Discuss (v.) & discussion (n.)
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Why hold the discussion on an online forum?
Apart from the fact that ours is a reading and writing class, there are several solid reasons for holding at least some of our discussions online.- It practices response writing for fluency. Unlike in more formal academic writing, the goal is not to do research or even to plan carefully, but to quickly communicate your own ideas on a topic or in response to an issue. You should still write complete sentences organized in paragraphs, but we are not looking for a carefully planned piece of work that was extensively reviewed and revised after it was first written and posted. Response writing is not academic writing; it does, however, practice the fluency that is also important in more formal work.
- This sort of response writing is common at universities today. As part of their assessment, students are often expected to participate in online discussion forums that explore issues raised in lectures, seminars, or tutorials. This sort of response writing is a common component of academic work.
- Brainstorming and sharing ideas independently of face-to-face group discussion typically produces a wider and more thoughtful variety of responses, which is good for the group. See, for example, the articles on this in the Harvard Business Review by Art Markman (2017), Andrew O’Connell (2010), and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic (2015). (If you are interested, read some of the sources I've cited here after our class. They are all short.)
Warwick and Rogers' questions
Rogers and Zemach's questions are:
Would a service like On Your Way be useful for you?
Click to enlarge image
- Would you be happy to fulfil an On Your Way request for somebody? Why or why not?
- Can you foresee an issues a cross-border courier service like this may face?
- What impact do you think a service like On Your Way could have on online retailers?
A helpful strategy
Imagine you are writing for someone who has neither seen the question you are answering nor the video that the question follows up. Your job is to clearly communicate your response to that reader. Because your writing should make sense independently of the question it might be answering, it is usually helpful to give background, which can often be done by paraphrasing the question into statements that begin your answer.
Also, it might work better not to respond to the questions in the order they are given here. That is not necessary. Whatever you do, do not number your answers. Do not write 1, 2, 3, or 4 anywhere in your response. It's OK if you don't cover all five questions.
You have 12:00 minutes. I strongly suggest you spend at least 2:00 minutes thinking and planning before you start writing. It's a good idea to have some idea where you are going before you start to write, but in quick response writing like this, you might not follow that plan; that's not a problem, but it's still good to have a plan before you start to type.
Remember: sentences in paragraphs
This is response writing. You want to communicate your ideas fluently as if you were speaking for two or three minutes to someone listening carefully. However, that person can't stop you to ask questions, so it's important to state your ideas in complete sentences organized into paragraphs.
References
- Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015, April 2). Why brainstorming works better online. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-brainstorming-works-better-online
- Markman, A. (2017, May 18). Your team is brainstorming all wrong. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2017/05/your-team-is-brainstorming-all-wrong
- O'Connell, A. (2010, February 4). Sometimes, it’s better to brainstorm alone. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2010/02/when-its-better-to-brainstorm
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
On Your Way has a new emerging way business model which is interesting for me. If this site launched in Thailand, it would be a popular website and I would be their costumer. There are lots of goods that I have ordered from aboard. It will be a pleasure if they provide them with better prices. However, I don't think On Your Way can support my trips well. First, my minimum luggage isn't close to the concept of travel light. I can't handle other people request. Secondly, I avoid buying unsustainable products as much as I can so their requests have to fit this condition.
ReplyDeleteEven though, I tend to get some advantages from this site, On Your Way is likely to have issues with tax payment and smuggling. Using this platform might lead to avoiding paying full tax. Moreover, some products, commonly use in many countries, are illegal in some nations. Moreover, other online stores tend to revenue in my opinions. They might focus on the speed of their transaction because it is the weakness of On Your Way. Customers have to wait for ending trip of travellers.
Sorry for my typo. I don't know how to delete the wrong one. This is my new rewrite version.
DeleteOn Your Way has a new emerging way business model which is interesting for me. If this site launched in Thailand, it would be a popular website and I would be their costumer. There are lots of goods that I have ordered from aboard. It will be a pleasure if they provide them with better prices. However, I don't think On Your Way can support my trips well. First, my minimum luggage isn't close to the concept of travel light. I can't handle other people request. Secondly, I avoid buying unsustainable products as much as I can so their requests have to fit this condition.
