mercoledì 20 maggio 2009

let's end it with a bang!

When I listen to music I always try to understand the words, to get and to learn the pronunciation, but I don't care much about the meaning.

The meaning, I believe, is something more personal, something that is subjective, a feature of the song that is not immediately clear, but needs time to take some kind of form . If an artist explains the meaning of their lyrics, they ruin that touch of magic present in it.
Sometimes excerpts of a song without any kind of meaning have a great potential. Interpretative potential, I mean! Everybody may give a personal interpretation to it, and that's amazing.
It is clear that this doesn't happen with every song, and that's even more amazing!

Let's start talking about "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay. I like it, but with some kind of reserve. I'll explain later.
What does this song talk about? Well, at first sight... ops, listening... this song talks about kings, castles, Jerusalem...
I may over-generalize a bit, but basically almost all songs talks about love and/or drug! Both are addictive and make one feel better. Pay attention! I'm not talking about the consequences...

I think that this song talks about a love story finished in a bad way. Everything was fine, going right. Then something happened, in a blink of an eye and apparently without a clear reason. He (I'm almost sure that the song is about a man. It's women that tend to leave men without clear reasons! :-P ) discovers that everything he believed in, such as faithfulness, was just an illusion and that nobody around him wanted to tell him.

Well, the part about Jerusalem is not so clear!

As the song goes on, he tries to find some kind of relief in someone who will have to be for him a sort of shelter (be my sword and shield), but at the same time also an advisor (be my mirror).
In the second part he admits in a certain way that he, too, may have made some mistake, but it is not so clear.

The song finishes with the refrain repeated many times and a lot of ooh ooh, too!

Oh, if you have some more minutes to waste, take a look at these videos! Listen carefully, because the first one regards plagiarism! :-)



The second one is about misheard lyrics... Well, sometimes it is very hard to catch every word of the lyrics, but the author of this video did a great job! ^_^



That's the last, but not the least. I love this song so much! I'm really curious to see how an English speaker would interpret this song! :-)

martedì 19 maggio 2009

mercoledì 6 maggio 2009

how can I protect myself from web hazards?

Ignorance is bliss! Definitely... It is true for so many things, unfortunately! One's life goes on so peacefully until they realize that the World is evil and everyone around them is bad... Am I too pessimistic? Well, I strongly believe that too many times we are so powerless against the events that gets in our road.

Sometimes I think about what happens to the information I put on the Internet, but after awhile I rather stop my mind from wondering. The only solution is assume good faith from the Entity who rules over the Web. It is clear that if one surfs over peaceful waters, maybe staying away from "nasty" sites [oh, yes... the sirens of the Web! ;-) ] they can consider themselves quite safe. I want to underline the word "quite". There are sites more reliable than others, sites that we can trust, always assuming good faith on their part anyway.

What's the solution? To self exile myself in my beautiful (and full accessorized) ivory tower? Mmmh... I really think this action is completely useless. The fact that one avoid the Internet doesn't prevent them from being victim of it! A friend of mine doesn't use the computer at all, but he is a celebrity on the Web (and I'm the reason for his success!).

The only good solution (that is not really a solution, after all) is to surf the Web carefully, maybe with the help of a good anti-virus, a good anti-spyware, a good anti-malaware... a lot of anti-something, to sum up!
I pointed out that this is not a real solution, since I myself became victim of the evil web... Right one hour ago a technician called to tell me my PC didn't work properly because of a virus...

What shall I say? Surf safe... and may God guide your mouse! ;-)

domenica 3 maggio 2009

reference corrections and google docs

Bibliography is a recurrent nightmare for me! Well, I'm joking (for real?), but I have to say that this week the task wasn't effortless. We had to correct a list of references according to the APA. It is not a matter of confusion, rather a matter of details: APA style is so precise and detailed! There are so many different ways to write an entry in a reference list!

I had some problems correcting my references. I tried to google the name of one of the authors of the list, a certain Karain, but the search engine gave me no results! Well, except the name of a cave in Turkey (or somewhere in the Middle East, God knows!), but I guess it's not what I was looking for! :-(

Google Docs seems to me quite useful. I still have not tried it properly, since I just started clicking here and there trying to discover more about this tool. Up to now, anyway, I consider it better than Wiki, for it is "private" (you can access it only by logging in) and for you have not to wait for someone to finish their work before starting editing the document. Uhm... I guess I could explain better the second reason! I meant that it is better because the shared document can be edited by more than a person at the same time! Ok. Now it sounds better!

See you soon!

mercoledì 22 aprile 2009

handout 2

I have to admit it... I'm still not so sure about what I'm going to talk about in my final thesis. I'm still waiting for a divine intervention, a good inspiration! ;-)
at the moment the best idea that came to my mind is doing something about the economic crisis. it was really hard to find some interesting articles about this topic, even though it is a present world problem. the reason of this lack of material may be because of the difficulty of dealing with this topic. maybe in some month time there will be more. I really hope so, otherwise I'll change my topic.

