INTRODUCTION
Gathering information entails skill, practice, patience, and perseverance. It is the Google Search Mechanism, which is the most universally popular and most accessed search engine, that will be mainly referred to here, but the search methods apply to countless levels of obtaining information. The Internet has undoubtedly revolutionized searching for information whereby tapping information is easier and faster than in the past traditional library search era. Google search tools include the general Web pages, Book pages, Blog pages, Scholar pages, News pages, Image pages, Video pages, and additional ("More") pages, etc.
WEB PAGES
When searching, on the web pages, placing the plus (+) sign at the beginning of the term you are searching for, helps yield more specific results. For example, if you are researching on Sargeant Shriver, entering "+Sargeant +Shriver" will, for example, deliver more specific information on this person than entering "Sargeant Shriver" or "+Sargeant Shriver" "Shriver" or "+Shriver." Certainly, many people carry the names Sargeant and Shriver, the plus signs at the beginning of the word or term reduce on the time and effort on your search. If you are searching for a much less common word or term like "Lugolugenyi," you need not go into specifying the term using a plus sign. But terms like, "John," "Charles," "Kennedy," "wilderness," "Carter," "environment," "pressure," "Churchill," etc. are so common that the search ought to employ ways to gather more specific results. Certainly, a good researcher cultivates a highly creative mind. The more complex and less common the word or term, the higher the likelihood of achieving accurate hits. Also, keep in mind that many terms that may yield valuable information may have been misspelt. For example, the name John Akii-Bua has sometimes been misspelled as John Akii-Buwa, John Aki-Bua, or John Aki-Buwa. Logically, one should search all these terms, and also discover other terms that will yield more information about the person. Some literature lists "Charles" as one of his names. A good researcher hence ought to be imaginative and flexible, in addition to being creative.
Also, continue searching. The end of an academic program or a written article is not really the end. You ought to keep harvesting the ongoing changes and the new information that continuously appears. Keep reading and updating, and latch on to new and more efficient methods of harvesting information. The world is one of new discoveries made, and more information uncovered on and off the Internet, every minute. This is not a static gloomy world! Reading what you have written gives others the opportunity to review, correct, or provide additional information that is to your advantage. Continuously reading broadens your horizon as regards knowledge, vocabulary and grammar; enabling you to continuously efficiently express yourself in faster and more accurate ways. As the saying goes, "practice makes perfect."
Having too many misspelled words in your work reduces your credibility. Misspellings are as counterproductive as poor grammar. Fortunately, spelling check boxes are ubiquitous on the Internet. They make writing much easier. However the misspelling checks only help. If you type a word "their" instead of "there," the spelling tool will not catch that mistake. The grammar check tools on the Internet also help, but they cannot be expected to be 100% accurate. But they largely help in offering suggestions and hinting at you to weigh in on and consider changing your sentence structure. In many cases both the spelling and grammar check tools are intertwined in the spell-check tool.
Beware of over quoting. It may seem that borrowing lengthy phrases from other sources gives you a lot more credibility. However, doing this dilutes the creativity and originality of your writing, it makes you look like a copy-cat. Quote just a few words or sentences from any source; quote the minimum of what is relevant to and reinforces your point; cut out the irrelevant and superfluous words from the quotes. Also, by copyright law, if you write a book that has quoted or used more than 500 words from other documents, you are required to seek approval from the author or publisher of the borrowed source. The sin of plagiarism is surely much worse than over quoting. Plagiarism involves "stealing" other people's written sources and attributing them to yourself. Putting other people's creative works under your name reduces your credibility, is unfair to the original writer, and in the worst case scenarios can be sued, stripped of your academic credentials, and even fired. In March 2011, faced with protests by academicians and the public, German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned after it was discovered that he had plagiarized passages in his doctoral dissertation.
BOOK PAGES
Many books, journals, newspapers, and magazines are printed entirely or partially in this section. The ones that are older and therefore less under intellectual property protection (e.g., 75 years or older in print) are the most likely to be readily available online. However, many quite recent texts are available, free-of-charge, in the book pages. A competent researcher ought to go beyond the general web pages, and into and beyond the book pages. This is an age of digitizing texts, and Google progressively gets better at presenting them, and progressively adds more text pages. Many of the texts in the book pages are quite old and invaluable, but are hard to and take long to obtain through the conventional library and inter-library loan system. On the google book pages, the information is readily available after just a few keyboard strokes. The researcher and the student saves quite a chunk of time and money by taking advantage of digitized book texts. Full or partial texts are also available on Amazon.com
BLOG (WEBLOG) PAGES
The blog entries can yield more valuable information beyond the web and book text pages. But the researcher ought to be judicious here given that many blog entries are plagiarized or scrambled words. Many steal other's Internet work to build up their's just for fun, to build up their credibility, or even for generating traffic for publicity and commercial gain. Look for blog entries that appear to be genuine or are contributed by regular bloggers under their author names. Notwithstanding, blogs often yield a lot of well researched entries and they offer many ideas and direction.
