The Song Decoders

Reading:  Invention

·What is invention?  (What activities did the writer have to engage in to create the text?)

 ·What is being invented? (What ideas, practices, arguments, etc. are created by the text?)

In order to write this article, the author must have done lots of research to collect resources about Pandora. In the article, Rob first described “The Music Genome Project”, which was the back end of Pandora and was also the technical support of Pandora. Then he even talked about how the Pandora be set up. Without researching, author cannot know such detailed and technological thing about Pandora. Besides, the writer also used several feedbacks form different users of Pandora to show readers how this app works. These feedbacks might be collected from the Internet or form author’s friends. Also, Rob must have tried the Pandora by himself.

In the article, the author came up with a question that "are your music-consumption habits, in fact, not merely guided but partly shaped by the cultural information that Pandora largely screens out – like what's considered awesome by your peers, or by music taste-makers, or by anybody else?" Rob believed systems that connect people with their friends with similar tastes, or that rely on “collaborative filtering” strategies that cross-match our music-consumption habits with those of like- minded strangers. People trust their friends or trust “the crowd”. The writer was trying to persuade people that the computer technology might help them find out their favorite songs and the Pandora may influences users’ habits.

Reading:  Arrangement

·What is arrangement?  (What is being put in relation to what?)

 ·What is being arranged? (How are the things being put in relation to one another?)

Tip:  It may be a good idea to make a visual of the arrangement of the essay.

In the article, the writer mainly talked about an Internet radio service called Pandora, which could help users to find music that they really like. Rob first described “The Music Genome Project”, which was the back end of Pandora and was also the technical support of Pandora. Then, he introduced some background about Pandora. After that, he came up with several questions, which is the invention of this article, and he used several either positive feedbacks or negative feedbacks form different users of Pandora to show readers how this app works. These reflections came from real users, so readers will believe him more and also will understand the idea more clearly. These are all evidence whcih helps readers to consider the author as reliable and credible, and the reader might respect the author’s views.

Reading:  Revision

·What is revision? (What is the writer trying to change?  For example, what ideas, practices, etc.? What is the author’s argument?)

 ·What is being revised?  (What strategies are engaged specifically to help the writer achieve the revisions?)

            Most of people did not notice the existence if the interaction between public favors ("social influence on listening habits"). Thus, the author tried to revise this phenomenon, so he emphasis the significance of this social influence. In the article, he devoted a great deal of time to discussing technology behind the Pandora in order to show readers they can experience new music on the basis of the music and not the influence of others.