Even though, I tend to get some advantages from this site, On Your Way is likely to have issues with tax payment and smuggling. Using this platform might lead to avoiding paying full tax. Moreover, some products, commonly use in many countries, are illegal in some nations. Other online stores tend to gain lower revenue in my opinions. They might focus on the speed of their transaction because it is the weakness of On Your Way. Customers have to wait for ending trip of travellers.
I'm a bit curious whether On Your Way is in Lebanon legally approved by the government. I would say that it will never be allowed to set up as a legal business in Thailand as people who carry in the products from abroad must pay tax unless it's prooven that it's for their own consumtion.
DeleteYes, Phing. I agree with you that On Your Way might not be able to fully satisfy the shoppers as they may have to wait until the travelers finish their trips. I have experienced this kind of problem when I used delivering service from Grap. At that time, I ordered products from Shopee.com. Every thing was good until they did not deliver my products on time. In fact, I waited for 3 days.
DeletePhing, I noticed about an hour ago that I could not delete a comment to repost a corrected version. I haven't changed and admin. settings, so this might be policy change by Google. It used to be possible to delete, and I used to sometimes do that.
DeleteBut on the whole, I like the idea of not being able to edit or delete and repost comments. (It has never been possible to edit a comment after it was published.) I like this because it focusses us comments as being response writing, not a formal piece of academic work. We expect people writing for fluency where the aim is to communicate quickly to make mistakes, and I make plenty of typing mistakes, which you might now notice more than in the past. I used to leave them anyway if they were not serious, but now the more serious ones will also be there for you to see. This does not worry me a lot; if a mistake really is serious, we can do exactly what Phing has done: reply to our initial comment to correct it. I would normally add a note to do that, not repost the whole thing.
And in case your worried, the best writers in the world make mistakes. One of the newspapers I read every day (not everyday) is The New York Times (NYT), and probably about one out of ten articles has a note at the bottom whose heading is: "Correction". The Corrections in the NYT vary from very minor spelling mistakes, to more serious grammar errors, to very serious factual mistakes. In fact, a couple of weeks ago one of the NYT's copy editors wrote a short essay on his experiences correcting NYT articles and setting policy. You might enjoy his reflections in "Because of an Editing Error". At the very least, it will reassure that even the best native English writers regularly make mistakes. So if you see me write "the" as "teh" (one of my common typos), please be forgiving.
Oops. Reading it again a couple of hours later, I've just noticed a mistake in my second sentence above. It should read: "I haven't changed any admin. settings, ..." It's so easy to make these mistakes. I don't think this one is serious, but it's still annoying when I notice them. And yes, I did proofread quickly (very quickly) before I clicked "Publish".
DeleteAnd a further update: after a bit of searching around, I discovered that although Google has very recently, within the last two weeks, changed its policy regarding deleting comments, it is still possible to delete them.
DeleteBut on the whole, I think it's preferable not to. If you notice a mistake after you've posted, do what I did above and add a reply to correct it if its important enough. That's almost the same as The New York Times' policy, and I think it's a good one to follow.
On your way, Lebanese start-up, is very useful for anybody who wants oversea products in a cheaper price than ordering directly from foreign online shopping sites. For example; If I wanted to order some novels which are not found in Thailand, I would order these novels from this site instead of ordering from famous online shopping site such as eBay, amazon, etc. I think start-up company like on your way can raise up imported product rates because buyer could buy various kind of product overseas in lower price. In contrast, it may be some untrusted provider can lure a consumer paying something for nothing.
ReplyDeleteI also see the benefits of On Your Way service. Especially, when you need the items which rarely found in your country. For example, if you want to buy certain kind of products that have been banned in your country, On Your Way will be a great helper.
DeleteYes, I agree with you about the issue on banned products. By that way, can On You Way prevent that problem? Because this kind of problem might cause problem on the start-up.
