My Notes: A Model

The more I talk to my students, the better I understand that, more than any other method of instruction, you like to be shown what good writing looks like. On the assumption that the same would be true for Class Notes, I’m providing here a model of the notes I would have taken in Class 04.

Link to the Class 04 Agenda

—”Omitting Needless Words” is hard. Hunter S. Thompson couldn’t do it even when he was writing about Not Wasting Words.

—You wouldn’t think anybody could accompany himself on guitar in real time, but the guy playing “Money for Nothing” on his special rig managed it.

—I’ve been wondering “where” to find stuff on the blog, but it turns out there is no “location.” Use Categories to locate stuff.

—This guy seems to think EVERYTHING should be mandatory. Soon he’ll force us all to drink coffee.

—Even though the Hypothesis didn’t mention Consonant Cards, most of us responded as if they mattered. Apparently this is common in research papers: they contain lots of irrelevant evidence. I should avoid that.

—Dominic Lee Tsz King has a special definition for Democracy (that differs from the BBC host’s). We’ll be expected to define our terms OUR WAY as part of our persuasive argument.

—Fireball has a special definition for its product too, but it’s based on deception. They use grammar SO RIGHT they’re sure customers will read it wrong, and they’re counting on that.

—It’s unclear whether God has all the “infinite” attributes of power, knowledge, space, and time; or whether we just cluster all those intangibles together and call them God to explain what we can’t understand. Either way, Professor’s not buying it.

—One thing is certain: gender really MATTERS. Personally I don’t care whether the Olympic downhill skiing events are sectioned by gender, sexual preference, gender-assigned-at-birth, or height and weight, but to the participants, (and parents worried about public restrooms) it’s CRUCIAL.

—I love how easy it is to agree that a shopping list is an argument once you hand it to SOMEONE ELSE to do the shopping.

—Maybe Anne Frank didn’t lie. Maybe she just had two different ways to tell the truth. But I get the point that revising CHANGES things, and certainly isn’t common in a DIARY. Professor is losing it when he suggests that “All writing is a lie because we can’t tell the COMPLETE TRUTH. We leave things out. We decide what’s important. And that should be up to the reader.”

—Personally, I think the cheese grater is art and the bottle rack is an ugly tool even if it IS displayed in a gallery, but I get the idea that VIEWERS get to declare which is which. Professor was sharing his PERSONAL definition, and if he’s writing the lecture, he gets to decide (not what’s RIGHT, but what’s RIGHT FOR THE ESSAY).

—I guess I agree Tim Jenison isn’t an artist because he has no painting skills EVEN THOUGH he did produce a good reproduction. But if Vermeer used a similar technique, which after all is the point of the experiment, I guess VERMEER wasn’t an artist either, and that’s harder to admit.

—This is my favorite example of counterintuitivity. The painting of a breakfast is actually a “painted breakfast” in such an odd way that the words hardly make sense. Same for “the photograph of a painted man on a bus.” What does that even mean?

—Bariatric Surgery for a 3-year-old isn’t counterintuitive; it’s just wrong.

—On the other hand, calculating a child’s age from the day he’ll die instead of from the day he was born completely stunned me. I see how a radical change of perspective makes me consider a hard subject in a completely different way. I hope I can come up with something so dramatic for my own research.

—I’ll never look at the spots on a dog’s forehead the way I used to.

—What’s easier to counterfeit: Barry Bonds’s 300th homerun ball, or a Certificate that Authenticates it? Is there a second certificate to authenticate the validity of the first?

—My brain is scrambled. I need a cinnamon whiskey, but how will I know if I’m getting one? 

Grade 4/3