The second round starts

I was planning on waiting a day or two before I began a second round of blog reviews, but Tia asked me to review her blog, and comment on how she is using it for research.

Her first day's entry was a meditation on digital imaging, and where it is taking the photography industry. This is a good research strategy--it allows you to use writing to think through an idea, explore themes. With perseverance, this can lead to the development of research questions.

In the second entry she explores some issues related to the subject by reviewing an article in a newspaper. Again, this type of work--reviewing other published text on the subject--is an important part of the research process. It helps you get more familiar with your subject matter.

Her third entry explores the use of photoshop, Adobe's dominant software package. Another nice move, reviewing one of the tools of the digital imaging trade. She does so by reviewing a journal article which gives some tricks of the trade.

In her fourth entry, she is discussing her own experience working in a photo studio, and the impact of digital imaging on her work. This direct report of your own experience is a kind of primary research, like interviewing and conducting a survey, as opposed to secondary research, finding research in libraries or on the Internet. When you are the subject, like in Tia's case, the research could be described as auto-ethnographic in nature.

In her fifth entry, she again turns to a newspaper article describing the use of digital imaging in mammograms.

Tia's entries are detailed, and a perfect example of how you use your blog for research. She is almost up to par on the quantity of entries, and the quality is very high.

If I were to make any other suggestions for improving her blog, it would be to provide Internet links to some of the articles she chooses to discuss. Finding a few relevant pictures could also be fun!

A band and some more reviews of student blogs

A great weekend. Even though my Tigers were swept by Cleveland, I had a great day at Comerica Park on Saturday. And Monday I finally got the kayaks out on Cedar Creek, though the mosquitoes were having me for lunch.

Also discovered a new band--every year I seem to fall in love with a new band. last year it was "The Killers." The year before it was "White Stripes." My new band is "Arcade Fire." Check out this video on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNfWC4Sgkcs

There's plenty more there. I just bought the second album, Neon Bible.

To the blogs:

Paul's blog has a lot of neat information about the publishing industry--a good example of how to use a blog to research a subject.

Angie has started her blog, and is focusing on Sarbanes-Oxley, or SOX. I'd never heard the acronym before, so she taught me something.

Alvin's blog is exploring the world of SONY. The dancing robots video is priceless.

Un Lun Dun and the blog reviews

I'm now about 200 pages into China Mieville's new youth novel, Un Lun Dun (http://www.amazon.com/Un-Lun-Dun-China-Mieville/dp/0345495160), and I'm not disappointed. For those of you waiting for the last Harry Potter book to come out, read this instead! It's darker than Rowling's books, but just as funny. And Mieville takes many more risks with the genre, and by stretching it he is advancing future work in youth fantasy.

He takes one of the oldest conventions in the genre--the child who is "chosen" and prophesied to be a hero--and turns it on its end. Imagine a Harry Potter book where, after the first 50 pages or so, Harry becomes a minor character and Ron becomes the focus of the book. Yet that's exactly what Mieville does!

He also works a bit of political discourse into the novel. Readers will recognize parallels between the war in Unlundun and the war on terror. And the discrimation faced by Hemi, a half-breed ghost, is maddening.

Great reading.

Today's three blogs were disappointing. They all had great topics, and good blog design, but only a short, initial entry. I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but at 2-3 entries per week, you should have 4-6 entries now. And I won't respond favorably to the writer dumping a ton of entries at once--that is no way to build a readership, or to use the blog as a research genre.

OK: Tom's blog is on Gasoline Futures--a very interesting topic for those of us who wonder if we will be paying $4 a gallon or more this summer. Brandon's blog is focused on what to do after college. And David's blog is devoted to the study of Agribusiness.

MORE ENTRIES PLEASE!!!!

Four More Reviews and a Warning

More student blogs!

Jen has set up a great blog on career women in the home. Neat design, lots of information. Her discussion of her sister, an executive with Vera Bradley, working from home after giving birth was very insightful. About the only thing the blog is missing: I couldn't find a blog title in the template!

Nick has a blog with some interesting information about global warming and the Kyoto treaty. Nick has switched subjects, and that's certainly permissible!

Heather has started a nice blog on advanced education, and the MBA. Only one post so far, though.

Ashley has a nice design for her blog on hybrid vehicles, but there aren't any posts!

Come on people--2-3 posts per week--I mean that. The blog is 20% of your final grade, so keep working the blogs!

A Smorgasboard, A Buffet!

I can't help but have a little fun--but these student blogs are really a smorgasbord of interests and concerns.

Brad's blog has some interesting posts on the Iraq war and the intersection of economics, culture, and politics.