DeleteI suspect that like Kitt, when I read Put's noun phrase "some novels which are not found in Thailand," I was also wondering that sort of novels or other books he had in mind. But I noticed on my last visit to Kinokuniya at Paragon (looking for a TOEFL iBT book) that even Orwell's famous 1984 is on sale.
DeleteI used to buy a lot of books from Amazon, but for the past ten years or more, almost every book I've bought has been a digital version. In fact, the paper TOEFL book is probably the first paper book I've bought for many years, and that was only because it isn't available in a Kindle format. And we won't get into what I've done since destroying my paper copy.
(It's response writing, and I'm responding to comments with personal experiences and examples, which is what both TOEFL and IELTS instruct examinees to do in the independent writing parts of those tests.)
Personally, my opinion is similar to Peter. Kinokuniya provides various types of books and I use a Kindle too. Nowadays, I buy only Thai hard-copy books because lots of Thai books don’t have digital editions.
DeletePut’s an idea about untrusted providers is interesting. On your way might have some policy to prevent this kind of fraud. I would like to know how they deal with it.
After having read Peter's comment on buying books online through Kindle, it makes me wonder that to what extend the banning from Thai government could cover. This might lead to an interesting argument/debate in international law that who has more right over the other when there is a conflict in enforcing the law in banning certain kind of items such as some forbidden politics-related novels which the Thai government seeing them as a threat to them. Do the Thais have the right to purchase those books from Kindle? Can Thais government stop Kindle from selling the items to Thai customers?
DeleteOn your way business platform which encourages people to increase their income by delivery product oversea when travel light. Nowadays anywhere when there’re demands there’re always supplies and ways to build a business, but how to make it last and sustainable. In my opinion, core is to gain customer trust to ensure qualities. When it meets pleasure standard, I think it would be a useful platform for both way customer and retailer and for me too. I always travel light, so I’ll be able to use services and gain my extra money for my trip. But on the other hand, of course, it feels risky, carrying others' luggage cross country because you sure don’t want to get caught carrying illegal products right. So working on transparency and process examination would be necessary. As I can see security problems can make big worried in the future, in my opinion, It feels like when people travel with others’ luggage it increases worriedness of security and safety of people on the flight. If security’s meeting standard, this business platform can make a lot of impact on people lifestyle and create one more business with concept of helping each other like grab car for example. And sure, have an impact on online retailers as well by dropping their sales which will force them to step up their game. But no worry, their strength is having customer trust and routine employee not changing new face every transaction.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea comparing On Your Way to grab service. You made me to think of the grab service that helps bringing food to people who ordered food from home. It's convenient and helps some people who decided to stay home feel save and released from the fear of being infected by COVID 19.
DeleteWhen I first thought about On Your Way's service, I also had worries about possible legal problems, including the one that Prim raises. Thinking about it more, I realized that carrying illegal things should not be a problem, because the person carrying the goods bought for someone else can also be the person who goes to the shop to buy or collect the product, so they shouldn't be tricked into buying drugs or other illegal goods.
DeleteGrab car service is likely to have a problem with the law too. Grab food is fine but Grab car has the issue in Thailand. Drivers for some kind of Grab car service don’t have Public vehicle driver's license and their cars are registered to only personal use.
DeleteBoth of these two start-up provides lots of benefits of users however there are many issues and risk that they have to tackle.
Prim, I also like the idea comparing the service with grab car. I learn that when grab car starts to use in our country, there are an serious issue with local taxi and taxi motorcycle. I still think that the service does not a fair trade for people in the business chain even though it can provide best offer for customers. It could say that there are a gab in law from this service that people in the business chain does not get any protraction. On Your Way can benefit customers' need, however, I think government should set a rule to help individual trader in the industry as well.
DeleteThis is my second time coming back reading all comments above, I can see the similarity between On Your Way to Grab Car Service. For the one who carries the ordered products to their customers, they travel lignt whereas the grab car driver, who owns his vehicle, can pick up the customers heading on the same direction with the driver. It's a kind of sharing economy. Both parties receive the benefits. It's innovative and creative win-win economy.
