kobieta's blog

Despite the many things to talk about and think over on the topic of graphic novels and spacetime and panels, I find myself recalling the discussion from the beginning of class on Thursday about co-writing. Froggies315 and KT were convinced that computers were mere tools, contrary to what Kathleen Fitzpatrick argues. While I don't necessarily agree with Fitzpatrick, I can't define computers as mere tools either. Perhaps, a better way to restate Fitzpatrick's argument would be to say that computers are the scribes, the translators of our ideas into a different medium.  Because, although computers can be controlled, our demands don't always manipulate them into how we want them to; there are times when we fail to give the proper command and the computer "thinks" for itself, as was the case with ayla's picture of the board. It's not a tool, because it's not something we canfully manipulate; but a language we have to be literate in, to be able to input an idea, and have an output of a different medium. The computer makes us do work, by burdening the user of the responsibility of learning its language in order to fully utilise it. Because of this, it's not simply a tool. At the same time, it cannot be a co-writer either because it didn't have any input of ideas. For me, I guess, the distinction between writer and a tool ( maybe an aid is a better word) is not intent but thought. Since the computer is merely putting what you wrote on a different platform, it is not co-writing. It's just a translator.

During Thursday's discussion, I had much to say about the education system and how I am perfectly content with the way it is; in fact, I think I was defending the system. I have come to adapt to its ways, and even dare to say that I have mastered it well—enough to know to do what I am told, say what it expected of me, and never question the system. The thought of changing a system that I have successfully maneuvered for the last 16 years of my life scares me. I’m not even sure I want to imagine a world that is any different—where students can freely do whatever they need in order to fully understand and digest material, where the established roles of teachers and students are broken down. Honestly, using the restroom without asking for permission is still something I can’t do in my college classes; I have always known my place a student and never questioned it, just always adapted to this role. But it never occurred to me that other people can’t. I was selfish in my thoughts the other day when I mentioned that in an environment that caters to everyone’s needs, I will be displaced. There are so many people who have been feeling like this for quite a while, and barely anyone to speak up and do something for them.

I.                   Breaking Away

I am a twin. For a very long time now, I had been vying to be my own separate person. My parents, or anyone else in our family for that matter, have never treated us as if my twin and I are just one person. I can’t say much for other people, though. For some reason, the general public thinks that because we are identical twins—same not only outside, but even inside, within our genes—that our personalities should be the same way, too. This is not the case.

Growing up, my mother always made us wear the same clothes. The garments would be similar in pattern and design, only differing in colors. We always had the same hair, the same earrings, the same friends, even the same face. As children, it was fun being my twin’s reflection, and vice versa. When I was old enough to realize there was something wrong in the picture, it seemed impossible, then, to alter the way that many people have been viewing us—inseparable, an entity that somehow cannot exist without the other.

In class on Thursday, it was discussed that it was possible to be individual, collaborative, original, and using common treasury all at the same time; that possibly, we don’t necessarily always have to classify any given type of writing into these four things.

With the help of the internet, I believe that the lines between these four things will blur even more within the next few years. Coming along this, will be more problems concerning authorship, since using the common treasury can be easy, and claiming this thing as originally yours, is even easier. It’s already hard to identify the real source of an idea. If information and ideas are readily available in the palm of our hands—quite literally, when talking about the iphone, tablets, and smartphones—what is to stop anyone from “unconsciously” plagiarizing. Digital writing, in a sense, will also be like a database. There might not even be a distinction from one person to another.

Take, for example, Tumblr. I use Tumblr, and I often find myself “re-blogging” posts that others have blogged before me. Yes, you can easily trace down the original source, because Tumblr keeps track of where each person gets it, but does that really make a difference? When I find a post that I want to re-blog, I don’t bother looking for the original poster. No, I don’t give credit to the person before me, since I know she didn’t make it up either, but by merely putting it on my blog, aren’t I also claiming it as my own, as part of something that is an extension of myself, by posting it on my blog?

In high school, it has been engrained in my mind to write in a certain structure: intro, evidence, commentary, evidence, commentary, conclusion. Since I've started college, however, I realized that there is more than one way of writing. In my ESEM class last semester, I found it quite liberating to write as I felt; to present my ideas in such a way that made sense to me, not to the instructor, not to the other students, and especially not to the oh so standardized curriculum. Most importantly, I found it refreshing that I do not have to submit my writings to turnitin.com, a website that supposedly prevents any type of plagiarism; it even considers copying your own ideas from a past paper plagiarism.  Academic writing, as I've found this past semester, is not limited to a certain structure; its credibility does not solely depend on the number of sources one quotes from. But rather, it is a genre of writing whose boundaries and borders can conform to whatever you need it to be.