IMAGE AND VIDEO ENTRIES
The image and more so the video button tell a lot more of the story at visual glance. Google contains entries from such popular sites as You-Tube, many invaluable films gathered by professional or regular people. Many sports competitions are available under Google videos, such that you can tell your own story based on what you visualize. Images are invaluable in aspects like science and art, where pictures and diagrams are important. Billions of picture images are available online. Where relevant, do not forget to also click the image, and also the videos button. Some of the results yielded may not be directly relevant to what you are looking for, but might only be linked to a website that contains some of the information. Google recently added an exclusive You-Tube video website. The aphorisms, "A picture is worth a thousand words," and "the camera never lies," largely hold true. Picture and video images also enhance one's ability to tell his or her story and assess the situation in his or her unique way.
REFERENCES/ WORKS CITED
Listing these at the end of the written article, in a consistent and orderly format, gives much more credibility to your work. This is as important as correct grammar and spelling. An article that has references essentially becomes a scholarly article. Many academic and public articles can require prescribed formats. These are many, and some of the popular format styles are the APA (American Psychological Association), CSE (Council of Science Editors), Chicago, MLA (Modern Language Style), the Turabian Style, and the AAA (American Anthropological Association) styles. Listing bibliographies and references, and quoting sources in prescribed sources can be quite irritating; but after minimal practice and familiarization it will not be much of an issue. Ultimately the final product looks neat, and appears as a written piece from a credible and disciplined source.
COUNTLESS ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The traditional library will always be a powerful information powerhouse, even though the Internet has made it less relevant. Interlibrary loan services allow for books and other documents not available at the local public library to be transported from other public and college libraries in the nation. There are billions of documents that are not on the Internet. Aside from libraries, government and private agencies house countless forms of information. Oral literature and information, the spoken word that is from people themselves can be credible and relevant. Any information gathered is best credible when it is cross-checked with other sources of information. Information is endless and is eternally being created.
REFERENCES
www.google.com
www.amazon.com
Jonathan Musere
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Everyday Use by Alice Walker: A Review
This is a story, set in the rural American south, family house in a pasture, in which an African-American mother, "Mama Johnson," who grew up in the early part of the past century, struggles to absorb, understand, evaluate and appreciate the ramifications of her strongly bucolic and dirty background in comparison with a daughter (Dee) who had obtained an impressive advanced formal education in Augusta in Georgia and migrated to work in an urban environment. Mama, in several ways, views her other daughter, Maggie, who is in the comparison the less fortunate one. Her ungenerous appearance partly stems from a house fire that left her with severe burns from which conspicuous scars remain. In Mama's words: "Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to the ground. Dee is lighter-skinned than Maggie, has nicer hair and a fuller figure."
The story begins with Mama and Maggie awaiting the visit of Dee. Despite Dee's being a direct blood relative, the two went to great lengths, the previous afternoon to make the yard, "so clean and wavy." This is a moving short story that illustrates the conflicts between formal education, rural tradition, urban modernism, culture, individualism, egocentrism, community, cooperation, family relationships, aesthetic appearances, capitalism, morality, abandonment, transformation, opportunism, intimidation, oppression, and emancipation. The story illustrates a common American scene, more so in the African-American context.
