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Howard Gardner's Definition Of Good Work

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People will invest so much time and energy to perform good work, and the people who do this must have a deeper meaning of their work. Concerning the idea of good work is an essay by Howard Gardner, which he describes his definition of good work in, “Good Work, Well Done: A Psychological Study.” Throughout Gardner’s essay he talks about what is good work and how to achieve good work. A kid named Marcus Arnold who provides good examples of what is and what is not good work is expressed throughout Michael Lewis’s essay called, “Pyramids and Pancakes.” During the essay, Lewis interviews Marcus about his high ranking on AskMe.com, that reveals a great deal about how technology will affect how people will perform good work. Working for everyone …show more content…

The first part of Gardner’s definition is the more difficult component of accomplishing true good work especially with technology. The rising use of technology has affected people’s knowledge by people being able to create fraudulent profiles saying that they are a doctor, then posting false facts but say it is true. As a result, fails Gardner’s definition of good work, which is “It exhibits a high level of expertise”(2). For people to carry out good work, they must show a tremendous amount of knowledge concerning with a specific subject, which is usually earned by attaining a college degree and work experience. Despite some of these people putting in many hard and long hours to earn a great deal of knowledge, the internet permits anyone to pretend that they possess a high level of knowledge. The example that Lewis uses in his essay is a fifteen year old boy named, Marcus, who was answering real legal questions on AskMe.com, but he kept climbing the rankings and made it all the way to the top five. Most people would assume that Marcus has a great deal of knowledge concerning the law, but in reality, he obtained his knowledge in a shocking way. Lewis asked how he acquired this knowledge, and Marcus had replied with “After, like, watching so many TV shows about the law”(99). If a someone said they watched law TV shows and now they have similar knowledge to a lawyer, most …show more content…

According to Gardner, a mission is “identifying the reasons that one chose one’s work and making a serious effort to determine whether that missions still stands or whether one has strayed from it-- and if so, in what direction”(5). For someone to have a clear idea for the decision of why they chose that specific field is crucial because then motivation will begin to influence the work being performed. Once motivation begins to decline then work ethic starts to decline, and given that a person realizes they are not gaining ground to reach good work, it results in figuring out what direction that person is heading in. Marcus’s father, Melvin thought he knew Marcus’s mission during his help for others on AskMe.com. After the death of Marcus’s older brother, Melvin thought Marcus was expressing his emotions by “reacting to the grief of the murder of his older brother”(Lewis 104). Surely after Marcus’s brothers death played a huge factor of furthering his interests regarding the field of law. With the motivation of his brothers death, gave Marcus a clear mission of helping individuals with legal troubles so that no one was treated unfairly by the law. To have a strong mission that rewards with fulfillment and satisfaction, provides people being one step closer to executing good

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