·
Leave
no stone unturned.
·
Live
and learn.
·
You’ll
never know unless you try.
·
A
penny for your thoughts.
·
A
little birdie told me.
Perhaps
knowledge isn’t the focus of these
sayings, but it certainly drives them
along. This isn’t surprising—the words people say reflect the people, and
people are driven by a thirst for knowledge. Why do you suppose we find
religion and science in communities all across the globe? Because people want
to know, and perhaps by knowing, they’ll
find meaning.
But what exactly
is knowledge? At first, I thought knowledge must refer to our internal “reservoir”
of information and data. And yet, the more I thought about it, the more I began
to feel that knowledge must be something more than just a collection of facts. According
to a quoted work in a website I found:
Knowledge is derived from information but it is richer
and more meaningful than information. It includes familiarity, awareness and
understanding gained through experience or study, and results from making
comparisons, identifying consequences, and making
connections. Some experts include wisdom and insight in their definitions
of knowledge. In organisational terms, knowledge is generally thought of as
being “know how”, “applied information”, “information with judgement” or “the
capacity for effective action” (Te Kete Ipurangi, emphasis added)
Okay, this
definition of knowledge seems to support the thesis that “writing becomes a
specific means of knowledge construction” (Kohl et al. 177). One particular
phrase in this description that I want to concentrate on is “making
connections.” Kohl, Liebert, and Metten devoted their paper to the discussion
of “connections” found in Wikis: the connection (to the point of dissolution)
of the roles of author and recipient and the connection of multiple web pages
through hyperlinks. In The Database andthe Essay: Understanding Composition as Articulation, Johndan
Johnson-Eilola wrote that articulation theory can help us understand “writing
as a process of arrangement and connection rather than simply one of isolated
creative utterance” (202). One dictionary definition of articulation is “the
state of being jointed,” or “hinged.” Basically, the articulation theory
proposes that words make sense only in context of other words—the meaning of
one word hinges on the meaning of another word. “[O]bjects “mean” not because
they inherently, automatically mean something, but because of what other
objects they’re connected to” (Johnson-Eilola 202). According to the principle
of articulation, all writing can
pretty much be described as a series of connections. And in order to write, one
would have to have some sort of knowledge to make those connections. Even something
many people wouldn’t consider “writing”—that is, paginating books—demonstrates articulation
and thus, a requirement for knowledge because the pagination is linear,
connected, and purposefully-placed.
Interestingly,
Johnson-Eilola mentioned pagination in reference to a court case called Bender v. West Publishing: “On first
glance, the Bender v. West Publishing ruling
seems to uphold our common ideas about what counts as creativity. As the judges
point out, we traditionally require an intentionality going beyond arbitrary
pagination” (206). Hm. In one sense, yes, pagination is arbitrary because there
is seemingly no connection between the written number and the quantitative
value we have in mind. However, just as Johnson-Eilola himself pointed out earlier,
the very words we write and speak are also arbitrary—that’s why some brainiac
came up with the articulation theory to explain how language even works. We
understand words because we’ve intentionally
assigned a meaning to them. Likewise, we also shouldn’t consider pagination
“arbitrary” or random because we’ve intentionally
assigned a meaning and order to those numbers. Doug had written in the margin
of Johnson-Eilola’s paper, “This case suggests arrangement is
creative,” and I agree. I also want to point out that knowledge is what enables us to make the connection from arbitrary
numbers or letters to communicative meaning.
Is it just me,
or can you see a relationship between knowledge and creativity? Isn’t
creativity all about making different connections and variations with known
material? (And I’d rather not delve again into the nuances of the word, “creativity”;
if you’d like, check out my earlier blog posts on the subject titled Defining Our Perceptions and My Very “Unoriginal” Post.) If knowledge
is more than “information” and includes the ability to make connections, then
surely creativity requires different forms of knowledge. Or, perhaps we could
postulate that the formation of knowledge requires creative thinking to make
those connections and “fill in the gaps.” At any rate, knowledge and creativity
seem to be intricately linked. I therefore take great issue with the statement,
“the more factual something is, the less creative it is” (Johnson-Eilola 206). Information doesn’t do us any good
unless we can understand it, and to understand it, we must have knowledge (or way of knowing)! At the beginning of our lives as infants, information
may very well form the basis of our knowledge, but as we grow older, I think we
process information through our “knowledge-filters,” that mechanism that allows
us to make connections and apply the information. So really, how can we measure
the creativity of a “factual” text against a “fictional” text if both fact and
fiction are based on the intertwining of knowledge and creativity?
I wish I had noticed Kohl et al.’s idea that you mentioned in your first part of your post; I was so intrigued by his idea that I had to go back and look up that section. One of the main reasons I became an English major was to familiarize myself with writing, because in my marketing major it is sometimes really scary to read peoples work, and I was concerned my writing looked similar. I completely agree with his notion, that linguistic interaction is central to culture. Also I believe that being able to write well is a dying skill (also hand writing/ letting writing are being lost), we now put almost all our trust in spellcheck or the green squiggly line that appears when Word doesn’t like your grammar or structure. However, I have found many times that the green squiggly line does not always solve your problems, and spellcheck is useless unless you know the spelling of the word that you want once your right click for more options of that word. I believe very strongly that one’s writing is a reflection of themselves, and therefore when others read your writing they make judges about you on its quality. I’m not saying you need to be a New York Times bestseller author, but a “your/you’re” mistake is really unacceptable. Another reason people associate writing well with knowledge is because a good writer is able to communicate with their audience. Who wants to read a CEOs quarterly report that looks like a Harvard Doctorate had written it, it would not be appropriate for their audience.
ReplyDeleteI can’t remember the article but we read something else for this class that talked about how everything we know is built on something we have already learned. To me this means that everything in our lives our based on connections. As we practice making connections or gain experience by simply living our connections have the ability to become more complex. Now think back to fourth grade, how was a paragraph constructed; no more then 6 sentences, the last was a transition, and we couldn’t start a sentence with “and/but.” Maybe not for you, but this was challenging for me; six whole sentences seemed like a lot, but now if I were asked to write a paragraph I would have no trouble. In fourth grade when I was about 10 years old I had not made those connections, I was not exposed to enough yet. However, at 21 I have done a lot more reading, writing and learning about the world and feel more confident in the connections that I am making now verses in the past.