Landing : Athabascau University

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  • Heather Clitheroe voted on the poll November 6, 2011 - 2:13pm
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  • Heather Clitheroe commented on the file Episode Four: "Starts Serious, Ends Silly." in the group The Unofficial Landing Podcast October 31, 2011 - 4:25pm
    I like ravens better, too - I prefer to think of them as ravens!
  • Heather Clitheroe commented on the file Episode Four: "Starts Serious, Ends Silly." in the group The Unofficial Landing Podcast October 31, 2011 - 9:52am
    Thanks - I used Hindenburg Journalist (trial version). Much easier! http://hindenburgsystems.com/products/hindenburg-journalist
  • Episode Four: "Starts Serious, Ends Silly" (1:08:00). Features interviews with Nancy Biamonte on the new AU coat of arms, Bethany Tynes on all that the AU Students' Union has to offer, and Amanda Nielsen on the importance of knock-knock jokes....
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  • Heather Clitheroe commented on the file Episode Two - "The Things We Talk About." in the group The Unofficial Landing Podcast October 25, 2011 - 8:02pm
    I do hope so - I'm trying to work out a solution that would allow for the podcast to be published to iTunes.   Episode three is live, though! Go the 'files' section of the Unofficial Landing Podcast group. And I'm working on episode four.
  • Heather Clitheroe uploaded the file Episode Three: "Sex and the Ideal City" in the group The Unofficial Landing Podcast October 23, 2011 - 3:45pm
    Episode Three: "Sex and the Ideal City" (18:46). Features an interview with Sarah, a student whose research on the images used to depict sex workers led her to questions of how we imagine the ideal city - and how the images we use can damage...
    Comments
    • an unauthenticated user of the Landing October 26, 2011 - 3:07pm

      I think this is a fabulous interview addressing what "gentrification" actually means to people work in precarious fields.  Sex workers are our neighbors and fellow citizens, not non-humans made for exploitation by "artists" and politicians.  Sarah is so fucking fantastically smart and has really prompted me to think more deeply about workers rights and feminism.



      - AJ

    • Anonymous August 23, 2017 - 5:36am

      ?Developing A Thesis
      Think of yourself as a member of the jury, listening to the lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll like to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have check out too far, they plan to know what the essay argues in the process as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I would probably be."
      An effective thesis cannot be answered accompanied by a hassle-free "yes" or "no." A thesis shouldn't be a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for your fall of communism" is known as a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is actually a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the optimal thing that ever happened in Europe" is surely an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the perfect thing"?)
      A advantageous thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue-that is, what particular assist for the claim is going where on your essay.
      Steps in Constructing a Thesis
      For starters, analyze your primary resources. Glimpse for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is usually a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications for the author's argument? Figuring out the why to an individual or greater of these questions, or to related questions, will put you over the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with the observation-that there are, for instance, quite a few different metaphors in such-and-such a poem-which is simply not a thesis.)
      Once you have a working thesis, compose it down. There exists nothing as frustrating as hitting on the useful idea for a thesis, then forgetting it at the time you lose concentration. And by producing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write down out a final-draft version of your thesis the initial time you try, but you'll get yourself to the right track by creating down what you have.
      Keep your thesis prominent on your introduction. A fantastic, standard destination for ones thesis statement is with the conclusion of an introductory paragraph, most definitely in shorter (5-15 web site) essays. Readers are chosen to finding theses there, so they quickly fork out extra attention when they learn the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is simply not required in all academic essays, it is actually a wonderful rule of thumb.
      Anticipate the counterarguments. Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what may very well be explained against it. This will help you to definitely refine your thesis, and it will also make you think within the arguments that you'll have to have to refute later on inside your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument-it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it surely is absolutely not an argument.)
      Michael Dukakis lost the 1988 presidential election seeing that he failed to campaign vigorously after the Democratic National Convention.
      This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too relatively easy to imagine achievable counterarguments. For example, a political observer would believe that Dukakis lost mainly because he suffered from the "soft-on-crime" image. If you should complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as demonstrated during the sentence below.
      At the same time Dukakis' "soft-on-crime" image hurt his chances inside of the 1988 election, his failure to campaign vigorously after the Democratic National Convention bore a greater responsibility for his defeat.
      Some Caveats and Some Examples
      A thesis is never a question. Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is simply not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead during the water.
      A thesis is never a list. "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a reputable job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect with the essay-a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, together with a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty considerably the only potential reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. All people knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.
      A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational. An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe mainly because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is probable to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. Furthermore, it may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.
      An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim. "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" can be an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a a good deal more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I have to look over further to see how the author argues this claim."
      A thesis should be as clear and exact as probable. Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe considering from the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns belonging to the people" is a little more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."
      Copyright 1999, Maxine Rodburg and also the Tutors within the Producing Center at Harvard University [url=http://jakaw.staff.fe.uns.ac.id/]buy essays online safe[/url]
      - RobertkeymN

