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Alright, here are some general guidelines regarding how we see the grades as we read the journals. Some differences may exist between your tutors, so make sure to check first before taking this post as gospel. (^__^) I’ll be starting from the description of what I believe is a D grade then move up to an A at the end of this post.
I will also try to write a sample journal for each grade letter as well to try to facilitate in a clearer understanding of what the requirements are. In general, the main requirements for the journals are that they appear coherent, comprehensive and concise. Together, these elements should form for a brief yet sophisticated and powerful argument.
I’ll just kick this post off beginning with the most dreaded D grade~ LOL
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Grade D Expectations
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A grade D paper would be one that demonstrated near to no effort in reflection. This would be a paper that not only goes along with everything that was said in the course, but it would also be one that appears to have very little relevance to anything required of the question. These papers do not have much of an argument and demonstrates clear ignorance of the lecture as well as readings. To make it harder to give it a higher mark, a D grade paper would also sometimes artificially prolong a pointless argument and end with no relevant conclusion.
To achieve a D grade, a person simply needs to never go to lecture, never read the lecture notes, and never read the readings. On top of that, they will also need to be completely unreflective of the media’s relationship with crime, or anything for that matter. (^__^)
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Grade C Expectations
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A grade C paper would be one that seems to have had little reflection on their personal stance on the subject. This would be a paper that strongly takes one side of an argument and generally provides evidence to support that position. The problem these papers encounter is that their arguments don’t properly anticipate, consider and effectively address opposing arguments. This makes it hard to give it a good mark because it demonstrates a bias that is easily countered by opposing claims.
Occasionally, it is possible for the argument to stray away from its point and coherence may be problematic as these papers are generally following the format of the questions as their plan. Achieving a C grade requires that one go to the relevant lecture, read some of the lecture notes, and possibly address some of the readings. In general, the author does seem to think about the question but the effort placed into identifying the central theme of each question is unclear. (^__^)
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Grade B Expectations
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A grade B paper would be one that has placed a fair reflection on a personal stance in response to the question. This would usually manifest itself in writing as the author notes different sides of the argument but still manages to push the paper towards a personal opinion. In this way, the paper does appear fairly balanced in regards to the arguments made. The place where these papers tend to fall over is in the organisation of the paper and thus, making it slightly difficult to follow their argument sometimes. There may also be a tendency to argue at too wide a scope in these papers.
Achieving a B grade requires that not only go to lectures and do the relevant readings, but also demonstrating that they have thought about and could draw out as well as analyse the most important arguments from each. In general, the author appears to have thought about the question and it is clear that they understood what the question required of them, but somewhere along the execution of their arguments, they managed to stumble a little.
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Grade A Expectations
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A grade A paper would demonstrate a serious reflection on the issue at hand and manages to push forward their personal stance on the issue. The author not only balances their arguments, but in doing so also effectively demonstrates the weakness of those opposing arguments through that balance. The paper also has a clear vision of its conclusion and as the journal begins, it moves the argument forward seamlessly towards that end point. It also isolates the most important arguments central to addressing the question by setting limits around its own consideration of alternative perspectives.
Achieving an A grade requires that one demonstrates sensitivity to topics covered in the lecture and readings, but only utilises them when it is relevant to their argument. For an A, the author appears to have thought carefully not only about the question but also on their responses to that question and effectively puts out a strong response to that end.
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Alright, so now with all these “requirements” jotted down, allow me to give myself a made-up question to answer and then answer them to demonstrate what each journal may look like. For these purposes, allow me to ask myself the question:
Locate video games in English about women as offenders and as victims. How are they portrayed? See if you can find any other images in the Japanese gaming industry. How do the portrayals of women compare with the findings in other countries (as described in other readings)?
Before I begin, I must say that none of the sample journals are truly representative of any of my views—not even the grade A one. I wrote all the journals with my mind in other people’s heads (so to speak), so you should not take any of these positions as my own and you certainly should not believe everything that is said in these sample journals (there are some clear mistakes—if you want to clarify and “be sure” about what is “wrong”, do ask and I will happily tell you).
Right then, off we go then~
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Grade D Response (Here, “D” stands for “DO NOT WRITE LIKE THIS!”):
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For this question, I have chosen the English video game called Bio Shock to portray a woman as an offender and another game called Mario Bros. to show a woman as a victim. I played Mario Bros. a long time ago, but I still remember it and one thing that I always remembered about it was that the main character, Mario, is always trying to save Princess Peach from a big evil turtle.
Princess Peach is annoying because she is always shouting and so stupid too—why is she always being kidnapped by the turtle? Why does she not think of maybe putting GPS on her and carrying around something to defend herself with? With GPS, Mario can track her instead of having to go to every castle and jumping on flag poles to find her in the turtle’s big castle. Also, Princess Peach should learn Tae Kwon Do or carry around an umbrella to fight with! She is always getting kidnapped, so she should learn to protect herself!
Bio Shock is a more modern game and you can see that because it has beautiful graphics. The game has an evil woman character who has a very long name that I cannot completely remember, but she is very evil and looks very evil as well. She wears an ugly purple dress and her face is always angry and she also has a very big and crooked nose. She is evil because she kidnaps children and does crazy experiments on them. How can her heart be so cold to do that to children? So unforgivable.
I think these two games can be quite fun though. But Japanese video games are difficult for me to talk about because I don’t play any video game in Japanese. But I think that the Japanese are very conservative and women are therefore probably going to be like Princess Peach in their video games. I can imagine Japanese video games with woman screaming “tasukete kudasai” (my friend told me that is how the Japanese say “Help me!” but I am not sure) all the time! That must be so annoying! I will never play Japanese video games, they must be so bad. What video games do Japanese make anyway? All the games I play are English and have nothing to do with the Japanese.
