On writing and other forms of communication

Thinking about writing styles: I sometimes read a book and love the way the writer has what seems like a command of the words and language. I read a sentence and almost like a wonderful mouthful of food find there is a digestive experience where the sentence hits me with a deeper meaning after I have read it. As if it carried me through with meaning helping me follow the idea and then hit me with a reverberation (aftertaste) of deeper meaning as the idea settles into the paragraph. But it is not their turn of phrase that is doing this, it is how they are using the words like surgical tools to focus, hone in on an idea and how they have stripped away all unnecessary diversions so that they send me straight to the point they are making with that sentence. As if they had used the words to penetrate straight in to my mind and laid an idea there in the uncommunicable realm of my own ideas. This is why I am convinced words are of no use unless they describe something already existing – an idea. I have called this a 3D idea because it can be described from different angles by different forms of communication. (Akinleye 2012). I feel words are NOT ideas. They are part of the tools of cooperation that is communication.

Dewey says:

“The heart of language is not expression of something antecedent, much less expression of antecedent thought. It is communication ; the establishment of cooperation in an activity in which there are partners.”  Experience & Nature (1958 ) pg 179

So there is the idea, and the want to share it that is communication, the partnership that is communicating, and the tools  how we share it.

Next step: so not only should words be there for a working purpose to cooperate (not to augment or illustrate your thinking). In other words – words and thinking are not necessarily related. Words do not have to be the tools we use to communicate. In fact as dancers we know that in many instances a movement or sound expresses an idea much more understandably than words could ever. Mr Mitchel used to sing exercises to us and come up behind us and make what I could only call a ‘grunt’ but it explained the steps  feeling and direction of energy of the dance far more than words. And as we develop, as dancers we understand the steps, energy and direction are part of larger ideas about connection, balance rhythm ideas that are all learnt and expressed in the wordless realm of physical experience (of which my work is about suggesting that this is the realm of life). So if words are nothing but tools and they are not always useful tools then why should you be limited to them especially when you are talking about dance (often a wordless experience). Well you need to use words because that is what universities use and you need to communicate in the language of the University to talk to it.

BUT what about people at work, in the dance field – they are not a University? Yes, good point. What are they used ideas coming in the form of. How do you share in your profession?

So you will have two artefacts of the idea. (You have to have the ideas first in order to communicate them)

1)   the University artefact – words and paper (we know what this is because we work in a university so we can help by telling you)

2)   A professional artefact – this will be??? (We can’t tell you because we don’t work in your profession exactly, we are not there. You know best)

To be explicit (and this is the second time because I just wrote all this and lost it to my ailing computer!!!) this post is about words and communication. And has led to the advice that you write to explain, not write to sound like you know what you are talking about! (There is a difference). And then the post attempts to explain the Professional Artefact of Module Three.

[Point of interest. Image words not being things that represent anything to you, like I wrote

‘Getthy si heffney ard wenty bleu’.

It makes sense but not to you, so it has to mean something outside the words they are just to communicate an idea. But in case they don’t. that does not mean the idea does not exist it just means the form of communication is not working. You have to know what you want to communicate before you write. The idea is not in the words it is 3D and words are only one dimension. That is what it is like from my dyslexic prospective.]

What do you think?

Adesola

Akinleye, Adesola. (2012). Orientation for Communication: embodiment, and the language of dance. Empedocles: the European journal for the philosophy of communication, 4(2), pp.101-112.

Dewey, John. (1958). Experience and nature. New York,: Dover Publications.

House Keeping points

Hi
If you send work please do not call the document CV.doc because everyones is called that call it
your_name_CV.doc it just makes it nicer for the person receiving it. In other words name it for them they have lots of CVs coming in potentially; don't name it for you - you only have one CV so calling it CV for the context of your computer not theirs.

When you are writing a shorter text (like less than 10,000 words) you don't need to spend time telling us what you will be writing.

"I will show that…"

just do it!! Starting like that is just away to get the reader to understand what will be happening because there is so much text they might loose track but if the text is short there is no need to say that just show it by writing it.

At the same time remember to situate what you are writing about, you are thinking about it all the time but the person reading it might not be thinking about what you are doing at all. Start with an overview of what the text is about in terms of where it sits and why you are writing it.

