Introducing JSTOR Daily: how important is general knowledge?



Thank you to those of you who posted comments last week.  I thought that all of the contributions were thoughtful and well-written.  You certainly know how to write sentences, and I'm happy to note very effective use of paragraphing too.  So let's move on to some content.

I guess that you'll be familiar with JSTOR from searching for academic texts, but I'm a big fan of JSTOR Daily, which features topical and accessible articles grounded in the kind of scholarship that can be accessed through the main JSTOR repository of digital academic articles.  The site features stories related to current events, and at the end of each article you will find links to full academic texts.  I think it's a good way to stay informed on current affairs, and it's also a great way to develop your understanding of the different ways texts work when written for general audiences and when written for specialist audiences.  You'll notice differences in style, structure, and certainly length, but you might be surprised to find some important similarities too. 

Reading

I'm recommending three articles of varying lengths as a starting point.  Choose one of them, according to your interests and how much time you have available, and complete the task below:

10-minute read: The Truth about Lying

3-minute read: What is Jazz Poetry?

3-minute read: The Idea of Good Nutition Has Changed Over Time

Writing task:

As a comment below or, perferably, as a new post, summarise and respond to your chosen article by writing no more than 3 paragraphs including answers to the following questions:

- who wrote it?

- what is it about?  what is the main point or argument?

- how / why is this main point made?  

- so what?  why should we care?

Please include a reference and any citations that you think are necessary.  I'll let you know if you're doing this appropriately or not, though you are VERY welcome to comment on each other's posts.  

Mini-task

I would also be very interested in reading your answer to the following question(s):

- using your chosen article as an example, how important is it for you to develop your general knowledge as well as your expertise in your subject areas?  in what ways can general knowledge be of use to you?

Alternative

Finally, if you'd prefer to use the JSTOR Daily search function to find a text related to your field of study, please feel free to do so.  You'll need to publish it as a separate post, but you can still just follow the same instructions given above under the heading "main writing task".

I look forward to reading your responses. 


Comments

  1. Phillip7 June 2021 at 23:55

    Livia Gershon, June 4, 2021 wrote that that the concept of a diet has evolved from basic conceptual model to a detailed scientific model that incorporates calories as a measure tool. This tool allows a diet to be designed based on the components within the food, instead of broadly categorising a food. Measuring the components within the food allow greater accuracy when controlling weight.

    The main point was made by discussing the history of what scientists percieved as good nutrition. Understanding the science provides a conceptual way of thinking that guides a dieters food choice. If the readers thinking is permantly influenced, then so may be their actions to a more healthy manner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mark17 June 2021 at 13:16

      A very neat and concise piece of writing here. I think you've nailed the content. The only tweaks I would suggest are:

      1. To be more academically conventional, use "Gershon (2021)" without the first name or the day / month, but make sure that there's an end-of-text reference for this to link to. Stylistically, however, I really don't think there's a problem with using her first name here - not only because it's my favourite name (it's my daughter's name!) but because of the type of text you are writing about.

      2. Use the present tense to report the content. It's recent and 'alive'. We typically only use the past tense to report ideas and information if we want to communicate a sense of distance between us and what we are reporting.

      Delete
  2. Chizoba15 June 2021 at 01:49

    Gershon (2021) reports that in the past, several Europeans believed that the dietary structure was centred on four humours which were assumed to dominate the human body. These humours were blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. This is the nutritionist model. Rebrovick (as cited in Gershon, 2021) claims that the perspectives of food choices implications in European and white American society deviated steadily from a structure reliant on bodily humours to that of nutrition, a holistic and an ecological viewpoint consecutively. Ideas evolved when a prominent chemist called Justus von Liebig described food into its constituents which is either digested or consumed for energy. This led to the fading of the belief that the dietary framework is based on individual attributes and circumstances. In around 1960, the Europeans and Americans perspectives on food began to change to an eco-dietetic discourse. This was a result of the criticism of the nutritionist model.



    Reference

    Gershon, L. (2021, June 04). JSTOR Daily. Retrieved from The Idea of “Good Nutrition” Has Changed Over Time: https://daily.jstor.org/the-idea-of-good-nutrition-has-changed-over-time/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mark17 June 2021 at 13:11

      This is really well written, Chizoba. Very few suggestions for improvement from me, but:

      1. "Deviated steadily" is an odd combination of words. Is "steadily" really what you wnat to express?

      2. The correct pattern for DESCRIBE is DESCRIBE AS or . I think here you mean DIVIDE FOOD INTO...

      3. In your refernce, you don't need the specific date of publication. 2021 is fine - the URL takes the reader to the exact place. One detail you DO need, however, is the date when you accessed the page.

      Delete

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