I also think that the Japanese just copy all the English games because I see my friends playing sometimes. For example, there is a game I really like called Resident Evil, but I was so shocked when I saw my friend playing the same game but he told me it is called Bio Hazard. I look at the game and it is exactly the same game! 100% the same! Even the things they say and the movies in the game are the same! I told my friend that they copied another game, but he dare says that it was the English game that copied the Japanese game!
That’s crazy. The Japanese have no creativity, how can they make a game like Resident Evil? Also, all the characters in the game speak English even in his “Japanese game”, so how can he believe that it was Japanese who made it first? He’s so stupid. Anyway, in conclusion, the Japanese can only make good games if they copy from other people. Otherwise, their games are not worth playing.
WORD COUNT: 564
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Grade C Response (“C” for “Comely”, yes? (^__^)):
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For this question, I have chosen the English video games of Bio Shock to portray a woman as an offender and Mario Bros. to depict women as victims. Mario Bros. is a series of video games, but each one always begins with the capture of Princess Peach.
In every instance, Princess Peach is always portrayed as defenseless and whiny, making her the image of the typical woman in trouble. Her name also portrays the ideas of “womanliness” with the associations of “princess” and “peach” as well as her everlasting affinity with the colour pink. All these ideas depict her womanliness, but more importantly, they also convey the idea of vulnerability and non-resistance (Cho 2009), which eventually requires the unlikely male character (he’s a fat Italian plumber with a poor sense for fashion), Mario, to save this poor princess.
In contrast, Bio Shock is a more modern game for the current-generation of computers and consoles. The main female villain of the game goes by the name of Dr Bridgette Tenenbaum and the evil that she represents is quite clear. Not only is she dressed in the stereotype of the evil English nanny, her main crime is the use of children for her experimentations. As if that were not enough, she actually looks evil as well (Reiner 1997)—there is nothing beautiful about her, she has a crooked nose and seems to wear an eternal smirk on her face.
This is comparable with Japanese video game portrayals as well. I have chosen two Japanese video games to compare. The game, Rei~Zero~, will be used to discuss the woman as a villain and the game, Devil May Cry 4, will be used to demonstrate woman as a victim in Japanese video games. It is interesting to note that the women that I will discuss in both games share a similar name, Kirie for Rei~Zero~ and Kyrie for Devil May Cry 4.
In Rei~Zero~, Kirie is the root of all evil in a haunted Japanese mansion. She is the most powerful ghost that haunts the mansion and her appearance actually elicits fear but she is slightly different from the villain as described in Bio Shock because she is actually well-dressed in a white Japanese kimono. In many ways, it is hard to tell her beauty although the game does imply something of it, which forms the stereotype of the femme fatale—the beautiful evil woman (Reiner 1997).
Kyrie of the Devil May Cry 4 franchise, on the other hand, features the classic portrayals of the female victim and certainly shares all the same characteristics of Princess Peach from the aforementioned Mario Bros. series., except maybe that she is wearing a white dress instead of a pink one.
As we have seen, the portrayal of females are quite similar regardless of where the video games are from and certainly, this says a lot about the conception of females in the world we live in. Berrington and Honkatukia’s (2002) study is also relevant as the female as mad is also seen in the evil characters of these games (the mad scientist in Tenenbaum and the viciously vengeful spirit in Kirie). Also, Princess Peach and Kyrie do fit the molds of the poor thing as well, although both were purely victims and did not commit any crime unlike in Berrington and Honkatukia’s study.
WORD COUNT: 568
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Grade B Response (“B” for “Bounteous”, for lack of a better word (@__@)):
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For this question, I will analyse the concept of the female as an offender and as a victim through several video games as it is difficult to appreciate the full scope of portrayals by looking at only one or two games. In general, it seems safe to argue that the stereotypes of an “evil woman” (as found in Berrington and Honkatukia 2002, and Cho 2009) apply to the world of video games as well, although each is not as simple as the stereotypes may convey.
For example, in Bio Shock, the “evil” Dr Tenenbaum may appear as simply evil by her actions and thoughts about the world, but a fairer analysis would likely conclude that she is more “determined” than she is “evil”. Certainly, her choice for using kidnapped children as her experiments to carve them into monstrosities may be considered wrong, but a closer examination of her actions and speech also reveals that she knows that she has dealt much unnecessary suffering to others and is working hard to undo her transgressions—but not by repenting, rather by actively working alone on a solution to return her subjects to their innocence.
While it is easy to characterise her as “evil” because of what she has done, that judgment would unfairly wipe over the complexity of her character that the game’s creators have endowed upon her. The same argument would also apply to the female villain from a Japanese video game, Rei~Zero~, where the vengeful ghost, Kirie, also has a backstory that made the evil understandable.
It seems important that this journal acknowledges the complexities in the reasons behind the motivation for such evil to be perpetrated because the creators of both games have gone to extents to provide stories in an attempt to make their stories more believable. In saying this, the concept and significance of the audience in shaping how content is formed cannot be ignored (Ditton et al. 2004).
Of course, this may seem odd as many people consider games to simply be just that: games. Some are unconvinced that games have any stories to tell or that they’d be any good even if they did. Consider the thoughts of film director, Ube Boll, who worked on turning several video games into movies and commented, “A lot of video games have no story. I did the movie House of the Dead and got bashed and I said, ‘What were you expecting, Schindler’s List?’”
