SIGNING OFF AS EDITOR-OF-THE-MONTH

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By vahri, on 28/03/2009

I've just got to reading Janene's pdf (*reminder to get it into the Resources section*) and appreciating what a useful block of data it is. Janene, was your AAWP talk concerned with interpretation of the data? i look forward to its publication in the coming e-book (any idea when that will be out?). 

My exegesis contains a chapter with similar concerns, though with a more modest focus: i assessed the postgraduate writing courses at four universities in WA. My analysis focussed on two aspects of each course: the course's identity assessed through its position in the discipline-group structure; and the course's professional emphasis, whether tending to writerly or to academic. Writerly courses take a strong interest in the creative product's genre; academic courses take a strong interest in significant research. Each course's treatment of the exegesis was central to my analysis. 

I think it is worthwhile for prospective students to seek a course that suits their interests and intentions as carefully as they seek a supervisor who seems appropriate to their interests and intentions. 

But all postgraduate writing courses, it seems to me, contain an intrinsic paradox: they require a single thesis comprised of two parts, where each of the two parts is intrinsically opposed. This contradiction (dynamic) can be used like a motor (dynamo) to power one's creative practice. i think this means working on both creative product and research questions together, or one after the other, iteratively. 

This rather poetic notion might be usefully accompanied by some practical measures such as courses where a student can nominate proportions of exegesis to creative product along a sliding scale with outer limits set by the university, but with greater freedom for adaptation within the course. these proportions would relate to word length and marks awarded, as well as broader framing issues such as interest in publication for creative work and/or interest in publication of significant research.

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writing courses pdf

Submitted by janene on Sun, 29/03/2009 - 15:19.

Hi Vahri

The paper's title is "A Plethora of Policies" and I guess that's the predominant message about the data in that pdf. I think you are right in recommending that people match themselves to the type of creative writing degree with as much care as they choose their supervisor! But perhaps easier said than done. Also, choice may be constrained by admission requirements (something we didn't look at ) For instance, you may need to already be a well-published writer.

The focus of the paper is examination policies and their conceptual underpinnings E.g. the variety in what is regarded as 'research', and in how the 'exegesis' is defined and of course, the big one, what is 'an original contribution to knowledge' in the context of these degrees? 

The paper also draws upon other 'data' apart from what's in the pdf - namesly, Donna and Jen's extensive experience as examiners.

I don't know when the papers from the conference are going to be published - I guess we'll all be informed in due course... but if you're keen to see an advance copy just email me j.carey AT cqu.edu.au

cheers

Janene

 

Hi there all

Submitted by cacroker on Sun, 05/04/2009 - 13:17.

Great job done in March Vahri. Who's this month's editor? Your turn Janene?

Kate is April?

Submitted by janene on Sun, 05/04/2009 - 13:35.

No, I think it is Kate Deller-Evans. I'm not till June.

The junk comments like "asjKoNLns" are annoying - make it impossible to see if there's been a real contribution recently.

the spammers

Submitted by cacroker on Sun, 05/04/2009 - 16:00.

That's probably going to be our biggest challenge... or Kate's. We need to filter then out before they get up. How given an open membership format I am unsure. It seems so juvenile and what they would call 'sophomore humour' in the US. I suggest that we all come away from avatars where ever possible, although I know the web still intimidates some contributors, but where there is anonymity allows freedom to abuse the site and not be prepared to openly engage with the issues. We should not allow fear compromise a collegiate site and be co-opted by flamers and spammers. To all you alphabetical nerds out there... annoy Myspace instead, you are not of use here, nor do we find you entertaining or funny. (An interesting typo... I initialkly typed merds? Does that translate  as it does colloquially here in Oz?)

not humour, probably not even people

Submitted by janene on Sun, 05/04/2009 - 17:26.

No, the alphabet soup is probably machine-generated spam, not people trying to be funny. If you look at it you'll see it often has embedded links. Nor is it posted by people hiding behind avatars. You can reply to posts and put comments on this site without having to log in. You try it. I think that is the hole that needs plugging. No anonymous postings.

info about comment spam from wikipedia

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 05/04/2009 - 17:52.

This is Janene typing but how would you know? I haven't logged in so I am anonymous.

This info is from wikipedia's entry on comment spam:
Spam in blogs (also called simply blog spam or comment spam) is a form of spamdexing. It is done by automatically posting random comments or promoting commercial services to blogs, wikis, guestbooks, or other publicly accessible online discussion boards. Any web application that accepts and displays hyperlinks submitted by visitors may be a target.

Adding links that point to the spammer's web site artificially increases the site's search engine ranking. An increased ranking often results in the spammer's commercial site being listed ahead of other sites for certain searches, increasing the number of potential visitors and paying customers.
...

Apart from changing the APWN web site to make everyone have to login before posting anything anywhere, another solution would be to require the entry of text displayed as a distorted image that people can read but computers can't. You've probably seen this type of validation on other web sites. Also, disallowing links in postings might help.

Wiki Spam

Submitted by Daniel Zalec on Mon, 27/04/2009 - 02:13.

Since everyone here, I assume, is a student or supervisor in a writing program, how about requiring student and staff ID numbers to be confirmed with respective institutions, when creating APWN accounts?

Daniel.Z