It was realized early in life that Dee was the significantly brilliant and ambitious one of the two daughters, she longed for the modern advanced setting; in Mama's words, "She use to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know." She was outspoken and unabashed, loved to dress well and display her beauty, "Dee wanted nice things." Mama, a woman whose formal school education was shut down in 1927 right after she had achieved a second grade education, apparently embraces her daughter's brilliance and ambitiousness by raising money, with the help of their church to send her to school in Augusta. Mama and Maggie, must have, on one hand, been eager to see Dee leave the home habitation, at least for sometime. The aura in the story, of her boldness, ambitiousness, and zeal for sophistication and achievement making people uneasy while struck with awe, is very powerful. Dee was a young lady of beauty and sophisticated language; Mama tells Maggie that she knows of some childhood friends that Dee had. To Mama, such friends were mostly mysterious, grim-faced, and they often seemed to be in a Dee-induced trance...astounded by her knowledge, bombastic articulation, and beauty. Mama says, "She [Dee] had a few [friends]. ...Furtive boys... Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshipped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye." The author, Alice, Walker does not mention the father or fathers of Dee and Maggie, although she is strong on mentioning her, "rough man-working hands." It is hence safe to presume that Mama is a single mother. Walker would also lead us to wonder about the relationship between the two sisters. Mama, in the piece of writing, concentrates on these two so much that it is likely that these were her only children. Dee apparently has a certain level of fondness for her less fortunate sister, but that seems to be overshadowed by her superiority complex, by her looking down upon Maggie because Maggie does not measure up to her aesthetic and intellectual attributes as well as world view. Dee is quite outward looking and ambitious. Maggie is quite the opposite...burned, bruised, poor sighted, ungainly in appearance, abashed to the extent of often hiding in corners and wanting to bury her head in the sand. At some point in the text, Mama says of Maggie, "...she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe," giving us the impression that she sometimes wished that the world would swallow her. The fire that burned and handicapped Maggie, undoubtedly contributed to her stultified development and reservedness. But it is not clear whether the bullying attitude of her older sister Dee also contributed to this. We must remember that Dee did read to her sister and mother, indicative of her desire for these blood relatives to become of higher social level and esteem. Mama talks of Maggie, "Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright." The author also makes us curious about the house fire that scarred Maggie. Mama emphasizes that Dee hated the house and seemed to rejoice in it's burning down. This would raise suspicion that Dee had something to do with the fire. But hardly anything about how the fire was started is mentioned.
As Mama and Maggie await Dee's arrival, Mama imagines what it would be like for her to be introduced alongside an imagined celebrity Dee in a Johnny Carson-like high audience show, a situation in which she would get to travel in a luxurious limousine. She knows it is mostly a dream, and she knows that there is some pretentiousness and vanity in such shows, much of it scripted. Mama opines that in the TV spotlight, it is people of such attributes as slender build ("hundred pounds lighter" than she is) and fair-skin ("like an uncooked barley pancake") that are preferred. She displays unappreciation for staring straight into a ("white") stranger's eyes, and she was raised to be wary of whites. She marvels that Dee can look anyone in the eye, without hesitation. It is indeed a new generation of blacks, and more are coming. Mama knows that TV leaves out a lot of reality. She is a good example of reality, and she is proud of her bucolic strength: "In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. ...I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man." Unlike this era, such comparisons between masculine and feminine strength seem to have been quite common.
The visit, by Dee, to such close blood relatives that she had not seen for years, is notably short. Mama and an intimidated Maggie are astounded by the glamorous, brilliant, luxurious attire and jewelry on Dee. They are also awe-struck by the appearance of her, "short, stocky," companion from the other side of the car. Dee starts by uttering, "Wa-su-zo.Tean-o." Although, nothing further is mentioned about those words, some, with some knowledge of African languages would know that it stands for, "Wasuze otya nno?," 'How was your night,' in the Luganda east African language. The man starts with the Arabic-Islam greeting, "Asalamalakim," which Mama, at first, thinks is his name. Dee says she is no longer Dee, but now goes by the African names, "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo." No explanation of these African names is offered, aside from Dee's dubious mentioning that they attach her to her indigenous African heritage, and displace names given to her by "oppressors," this in reference to her legacy of slavery. Walker does not tell us that Leewanika is probably a misspelling of the name of southern African King Lewanika who collaborated with the British. Neither does Walker elaborate further on the other names. "Ngero," in Luganda, means "stories" or "tales," "Wangero" meaning, "the one associated with stories/ tales." Kemanjo is probably a misspelling of some African name, or it is not a common African name. Mama gets to learn that "Asalamalakim" is Hakim-a-barber, probably a mishearing of the Arabic Islam names, "Hakim Akbar." All this is quite representative of the movements toward Africanism and black power in the 1960's and 1970's. Many of the quite formally educated, started adopting African and Islamic names, many times they did not know the meaning or histories of these names, and many became misspelled. It was an attempt at Africanization of identity, and embracing of Islam as an alternative religion to Christianity which was often perceived as the religion of oppressors. Indeed, many slavers and their ancestors have been Churchgoers. The paradox here is that the Dees and Hakims of this world are disdainful of their black-African heritage that is closest to them. Compared to the African culture of the Deep South, adopting African names is only a token of African culture. This ambivalence is becomes even more profound as Dee attempts to plunder his family of valuable crafts, such as quilts (put together over ancestral generations) and a churn handed down from previous ancestors. Dee likely wants to keep these valuables, as tokens of her heritage, as souvenirs, displayed in her home. Dee even belittles Maggie who owns some of them, saying she was only capable of putting them to, "Everyday use," and laughingly saying that, "Maggie's brain is like an elephant's" (also meaning that she has a good memory). Both Mama's and Maggie get disturbed and angered by Dee's demeanor of disrespect, insulting, selfishness, and aggression. Maggie still wants to give in to Dee, over the quilts that she really wants. An animated Mama, strongly declines and throws the quilts into Maggie's lap. Dee and Akbar leave shortly, soon after Dee implying to Mama that she did not understand the value of heritage and that Maggie should elevate herself out of the southern black rural environment. It is in this last incident that Mama gets to appreciate the strength and value of her younger daughter as against the seemingly foreign brash mannerisms of her older sister.