So audiences for video games may not necessarily be expecting any stories in their consumption of video games, which then frees the game’s writers to ignore any sense in the game’s story elements. However, the converse could also be true that because there is no expectation of a story, the game’s writers are more free to explore and express concepts and ideas that may not be available to other media. Critically-acclaimed games, such as flower and Shadow of the Colossus, are examples of games that have explored the concepts of “peace”, “time” and “justice” in completely different ways—both allowing the player to experience these ideas on their own.
Then there is the concept of the female victim in games which has been around from as early as the Japanese sensation, Mario Bros., and more recently games like Devil May Cry 4 and Dead Space. While there have been some developments in the concept of females as victims in games, it is clear that generally the discourse on this issue has not progressed as far as it could have.
Yet, the problem may lie with the understanding of “What is a victim?”, because it is quite clear that game developers are very sensitive in portraying women in these situations—for example, female victims are always treated with an odd degree of respect in games, especially when compared to male victims. For example, in games, where males and females are victimised, it is more likely that the same amount of brutality is not depicted to the female when compared to the male victim (e.g. Onimusha, Resident Evil, Dead Space, Afro Samurai and so on).
Of course, this is not always true as there are also some games that do not distinguish between male and female victims and depict them as equally “victimisable”, but these games are usually those that provide freedom for the player to victimise. In other words, the player is the one that controls the way in which the game’s protagonist treats other game characters and that is not determined by the game’s story (e.g. Grand Theft Auto, Saint’s Row, Metal Gear Solid, Samurai Spirits, Fallout and so on).
In conclusion, it is important that we do not oversimplify the concepts of the female as portrayed in video games because although there may be some truth in Berrington and Honkatukia’s (2002) dichotomy, it also ignores the larger and sometimes conflicting concepts of the “female” in video games.
WORD COUNT: 820
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Grade A Response (“A” is, of course, for “Awesome” \(^o^)/):
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I begin this journal in objection to the question because I feel that to classify women into either offenders or victims completely misses the point since game portrayals are not the simple dichotomy that some may wish to argue. While I will not refute Berrington and Honkatukia’s (2002) two models to make sense of female criminality, I came to my conclusion when I found myself struggling over what a pure female “victim” and “offender” was within the context of video games.
While it is understandable that this clear division can sometimes exist within movies, news, and other forms of media, it is not altogether clear that this is true for video games as well. Take, for example, the Mario Bros. character of Princess Peach—a “perfect” victim with her pink dress and sheer naivety in dealing with the world. Yet, the concept of Peach as a victim is a time-limited argument because in other games in the series, she would assume various roles including Mario and Luigi’s last hope for salvation in Super Princess Peach.
Certainly, a fair analysis of women in the video game world requires an understanding of the backstory as well as context of the game itself. It is neither fair nor objective to take one video game, especially if it is from a series, and then analyse it only within the specifics of that particular game. The same is true for female villains and to demonstrate, let us consider Dr Bridgette Tenenbaum of Bio Shock.
While she has committed what is likely to be the most horrendous of crimes—kidnapping children for her experiments, the game does not allow her to be constructed purely as the evil villain that Berrington and Honkatukia (2002) argues for and neither does she fit into the evil female moulds that were portrayed in lectures. Throughout the game, it was clear that Dr Tenenbaum was constructed as a determined scientist and her stubborn nature led to a refusal to admit her mistakes and work on a solution alone (something which is stereotypically attributed to men instead of women, see Werner and LaRussa 2004).
In Dr Tenenbaum thus, gender only plays as much a part in her actions as an observer would like it to. In other words, any claim that her actions are to do with the ideology of gender is misled because the game clearly does not portray her as purely evil but rather as a highly intelligent scientist that believes that certain sacrifices need to be made for the advancement of scientific progress (an argument akin to the contemporary debate on embryonic stem cell research).
From this analysis, one may criticise my point of view for being uninformed on the concepts of patriarchy, so I hereby refute this point by noting that contemporary studies into patriarchy have moved beyond understanding it as a male-female dichotomy—with some going so far as to de-gender the concept by reconceiving it into what Eisler (1996) calls “domination culture”. Of course, this is not to deny the oppression of females in society today, but rather it is to provide more informed view of what patriarchy actually means and does in society.
At this point, it seems important that I concede to only using two games to demonstrate my points due to space restrictions, but I am sure that any fair analysis of most games regarding the concept of victim and offender will reveal that none of them are as clear-cut as Berrington and Honkatukia (2002) makes them out to be.
This difficulty in distinction may be unique to games however because it is an interactive media form and as more games go online, the evidence of an active audience and participatory culture have never been so clearly realised (Robinson 2008). In this culture of gaming then, it appears that the gamer can not only shape what the protagonist is like but also perform what they believe she would do in any given situation and thereby decide whether the characters they play are “female” or “male” regardless of the character’s virtual gender.
In conclusion then, it seems that I am unable to furnish an answer to this question because female video game characters today are neither “victims” nor “offenders”, “American” nor “Japanese”, and, strangely enough, “female” nor “male”.
WORD COUNT: 718
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Right, I hope this helps but again, don’t take this to be a good example of anything because I certainly didn’t spend too much time working on it, well, I used up about three hours working on all four journals and also failed to proofread them (so you could see how poorly thought out they are)… so… yea… LOL. I did try though…
Nonetheless, try to capture the spirit of the argument and what differences there are in that regard instead of reading it for any meaningful content (I pulled most of the “facts” from memory, so… LOL).
All the best with the journals and look forward to another post on this journal writing series later.
This is the first in an upcoming series of posts that will address the better writing of individual journals. The next post will feature general “feel” for what good journals will look like and beyond that, there will be a post that discusses the concept of “reality”, “objectivity” and “neutrality” to better align your thoughts in understanding sociological theory.
