Wan Jin's paper

Wan Jin’s paper stood out most when he described images, and describes reactions. The soft river is comforting and the graphic disturbing images are graphic and disturbing. He does a very good job of projecting these feelings; and helping to explain why Gore does such good work with them too.  The drafts introduction was very weak, and there is no reference to the actual science in the paper, so he edits the first couple of tidbits about carbon emissions out to completely focus on Gore’s dynamic rhetoric, which is a good thing. If a paper is a Jenga tower, the intro is the very crucial foundation that either holds it up or sends it toppling down.  His final includes much more references back to the research, so he doesn’t seem to rely only on his primary source for his rhetorical analysis.

I found the parts about Gore’s own personal suffering strengthening his resolve to be the weakest part of the paper. I was under the impression that maybe that section could fall under the lonely leader caption, because most of that seemed less to strengthen his resolve and more to induce sympathy, but that’s probably just me.  He also seems to overanalyze his body movements at one point, when describing Gore’s mobilization. Maybe Gore was just trying to make eye contact, he didn’t have to be acting out mobilization like a game of charades, that would make less people take him seriously.

so here's the deal

g.clemson.edu wasn't supported by blogger, so I had to figure out what gmail account I hooked up to the g.clemson, so I'm finally back.

I just figured out how to get back onto my blogger, and it was kind of a mess to deal with. I will commence with the latest three blogs, in reverse order.

I really hope this abnormality doesn't affect my grade. not too much anyways.

Synthesis on drafting and outlining and revision.

The reading that is being synthesized currently focuses on organizing and drafting a research argument paper, with a tad of information on how to revise it.

Outlines can help you organize your paper by deciding where you want to put what points, and then making it easy to switch them around as you figure out how to transition from point to point. It also helps with how you want to incorporate the sources that you have cited, and pairing articles with the points you are making. Eventually you will figure out how you are going to tack on your own opinion and add your own twist to the facts you are presenting. This skeleton provides the springboard that will be the research paper soon.

In drafting you have to remember not to just regurgitate your sources, but provide your own original voice to the issue.  Learn how to paraphrase the sources and don’t use too many quotations. Most of the meat of the paper will be in summarizing your own points, and the main idea of the sources.

After drafting, revision is critical. Your first draft is going to be far from perfect. Sometimes it will be a big problem, such as a thesis that’s too broad, but sometimes it’s a quick fix like removing quotations. More than likely, there will be an overbearing problem that will have to be taken care of in the next drafts. You can either identify these yourself or get a peer or fresh set of eyes to analyze it for you, but one things for certain, there’s always something to be fixed.  

interviews

These interviews are on two very different subjects. I think it's safe to start by pointing out the most fundamental differences and then branch out from there

First off, there is very little to say about embedding journalists because it seems they have little to report. Anytime things get overly exciting, the reports get blurry, so many of the questions can just be answered with an "I can't answer that." There's also the problem of operational security. There are problems with the restrictions that the interview has. The most I got out of it was "Journalists are put in danger and experience maybe too much excitement" We can't make any conclusive statements from this interview.


The McDonalds interview, on the other hand, is very in depth. Ritzer doesn't have any restrictions constricting him from voicing all of the information he has on the subject. The interviewer constructs his questions in a way to either tear down or reinforce Ritzer's points, depending on his ability to answer the questions. His "Iron cages" analogy works well for him when he is challenged with "Do you eat at McDonald's?" I feel like this interview was much better constructed than the previous one and helped provide much more information.

Analyzing research sources

In the reading, we learned very specific things about the daunting task of researching prior to writing a paper.
There are two types of sources: Primary- which we analyze independently, and are usually in the context of our topics, and Secondary- which provide their own professional analyses to the aforementioned primary sources.

In searching for a source, the library is probably a good place to start, and Google is something to be wary of.
There are a number of questions to ask in analyzing an online source
1. Who is the author, and what authority does s/he have on the topic?
2. is the site affiliated with some organization?
3. Does the site cite its own sources?
4. What is the purpose of the site and who is the audience?
among others.
 Primary research is also an option, interviewing knowledgeable people on the subject.