The bibliography is a part of the text. It should not be a separate document. It is the extended information of the citations and quotes you are using.

Hope that helps….
Adesola

Evening Group Skype Session

We had a big group in the evening 15 people! People agreed to write posts about the conversation including on, capturing ideas, what to write on blogs and thoughts about AOL 'evidence' or illustration. Jamie is also going to post a question he hopes people will comment on for his research.

We talked about the importance of commenting on each others blogs and the value of having a learning community so please explore each other's posts and make some comments.

Adesola

An Artefact of the morning Skype session!!

In today’s morning group skype session we mostly talked about Artefacts in reference to Module three and AOL’s in reference to Module one. We had a long session and I think as we get further into the term the sessions might be a little longer, so it maybe a good idea to calculate for a 1.5 hrs rather than an hour. Each of the people attending are going to write a little about the conversations see links to thier blogs below.

I wanted to post a little on Artefacts and I will be posting on AOL’s later in the week.

We are assuming everything is an ‘artefact’ of an experience – this is not theoretically sound but a quick way to try to get the word to mean something more than ‘Artefact means the thing I don’t know what to do about in the last module’ and change to Artefact in the more general use of the word ‘Artefact means an object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest. – the culture being your work culture’

The reflective paper is an ‘Artefact’ from the University culture, the other thing is an XXXX from your work culture. They are both doing the same thing explaining about your research.

Today people talked about their research and I thought up lots of Artefacts for instance:

An installation: Two spaces that you walk through one that has all the added ‘benefits’ and down-sides of dancing in a dance school, for instance images of friends, safe familiar place, tension (whatever came up as benefits/down-sides themes). When you get across this room you are presented with a space that shows where this has taken some people in terms of the themes that emerged.

The other space only focused on the professional goal – the only things in this room would be to do with getting a good technique/themes. When you get across the space you are presented with where this got other people in terms of the themes that emerged.

A choreographic process/method: together with students looking at my feelings across the module. First I felt quite blinded. Then things felt quite big, then they got clearer. I take ‘Blinded’, ‘Big’, ‘Clearer’ my process/my research process and look at how this can be expressed using the processes of American Modern dancers. I ask my students to take one of these themes (blinded, big or clearer) and use one of the modern dancers they have learnt about and choreograph something. Or we choreograph something together with them creating and me facilitating their process. My research was about whether by sharing processes of past dancers this would help my students, so my artefact use processes seeing if the processes of the past dancers can be used to help express something – my process. The choreographic problems and problem solving the choreography manifests is as much a comment as me writing the same comments and solutions.

A children’s book  – as with children’s books I will not use words but pictures to express my adult journey through the research. I am using the form of a children’s book because my research is about children but the information is about the research itself so it still has the depth I had to go into (I am not trying to simplify my work for a 4 year old audience) I am drawing the attributes and techniques used in children’s books because my research is about how I make the complicated world of dance meaningful to children so my artefact makes the complicated world of my research meaningful using a tool used to reach children meaningfully (children’s books). As with children’s books there might be a page the reader can feel or a scarf that pulls out of the book….. There might be drawing, little letter to pull out of envelopes and photographs to tell the story of my research process.

In making your artefact you should find deeper meaning to your research because just as you writing it for the University Artefact you become clearer about what it is so too as you make your work place artefact you find new ways to look at the research and become clearer about it.

That is not to say you do the research again – all three (paper, oral presentation and artefact) are about the research you have done. It is done now/ it is over – now you are telling us about it.

I wrote a paper with Paula on this I attach it. This programme grew out of the BAPP programme so the paper is about first introducing the Artefact as a requirement for the BA Professional Practice. You might find it useful to read some of the thinking behind the notion of the Artefact.

Have a look at what other people thought:

http://amandatooms-peel.blogspot.co.uk

http://mariaranden.blogspot.no

http://www.marymapp.blogspot.co.uk

http://aprilannbrown.wordpress.com

http://www.ambermapp.blogspot.co.uk

http://sarahsulemanji.blogspot.co.uk

Article:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/HESWBL-09-2012-0036

What do you think?

Adesola