Before we begin though, please note that this post was not meant to be read in its entirety. Go through the table of contents and pick out only the segments relevant to you. Do not attempt to read it in its entirety, since that really will make me feel bad for wasting that much of your time. (@__@) Okay, getting back on track now…
It was without a doubt quite a nice experience to come to understand your thoughts from the journals. Nonetheless, I did manage to spot some troubling patterns that seemed to have permeated across a majority of the journals and I thought it may be helpful to compile them into this blog post for your learning purposes (not that there is anything to teach, really, LOL).
I have divided these points into two major sections: the first is the more important segment regarding the content of the journals, while the second is a more general segment on common language mistakes. I have also ordered the points in each segment from “most serious” to “least serious” in regards to the attention you may want to pay to these items.
Either way, with so many anticipated posts to push out, I better get started on this, LOL. To facilitate, allow me to kick things off with an almighty table of contents, so that you know which parts you might want to read or skip. (^__^)
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0. Table de Matières
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1. Putting Content into Context
a. Re-examining Reality as a Concept
b. Focusing Your Message
c. Rallying Support in Academia
d. Week 2 and the Katz in the Bag
e. Claims-making through Week 3
f. Irrationality and Suicide in Week 4
2. By George, Mind Your Language!
a. Italicising is not for Italians only!
b. Improper Writing of Disciplines as Proper Nouns
c. Differentiating “Media” from “the Media”
d. Researching the Mass Noun of Research
e. Taking a Stand for Stance
f. One to Nine and 10–100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (@__@)
g. Stop Dashing Around the Script! The Difference between “-“, “–” and “—”
h. Maybe it May Be…
i. “Besides” as a Preposition
j. Are Claims-Makers Claim-Makers?
k. Convincing Suicidal Articles Not to Jump
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1. Putting Content into Context
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a. Re-examining Reality as a Concept
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In general, most of the journals seem to be overly concerned with the idea that the media is distorting reality and, to emphasise its importance, many journals conclude by highlighting that distortion as their overall key message. While this sounds like a fair argument and analysis, the problem with it is simply that reality is a very tricky concept.
That is, in order for us to claim that reality has been distorted presupposes that there is a concrete knowable reality that can be distorted in the first place. The question that needs to be answered then is this: What is this concrete and knowable reality that you are talking about? Can you provide examples of this one ultimate reality?
If you could demonstrate this one knowable reality, then you have effectively disproved social constructionism and therefore deserve the highest honours in the field of sociology; if you can’t demonstrate this however, then you need to ask yourself what exactly did the media distort?
Nonetheless, as you ponder that, rest assured that Allison and I will be writing a post dealing with the concepts of reality, objectivity, and neutrality in the near future.
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b. Focusing Your Message
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Another large problem with a good proportion of the posts may have been borne from the way the journal questions were structured. That is, the individual journals’ writing and arguments generally seemed to jump all over the place without any consistent idea running through them. Remember, it is more important that you find the core point within each journal question and address the journal’s question with that core as a starting point.
Focus your message and bring your journals towards the point that you would like to advocate; however, in saying this, it is also important to not neglect alternative sides of the argument because that demonstrates that you have come to your conclusions through much reasoned thought. Lacking any alternative considerations will certainly not help in delivering a good mark.
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c. Rallying Support in Academia
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I will have to admit that this was something I did not expect at all from a good chunk of the journals—the almost complete lack of citations or references to support points that could be of contention. While I will acknowledge that the journals were meant to be of a personal nature, that did not mean that they also ought to be written free of any references and citations.
Rather, it meant that you needed to take anything relevant into account (i.e. from the lecture and readings) and write with those as your foundations. Of course, you have to state your opinions and ultimately come to your own conclusions, but you ought to do so with at least some demonstration that you have understood the content of that week.
Remember, cite and reference—it is as important in these journals as it is in any essay.
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d. Week 2 and the Katz in the Bag
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From reading the journals on Week 2, it seems that many people missed the point of what Katz was trying to say. While it is true that he spoke about the four categories that helped with determining the newsworthiness of a story, the crux of his article was not about how the media determined newsworthiness but rather that there is no inherent newsworthiness in crime itself. In other words, Katz was saying that there is nothing about the topic of crime that makes it any more newsworthy than, let’s say, the topic of botany.
In this way, those four categories that were discussed are merely the elements that made any news newsworthy but it just so happens that they tended to concentrate into events we define as “crime”. Thus, it is not enough that we simply say “the stealing of data from Edison’s computer was newsworthy because it was about collective integrity”. Instead, you still have to demonstrate how this case was enough of an offence to collective integrity to give it the newsworthiness it had and in so doing, you cannot shy away from discussing what societal norm was violated and why a violation of that norm gives that specific crime its newsworthiness.
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e. Claims-making through Week 3
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Another point of confusion occurred in Week 3 and this was likely fueled by an error in the provision of examples (for which oversight I hereby do personally apologise for). It seemed that many were unclear as to what a claims-maker was in Week 3 and I am guessing that this is because of an example embedded into the question that goes: experts, police, claims-makers, owners of the problem, etc.
Indeed, placing claims-makers and owners of the problem in the same list is confusing and it was certainly my error for not looking through the question properly. Let me set the record straight here and declare that experts and police are claims-makers—everyone is a claims-maker, and because of that, one needed not only to identify the claims-makers but also to demonstrate the impact they had on shaping the audience’s understanding of a criminal event.
