The Right to Information

            After reading, “Priced to Sell” by Malcolm Gladwell, I got to thinking about information, especially educational information (i.e. Academic Journals), and whether or not that information should be free.  I have ultimately come to the conclusion that information should be free, I believe that it is imperative to the future of the world the people, our children in particular, should have access to the information and be free to roam though all the information—the more tools that we all have the better off we are when writing or even making decisions.  There is a reason that the poor are typically ill educated; when a family or person is barely making ends meet, they are not likely to spend what precious money they do have on costly academic journals.  This is also related to the grotesque amount of money that these “Databases” charge Universities for student access to the journals.  I believe that wikis are a doubled edged sword, when done correctly and respected by users the information can be quite helpful and give researches a baseline for their research on the flip side of that, certain users abuse the advantages of wikis in acts of what I consider to be cyber terrorism and purposefully change the information to false statements.  The databases control all the power as to how much to charge for subscriptions and who to allow access to—Some are non profit and collect money enough to keep the database running but then there others who charged outrageous fees to schools and individuals and are making money off of the schools; that money, instead of filing the pockets of the CEO’s could be put to better use, such as donating new text books to low income school districts, sponsoring local libraries and giving then free access for students to the databases, or even giving scholarships to outstanding students whose families just can’t afford college.  In general, the databases are power hungry money mongers who hoard the information and only allow access to people/establishments that can pay the hefty price when then information should be free and readily available to everyone.  I think this would help our education crisis in a big way!

The Rhetorical Precis

      

               

                In her article, “The Rhetorical Précis”, Margaret K. Woodworth suggests that her technique, the rhetorical précis, is super important for teachers to use in all English classes.  She begins by quoting several reliable sources, from universities and studies, stating that summarizing “helps students learn to abstract the main ideas in a unit of discourse” (Woodworth 156) but then goes on to state that summarizing is not enough as students get older and that is where rhetorical précis comes into play.  The apparent purpose of this article is to describe in depth what a rhetorical précis is, what the uses are, its application, and teaching strategies for implementing the rhetorical précis in a classroom in order to demonstrate the invaluable positive effects of its use in all aspects of English and to the students.  In general, Woodworth seems to be specifically speaking to English educator; this is evident by the language that she uses—referring to the students benefit frequently along with teaching strategies and classroom implementation.

Woodworth, Margaret K. “The Rhetorical Précis”.  Rhetorical Review 7.1(1988): 156-164. JSTOR. Web.  20 Jan.2013.

Aaron Swartz

In Kevin Poulsen’s article, “Aaron Swartz, Coder and Activist, Dead at 26” (2013), he stresses that Aaron Swartz was an invaluable member of the technological community, who’s suicide was both untimely and caused by the government’s overzealous pursuit of criminal charges against him.  Poulsen supports his claims about Swartz with quotes from interviews with family members, close friends, and co-workers and then dives right into accusations made by several different entities including, JSTOR and MIT.  The purpose of his article is to demonstrate how the world has lost a great mind and a “half-century” of knowledge with the death of Aaron Swartz and that while he was openly depressed, the predominant factor in his untimely suicide was the government’s harsh charges being brought against him.  Poulsen’s audience appears to be a younger, more technological generation, along with anyone who shared Aaron’s beliefs in a freer internet and “a more democratic, open, and accountable political system”.