New Blog Def

Amazingly enough, my perspective on blogging has changed! (note sarcasm) So at the very beginning of the quarter, I very much thought that blogging was diary-type writing. While I think this definition remains in my all-encompassing definition of a blog, I think that the course has expanded my view on blogs to blogging just being a medium for anyone in any situation to publish something to a public domain. It is an online journal. It is a form of journalism, and COULD BE a legitimate type of academic writing. As for its place in academia, I don't really see it as anything useful except for a place to view thoughts of others or a place to put your own thoughts. The lack of credibility that is inherent in blogs would make it impossible for me to believe in something that was actually posted. A collaborative blog would be pretty cool...almost like a cool version of panfora. A place to put your thoughts, comment on others' thoughts and argue with each other. However, as an "educational experience" I dont think there's really anything different about it as opposed to panfora.

Rock the vote

I thought it was a really cool idea to target the younger voter population by using the medium of phones and AIM. The newest voter population is very much involved technologically and even though we are technologically "advanced", the majority of the younger voter population is still very uninvolved and undereducated in terms of political stances. Much of what we learn is still taught in schools, but to less of an effect. People are losing touch with reality and starting to live in a world of technology.

This idea is excellent because through AIM and phones, people actually get more information and reality is brought to people who didnt realize that their votes mattered before. I personally have felt this technological dearth of info...and I feel like the rock the vote campaign was a really good idea to get people my age involved, especially those of us who are really steeped in popular culture.

I also might be showing some bias because one of my very good friends from home was actually a finalist in the rock the vote campaign. Although he didn't win, he got a lot of people involved and showed a lot of people that their votes actually did matter.

Hypertext

In reading Mark Bernstein's "Hypertext gardens" I had no idea what to expect except that it would probably have some rules for writing on the web. After actually reading through (or attempting to read through) the hypertext that he made on hypertext, I was fed up and exhausted (the latter probably due to a lack of sleep) and wanted to burn my computer monitor.

The argument that Bernstein makes in his article is that links can be used completely misused. He makes this argument in a very visual way however, because his website content talks about how links never confuse readers anymore. The Irony is amazing. The content talks about how people are able to peruse links with no problem and yet, his own website is full of links that seem to me to be confusing.

Bernstein divides his argument into sections.
1. Beyond the navigation problem
2. The Problem with the navigation problem
3. The Limits of structure
4. Gardens and paths

Beyond the Navigation problem starts talking about how in the past, people were afraid that links would confuse people, but eventually people came to realize that instead, it was the actual text that made websites unclear. I do not agree with this statement. THis website, case and point makes my head spin because there is no logical structure and order to the links which just seem to coexist without some sort of hierarchy of importance.

The Problem with the navigation problem, according to Bernstein, is that navigation is not a problem and that people need to use links in new and creative ways. He specifically says, "links are oppertunities for expression." While this may be true, I personally cannot concieve a better way to alienate an audience which is looking specifically for information. If the specific website is being used for art, by all means, do whatever is necessary for self expression.

In his section, The Limits of Structure, Bernstein talks about how the usual structure of a webpage alienates the content of the material from the audience by making it "inert, sterile, and distant." I feel as though he is more concerned with the structure of the page than with the content. Although it is agreed that the medium in which the content is presented is important in conveying information to an audience, I feel like the information and the way it is phrased specifically should be more important than making links that are creative and novel.

In the last section, Gardens and Paths, Bernstein argues that "Unplanned hypertext sprawl is wilderness: complex and interesting, but uninviting. Interesting things await us in the thickets, but we may be reluctant to plough through the brush, subject to thorns and mosquitoes." This is entirely true about webpages with multiple or embedded links. People do not want to get involved with the process of delving entirely through a web page because it is sort of like getting side tracked from a task that you set out to do in the first place. This is probably the reason I hated this webpage. I set out to read it, and instead had to click through millions of links to get to the real point of it.

Powerpoint

Before even reading these articles, my view of powerpoint was that it was a useful tool that when used correctly could make a compelling presentation. I honestly didn't think that it was necessary for a presentation, having seen some of the best presentations given with absolutely no visual media other than the person actually speaking. When I first saw the titles of the articles, I already had a bias against them just because people who think "powerpoint is the devil" or that "powerpoint is evil" generally have a very narrowminded view of the benefits of powerpoint. As I read the articles, I found that many of the arguments that they made were almost as I had assumed, narrowminded.