A dialogue of sources allows you to identify how your paper will flow, and what sources will provide what points, a generally useful tool in helping format the paper.
Another tool to help with this is the annotated bibliography, which contains your works cited and annotations for every source, where you discuss the usefulness and applications of each source and how it will apply to your topic. You discuss pros and cons of the source, and how reliable the source is.

Facebook, the news feed, microblogging, twitter

When I heard about the social network craze, I was in 8th grade and I thought it was stupid. Why in the world would I put myself on the internet and talk to all my friends that I already knew in person? why not talk to them in real life?
I went to a pretty small school system, my graduating class was around 206 people, and I knew most of them, so I really didn't think that I would jump on that bandwagon as quickly as I did. I had a couple of rules though.

-not too much personal information
- Don't friend strangers
- (eventually) no emo statuses, people in general won't care

With the death of myspace, I didn't have to worry about changing my profile song or arbitrarily ranking my friends anymore, that was nice.
Then we come to Facebook and its infamous news feed.
I don't know what all the initial fuss was about, I post everything with the assumption that everyone would be able to see it, even if it wasn't true. It's a social network, privacy almost doesn't belong.

The description of the change of our social dynamic was interesting. We keep in touch with many more people now, and maintain several weak ties with people that we know, literally "networking" across all of our social circles, and when we lose contact with people, they remain our Facebook friends. I have facebook friends that I haven't talked to in over a year. I still think that this doesn't affect the way we see our close ties with close friends. We all, as of now, follow a relatively normal schedule, and with that comes contact with the same people and the closeness of a shared experience. This overtakes anything that our virtual "weak" connections have on us.
I found the ambient knowing bit to be intriguing as well. I've found that I can still keep up with what my close high school friends are doing, and still feel a little bit of connection to them, albeit not very much.
I also find my status updates a useful tool for introspection. Even though most of them are jokes, I find out a lot about myself with how I project myself to others, kind of like looking at an ideal portrait of myself.

Under all that armor, we're all still human, probably.

I would like to start today with what my avatars in World of Warcraft were.
Johnlocke- eventually was my main, 80 troll shaman. Male
Whowhatwhen- Level 61 Blood elf Paladin. Female-OK LET ME EXPLAIN MYSELF

When me and my brother started playing Horde, we immediately thought "wow, all these races look tragic, why would we play any of them?" We eventually warmed up to their appearances, but the first thing we thought was "Man those blood elf females are the only attractive thing the Horde has."
Also, I wanted to be a paladin and the males looked like sissies.
Me and John had arguments over which one of our avatars was hotter, it was kind of funny looking back on it. We did eventually start getting hit on, and it got really weird really quickly.

But I felt much like myself when playing that troll, I'm not sure why. I'm sure not only avatar creation goes into subliminal description of the player beneath, classes matter too. A warrior or Paladin is going to have heavy armor, be the tough guy that takes all the hits. The mages want to seem intelligent, and the damage dealers want to be the ones that matter. The healers are the benevolent ones that would rather help their allies than fight.
That's what I think anyways.

What originally had me hooked on shammy was dual wielding. Anytime anyone forgoes a shield in favor of another club or axe to beat enemies down with, you know that guy means business. I wanted to be a guy that meant business.
I found myself in a weird support role, dropping totems to increase the party's stats, along with my own. I was a jack of all trades, using magic, support abilities, healing and physical strength all with equal prowess. I helped people out in a party and could take care of myself on my own. I was very well rounded, and that may have been a projection of what I wanted to be.

I'll be honest, I miss those guys a bit.
But I digress, a little anyways.

in the realm of other games combat oriented or otherwise, avatars serve to break barriers and take out the social aspect of physical appearance. People all look how they would like to be seen, and that's how prejudices are broken. We're blind to color and appearances, and can all just communicate on level ground with similar interests and goals. I'd argue that gamers are more social than the average person because of this.  Sure, they may be less interactive with people in the real world, but there are more people on the virtual realm they can relate to. They can even create real friendships in the virtual world, support each other and help get through things in the real world; and they don't even know what the other looks like. Some people create guilds and linkshells and clans for the sole purpose of socialization.