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f. Irrationality and Suicide in Week 4
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While reading through the journals of Week 4, it became worrying to me that many noted that suicide was an irrational act. I can understand the sentiments on this issue and the argument that the act of suicide makes no logical sense. Indeed, I also know that I am threading dangerous ground in doing this, but I must point people to the body of evidence that notes that suicide is not an irrational act.
While the degree of suicidal ideation may vary from person to person, circumstances could conspire to make suicide seem like the only option available. Most people who commit suicide take a lot of time thinking about it very carefully because they understand the gravity of their situation and the consequences of their actions—more usually than not there are plenty of warning signs as most usually do talk about their thoughts to others and people usually do not complete their first attempt at it (which leaves scars and other discernable characteristics of self-harm on them).
In general, it is safe to say that most of the research shows that people do not choose suicide if there is any other viable alternative for them to sustain their lives. It is because of this understanding that makes it difficult to argue that suicide is an irrational act.
On a side note, in class once we spoke about whether electrocution was a bizarre method of suicide and in this light, I would like you all to consider the recent local case of the Nepalese man that was shot dead by a police officer after assaulting him with a chair (click here for the RTHK write up on it). This case actually reminded me of another method of suicide that I had once come across in my studies into the topic—colloquially, this method is known as “suicide by cop” but academically, it’s “victim-precipitated homicide”. In this method, an individual acts in a manner that they know will provoke the use of deadly force by law enforcement and complete their suicidal intents that way.
Finally, in line with Dr Fu’s note at the end of lecture, if this discussion has evoked thoughts of suicide in any shape or form, you are strongly advised to talk to someone you trust about this or seek professional help immediately. An appointment can be set up with the university’s counselling service, CEDARS, by phone at 2857-8388 or by email at cedars-counselling@hku.hk. For more contact information, please click here.
I do not and will never condone such an act, but I also have an academic responsibility to help all of you better understand the circumstances surrounding this very sensitive and complex issue.
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And now, for some common errors in English that I managed to spot, LOL:
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2. By George, Mind Your Language!
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a. Italicising is not for Italians only!
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How italicising has anything to do with Italians is anybody’s guess, but what is not to guess is that you must italicise when writing out the titles of newspaper publications, journals, movies and so on in your journals. I don’t ever want to see Apple Daily again, instead I demand that it be only Apple Daily. So there. Italicise your titles—or else! (>__<)
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b. Improper Writing of Disciplines as Proper Nouns
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Academic disciplines are not to be treated as proper nouns unless they are “naturally” proper nouns (yes, I said that right, LOL); in other words, disciplines that are naturally proper nouns like languages (e.g. Spanish and Chinese) or names of places or peoples (e.g. American studies and Japanese studies) are written out capitalised because of the type of nouns they are.
All other disciplines however, like sociology, psychology, physics, engineering, etc. are not proper nouns and therefore should not be capitalised. So, it’s good English to say, “I am a student of philosophy and Afrikaans” but not so good to say, “I am a student of Philosophy and Afrikaans”.
I have to admit that this is almost by far the most common English error I spotted in the introductory journals (the second most common error being the previous one on italicising publication titles). (^__^”)
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c. Differentiating “Media” from “the Media“
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While this may seem slightly trivial, there is quite an important difference between referring to “media” and “the media”. Let’s begin with understanding the word “media” first.
“Media” on its own is actually one of the plural forms of the word “medium”, and the word usually refers to the tools that are used in the process of communication and data storage. So, you would refer to the television, radio and newspaper as well as USB storage devices, computer hard drives, and so on in this manner. Singularly each of these forms are known as a “medium” and an alternative plural is “mediums”.
So, when you are referring to a multitude of these sources, you could say, “the media of television and radio”, or “the mediums of television and radio”, but when you are talking about only one of these, it’s going to be, “the medium of television.”
Notice that in the above example, I used “the media…”, which is why I am going to note here that the term, “the media”, must be read contextually. For the most part however, “the media” actually refers to “mass media” which is the transmission of information that is designed to reach a large audience. This information could refer to the news, entertainment programming, typhoon signal warnings… basically, anything that is communicated to you via the various channels of media.
In this way, you are more often than not referring to “the media” in your journals, instead of simply “media”. So, remember to keep that in mind when you write your next journal. (^__^)
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d. Researching the Mass Noun of Research
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Semester after semester, this problem continues to plague the papers I read—but allow me to definitively say here that the word “research” is a mass noun and there is no plural form of it. Yes, you heard that right, like the sugar you put in your coffee and the water that courses your body, research is also a mass noun that does not have a plural form to it.
So, why then does Microsoft Word and other word processing programs allow for the word “researches” to stay unhighlighted as a spelling error as you type your journals? Well, the answer is simply because Microsoft Word is stupid. Oops, no, that’s not what I meant to say. *ahem* The answer is because “researches” is a present tense conjugation of the verb “research” when used with a singular third-person subject. (WTF?) (@__@)
In other words, it’s the simple present tense form of the verb “research”when used with “he”, “she”, or “it”. For example, “he researches a whole bunch of crime stuff”. So it’s not that “researches” is not a word, it’s just not the word you are looking for.
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e. Taking a Stand for Stance
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This segment is related to the words “stand” and “stance”. While they share slightly similar meanings, they are actually rather different words and their usage actually implies different things. Stand, for our purposes, is a verb that means to take, maintain, or advocate a position and, in many ways, it has the connotation that there is a vehement defence of that position or argument.
For example, “I stand with the faculty on this issue” or “He stands for democratic change”. Both examples show individuals who are taking a position and maintaining it with a sense of defensiveness. To help you out, you could imagine the word “stand” to be slightly like the word “fight”—if the sentence maintains the message you are trying to convey when imagining the concept of fighting for something, then you can be sure you used “stand” correctly.
