. For example, when you used ‘discusses’
that means that this is for fact. The author really discussed it. There is no dispute.
But what you think the argument is only the opinion of the author, then you
might say ‘the author believes’.
M: What if I think it’s an argument?
F: Then you could say: ‘the author argues’.
M: What if I don’t agree with the author?
F: We have found that writers often use the word ‘claim’. That
is the author claims that is true, but it isn’t.
M: What about the evaluation? How do I do that?
F: In evaluation, you express your own opinion. Why you think
the research is important, interesting, problematic, whatever you think. Try to
evaluate only the key points of the summary. Don’t summarize again. Only discuss
what you have already summarized. The important thing to remember is that in
the first part of the summary, all the information belongs to the author. Why
you have to use the name of the author. In this evaluation, everything you
write belongs to you, since there is no attribution, so you don’t have to use
any names or pronouns. If there is no attribution, it is your idea.
M: Right! Now I just have to find a topic for this paper.
In the annotative bibliography, I have to first conclude the main idea and key points of the author. Then write some evaluation about the article. The introduction portion, we have to first write a description sentence about a overall review of the article. Then provide some highly summarized informative sentences about the opinions presented by the author. In the evaluation part, we have to express our own opinion towards either the issue or the author's point of view.
This piece of dialogue happened in a pharmacy and we have no idea what is the relationship between them.
The little man seems to have several complains about referring to others' articles and is tired of citing and paraphrasing. The female on the other hand is correcting his attitude by answering each of his questions.
In my opinion, this video is very realistic. Students do have problems like this little young man. "Why do I have to use all these text in my paper?" "What a waste of time citing all the sources." "Paraphrasing is difficult because I have to think of words and grammar forms." When you see students struggling against their writing assignments, this kind of complains is very common and tarries inside their head only to make writing even more difficult.
It is not hard to see the reason for this situation. Those students who have difficulties writing their paper because they do not understand what they are writing for. In their mind, they still think it is an assignment which have to be accomplished. The only reader they expect is just the professor. After they handed in the paper, they will have nothing to do with it any more, like a pair of old shoes put back in the farthest corner in the attic.
These kind of students are writing for the professor, not all the others in the academic area, neither themselves. That is why I would refer this kind of students as an "Outsider". They are not ready for becoming a part of the academic area they are in. They do not want to absorb information by learning different materials and abstract links and variations among them. Neither do they want to develop and express their own point of view.
Why do we write? What are we exactly writing for? In the blog, we write to express your point of view, just like what I am doing now. Academic writing is all the same. We are writing because we want to present our idea in a way which can be shared and understood by others. Human intelligence is amazing. We have been using it to build our civilization for thousands of years. However, this splendid civilization is not achieved by any individual. We are strong because we have collective wisdom by sharing and handing down all the sparks of intelligence lighted in our mind.
If you still think it is hard to write a paper, if you still find yourself paraphrasing word by word, you do not get the meaning of writing. We cite materials not because we are avoiding plagiarism, but because we are processing information from our position.Getting involved, that is the way to becoming a professional.
First of all, I want to make a short introduction of an article I read recently. It is a short story written by Mike Rose.In the article, Mike Rose states a story that Marita, a new
student of UCLA, was accused of plagiarism during her first writing assignment.
According to the author, Marita had some
difficulty finishing the argument on the topic of creativity. Therefore, she
turned into the encyclopedia and referred from it without proper quotation. The
arguer presents fully understanding of Marita's circumstance that she is
writing beyond her acknowledge. This reminds him of his own experience when he was overwhelmed and found himself incapable to handle the
material he cited. In the end, Mike Rose
concludes that Marita came cross a problem which many other students are
facing, but her practice cannot be accepted by the academics and challenged the
authority of the school's law.
Plagiarism, is no different than stealing, as I was told again and again. It is emphasized to another level from my first day in the Ohio State University. Several cases were presented to inform us that how serious the result can be if you were caught of plagiarism on the International Student Orientation. In my opinion, it is astonishing that plagiarism is still considered as a big problem at this academic level.
The school makes it quite clear that plagiarism is not allowed and punishments would follow. Then, why are there still people doing this? The voices you can hear from both the video and the article of Mike Rose are "I did not know I am plagiarizing.""I made a stupid decision.""I regret so much." However, I think we should go beyond the fact and look at it from a overall view.
First of all, can a student be accused of plagiarism without precaution? It is possible but at a very low chance that what you have written by yourself is exactly the same with a published work.It is almost a miracle,isn't it? As the case stated in Marita's case, most of the cases of plagiarism happen when students are referring to other articles. If there is no referring, there will be no plagiarism. Is it possible then? I am afraid not. Once I was reading an article about human race civilization. In the article, the author pointed out the importance of library in the broadcasting and inheriting of knowledge. The library is defined as all source of language work including books and oral presentations. "If I have seen further(than Descartes), it is by standing upon the shoulders of Giants(Isaac Newton)" The nature of the accumulation of knowledge is that we need to gain new point of view on others' finished pieces. As a result, referring is unavoidable. When you are bringing others' work, you should know that you are at a chance of plagiarism and the only solution for it is proper paraphrasing.
Further more, how could a student fail in the process of paraphrasing and be accused of plagiarism? In Mike Rose's story, we can learn that Marita has the self-consciousness that she was utilizing the material from the encyclopedia, but she failed to understand what she is using. What she did is simply bring the stuff directly into her piece. As Mike Rose said, people cheating always have no idea of the material he is using. The work scraped together is just like "little fleckes of knowledge sticking to the fiber of the broom". What is more, the thing you pasted on your essay does not equal to what is gained in your head. Simple copying with out assimilating and expressing is not the way we learn, neither the way we gain knowledge.
In my opinion, the right way to prevent students from this kind of trouble, is not only present them the severe results after they get caught. People always have fluke mind and will challenge the authority of the academic conventions. We should let students know that, when one is behind schedule and decides to cheat on the paper, it is not the professor or the school but himself being betrayed, because he give up the original goal when he first started. That is to learn, to gain, to sublimate, and this cannot achieved by plagiarism.