This story is quite representative of African-American social dynamics and dilemma. Of those who look down upon their past, as well as their less fortunate peers, while looking for fame and fortune in the capitalist world that involves aggressiveness, opportunism, and acquisition of wealth. The rural South is slow, family is important, with traditionalists finding it hard to cope with the extremes of urbanism. Many who leave traditional black culture are ashamed of it, but they still try to hold on to it by keeping cultural artifacts, antiques and souvenirs. Dee delights in seeing their house burn down, yet she comes back to retrieve articles that well could have burned in the same place. She comes to visit with a weird looking man whom she little talks about. But Mama knows exactly the man that Dee will marry. Family, and culture is strong in the rural south; Individualism and ambiguity are strong amongst the black educated elite, who in this piece are shifting to the culture of "oppressors," though they quite deny that they are doing so. It is a story on black identity crisis, and the place of black culture and values.
Jonathan Musere
The story begins with Mama and Maggie awaiting the visit of Dee. Despite Dee's being a direct blood relative, the two went to great lengths, the previous afternoon to make the yard, "so clean and wavy." This is a moving short story that illustrates the conflicts between formal education, rural tradition, urban modernism, culture, individualism, egocentrism, community, cooperation, family relationships, aesthetic appearances, capitalism, morality, abandonment, transformation, opportunism, intimidation, oppression, and emancipation. The story illustrates a common American scene, more so in the African-American context.
It was realized early in life that Dee was the significantly brilliant and ambitious one of the two daughters, she longed for the modern advanced setting; in Mama's words, "She use to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks' habits, whole lives upon us, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn't necessarily need to know." She was outspoken and unabashed, loved to dress well and display her beauty, "Dee wanted nice things." Mama, a woman whose formal school education was shut down in 1927 right after she had achieved a second grade education, apparently embraces her daughter's brilliance and ambitiousness by raising money, with the help of their church to send her to school in Augusta. Mama and Maggie, must have, on one hand, been eager to see Dee leave the home habitation, at least for sometime. The aura in the story, of her boldness, ambitiousness, and zeal for sophistication and achievement making people uneasy while struck with awe, is very powerful. Dee was a young lady of beauty and sophisticated language; Mama tells Maggie that she knows of some childhood friends that Dee had. To Mama, such friends were mostly mysterious, grim-faced, and they often seemed to be in a Dee-induced trance...astounded by her knowledge, bombastic articulation, and beauty. Mama says, "She [Dee] had a few [friends]. ...Furtive boys... Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed with her they worshipped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye." The author, Alice, Walker does not mention the father or fathers of Dee and Maggie, although she is strong on mentioning her, "rough man-working hands." It is hence safe to presume that Mama is a single mother. Walker would also lead us to wonder about the relationship between the two sisters. Mama, in the piece of writing, concentrates on these two so much that it is likely that these were her only children. Dee apparently has a certain level of fondness for her less fortunate sister, but that seems to be overshadowed by her superiority complex, by her looking down upon Maggie because Maggie does not measure up to her aesthetic and intellectual attributes as well as world view. Dee is quite outward looking and ambitious. Maggie is quite the opposite...burned, bruised, poor sighted, ungainly in appearance, abashed to the extent of often hiding in corners and wanting to bury her head in the sand. At some point in the text, Mama says of Maggie, "...she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe," giving us the impression that she sometimes wished that the world would swallow her. The fire that burned and handicapped Maggie, undoubtedly contributed to her stultified development and reservedness. But it is not clear whether the bullying attitude of her older sister Dee also contributed to this. We must remember that Dee did read to her sister and mother, indicative of her desire for these blood relatives to become of higher social level and esteem. Mama talks of Maggie, "Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumbles along good-naturedly but can't see well. She knows she is not bright." The author also makes us curious about the house fire that scarred Maggie. Mama emphasizes that Dee hated the house and seemed to rejoice in it's burning down. This would raise suspicion that Dee had something to do with the fire. But hardly anything about how the fire was started is mentioned.
