The basics of this reading come down to: "A lumper takes things that seem disparate and combines them because they have something similar. A splitter tends to take two thins that are lumped together and separate them into smaller categories." Personally, I believe no one can be a lumper. If you think about when your organizing and categorizing, your splitting something eventually, even if it is just two branches off the main subject. People can be extraordinary splitters and keep making and defining new branches off the tree, but there is no lumping. Lumping is just the definition of someone that hasn't even started the organization process. Lumpers are just lazy splitters!
The most interesting part of this reading was when the author started to talk about digital "trees". If Aristotle was around in the digital world I think his head would have probably explode. He helped pioneer the the pre digital way of categorization. The pre digital way of categorization consisted of starting with something basic, like an insect, and splitting insects into different branches, i.e flying, non-flying. From there you would break it up into even more branches/categories. In the digital world categorizing, searching, and organizing is built around you. The tree consist of you defining where you want to start and you wouldn't be limited to certain branches. Instead of having to categorize some kind of flying insect under just insects, you are now able to jump around the "tree of knowledge" and have flying insects under flying and insects. The last paragraph from chapter three sums it up perfectly!
When looking at myself within this world of organization I would have to say that in the digital world I am more of a splitter, but in the physical world I would come off more of as a lumper. In the digital world I have to have organization. I can't just have a file that says "Homework" and put all of my assignments in it. On my computer at work I will split it up the Homework folder into sub-folders with names of the classes. On my external hard drive it opens with Washington State University-> The semester of school-> The course registered for-> HW assignment. An example of the physical world, and why i'm a lumper, would be that of my cloths. A true lumper would have his/her cloths in a big pile to sort through everyday. Personally I like to at least hang some up or put in draws. The draws don't really matter that much and i'm not to picky. Technically you could call me a splitter... but whatever!
People that aren't in the a technical major/field could find my way of digital organizing over the top. Its all about personal preference. Having a organized digital life shows people what my priorities are. I have to admit though, sometimes the digital world can become too overwhelming with information. I definitely need to do a major clean up of certain areas on my hard drive.
This is a great summary of the chapter, and of lumping and splitting for sure. But...take a look at the prompt from the schedule, you didn't quite do the assignment. Ok, well, that's not quite true, you do kind of cover it a bit in the 2nd to last paragraph, but it doesn't quite get at the "values" thing I asked in the prompt.
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