Information technologies as instruments of social transformation : the computerization of classical scholarship

Computer-based technologies are often seen as instruments that effect radical transformation within workplaces; these transformations are expressed through utopian or dystopian visions of empowered knowledge workers or electronic sweatshops. Visions, however, do little to examine the evidence for and the nature of such transformations. In what ways do new computer-based technologies re-form and reshape the nature, stucture, and organization of work? In particular, how do these technologies affect a domain of work which is abstract in nature and consists of the evaluation and amalgamation of many diverse information sources?This dissertation reports on an empirical study of the impact of information technologies on a specific class of knowledge workers, classical scholars. My goal is to understand the phenomenon of change due to increased use of information technologies from the point of view of the members of this social world. In order to do this, I will follow the procedures for data collection and analysis of the grounded theory approach as developed by Anselm Strauss and his associates. I employ the social worlds perspective as an organizing framework.In subsequent chapters, I consider the diffusion of a particular set of computer-based research tools within the discipline and subsequent changes to individuals' work patterns, task definition and interactions within and without the discipline. I further evaluate changes in the accessibility of information and the attendent impact on social and organizational, structures. Finally, I describe the emergence of electronic communities and new domains of work as information and communication technologies become more prevalent

Processing Writing: From Text to Textual Interventions

This submission comprises the main bulk of the critical and textual work I have researched and developed over the last five years. Throughout this period, I have been particularly interested in exploring issues of interdisciplinarity for writers and text-practitioners, at both a critical and a methodological level. An interest in cross-media and site-related approaches to writing plays an important role in this. This is reflected in the thematics of the various critical texts, as well as in the fairly broad range of textual modes submitted. As a whole, this work can be seen in close continuity with my pedagogical involvement in developing, from its inception, the course of Performance Writing at Dartington College of Arts. Research support and leave regularly granted by Dartington has been a major factor in ensuring the continuity of my own work throughout this period. Some of the findings and investigations undertaken during my research have in turn also been instrumental in assisting the continued development of our curriculum. All of the critical texts presented here have come from invitations by other specialist institutions, both in England and abroad, to contribute to conferences and/or journals. Many have responded positively to my joint artistic and pedagogical takes and have sometimes also wished me to actively demonstrate these. This is reflected in the discussions and allusions to Performance Writing present in a number of these published texts. Commissions from festivals, galleries, magazines, small publishing presses have encouraged and ensured the public exposure of my textwork in its many forms. Because textual placing and typographical games are important to the arguments of my work, some of these pieces can only be submitted in original format or by providing reference to their active location or as visual documentation. The entire second part of my submission (as well as the second appendix) falls into this category. It represents an indissociable aspect of my submission

Computing point-of-view : modeling and simulating judgments of taste

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-163).People have rich points-of-view that afford them the ability to judge the aesthetics of people, things, and everyday happenstance; yet viewpoint has an ineffable quality that is hard to articulate in words, let alone capture in computer models. Inspired by cultural theories of taste and identity, this thesis explores end-to-end computational modeling of people's tastes-from model acquisition, to generalization, to application- under various realms. Five aesthetical realms are considered-cultural taste, attitudes, ways of perceiving, taste for food, and sense-of-humor. A person's model is acquired by reading her personal texts, such as a weblog diary, a social network profile, or emails. To generalize a person model, methods such as spreading activation, analogy, and imprimer supplementation are applied to semantic resources and search spaces mined from cultural corpora. Once a generalized model is achieved, a person's tastes are brought to life through perspective-based applications, which afford the exploration of someone else's perspective through interactivity and play. The thesis describes model acquisition systems implemented for each of the five aesthetical realms.(cont.) The techniques of 'reading for affective themes' (RATE), and 'culture mining' are described, along with their enabling technologies, which are commonsense reasoning and textual affect analysis. Finally, six perspective-based applications were implemented to illuminate a range of real-world beneficiaries to person modeling-virtual mentoring, self-reflection, and deep customization.by Xinyu Hugo Liu.Ph.D

Technical Communication: Perspectives for the Eighties, Part 1. Proceedings of the Technical Communications Sessions at the 32Nd Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication

Proceeding of the technical communication sessions at the 32nd annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication held in Dallas, Texas, March 26-28, 1981 are summarized. The proceeding suggest that technical communication has become an important subfield and is becoming an intrinsic part of many undergraduate curricula. Technical communication as a separate discipline, however, is relatively new. For that reason, proceedings that can make current research available as quickly as possible are suggested for preparation. The following topics were addressed: (1) a history and definition of technical writing, (2) the case method is technical communication (3) teaching technical writing (4) oral communication and rhetorical theory, and (5) new approaches in and practical applications of technical writing