As Mama and Maggie await Dee's arrival, Mama imagines what it would be like for her to be introduced alongside an imagined celebrity Dee in a Johnny Carson-like high audience show, a situation in which she would get to travel in a luxurious limousine. She knows it is mostly a dream, and she knows that there is some pretentiousness and vanity in such shows, much of it scripted. Mama opines that in the TV spotlight, it is people of such attributes as slender build ("hundred pounds lighter" than she is) and fair-skin ("like an uncooked barley pancake") that are preferred. She displays unappreciation for staring straight into a ("white") stranger's eyes, and she was raised to be wary of whites. She marvels that Dee can look anyone in the eye, without hesitation. It is indeed a new generation of blacks, and more are coming. Mama knows that TV leaves out a lot of reality. She is a good example of reality, and she is proud of her bucolic strength: "In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. ...I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man." Unlike this era, such comparisons between masculine and feminine strength seem to have been quite common.
The visit, by Dee, to such close blood relatives that she had not seen for years, is notably short. Mama and an intimidated Maggie are astounded by the glamorous, brilliant, luxurious attire and jewelry on Dee. They are also awe-struck by the appearance of her, "short, stocky," companion from the other side of the car. Dee starts by uttering, "Wa-su-zo.Tean-o." Although, nothing further is mentioned about those words, some, with some knowledge of African languages would know that it stands for, "Wasuze otya nno?," 'How was your night,' in the Luganda east African language. The man starts with the Arabic-Islam greeting, "Asalamalakim," which Mama, at first, thinks is his name. Dee says she is no longer Dee, but now goes by the African names, "Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo." No explanation of these African names is offered, aside from Dee's dubious mentioning that they attach her to her indigenous African heritage, and displace names given to her by "oppressors," this in reference to her legacy of slavery. Walker does not tell us that Leewanika is probably a misspelling of the name of southern African King Lewanika who collaborated with the British. Neither does Walker elaborate further on the other names. "Ngero," in Luganda, means "stories" or "tales," "Wangero" meaning, "the one associated with stories/ tales." Kemanjo is probably a misspelling of some African name, or it is not a common African name. Mama gets to learn that "Asalamalakim" is Hakim-a-barber, probably a mishearing of the Arabic Islam names, "Hakim Akbar." All this is quite representative of the movements toward Africanism and black power in the 1960's and 1970's. Many of the quite formally educated, started adopting African and Islamic names, many times they did not know the meaning or histories of these names, and many became misspelled. It was an attempt at Africanization of identity, and embracing of Islam as an alternative religion to Christianity which was often perceived as the religion of oppressors. Indeed, many slavers and their ancestors have been Churchgoers. The paradox here is that the Dees and Hakims of this world are disdainful of their black-African heritage that is closest to them. Compared to the African culture of the Deep South, adopting African names is only a token of African culture. This ambivalence is becomes even more profound as Dee attempts to plunder his family of valuable crafts, such as quilts (put together over ancestral generations) and a churn handed down from previous ancestors. Dee likely wants to keep these valuables, as tokens of her heritage, as souvenirs, displayed in her home. Dee even belittles Maggie who owns some of them, saying she was only capable of putting them to, "Everyday use," and laughingly saying that, "Maggie's brain is like an elephant's" (also meaning that she has a good memory). Both Mama's and Maggie get disturbed and angered by Dee's demeanor of disrespect, insulting, selfishness, and aggression. Maggie still wants to give in to Dee, over the quilts that she really wants. An animated Mama, strongly declines and throws the quilts into Maggie's lap. Dee and Akbar leave shortly, soon after Dee implying to Mama that she did not understand the value of heritage and that Maggie should elevate herself out of the southern black rural environment. It is in this last incident that Mama gets to appreciate the strength and value of her younger daughter as against the seemingly foreign brash mannerisms of her older sister.
This story is quite representative of African-American social dynamics and dilemma. Of those who look down upon their past, as well as their less fortunate peers, while looking for fame and fortune in the capitalist world that involves aggressiveness, opportunism, and acquisition of wealth. The rural South is slow, family is important, with traditionalists finding it hard to cope with the extremes of urbanism. Many who leave traditional black culture are ashamed of it, but they still try to hold on to it by keeping cultural artifacts, antiques and souvenirs. Dee delights in seeing their house burn down, yet she comes back to retrieve articles that well could have burned in the same place. She comes to visit with a weird looking man whom she little talks about. But Mama knows exactly the man that Dee will marry. Family, and culture is strong in the rural south; Individualism and ambiguity are strong amongst the black educated elite, who in this piece are shifting to the culture of "oppressors," though they quite deny that they are doing so. It is a story on black identity crisis, and the place of black culture and values.
Jonathan Musere
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)