DeleteI love theidea of On Your Way business. It's creative and innovative. But if you are in the airline industry, this kind of service, buying things abroad and carrying back to the local has been done for decades. On Your Way service is very helpful in some cases. Supposed you want to buy books which are banned in your country, On Your Way can help you. Or if you want to get the lastest iPhone model fast, On Your Way also can fulfilled your wants. However, one problem I can foresee is the Immigration and Duty Free section in Thailand. The service renders might be caught and charged as smugglers if they carry in with the excessive amount of the product. I felt jealous for the Labanese that On Your Way service is allowed in the country, if I'm correct. How lucky they are!
ReplyDeleteKitt reminded me that I've often picked up things in Thailand for friends and family in Australia, and vice versa, on my annual trips to Australia, although much less often these days than twenty years ago. As the video admits, the new service is unlikely to hurt companies like Amazon.
DeleteNonetheless, when my sister and her boyfriend came to visit a couple of years ago, I asked them to pick up some lanolin for me. It's readily available in Australia, but hard to find in Thailand. I usually order it through an online service, but sometimes (it seems on a random basis) it gets caught at Thai customs, which means I have to go to a distant customs shed to pick it up. Even if I don't have to pay an import duty, I prefer to avoid the time wasting trip to pick up my order. Oddly, no order from Amazon has ever required such a trip to collect my goods.
Since On Your Way offers an alternative on shopping experience to customers, I think it is useful for me. I like the innovative shopping services that allow the shoppers to buy goods from aboard with cheaper prices while it also allows the travelers to make some money from their oversea trip. It is true that the costs of logistic of goods from overseas are high in most countries. Last year, I got some fashion clothing in Bangkok and delivered them to one of my colleagues in Malaysia by DHL, but the expenses on delivering services were more expensive than the prices of the goods. Therefore, it would be great if On Your Way offers their services in another countries.
ReplyDeleteIf On Your Way were available in my country, I would be happy to make some money while I am travelling light by accepting orders for someone. For example, if I were traveling to Japan and I had some space in my luggage, I would visit On Your Way and get goods for someone who want to pay me for my service. I think it is a smart way to make extra money and it doesn’t take lots of efforts to do that.
However, I think we should be careful about import duty. This happened to me when I bought two bottles of perfume from Hong Kong. After finished my business trip to Hong Kong, I purchased two bottles of perfume as my mon’s requests. However, when I arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport, the immigration office stopped me at the passenger-arrival passage to check my luggage for the two bottles of perfume. Then they interviewed me some questions before allowing me to pass. So I think they might have worried about import duty.
I think On Your Way could little impact on online retailers. Although it can satisfy both of shoppers and travelers, it might be less reliable than online retailers. I mean online retailers can make sure that goods will be delivery on time and your orders will be correct because they are professional. In contrast, as On Your Way have travelers, non-professional, to help you buy and deliver goods for you, so I am not sure that travelers can be reliable as online retailers are.
Emma you have raised a good point on reliability on travelers. I also wonder if I am a traveler, and I buy a wrong product because of misunderstanding, do I will get any kind of protection. On the other hand, how does to service cloud protect me as a customer when we get a wrong goods from what we have ordered. How do you think the service will manage customer satisfaction?
DeleteOn Your Way business is a very good alternative and interesting business for the person who prefers oversea purchase products. Likewise, the consumer can buy inexpensive goods and the traveler can earn some money while they are traveling; however, it would not be comfortable for me to purchase the products for somebody requirement. I was experienced purchase oversea products for one of my friends it was very disorderly and unhappy for me on that trip.
ReplyDeleteOn Your Way Business is also apprehensive about tax paying and eventually they charge tax fee from user. On Your Way business could be benefit for retails online purchase as minimum order items. On the contrary, it might be less benefit and impacting mega-retailers in the country.