· Does it follow the hourglass structure?
- the article isn't actually written with a hourglass structure. it is more correct to say that it starts with a general description of the topic, then it goes on discussing different topics divided into different sections.
· Is there a logical flow of ideas? Give reasons, and examples, for your answers.
- yes, the article follows a logical order. it starts with the descriptions of different economic models and its risks, then in the following section it describes the wrong assumptions about these models. The last two sections before the conclusion underline the importance of data, since economics is like a circle, everything returns like a loop.
· Is the text cohesive? What is done to make it cohesive? Provide examples.
- yes. there is a great number of "linking words" which help to make the text fluent. the sentence are not there alone, but connected with words such as "moreover", "after all" and so on.
· Is the writing clear or complex? Again, provide examples.
- eh eh... it depends! I'd say complex, since the article is written in a language specific for this kind of topic! (external consistency, conceptual reductionism...)
· Who is the text’s assumed audience? What indications of this do you have? How does
this influence how the text is written?
- the assumed audience is made of people that in a certain way are expert in economics, and that it is indicated by the technical language of the article. this style used makes the article slightly difficult to understand completely.

APA vs MLA

Well, as I said yesterday plagiarism is bad, it's a bad habit, something that has to be avoided because it is definitely unfair. the solution is citing whatever you didn't write but that you feel interesting for the work you're working on. I've already spent a semester some years ago "fighting" against bibliographies and quotations and I lost my battle. that experience was anyway very useful, because after I got burned I started being more accurate in writing down the entries in a bibliography.
mrs Ackerley helped me a lot while I was writing my BA thesis and she gave me clear instructions on how to compile a good bibliography. I think I did a good job. in my opinion what really matters is being coherent: each entry has to be written in the same way, with the same style.

I took a look at MLA and APA and I got struck! there are so many examples of style in the MLA! are they really needed? there are seven pages full of descriptions of ways you can write down an entry. I really think that it's a good job, very useful, too... but isn't it a bit exaggerated? I do believe that so many (slighty, it has to be said!) different manners of writing down a list of quotation may be confusing. I don't want to limit anyone's inventive or choice, but personally I got lost among all those charts!
While MLA focuses more on bibliographies (it dwells just a little on in-text quotations), APA is more generic and discusses on different kind of quotations and references. APA is also less schematic in its explanation, but it is divided in different sections.
APA goes beyond the simple explanation on how to point out the source someone uses, but it gives also suggestion on how to adapt or fix the quotation to make them look better in the whole text. The amount of information in these pages is huge and I think it is better organised thanks to the hypertextual links that take you straight to the point you need.

martedì 21 aprile 2009

plagiarism

good afternoon everybody. today's topic is plagiarism! what does this word mean? well, I'll give you an example immediately! :-)

Plagiarism is a delicate matter which can regard everybody, not necessarily students. I have to admit that its concept is not very clear to me. I think that no one in the world is not influenced by other ideas or creations: from painters who belong to the same artistic movement, to poets who use the same sytle of writing being inspired by the same poet, to musicians which grew up listening their favourite band. The line of demarcation between influence and plagiarism is not so clear-cut. For this reason, I consider plagiarism the intention to misappropriate other's work pretending that it is your own work.

or

I think that before publishing some material in a blog, one should always:
-control if the resource is under license or free
-read in what way a free resources can or cannot be modified
-quote the author or also create a link to the original source, even if the source is modified.
But, I suppose that it is impossible to avoid palgiarism, because we tend to share and publish things with a certain ease, without worring about the original author!

or

The basic idea is that when writing anything, be it an academic essay, our final thesis, or any kind of research work, we can not use someone else's thoughts without pointing out that we are doing so. This is worth both in the case of quotation or reformulation of someone else's words, but also in the case of the use of images.

ok! now take a look at some of the blogs of my peers... yes, did you notice? I copied and pasted some parts of their work!
my deepest apologies, ladies! ;-) this wanted just be a funny way to introduce plagiarism.
in plain words plagiarism is stealing someone else's work and pass it off as your own work! it is a really nasty way of doing things, and it is very annoying for the real author who put a great amount of effort in writing something.
plagiarism is present in any field related with artistic creations such as music, art, whatever...

I think it is acceptable to draw on someone else's work, but I want to underline it! draw on! not copy and paste. it is clear that two person may have the same opinion about something, but come on, please!!! there are so many way to express it! can't you use different words to say it instead of stealing it? you can, at least, cite the source of a very good sentence if you want! I would be happy to find a quotation of mine somewhere (well, if it is one among my "good" quotations!)

sometimes plagiarism may also be accidental, and this happens (quite) frequently with music. ok, there are so many artists that stole (and keep stealing) music from other artists, but I want to believe that most of the times this happens without malice. the web is full of examples of musical plagiarisms. if you don't believe me (and if you want to have some fun) have a look at this site!

to respect IPR and avoid plagiarism in my blog I always try to write things of my own, to use pictures of my own and, if I need to put a quotation in a post, I will put the sources of the quotation. in my long (too long, maybe) school career I never (I swear!) copied during examinations, texts, exams, quizzes and things like these (also because I'm not good at it) and I'm not planning to do it now.

during last lesson I learned about the existence of Fairshare, a very useful tool to find out if someone copied your own work. it is used by some teachers to check their students' works.