Let us now consider the word “stance”: a noun that simply means the mental position of a person in regards to certain issues. There is no concept of defence in “stance”, it is simply a position adopted. So, you could say something like, “ZiTeng’s stance on prostitution is legalisation” or “My stance on ice-cream is that it should be eaten”. Here, positions are noted but there is no implication of outright defence.
For those interested, in regards to technicalities, it must be noted that “stand” as a reference to “position” is always a verb and when it is a noun, it does not encompass the meaning of position. Thus, when someone says “liberal stand” the image that is conjured up in the listener’s mind is of a stand or a booth that is associated with liberal ideals.
In this way, when I say “I have a communist stance” and “I have a communist stand”, I am actually saying two completely different things. In the former, I am saying that I have communist tendencies and leanings in my intellectual position, while in the latter, I am saying that I own a stand in a shopping mall somewhere that upholds the communist ideals. So, think carefully next time you write, “Apple Daily has a biased stand”.
There are exceptions to this rule of course and I will gladly share them with you if you ask, but for now, this simple differentiation will prove more helpful in your journal writing than going into itty-bitty details of when exceptions occur. (^__^)
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f. One to Nine and 10–100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (@__@)
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This deals with writing out numbers in academic papers, well, mainly from the social sciences perspective—since my experience is in this area. In general, it is good practice to spell out any whole number from 1 through to 9. So, if you have 9 participants in your study, then you should write “This study tested nine participants”.
This applies only to the numbers 1 to 9 however, and any other number beyond that is generally kept in numerical format. In other words, it’s okay to “10 parrots”, “5.5 mm”, “0 fatalities”, and “3,000,000,000,000,000 dollars” because they are not a number between 1 and 9 or they are not whole numbers. For the last example though, I should say that it would be better to say “3 quadrillion dollars” since oversized numbers don’t look all that nice, LOL.
Easy, right? Well, what happens then if I have a sentence that has a 1 and 100 inside of it? Should I write, “Tim believed there was only one balloon, but I swear I saw 10“? Hmm… Well, the answer to that question is “no”. Instead, you simply choose one to go with (either spell it out or leave it numerical) and apply it to both numbers.
So, it’s better to say, “Tim believed there was only 1 balloon, but I swear I saw 10” or, “Tim believed there was only one balloon, but I swear I saw ten“.
There you go, that’s the general guideline for dealing with numbers in social sciences papers. (^__^)
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g. Stop Dashing Around the Script! The Difference between “-“, “–” and “—”
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To speak the truth, this is something that I never thought much about until quite recently, but still, since I do know about it now, I might as well share it. There are, in general, three common forms of straight line dashes in the English-language, each of which has a different length and different uses. The three are basically the hyphen “-” (which is not really a dash, but really, who cares? (@__@)), the en-dash “–”, and the em-dash “—”.
i. The hyphen
The shortest of the lot but also arguably the most used. It is also usually directly accessible on most keyboards.
The hyphen is used to separate words out, e.g. for prefixes and suffixes like “non-partisan”, to break a word in order to skip over to the next line, and to spell out words or syllables as in the children’s song that goes, “B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name, oh!”.
The hyphen could also be used to join words, e.g. in forming a compound modifiers like “hot-water bottle” when it is important that both modifiers equally affect the noun. In this example, a “hot-water bottle” means a bottle that is designed to hold hot water, however a “hot water bottle” simply means a water bottle that is hot.
Finally, hyphens can also be used in joint names as well, with many good Chinese examples of surnames like “Au-Yeung” and “Yee-Kwong”. In some institutions, where databases cannot process Chinese given names because they have spaces in between them (e.g. ZHANG, Zi Yi), a hyphen is used to link the two names together (ZHANG, Zi-Yi).
Sorry for using Zhang Zi Yi as an example, but I can’t think of any other Chinese entertainer that does not have an English name and has three characters in their name at this very moment, LOL.
ii> The en-dash
So named because the “–” is about the length of an “n”, it is the middle length one and is also quite commonly used. (Nothing like stating the obvious, eh?)
The en-dash is most popularly used to denote a range, e.g., “Our lecture runs from 2–4 pm on Tuesdays” or, “He’s always here, Monday–Saturday, without fail.”
Another commonly used function of the en-dash is the establish items that are somehow connected or related, e.g., “They are proposing to build a Hong Kong–Macau suspension bridge” or, “There is much lecturer–tutor interaction in this course”. In general, the en-dash could be replaced with the word “to” in many circumstances.
Microsoft Word (when running in English) actually corrects hyphens into en-dashes when you type: “word1 – word2”. You will notice that when you finished typing the second word and hit SPACE, the hyphen becomes longer since it’s been converted into an en-dash. For Mac users, you can access the en-dash by simply holding Option and pushing the hyphen key.
iii> The em-dash
You would likely have guessed but the em-dash is the longest of the dashes and gets its name because it is about the length of, well, an “m”… LOL.
There are two major uses for the em-dash, with the first one being to express a sudden relevant thought that intervenes into a sentence. For example, “I cannot understand why you would blame me—even if I look like a thief to you—for stealing the cookie jar” or even, “I can’t fly a helicopter—I am legally blind!”
Alternatively, it could also be used to show an incomplete sentence like so, “This is bloody ridiculous, I mean I’ve work so hard for—” Note that in all cases, the use of the em-dash actually implies more abruptness and emotional charge. For example, saying “I would do it if…” and “I would do it if—“, or “I stand for one thing alone: ice-cream” and “I stand for one thing alone—ice-cream” would indicate the same thing to the reader BUT will have different connotations with the second examples displaying more emotional charge in their expression.
