Well, summer is officially here in Northwest Ohio. It has been in the high 80's and low 90's all week and it looks to be that way for a while. You know what? I love it! Been working on getting our pool open so that we can enjoy the outdoors more. Unfortunately the pool pump died and we had to wait on a new one to arrive. On the positive side, I have spent a few mornings eating breakfast outside, reading the paper, enjoying the sunshine. You gotta love the academia! Even though it has slowed down quite a bit, there is still so much to do. There are chores to complete around the house that have needed to be completed for quite a long time. The school year is just so busy. But I love losing myself in the mundane, everyday minutiae and it feels good to work with my hands and body instead of my brain - not that there's anything wrong with that! It keeps me grounded. I've been able to spend more time with the family as well. Makes me realize how much I miss my wife and kids during the other nine months. Good start to the summer.
On the negative side, our dog is no where to be found. She is a 13-year-old collie-shepherd mix who is hard of hearing. Great dog. We've had since she was six-weeks old. The pisser is that it is probably my fault. Susan woke up this morning and found the back door open. I must have let her out while getting a midnight snack and forgot to let her in. One of our side gates was open just enough for her to get through. We spent the entire morning looking for her. No luck. Called the Humane Society, Animal Control, Police, Street dept. Veterinarians... Still no luck. My kids are upset and if we don't find her, my wife will be crushed. Sydney has really been her dog and has made Susan a faithful companion. Not sure how this will go down, but it will certainly be a tough couple of days unless she shows up. Say a few prayers.
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
It's been a while
Well, it's been a month since I last posted anything to this blog. Things just kind of got overwhelmingly busy, trying to finish up all of my school work and finishing my own grading for the composition class. It all worked out though, and I took last week off. It was nice. Worked a little around the house and rested a bit.
Anyway, I am beginning my internship now and have decided to complete a practicum instead of a thesis. There was simply not enough time to complete a thesis and "I already got one!" For my internship, I am working with Dr. Sue Carter for her distance ed course. I am hoping to complete a website for her, but haven't heard back from her yet. I will be maintaining a separate blog to document my daily accomplishments for the internship. Check it out if you like at http://bgsu-i-log.blogspot.com/. TTFN.
Anyway, I am beginning my internship now and have decided to complete a practicum instead of a thesis. There was simply not enough time to complete a thesis and "I already got one!" For my internship, I am working with Dr. Sue Carter for her distance ed course. I am hoping to complete a website for her, but haven't heard back from her yet. I will be maintaining a separate blog to document my daily accomplishments for the internship. Check it out if you like at http://bgsu-i-log.blogspot.com/. TTFN.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Bibliographic Style
Bibliographic Style - What is it? Quite honestly, I don't know! Up until now, I really haven't completed a bibliography - ever. I have done reference pages in APA. I have completed works cited pages on MLA. But I haven't created an official "bibliography." I know there are differences such as that a works cited page contains only those works cited within the text. A bibliography can be more inclusive, but what is meant by the style? I am assuming that Dr. Mara is referring to the style manuals such as APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. Assuming those are the choices, I guess that I will be using MLA.
It is also probably important to substantiate why I have chosen MLA so here goes. My primary reasons for using MLA are:
It is also probably important to substantiate why I have chosen MLA so here goes. My primary reasons for using MLA are:
- It is a good fit for examining blogs since I will be examining the content of the writing in attempting to determine genre
- I am looking at language and hello, MLA stands for Modern Language Association
- It has been six years since I used APA
- I am most familiar with it through teaching it in English 111 and 112
- I am most familiar with it, and
- I am most familiar with it
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Cumulative Knowledge
What have I learned this semester? Lots of good things. One of the most important is about blogging. While it was not a requirement to use a blog for this course, I chose to complete my journal via this blog. The experience has been extremely positive. In fact, I am doing my thesis work, as well as my research project for this class, on blogging. I am even considering continuing with blogging when I work on my Ph.D., but from the standpoint of using blogging in distance education. What I like about blogging is the dynamic environment within which it operates. The chance for responses from others makes it even more interesting. As a result, I have started my own blog separate from the ones I am maintaining for my classes. PLEASE stop by at Bring Out Your Blog and take a look. There isn't much yet, but it will slowly and steadily increase.
Also, I have appreciated learning about the different research methods. Even though I have had a masters level research class before, that class focused on what would be considered "traditional" research. I haven't been exposed to ethnographic, historical, and feminist as much as I have other types, so that was helpful. I think it also has helped lessen my "fear" of research to a certain extent although I am not completely comfortable yet.