  • Tackling such tough stuff calls on literary scholars and students alike to practice what Cary Nelson calls the "fierce humanities": "teaching that seeks not merely learning, but unlearning, that seeks to unsettle knowledge and assumptions." The...
  • Heather Clitheroe commented on the blog AUDIO HUM in the group MCAST October 14, 2011 - 9:50am
    Very helpful! I wasn't sure how to eliminate the hum in Audacity - I'll get that worked out for episode three!
  • Heather Clitheroe uploaded the file Episode Two - "The Things We Talk About." in the group The Unofficial Landing Podcast October 13, 2011 - 10:49pm
    Episode two - 'the things we talk about' - is live! Featuring an interview with Amanda Neilsen, president of the Athabasca University Graduate Students' Association, a chat with Glenn Groulx, alumni and social media enthusiast, and our zombie...
    Comments
    • Kenneth Desson October 25, 2011 - 3:00pm

      Great production values, especially considering Heather's admission that she produced it late at night, at her computer, in her pygamas (we're not supposed to know that). Is there any way to send this podcast, and others, out on a subscription basis?

      Waiting for the next one.

      Ken

    • Heather Clitheroe October 25, 2011 - 8:02pm

      I do hope so - I'm trying to work out a solution that would allow for the podcast to be published to iTunes.

       

      Episode three is live, though! Go the 'files' section of the Unofficial Landing Podcast group. And I'm working on episode four.

    • Kathy Ponath October 26, 2011 - 4:57pm

      Congrats Heather - a nice addition to student community indeed! I love podcasts and hope AU (officially) begins exploring how these can enrich the distance learning experience.

  • Heather Clitheroe commented on a wiki page titled Landing iTunes Podcasting in the group MCAST October 12, 2011 - 1:21pm
    Thanks, Steve! I wonder if AU would unofficially sanction the podcast by giving us some FTP rights (or rather, giving an AU staffer permission; the files could be sent on over). It's not a must-have, but I think it'd be nice if people could...
  • Heather Clitheroe commented on a wiki page titled Landing iTunes Podcasting in the group MCAST October 11, 2011 - 9:13pm
    Aaand...I'm stuckity stuck stuck. When I tried to validate the RSS feed, I get the following warning: This feed does not validate. line 15, column 3: url must be a full URL: https://landing.athabascau.ca/pg/photos/download/85348/   I tried...
  • Heather Clitheroe uploaded the file RSS for Episode One in the group MCAST October 11, 2011 - 9:03pm
    Comments
    • an unauthenticated user of the Landing October 11, 2011 - 10:43pm

      A very good start.

      Some suggestions...

      I would recommend completing webmaster, pub date, last build date, copyrite (even if Creative Commons).  Length is not explicit but useful attribute to have filled - some really good RSS feed applications can fill in the information automatically.  Most of the automation in RSS feed generation is usually a cost item...but I still search for open source and free...

      In addition a UTF-8 encoding would be more universal.

       

      The following code has been cleaned but not substantially modified:

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
      <rss version="2.0">
        <channel>
              <title>The Unofficial Landing Podcast</title>
              <description>This is the unofficial podcast for the Landing community at Athabasca University.</description>
              <link>https://landing.athabascau.ca/</link>
              <language>en-us</language>
              <copyright> by </copyright>
              <lastBuildDate>,    :: </lastBuildDate>
              <pubDate>,    :: </pubDate>
              <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
              <webMaster></webMaster>
          <item>
          <title>Episode One: Whither the Landing, scholarship deadlines, and how to support the AU library.</title>
          <link>https://landing.athabascau.ca</link>
          <description></description>
          <enclosure url="https://landing.athabascau.ca/pg/file/read/85344/the-unofficial-landing-podcast-episode-one" length="" type="audio/mpeg" />
          <source url="https://landing.athabascau.ca/pg/file/read/85344/the-unofficial-landing-podcast-episode-one">Hear the preview here</source>
          <category>Podcasts</category>
          <pubDate>,    :: </pubDate>
          </item>
      </channel>
      </rss>



      - Steve Swettenham

  • Heather Clitheroe uploaded the file The Unofficial Landing Podcast: Episode One in the group MCAST October 11, 2011 - 8:59pm
    Episode One of the Unofficial Landing Podcast!
  • Heather Clitheroe commented on a wiki page titled Landing iTunes Podcasting in the group MCAST October 11, 2011 - 8:57pm
    Very helpful, though I got terribly stuck on the metadata (figured it out - thanks for the links). I bought a copy of RecordforAll - Audacity is free, but the editing is a bit too fine-tuned for me. I'm going to use Audacity to do the recording (and...
  • 'The trouble with names, scholarship information, and how to throw the AU library a bone.'