Using Microsoft Word running in English, you can have it auto-correct to an em-dash by typing: “word1–word2” without spaces. The moment you hit the SPACE bar on that, Word will auto-correct the “–” into a really long dash: the em-dash “—”. For Mac users, you can use the em-dash by holding Option and Shift then pushing the hyphen key.
So there you have it, some basic dashing for everyone. I am becoming increasingly tired now, so let us quickly try and wrap this post up, okay? (^__^”)
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h. Maybe it May Be…
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This post is about the confusion that seems to occur so very often between “maybe” and “may be”. Though they basically share the same meanings, they are not the same word and they are certainly not interchangeble. “Maybe” is an adverb that could also be replaced with the word “perhaps” and because it is an adverb it needs a verb in the sentence to modify. In other words, when you use “maybe” you must make sure to tag an action along with it, because “maybe” conveys no real meaning alone.
So, it’s incorrect to say, “That maybe the case…” because there is no verb in this sentence. The correct expression of this sentence would be “Maybe that is the case…” because this construction allows for a verb that then completes the sentence.
“May be”, on the other hand, is a phrasal verb that could take the place of a verb in sentence formation and is replaceable with other phrasal verbs like “could be”. Because “may be” is a verb, it is perfectly fine to say, “That may be the case…”. Still, you should note that it is not good grammar to say “May be that is the case…” since “may be” is not in a subject–verb relationship in this statement and is therefore made meaningless.
Anyhow, forget the technicalities, the key point is that you have to be careful when using “maybe” and “may be”, and that you have to treat “maybe” as an adverb and “may be” as a verb. Capisce? (^__^)
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i. “Besides” as a Preposition
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For those of you who had the misfortune of being in my tutorials last semester for SOCI0041: Social Problems, this part will be completely familiar to you because I once sent out an email on different English tips then and this was one of them. I am repurposing what I wrote then into this blog. This segment is about why using “besides” as a preposition is a bad idea in your formal writing assignments.
I do have to acknowledge that this grammar sin has found its way into Hong Kong’s academic circles as well, but make sure to stay far away from this mistake because using “besides” as a preposition is informal and colloquial. As if that weren’t bad enough, it also implies that the subject that you are talking about is actually an afterthought to what you were previously saying.
So, what should you do if you are ever so tempted to say “besides” in an academic paper? Well, you should use the word “moreover” instead since it indicates the same thing but is much more formal and appropriate for those circumstances.
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j. Are Claims-Makers Claim-Makers?
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While there is no right or wrong here since both “claims-maker” and “claim-maker” essentially mean the same thing, but it is actually more conventional to say “claims-maker” rather than “claim-maker”. The reason behind this lies in the fact that any person who asserts anything is making a claim and, in this sense, we make claims with almost every sentence we speak as sentences tend to assert things.
Under this logic, everyone makes a multitude of claims in communicating with others and therefore they are claims-makers rather than claim-makers (unless they truly succeeded in isolating their message and making only ONE claim, LOL).
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k. Convincing Suicidal Articles Not to Jump
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When writing journals on Week 4, many people tended to confuse the words “suicide” and “suicidal”, which is not a good sign. This is because while “suicide” may be a noun or verb denoting the killing of oneself, “suicidal” is an adjective that indicates self-destructive tendencies.
In this way, articles about individuals that commit suicide are “suicide articles” (a compound word) because they are related to suicide. This is the same reason why we can also say “sports article”, “crime article”, and “fashion article” because they are all articles that relate to those specific subjects.
Writing something like “suicidal articles” or “suicidal rates” actually means that the article and the rate you are referring to are planning to end their existence. Clearly, that is not what you are hoping to express since I really have yet heard of any article or rate that had suicidal tendencies.
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Phew… that was an extremely long post but I hope it helps in some way or other, LOL. Right, take care and look forward to the next part in this series of posts. (^__^)
Lecture 9 Abbreviated (Click to Download)
Here is the final version of the PowerPoint for the lecture on youth and moral panic.
Also, as I was adding this to the blog’s media library, I realised that I completely forgot to upload the class exercise articles for the forensics journalism article. I’ve been rather forgetful lately… hmm… maybe I should get my brain checked, LOL. (@__@) Either way, here they are:
Forensic Journalism Exercise Articles 1 & 2 (Click to Download)
Forensic Journalism Exercise Articles 3 & 4 (Click to Download)
Right then, see you all tomorrow in class then!
Hi all, thanks to Allison for a very nice reminder and summary of useful resources in the previous post. This post may be a little long, so I have broken it up into three different parts to accommodate those who don’t want to be bogged down by my terribly boring ramblings, LOL. Now then, let’s begin with something that Dr Cho asked me to tell y’all about~
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Don’t OutFOXy OutFOXed, OutFOX it with Google video!
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Dr Cho would like to share with you guys that you could view OutFOXed on Google Video from start to finish. Click here to follow the link.
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Lightening Lecture Sizes with the Power of PDF
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Some of my tutorial members have asked for the file sizes to be reduced because it takes a while to download from this WordPress blog (if you thought downloading the file took long, you should try uploading it… (@__@))
Either way, in light of this, PDF versions of the lectures will be created alongside the Powerpoint versions from now on so that you can choose which you would like to download. The PDF versions of the last three lectures follow below:
Lecture 1 Lite (click to download)
Lecture 2 Lite (click to download)
Lecture 3 Lite (click to download)
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The Basics of Crime and Criminality (Proofed: Sunday, February 7, 2009 10:00 am)
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I have noted that there are some first year students as well as students that are more focused on the media who are taking this course. Because of this, I think that it would be wise for me to introduce some basic elements regarding the concept of crime to those who may be new to the topic. Some of these things may seem obvious to those who major in criminal justice and criminology, but what is obvious to some is sometimes not so apparent to others. So with that, let us begin with a basic understanding of what crime is.