On your way is a service that could benefit for travelers who travel light. However, to contemplate its service to match me as a traveler, it does not go well with my travel routine. When I travel, I do not often travel light whether I go for a holiday or for work. Another reason is that I find it a hassle to do shopping for others whom I don't know. Even though I may have the details of the exact product that they want. Buying for others, it means that I have to plan my time for shopping activities as well which I am not a shopping lover type. The service can provide financial support as a carrier, but I don't find it useful. As I concern, it could add up problems with my travel schedule.
ReplyDeleteAs a customer who is waiting for cheap goods, it sounds interesting to get what we want at a cheap rate compared to the traditional market, I find it is too complicated to wait for my order due to carriers trip's schedule.
The moral of the service is another point that I am questioning. I wonder whether this trade is a fair trade for buyer, carrier and also seller. The service seems beneficial for customers to get inexpensive goods, however, if we are sellers, local distributors, or both online and offline local retailers, do we get a real benefit from this flow of emerging trade? I don't have much knowledge in import-export business but I found this service could affect a fair trade system when the service became a worldwide service or to be favored among customers.
Since the tax system in trading businesses does protect everyone in the chains. To forecast future trading when the service grow bigger, it could hurt international and local business chains in some ways.
For me, the” On The Way” Service will satisfy me for sure, both as the receiver and the traveler, As the traveler, not only you can buy something for your friend’s request but also you can do “some” official business bargain to them. People in Thailand have some considerate feelings in their gene, they often ask for the same price or even free of charges as they care about the others, this service will make “Me” and other person easier to demand the profit without a guilt. And I’m happily to do this Fair Trade-like business because you will get your reasonable money along with the feeling of less guilt for the other or even yourself. But even the sweetest mango, there’s the hard shell that you have to be cautious about, the international illegal transactions such as trafficking, smuggling goods. Moreover, the the product that will become illegal after entering some country’s border, majorly Marijuanas. The coming of “On The Way” will create some impact for the online retailers for sure, what you will choose between waiting for the 3 months of goods-on-the-ship with extra expenses or just a vacation away. From now on, Online-Retailers have to adapt themselves for their surviving such as setting the branch in many city and my countryside.
ReplyDeleteIt’s so true about Thai cult that you mention and I like the idea that it should be fair trade. My mother always accepts other people requests. Our last trip, she had huge big luggage for personal use and another huge empty one for her friends and relative requests. I love her kindness but My mom is a bit old now. So I think that you can guess who carried the two large luggage.
DeleteOn Your Way is a fascinating service. It helps customers buy items aboard and makes travelers profit from receiving an order when travelling light. In my view, On Your Way is a very useful service. I used to be a customer who love shopping foreign websites. Ten years ago, it was really heard to find some accessories like colorful necklaces and bracelets that fit my outfits in the shopping mall. However, it was easier to search for them from online
ReplyDeleteshopping site abroad and order them with cheaper price.
Although I found On Your Way is useful for customers and travelers, if I were a traveler, I would not happy to fulfill any requests. First, trying to buy things was time-consuming. It once happened when I went to Australia trying to find some organic skin care products for my friends, although I found the products, I would not happy about them as I was not sure about the quality and allergy tests. To be honest, I would not ready for receiving negative feedback if the products would not satisfy her enough. Even I love traveling light, I prefer buying some souvenirs instead of accepting any order requests.
In addition, buying things from requests are quite risk to face an issue of prohibited goods. As you know, some goods are not common in every countries. I remembered that I could not carry fresh products to Australia as they might impact to their environments. Also, in Thailand, cannabis is legalized only for medical use and research. Importing cannabis for other reasons have not allowed at this moment.
All in all, although On Your Way has positive effects for some customers and traveling, it can impact negatively on any of them who place or receive some unknown requests. Moreover, in my opinion this might negatively affect on online retailers because customers have more choices to buy products. More services not only help customers to find their products, but they also help customers compare price before ordering the requests. These might reduce online retailers income in the near future.