[the blog excerpts at the beginning of this post are from Francesca's blog (red), Sarah's (green) and Valentina's (orange)... I hope they're not bothered! :-P ]

domenica 5 aprile 2009

evaluating sources

good evening... my computer has blown up... I'm so sorry! :-( so now I have to use one of my friends' computer! thanks a lot!
well, this week we discussed of how to evaluate the sources we find surfing the web. it's not an easy task to do!
during the lesson we formed groups and tried to list down what really matters when we're dealing with the different pieces of information we find on the web. putting together all the ideas, we ended up with a quite satisfying list of criteria useful to find out if a source is really reliable.
the reliability of a source depends on the author who wrote it, on the web site in which it is published and on the fact that there are someone responsible for the site in which the information is found, for example. these are just some examples among the entries in the list we wrote down.
after discussing these criteria, the professor told us how to use effectively different search tools on the Internet. we have been invited to use google books, google scholar and google blogs to make more specific search than using only google (even using advanced search). these search engines are focused on finding specific kinds of URLs. I think I'll exploit these tools when the time to write my thesis will come...
extra information: I love scribd! :-)

domenica 29 marzo 2009

a delicious post

hi everybody!
I know, it's late at night, but it's not my fault! where I live we have some problems with ADSL connection. It doesn't work very well lately. the connection comes and goes at his/her will (is the connection masculine or feminine? God knows...)
I have to talk about del.icio.us
well, I must admit that this site amazed me! really!!! it is very useful, far better than google! preciser and more direct to what you search. very, very useful! I'll surely keep on using it even after this course! I discovered a very effective way for searching whatever I look for!
delicious... I have to remember this name!
among the site visited by my peer in my group I choose http://www.usingenglish.com/ because I found it very useful for every English learner. it is divided in different sections, each of them covering different topics. I found the section about idioms really interesting. I'm very fond of idioms. I love them in my native language and i like to find some kind of correspondent in the different language I study. lately I was looking for some translation of Italian idioms such as "chiodo scaccia chiodo" and things like that, and I was struck by the way other cultures convey the same idea.
also the other sections are really interesting (phrasal verbs, irregular verb list...), and I think that the peer that chose this site has chosen very well!
I just took a quick peep of the whole site, but I think I'll exploit it better in short!
see you soon, good night! sweet dreams...

domenica 22 marzo 2009

reflecting blog post

I think that learning a language is a never-ending process. You never stop learning something new about a language, even your own mother tongue! If someone stops training their language skills, sooner or later their knowledge will fade in their memory. This is what happened with my knowledge of Spanish. Unfortunately I didn't manage to keep it fresh, to speak it with some Spanish native speaker, so now I realize that I'm not at the level I used to be some years ago. I'm not worried, anyway, since I do believe that, in a certain way, speaking a language is like riding a bike. The core knowledge of a language remains asleep in our subconscious, I think. This happened to me for German. Well, I must admit that I still have many difficulties in speaking or writing good German, but I feel like something remained in my mind since the Primary School.
As regard English, my target is to improve all aspects of my skills. I'll never be as good as a native speaker, but I want to get as close as possible to that level. I guess that with this blog activities I'll manage to improve my written skills and my reading skills. For conversation and listening I'll have to exploit any chance during lesson.
Up to now I found some interesting blogs in the blogosphere... Let's see if I manage to learn something by reading them!

See you soon...
Keep on blogging in the free world...

mercoledì 11 marzo 2009

about blogging

This is not my first experience with blogs! I've got a personal blog (very poor and not updated for... uhm... a couple of years I guess...) and a blog I share with some friends of mine where everyone is free to write everything that crosses their minds.

Up to now I felt blogs like something frivolous and "made for fun". I hope this new experience will make me discover new things about this huge world. I think that the fact that everyone may run a blog (me included!) makes harder to understand if what you read is reliable. I believe that everything written in a blog has to be checked in some way. In the last years blogs had a great success, they have been felt as an alternative source of information and for this reason many people trust them completely.
One aspect that interest me a lot is the style in which the blogs are written. Many blogs, being written by common people, are written in a very colloquial way. This kind of language is hard to find in books or newspapers, so I think that blogs are a good source for this kind of feature.

Let's see what happens!
Let's go blogging...

welcome

Hi everybody, and welcome! This is my brand new blog. I hope it will be more useful than the previous ones I created some time ago! Let's see what will happen! Feel free to leave comments, give advice and opinions!
See you soon!
Mario