Feedback Education

[Aenivae_Ikeda]

Regrettably this topic is going to seem absurd coming from me, being as I don't keep up with the discussions here that often anymore, but I had a weird sort of idea/question for everyone.

 

The purpose of it is for a sort of general knowledge of subjects feedback, so it very much relies on multiple people.

 

Anyways, the question(or questions.) is(or are) what is/are your passion(s), and how educated would you say you are in them? Mine for example are sociology, cognitive science, writing, drawing, and music.

 

In sociology I am decently versed(much higher than average knowledge, but still not anything impressive on the university level), and am currently studying it in partnership with cognitive science, which I am fairly above what would be the average knowledge of it. But like with sociology it's nothing impressive on a professional level.

 

My writing is well developed in many respects. When doing something artistic my style is very well pieced together and fluid, but needs work when dealing with transitions. Poetically my style needs a lot of work with how I externally communicate- I tend to be too ambiguous and stream of consciousness oriented so it's hard to read it cohesively. There's a lot of things I could mention here but I don't want to go off on a rant if no one is interested in the general idea of this topic. Thus the above is just an example.

 

Drawing- Average

Music- Slightly above average

 

So, the point is for people who are more well versed in a field or want to try and pick up on others can write down what their fields are, their level of understanding, and then there's a sort of feedback loop of offering technical knowledge as well as personal knowledge, observations and what not.

 

I just thought it might be an interesting way to sort of build one's own understanding of something by both trying to semi-teach and semi-learn and all that good stuff.

 

Good idea? Yay, nay? Ways to improve upon it?

[Lord_La_forge]

Good idea, but I don't think it will represent the truth. Maybe your drawing skill is avarage and if I would check it I would say it's crap. Or that you are a genius even.

You could also define some skills here to be filled out by us Like for some crazy RPG

[Aenivae_Ikeda]

Rather it shouldn't be just a forum of statements about personal skills, but a way of collaborating over how to improve weak points of specific skills, and possibly even statements of a person's ambition within a field so that cross-analysis is available.

 

Like if I wanted other people's take on how to improve meter within a poem, then I could get multiple inputs on how people think of meter, and try and find a way of better comprehending meter based on my prior knowledge and the interpretations of others as well my interpretations of their explanations. . Someone might not know what meter is, you can define it and then offer a personal explanation for it so that you understand how you think about more effectively, and someone else has essentially learned a new aspect of writing.

[DarthTofu]

I'm a pretty poor poet, and I openly acknowledge that- those of you who remember my Two Years poem from way back when are remembering the single greatest piece of poetry I ever wrote. You should realize that it wasn't a very good piece of poetry.

 

Writing is one of my passions, and a fair number of people have told me that I know what I'm doing when it comes to it. SOCL may be the exception on occasion, but that's why I send him stuff- so that he can fulfill the purpose of this thread and tell me what I need to fix!

 

Dialogue is likely my strongest point, and so far as overall plot development goes I have a fair bit of talent. My greatest issue stems from realism and sentence structure. In my oh-so-natural-sounding dialogue I will occasionally implant my good friend the semicolon; this is apparently a massive no-no.

 

I've also discovered that when I write as I talk I organize my sentences strangely, causing others to stumble- case in point last Friday when I did a group presentation and two people stumbled like mad over my wording in describing a particular slide.

 

My weakest point probably lies in knowing where I want to go right now when I write. I'll go off on a tangent, and I feel like I have to resolve it by the end of a section of story when, in fact, I could probably get away with leaving it. I hate to end on a cliffhanger whenever I write stuff, thus I come to resolutions either too soon or after too much build-up describing the problem and establishing how dire it is that a solution be found. None of that winds up contributing to the overall story and just detracts from it.

[Guest Scathane]

I find it a bit difficult because - as LLF says - the values you can put up there are rather subjective. Secondly, I could create a very long list indeed, since I'm not much of a specialist, or - as Robert Heinlein put it:

 

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

[Aenivae_Ikeda]

@ Scathane

No, I don't mean to say that I disagree with that many things will be subjective, but I think that the process in which someone goes about doing something requires a subjective analysis from others for it to escape being stagnant. The root of this idea is the same behind asking a friend something. You trust that person, and value their opinion for reasons that are both your own and their own. So basically this is just an online version of that. I have no reason to distrust any of you, and while I may not share the same opinion as someone else on a particular subject I can acknowledge that the opinion they have is, in large part, a reflection of their personality in a given situation. And you can learn from that simply by trying to understand that different personality, and in matters of artistic endeavors you need to be able to explore and evaluate personalities that are not your own, and be able to express those through yourself in an external way.

 

So really the aim is just to trust the potential good of another's perspective when it relates to something you are doing, and something they are doing. Going back to the example of meter in poetry, one person's method of analyzing the overall importance and purpose of meter within poetry can cause someone who was uninterested in poetry or meter before to do some exploring on their own.

 

It's one thing to read the dictionary definition of meter, which is necessary, but it's another thing to psychologically understand the myriad of it's uses when you read another person's definition of it. Does that make sense?

 

@ Tofu

 

Kurt Vonnegut's style of writing addresses your last issue really well. Vonnegut has a tendency of giving personality to things that you wouldn't expect to have them, like a bottle of champagne. In that he's explains things in a quick, personifying manner, which avoids going off on a tangent of a specific mood, or idea he has. Likewise he has a way of taking personality away from things to demonstrate a point. In Slaughter House Five he takes away the mysticism and the personality of death by saying "So it goes." Which drawn out is saying, "Something died, did you know that? I was just checking to see if you knew that. Because that's what happened, and that's all that happened. It just is." And that in turn takes the emphasis of a character's personality and life off of how they died, making who they were more important.

 

Something worth checking out.

[DarthTofu]

Vonnegut is a pretty awesome author. I wish I could give you some return feedback. I've got a short story that I wrote that I'm going to post in the Random Creative Writings thread- you can see if I'm Vonnegut-esque after reading it.

[Aenivae_Ikeda]

Also I recommend reading T.S. Elliot's East Coker, specifically part V, but you should go through all of it.

 

http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/coker.html