Probing the interior : style and gender in the fiction of Reynolds Price

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine elements of interiority in the fiction of Reynolds Price, using feminist theory, gender studies, and distinctions between masculine and feminine style. Included are all of the novels dealing with male/female relationships. The first chapter examines the syntax in three passages from A Long and Happy Life to demonstrate how shifts in power in the male-female relationship are forecast and mirrored in what Price maintains are his own unconscious stylistic choices. The second part of this chapter examines the conflicts of three characters in Good Hearts and how Price illuminates their thoughts using a diary, visions, and interior monologues. Chapter two considers Price's continued emphasis on the internal in his treatment of sex, an act that lends itself easily to external description. Price's portrayal of sex focuses on a spiritual mutuality rather than a catalog of body parts and physical activity

Music analysis and the computer: developing a computer operating system to analyse music, using Johann Sebastian Bach's "well tempered clavier" book 51 to test the methodology

"Most computerised and computer-aided musicological projects are written to achieve specific goals. Once achieved or not achieved as the case may be, the projects and their tools are frequently discarded because their dependency upon specific computer hardware and software prevents them from being utilised by other researchers for other projects. What is needed is a system that, using small tools to accomplish small tasks, can be expanded and customized to suit specific needs. This thesis proposes the creation of a music-analysis computer operating system that contains simple commands to perform simple musicological tasks such as the removal of repeated notes from a score or the audible rendition of a melodic line. The tools can be bolted together to form larger tools that perform larger tasks. New tools can be created and added to the operating system with relative ease, and these in turn can be bolted onto old tools. The thesis suggests a basic set of tools derived from old and new analytical methods, proposes a standard for their implementation based on the UNIX computer operating system, and discusses the benefits of using the system and its tools in an analysis of the twenty-four fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach from the "Well Tempered Clavier", Book II.

Strategic Error as Style: Finessing the Grammar Checker

Composition studies lacks a comprehensive theory of error, one which successfully defines error in writing and offers a pedagogical response to ostensible errors that neither ignores nor pathologizes them. Electronic text-critiquing technologies offer some promise of helping writers notice and correct errors, but they are under-researched in composition and rarely well-integrated into pedagogical praxis. This research on the grammar and style checker in Microsoft Word considers the program as an electronic checklist for making decisions about what counts as an error in a given rhetorical situation. This study also offers a theory of error grounded in the idea of attention, or cognitive load, some of which an electronic checker can relieve in its areas of its greatest effectiveness, which this research quantifies. The proposed theory of error forms the basis for a pedagogy of register, understood as typified style, and establishes that error itself can be a strategic style move

The effects of automated essay scoring as a high school classroom intervention

This quasi-experimental, mixed methods study investigated whether students writing development and proficiency, in combination with teacher-led instruction, are significantly affected by the use of an automated essay scoring (AES) system. The ninth grade standard and honors English students were divided into control and treatment groups at a large, urban high school. Student writing was examined for any changes in proficiency, measured by human- and AES-scored holistic measures. A developmental writing index was used to analyze the rate of change in pre- and post-essays. The AES system was further researched by comparing the treatment and control groups\u27 trait score categories. Finally, treatment students were interviewed and surveyed to identify their degree of satisfaction with the AES system; Automated essay scoring systems have moved from their original purpose of rapidly and reliably scoring high stakes testing into the classroom as an instructional tool providing holistic and trait scoring. One area of potential AES usefulness is to provide students with more writing opportunities that include feedback. While supporting research findings that student writing improves if more writing opportunities with feedback are provided, this also supports the iterative process of writing and revision; To support teachers\u27 optimum classroom technology integration of an AES system to supplement teacher-led instruction, an access ratio of one Internet-connected computer for each student, (i.e., 1:1) needs to be provided. System-provided or teacher-provided writing prompts (i.e., topics) can be selected to provide students with AES simulations of the summative score of high stakes testing, in concert with formative trait scoring, which gives specific recommendations to improve writing; No gender difference was shown for the treatment participants from the AES-scored measures. The human-scored writing proficiency and development measures were inconclusive for gender and class levels due to the small sample size. By class levels, treatment honors students performed significantly better on the AES-scored proficiency measure, but the results were not supported by the human-scored measure. The other AES-scored measures analyzed by class levels, the development and trait category measures, did not show significance. However, the treatment participants expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the use of the AES system