In addition, I have appreciated the exposure to research proposals, which is what are individual projects are about. I am still learning about proposals, but what we have been doing is certainly helpful. Having worked for a proprietary school, we did not do normal academic research. The research we conducted was primarily geared toward solving an immediate problem. For example, if I had a network problem that I wasn't familiar with, I would conduct research in order to fix the problem. Nothing like what we have been, and I will be, doing.Furthermore, I have learned that I need to be more proactive. It isn't that I haven't been proactive in the past, but my self-confidence has not been at the same level as it used to be. You might say that I'm out of my comfort zone. I am starting to feel like I belong here and that is making the process easier, but I still have a long way to go.Lastly, I have learned that I still am not completely sure what telos and mechanism are about, and John Monberg was way above my head in chapter 11 of our text. A lot of the difficulty I am having is with the level of discourse so I guess what I still need to learn is how to converse in this community. I am hoping that my continuing education next year in Comm Studies is going to help make me more comfortable. However, I do have a problem with the academia writing in such an inaccessible way. See my blog for a longer commentary on that subject. Well, that's it. I believe that this is my last entry. It's been a ride, much like a roller coaster, only this coaster isn't stopping just yet!
Also, I have appreciated learning about the different research methods. Even though I have had a masters level research class before, that class focused on what would be considered "traditional" research. I haven't been exposed to ethnographic, historical, and feminist as much as I have other types, so that was helpful. I think it also has helped lessen my "fear" of research to a certain extent although I am not completely comfortable yet.
In addition, I have appreciated the exposure to research proposals, which is what are individual projects are about. I am still learning about proposals, but what we have been doing is certainly helpful. Having worked for a proprietary school, we did not do normal academic research. The research we conducted was primarily geared toward solving an immediate problem. For example, if I had a network problem that I wasn't familiar with, I would conduct research in order to fix the problem. Nothing like what we have been, and I will be, doing.Furthermore, I have learned that I need to be more proactive. It isn't that I haven't been proactive in the past, but my self-confidence has not been at the same level as it used to be. You might say that I'm out of my comfort zone. I am starting to feel like I belong here and that is making the process easier, but I still have a long way to go.Lastly, I have learned that I still am not completely sure what telos and mechanism are about, and John Monberg was way above my head in chapter 11 of our text. A lot of the difficulty I am having is with the level of discourse so I guess what I still need to learn is how to converse in this community. I am hoping that my continuing education next year in Comm Studies is going to help make me more comfortable. However, I do have a problem with the academia writing in such an inaccessible way. See my blog for a longer commentary on that subject. Well, that's it. I believe that this is my last entry. It's been a ride, much like a roller coaster, only this coaster isn't stopping just yet!
Technical Communication Confusion
I just got finished reading chapter 11 from our Research in Technical Communication textbook in preparation for tomorrow's class. The chapter is written by John Monberg, who is a comm studies professor at the University of Kansas. I have to be honest; I have no idea what he is talking about. The problem is that it is written in academic, ivory tower, incomprehensible gibberish. It scares me a little, because I am supposedly going to enter this discourse community (comm studies) in a few years, and in general, I cannot follow the discourse! What bothers me most is that I see too much of this in technical communication literature. This isn't always the case. Other authors in this text are quite easy to read and comprehend. In particular, Susan Katz, Teresa Kynell, Bruce Seely, Daniel Murphy, Laura Gurak, and Christine Silker among others seem easy to follow, and I do think the comprehensible outweighs the incomprehensible in this text. However, I have not read a lot of each of these authors, so all of their writing may not be so straightforward, but the limited exposure I have had has impressed me.
In my first tech comm class with Dr. Edminster, she often spoke of "tearing down the walls of text." I love that line because it speaks to my feelings about how the academia often distances itself from the "commoners" through language. If technical communication is truly about clarity, focus, simplicity, comprehensibility, etc., then why is there this insistence on writing in such a seemingly unclear, unfocused, complex, and incomprehensible manner? I realize that part of the reasoning involves making technical communication acceptable to the rest of the academia, and I also realize that the discourse isn't incomprehensible to everyone. But are we, as educators and researchers, being true to our chosen field if we continue to write in such a cryptic manner? Why not be the front runners and lead the rest of the academia in simplifying the language to make it more accessible? I would love to hear responses to this from both sides.
Addendum:
I was rereading this post and wanted to make clear that it wasn't Monberg's entire chapter that was confusing. It was really about the first 2/3 that I struggled with. The latter part of the chapter that deals with the case studies was understandable. There was a clear point of transition in his writing style. As he moved from theory to reporting the results of the case studies, his writing changed. This is a good thing! I can't help but wonder though, how much more would I have gotten out of this chapter if the theory portion had been written in a more accessible style.
