in an iPod World

Books on writing

I have made few suggestions on books on writing in my Philosophy of Science class. Here are the links of those books.

"The Elements of Style (4th Edition)" (William Strunk, E. B. White) - This is a classic.

"Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition" (American Psychological Association (APA)) - A must-have as a technical guide for formatting, style, and conventions for journal articles.

"The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well" (Paula LaRocque) - It is written for fiction writers. Yet, I found it helpful.

"Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article: Second Edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)" (Howard S. Becker) - It is a fun book to read. When you don't want to write or feel like you can't write, read this book. It might get you going again.

"Death Sentences : How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language" (Don Watson) - I would like to assign this book as a required reading for MBA students. This book shows how business lanugage filled with empty words and hollow jargons erode our ability to think and communicate ideas. "At the end of the day, the bottom line is it is what it is."

"Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" (Lynne Truss) - It does not need an explanation.

"Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English, 3rd Edition" (Patricia T. O'Conner) - As non-native speaker, I found this book useful as a guide for English grammar.

"Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer" (Roy Peter Clark) - I found this book at a local book store. It is filled with many useful practical suggestions on writing. I particularly like the last section, "Useful Habits."

"If You Want To Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit" (Brenda Ueland) - A generally wonderful book on artistic expression and self-discovery, this affirms that we are all filled with imaginative possibilities.

"How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines" (Thomas C. Foster) - This is a not a book on writing. Rather, it is a book on reading. But it explains many of the devices that good writers use, which can be useful tools for writers who want to write.

Books for Philosophy of Science

Here are the books that we will be reading this semester.

"Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Social Research" (Andrew H. Van de Ven)

"What Is This Thing Called Science?" (A. F. Chalmers, Alan F. Chalmers, Alan F. Chalmers)

"Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference" (William R. Shadish, Thomas D. Cook, Donald T. Campbell)

"Approaches to Social Research" (Royce A. Singleton Jr., Bruce C. Straits

"The Sciences of the Artificial - 3rd Edition" (Herbert A. Simon)

"Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society" (Bruno Latour)

"Economical Writing, Second Edition" (Deirdre McCloskey)

"Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis: Elements of the Sociology of Corporate Life" (Gibson Burrell, Gareth Morgan)

Presentation at AcademyHills @ Roppongi Hills

During my stay in Japan, I gave a talk at AcademyHIlls located in Roppongi Hills.

View more presentations from Youngjin Yoo.

Consumption and Production

Bradley Bloch wrote a post on Huffington Post that the proliferation of non-professional media production increased non-productive consumption of media. He uses an example of a popular YouTube video, 'Charlie Bit Me'. Here is what he wrote:

One of the most popular videos on YouTube, "Charlie bit my finger--again!" depicting a boy sticking his fingers in his little brother's mouth, has been viewed 211 million times. Something that took 56 seconds to create--and which was only intended to be seen by the boys' godfather--has sucked up the equivalent of 1600 people working 40 hours a week for a year. Now that's leverage.

What he did not note is how many different forms of re-creation took place after 'Charlie bit me' video. According to my count, since it was first posted, this short 56-second video inspired more than 5,700 different types of re-mix. Some are simple re-enactment of the same sequence; others are more creative by doing animations, different characters and so on. Some took a completely different forms of expression, such as hip hop dance music. Below is a collection of those re-mix of 'Charlie bit Me' that I use in my presentations to illustrate the generative and unbounded nature of digital innovations.

What Bloch and others like him seem to often fail to note is that the bigger picture of social change is not that we are becoming more stupid due to the digital media consumption, but that the traditional boundary of professional producers and consumers are breaking down.

매미: Cicada

Cicadas are fascinating. They live 7, 13 or 17 years under the ground until they become adults. In their final year, they come out of the ground and die only after 7 - 10 days. Its endurance, its transformation, and its short-lived “free life” make me continue to think about them. The thought about Cicadas has been with me since I saw an empty shell that a cicada had left on the ground during my visit to Osaka a week ago. A life of a cicada can be seen as a reminder of evanescent nature of life. But it is also a triumphant, victorious life, eventually fulfilling its dream after a long wait. No matter how short it may be, it's worth the wait. Many people never get to do that. They never leave their ground. They never get to fly.
Below are few poems that I wrote, thinking about cicadas.