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Taylors Top 10 2011

This has been my first year submitting my work to Scribd. Before this I

ran a very small blog that was totally dependent on traffic that I drummed up

on a daily basis, so it was nice to get something going that at least got off the

ground. In the beginning I had only submitted a single research paper about

Imam Bukhari that I had written for a history class. My intention with Scribd

originally was to put up school work in hopes of getting critiqued and preparing

a portfolio for grad school.

My love, understanding, and use of Scribd has since grown. After

submitting many school-related works I started to branch out to personal work

and because of the very encouraging environment created on this website I was

comfortable enough to upload most of what I have written. The experience has

been great. Not only have I been encouraged to read and write better, but Ihave been able to open up my horizons and explore writing in a relatively safe

and beneficial space. I have also learned different techniques for increasing

traffic, both techniques that are genuinely helpful and those which only make

the numbers change.

So, without further adieu, my top ten for this year, including descriptions

and why I think they made the cut:

#10: Together 278 reads

This is a poem that I added on March 28th

. I wrote it for my wife and itwas one of the earliest poems I uploaded. Its basic premise is something my

wife has always told me; that she wants to die first. This made me think its

not so bad to die, whats worse is to be alone. It was encouraging to get

feedback on it, and this helped boost its numbers as well. Aside from those two

things I think the brevity and succinctness both add to its readability.

#9: What is Global Justice? 298 reads

I wrote this for last years Student Speaker Challenge, the topic of which

was What is Global Justice? Sure, the title isnt creative, but I was the first

person to perform the challenge in a spoken word poetic style, which waspretty creative. Aside from the style (which got me some points) I got 3rd place

because the content is pretty solid as well, however it flies so much in the face

of the judges (many of whom were politicians obviously in favour of the nation-

state system) that I didnt think I had a shot at winning anyway. It has been

moderately successful here for the same reasons, I think.

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#8: CIA on Guatemala: Revolutions of 1944 312 reads

This is the first thing in the top-ten list that I did not author. I found this

(and many other declassified CIA docs) while doing a research project for a

history class. This document is relatively long, but comes up with some good

search key-words such as CIA, revolution, assassination, President, and other

names and places important to history. It is also one of few declassified CIA

documents on Scribd, so it has a novelty factor to go along with its utility as a

research tool.

#7: Kha Kha Kha 315 reads

I think its funny that this got as many hits as it did. Its a short

collection of Muslim jokes made by Muslims. Its only one page, and the jokes

arent particularly funny, more novel. I was inspired to write this after hearing

an Amish joke from an Amish guy, and collected the jokes from various

sources, mostly friends. I think the fact that its short and quite uniquecontributes to how well it has done, and it was also published early in the year.

#6: Awful Love 320 reads

This poem was a really big hit when it was first published, but has since

not seen much action. It alludes to an adulterous relationship, but intends

relationship with God, which is an interesting and dangerous take. There are a

few markers that point to a relationship with God and not another lover, but

the most obvious and important one Is in the very end of the poem, which says

well be together in my grave and not in our graves. Again, its brief, clean,

and pretty easy to read.

#5:Fading Wings 459 reads

Im really glad this poem made it as far as it did. This is probably my

favourite poem, it is very short and simply talks about that brief moment, less

than an instant, when I saw my baby boy in the world for the first time, lying

as though dead on the table, reaching for this world, but not yet fully in it. It is

short, easy to read and understand, and has great emotional significance,

especially for those who have shared the experience.

#4: Bukhari:A

Historian for our time 567 readsThis is the first thing I ever submitted to Scribd, which slants its

numbers a little, but it also is the most frequently appearing thing on my

monthly top 5 list, indicating that its numbers are quite consistent. It is a

research paper I wrote for a history class that comes to some rather stunning

conclusions. The theories of historical method, and especially things taken for

granted like oral history and source criticism, seem to be completely off base

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and missing a massive amount of work. The hole is so big that there was no

way I could explore it in any detail at all for such a small project. The

conclusions of this work (the most important of which have not been

published) are what I will be using to attempt to get into grad school, and if

that fails Ill find a way to investigate them on my own. The work Is fairly large

and obscure, but it is generally read consistently and all the way through, and

I think this is partially because of its conclusions, and partially because of a

strong modern movement within Islam to investigate and evaluate our

doctrines and accepted history.

#3: Unsung Fathers Day 636 reads

In contrast to the previous work this one is brief and emotional. I wrote it

on fathers day, and published it a day later. It took some time to catch on, but

I think the message is well understood and people relate well to the broken

home, an increasingly common phenomenon. Though it is largely pulled out offeelings and sympathy rather than personal experience the message is the

same.

#2: CIAAssassination Plots in Guatemala 768 reads

I have a pretty simple theory for this one: get a good primary resource

with lots of great key-words and stick a really eye-grabbing title on it that even

non-academics will want to look into, and youre golden. Yes, this document

actually chronicles real assassinations proposed and carried out by the CIA,

yes it is right out of the lips of the CIA. Theres pretty much no way to go wrong

with a document like that.

#1: So Youre Going to Teach? 1396 reads

This was a really once in a lifetime thing. I happened to be thinking

about careers for history students, happened to be working as a mentor at the

university. My next thought was t create a list of really cool-sounding jobs that

people normally dont think of history students having to help alleviate

performance anxiety for history students trying to get into the faculty of

Education (at my school they need a whopping 3.8 GPA just to be considered).

So I sat down and busied myself with that thing I like, research. Not only did I

find some sweet jobs, but I also found that guidance councillors and careerresource people are absolutely atrocious for this sort of thing, yes, they were

the ones asking So youre going to teach? Finally I had enough, I decided to

publish a big list of jobs for history students that are diverse and really cool.

They range from spy to movie props designer, to multi-millionaire-consultant,

oh yea, and teacher if thats what youre into. Theyre not just off the top of my

head either, I got these ideas from real research of either finding examples in

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individuals or consulting employers you know, stuff that career resources

should be doing. Anyway, by no intention of my own I happened to publish this

right around graduation time, so it got readcasted by none other than Scribd

itself, which gave me 1000 of those hits in one day. Thanks Scribd! Youre the

best!