In my first tech comm class with Dr. Edminster, she often spoke of "tearing down the walls of text." I love that line because it speaks to my feelings about how the academia often distances itself from the "commoners" through language. If technical communication is truly about clarity, focus, simplicity, comprehensibility, etc., then why is there this insistence on writing in such a seemingly unclear, unfocused, complex, and incomprehensible manner? I realize that part of the reasoning involves making technical communication acceptable to the rest of the academia, and I also realize that the discourse isn't incomprehensible to everyone. But are we, as educators and researchers, being true to our chosen field if we continue to write in such a cryptic manner? Why not be the front runners and lead the rest of the academia in simplifying the language to make it more accessible? I would love to hear responses to this from both sides.
Addendum:
I was rereading this post and wanted to make clear that it wasn't Monberg's entire chapter that was confusing. It was really about the first 2/3 that I struggled with. The latter part of the chapter that deals with the case studies was understandable. There was a clear point of transition in his writing style. As he moved from theory to reporting the results of the case studies, his writing changed. This is a good thing! I can't help but wonder though, how much more would I have gotten out of this chapter if the theory portion had been written in a more accessible style.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Movin Forward
The last question (I think it is the last!) asks us how we are going to take this class experience forward. I have actually been thinking about this for a while. This semester has taken me on a quite a journey and it has ended up helping me make some decisions. I am enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Communication Studies next fall and a couple of areas have interested me. One is blogging. At first I thought that I would be looking at blogging as participatory media, but somehow that just didn't excite me too much. I also like what I have been studying in the Visual Rhetoric class. Specifically I have been looking at images in marketing for MMORPG computer games. Finally, I have the opportunity to complete my internship through BG working with Dr. Sue Carter with her two distance education courses.The distance education internship is what cinched it for me. I already have a good background in computers, but I need more experience in web design. We have touched on some basics with the software in this class, so I purchased the Studio MX suite and began teaching myself. In addition, I enrolled in three course this summer that cover Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Publisher. I hope to combine these skills and use them with the internship. My long-term goal is to study communication processes in distance education courses. I would love the opportunity to work in blogging as part of that process. I have not figured out how to work in the visual part and it may not be part of the equation in the long-run.
An additional interest of mine is gender studies. In fact, my Visual Rhetoric research has looked at gender (female) images on the game covers as part of the marketing plan for the computer game companies. To cross over into the distance education world, I might look at the differences in blogging between the genders in a distance education setting. So there it is. Research Course + Online Docs + Visual Rhetoric + Internship = Gender Differences in Blogging in Distance Education. That is the path I see myself going on over the next three years. Not bad for a semester or two's worth of work. Of course this is all subject to change and probably will within the next week, but I think that is what a good researcher does. You must constantly examine where you are and reevaluate your position. So that's it. Have a good night and a pleasant tomorrow.
An additional interest of mine is gender studies. In fact, my Visual Rhetoric research has looked at gender (female) images on the game covers as part of the marketing plan for the computer game companies. To cross over into the distance education world, I might look at the differences in blogging between the genders in a distance education setting. So there it is. Research Course + Online Docs + Visual Rhetoric + Internship = Gender Differences in Blogging in Distance Education. That is the path I see myself going on over the next three years. Not bad for a semester or two's worth of work. Of course this is all subject to change and probably will within the next week, but I think that is what a good researcher does. You must constantly examine where you are and reevaluate your position. So that's it. Have a good night and a pleasant tomorrow.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
PostSecret Ponderings
The second part of our assignment is to post an entry on the experience of commenting on the blog of our choice (see PostSecret below). I'll have to admit that the experience was enlightening. I haven't really spent much time looking at blogs revealing personal information. It is part of my research; I just haven't delved into the analysis part yet. In addition, I recently had a man at our church come up and ask my wife if she knew anything about blogs. She immediately turned to me and said that I was the person to talk to as my research is in this area. He asked what blogs were and as I tried to explain, I found that there really isn't any easy explanation or definition. Blogs can be so many things: professional, personal, news, humor, confession, information, visual, textual, auditory, etc.... That's part of the reason I am interested in genre analysis, but I am starting to wonder of categorizing blogs by genre is even feasible. Don't get me wrong, I still want to analyze blogs from genre lens, I just think that many of my assumptions may be called into question as I get deeper into this. The primary assumption that I am concerned about is that blogs can be classified by genre to begin with. Another is that there is a need for classification to begin with. However, I believe that this is what part of the research process is about. You go into the project with certain assumptions, and through the research, you either confirm or refute those assumptions. The point is that something is learned through the process, not only by you, but also your audience. I think that the process of blogging has been the most interesting aspect of this class and I hope to continue on my own in an effort to keep this process going.
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