The most basic concept of crime is that it is an act that is officially sanctioned through mechanisms of the state. Thus, crime is primarily defined by the legal status of the act, which is why something can be criminalised, decriminalised and then recriminalised (as is the case for the solicitation of a prosititute in Hong Kong). It is in this way that crimes are specific to the statutes and laws that govern a specific place.
Related to this is the concept of deviance which is a much broader term that encompasses all behaviours that are in violation of some norm or value held by some group (yes, it really is this broad, LOL). Indeed, it is so broad that one could argue that deviance is more culturally-specific than place-specific. For example, Chinese children do not usually call their fathers or mothers by their first name regardless of where they are in the world and doing so would be regarded as deviance for those who subscribe to Chinese cultural values. Certainly, deviance can eventually become crimes through criminalisation while crimes could also become simple deviance through decriminalisation (as is the case with homosexuality in Canada, for example).
Moving the discussion back onto crime, it is important to remember that crime is traditionally divided into two major types. These two categories of crime rely heavily on the belief that social order is achieved because there is consensus for universal norms and values in society. The categories go by the Latin terms mala prohibita and mala in se. I should note that while I personally do not agree with this dichotomy, it is a very basic principle in the study of criminology and criminal justice, which is why I think I should give it some face time.
Mala prohibita roughly translates to “wrong due to prohibition” and constitutes actions that may not seem wrong but is considered wrong because certain laws prohibit the behaviour. Easy examples of crimes that are considered mala prohibita include soliciting for prostitution, unregulated gambling, indecent exposure, and drunk driving (also abbreviated to DUI in North American discourse, meaning Driving Under the Influence).
As you may have noticed, these crimes are generally related to public safety concerns (as in DUI) or violations of certain minor moral and social standards (as in soliciting prostitution). Because mala prohibita crimes normally do not involve any actual harm or intent to harm, they also tend to carry lighter sanctions.
Apart from these crimes, there are also crimes that are considered mala in se which is translated roughly to “wrong in themselves”. These are generally considered crimes that are inherently wrong and universally decried by any civilised community, encompassing acts like murder, theft, rape, and arson. These crimes are usually considered serious offences and tend to bear severe penalties. Indeed, it may have also come to your attention that these are the types of crimes that appear on the news more often than mala prohibita crimes.
Well, I think I’ve gone on for a little too long at this point, so I guess I’ll finish off here.
Before I go though, I should inform you that I have uploaded a Powerpoint lecture that I presented in HKU Open Day 2oo8 because it introduces the three basic theoretical streams of criminology. The lecture is extremely basic and was designed to encourage interaction, thus it may not be as informative as it should be.
Still, there are some very simple theoretical concepts within it and that may help some of the more uninitiated get a better grasp of the subject… (^__^”)
Open Day 2008 Criminology Intro Talk Powerpoint (click to download)
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Feel free to comment or point out any errors in the post as I am sure there may be some (I am normally quite clumsy, LOL)! I will do my best to respond and correct as soon as I can.
Right then, take care and have a good weekend all!
Hey all, this post was written to address two issues,
1) It has been brought to our attention that the course readings were temporarily out of stock at the HKUSU Photocopying Centre in Chong Yuet Ming Amenities Centre. I do apologise for any distress and difficulties this may have caused, but please be assured that this problem has been resolved and that the course pack will be available again today (Thursday, 5th February). You will notice that the new pack will have some notes scribbled on the first few readings—forgive me for this as I was unable to find a correction pen to wipe them out in my rush to resolve this problem. Again, please accept my apologies for this oversight.
2) Those who have sat to ponder the tasks of the tutorial may also have noticed that the requirements for Week 2 and Week 3 sound extremely similar. The difference is simply that in Week 2, you will be working primarily within your groups so that you will have more time to get to know the members in your team as well as to coordinate and allocate responsibilities for the rest of the semester. In some ways, you could conceive of Week 2 as still part of the orientation period; but as we move on to Week 3, things will begin to get a little more “serious” as discussions occur between groups and each group take turns to discuss their preliminary observations on their topic of interest. In essence, Week 3 will set the tone for the rest of the tutorials this semester.
Hopefully, that helps to clear up the main differences between the two weeks as well as set aside questions pertaining to the course reading pack. Right then, cheerio friends!
Hello friends, in this post you will find three items of interest. To help in making sense of it all, I will go through each one briefly (they are actually quite self-explanatory, but JUST IN CASE… LOL)
1. Tutorial Outline (click here to download)
This is basically the tutorial outline you got in lecture today—unless you weren’t in lecture today… Then you may want to download this to orientate you to what to expect in the tutorials. Don’t worry, they are NOT as crazy as they look.
2. Tutorial 1 Worksheet (click here to download)
This is a worksheet for the first tutorial. Take a look at the questions but don’t think too hard about them because, well, you really can’t answer it without a group… LOL. Either way, this is just so you know what to expect in part of Tutorial 1.
3. Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s on Journalism at HKU libraries (click here to view)
The video you watched today is available from the HKU library catalogue. Unfortunately, some quick hands have snatched it and it is now due sometime in February* (@__@)
Right then, I have to get out of here! Later all!
*Thanks to Jenny for spotting this mistake—I initially wrote that Outfoxed was due back in October, LOL. My humble apologies for that error and sincere thanks for the correction! m(_ _)m
SOCI0067 Crime and the Media 