Most of the articles seem to make the same point: Powerpoint is generally a tool that is misused to the point that the efficacy of the actual presentation is lost. These points are made most emphatically in Tufte's "Powerpoint is evil". Tufte opens with an analogy to a wonderdrug with many terrible side effects, turning all presentations into "sales pitches" and arguing that the presentations become largely data driven. In response to this claim, I can claim to never have seen powerpoint misused to the degree that he claims it is misused, and that powerpoint users, when presenting data, generally have a good handle on what the data means and don't innundate the presentation with anymore useless graphs than they would if they had visual slides or overhead transparencies. Personally, I like the visual aspect of powerpoint. As long as the presenter makes it easy to follow along, there is no problem with a lot of data to support the argument.

Tufte goes onto describe a scenario in elementary school where children are being taught to use and taught with powerpoint. I have to agree that this is a little disturbing because this method of teaching is not conducive to forming coherent arguments in papers. I am not sure about the validity of this claim though because I have a sister in elementary school who by no means knows how to use powerpoint and is also writing the very essays that Tufte claims should be written in place of the dreaded powerpoint slides.

He then talks of buisness scenarios where the powerpoints are often misused and do not present the most important or valuable information. I suppose he has a valid argument, but that is not necessarily the problem with powerpoint, but rather the presenter's blatant misuse of powerpoint to present every facet of information that they have. It is really up to the user to discern between necessary and unnecessary information. Personally, I tend to abandon the templates that powerpoint uses because I find it more convenient in making my point to not be bounded by such limitations.

Research Topic Ideas

1. Identity theft

I don't know too much about it, but its been on my mind recently because Ive been wondering how safe buying things online is. I know there were a string of commercials dealing with identity theft that came on within the past couple of years. The internet creates an environment where identites can be created and deleted...and stolen fairly easily.

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/idtheft.html

2. Biometrics

Identification using traits such as fingerprinting and iris coloring. I like this topic because it would, in my perception, fuse my interest in biology with cutting edge technology.

http://www.biometrics.org/html/introduction.html

I am almost at a loss for what topics to explore because there seem to be so many. I think at this point in time, I am leaning towards identity theft solely because id hopefully get a chance to read about cases of identity theft and how it is done. Biometrics would be fun to read about as well, but it would be a little more scientific.

First Blog Entry

First blog entry (required of all e-rhetoric students). For this first entry, you should simply write about your experience (or lack of experience) with blogs. Some questions that you might address include (but are not limited to): What are your preconceptions about blogs or people who keep blogs? What sort of blogs, if any, have you kept in the past? How do you feel blogs fit into your understanding of e-rhetoric? What blogs (if any) do you read on a regular basis? Why? Feel free to be as personal or formal as you wish in this entry.

Blogs and I have limited history. I started blogging my senior year of high school when my friends who were all avid blogkeepers, coerced me into starting a blog. By that time, I was a frequent blog stalker and had decided that blogging was not for me since I really had nothing to say. It was the reason I didn't keep a diary and never wrote notes to my friends. Sure, I could blog about my day, but it was my experience, by that time, that blogs that were reflections on what the blogger had done all day were the most boring.

Once I got my blog, I wanted it to be a place where I could talk about whatever I wanted without fear of public opinion. I knew of bloggers who were attacked for what they wrote and took the attacks personally and then changed their blog entries to make other people like them more. (Luckily, I had already had a reputation for being crazy in high school and therefore, a little insanity for other people to see wouldnt have changed their opinions of me one bit. ) So my blog became a place for me to put random thoughts or to rant about crazy teachers or stupid assignments or people that I couldn't stand. It makes looking back at old entries that much more fun to read.

As for how blogs fit into my understanding of e-rhetoric, I'm not sure. Mostly, blogs use very informal rhetoric because (at least to my knowledge) they are for the people who write them. The ones I read are full of emotions actually since a lot of people like to write about how they feel in these blogs. As for ethos and logos, I don't see those as often, just because these are personal blogs, unless a person is trying to hash things out for themselves on their blog.