Andrew has a very professional-looking blog, "All Things Buffett," devoted to news about Warren Buffet and his company, Berkshire Hathaway.

Cory's blog is focused on small business--how to setup and maintain a small business. there should be lots of material for that one!

Keep the posts coming. I'll keep reading and reviewing them, three at a time!

Students in the Public Space

It's really fascinating to me watching how my students enter a public space like the Internet when they begin blogging. Some come out very tentatively, carefully protecting their privacy. Others are more open, comfortable with revealing personal aspects about themselves. MySpace has certainly had an effect on this issue.

I'm continuing to review student blogs, at the rate of about three student blogs during each of my own blog entries. I am aiming to post two-three times a week, the same rate I am asking my students to aim for.

I'll also continue to use this as my reading blog. Now that I've finished the massive 6-month project of reading and reviewing Pynchon's Against the Day, I'll be turning towards a bit more accessible fare.

First the student blogs, the links to which can be found down on the lower right-hand side of my blog (some html expert out there--how do I fix my template to bring these links back up to the top?).

Tia's blog (http://digitalvsfilm-tiafranks.blogspot.com/) on digital photography and its impact on traditional film is interesting. At first I was a little disturbed by the use of "affect" in the blogs' title--it is used as a noun here, and affect is usually used as a verb, while "effect" is the more commonly used noun. However, affect can also be used as a noun, and when so used, it refers to the emotional aspects of an event. And I think Tia may be on to something here. The great German Jewish critic and philosopher, Walter Benjamin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin), in a famous article "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," talks about how technologies of reproduction remove the "aura" from art. In a similar way, I think Tia is arguing that there is a certain "aura" lost when we switch from traditional film to digital photography. An I think this aura is a psychological "affect" of art. Intentional, or unintentional, I think I love the title!

Brian's Fort Wayne Baseball Blog (http://downtownfortwaynebaseball.blogspot.com/) is a blog we can all learn from--myself included. Brian is an experienced blogger, and his blog on downtown and the Harrison Square project has received quite a bit of attention. The most recent entry (by his collaborator Chris, not Brian) describes yesterday's downtown Art Crawl (a nice play on the traditional "Pub Crawl"). Brian is a good resource if you have technical questions about blogging--He knows a lot more about it than I do.

Krista has a fine blog, "Living Organic," which explores the organic lifestyle. Her choice of the "Green" template for her blog is a good example of how the form and visual design of your blog can be unified with the content of the blog! A nice beginning.

Now to my readings.

I just finished reading the late Roger Zelazny's Hugo-Award winning novel from 1966, This Immortal. Zelazny was one of the masters of "literary" science fiction, and this post-apocalyptic (think TV's Jericho) novel of an immortal bureaucrat is stuffed full of references to classical mythology.

My newest read is China Mieville's young adult fantasy novel Un Lun Dun (http://www.randomhouse.com/delrey/unlundun/index.html). I love Mieville's adult novels, but they can be challenging reads, so I wondered how he would handle the young adult genre. So far--brilliantly. I haven't been this excited about young adult fiction since I discovered Harry Potter and the Phillip Pullman novels.

Empowering Students through Blogging

I just finished reading a draft of a graduate thesis where one of our students here makes a compelling case for teaching the Multi-Genre Resaerch paper (MGRP) in the composition classroom.

While I don't expect readers of this blog to know anything about MGRPs, what they basically aim to do is to allow writers to develop their own identity as writers in an academic space, by allowing them to begin writing in genres they are comfortable in, genres they can identify with and own, and then move to more formal, academic genres. Here is a link to a high school site advocating their use--http://www.sheboyganfalls.k12.wi.us/cyberenglish9/multi_genre/multigenre.htm.

On the bottom right hand side of this blog you will see links to blogs students have started for this class.

It is my hope that students will use these blogs to experiment in a similar way to the MGRP--to explore a subject in their own voice, but to gradually connect to other voices, and to gradually become more "business like" in their blogging. I want students to own these blogs, and to engage with the idea of writing in a public space.

Miss Julie's blog (http://interviewthis.blogspot.com/) explores interviewing, and the preparationss one should make before meeting with a corporate recruiter. I find this a very interesting topic to explore.

Mhariel's blog (http://mhariel.blogspot.com/) is devoted to business writing. That is a very big subject, and I expect Mhariel will narrow the topic of her blog as she continues to write.

Matt's blog (http://luxuryretailtrends.blogspot.com/ ) is examining luxury retailing, so far from an investment point-of-view.

All three bloggers should work on establishing a voice, finding links to other sources. Matt did a nice job of incorporating a graphic into his blog.

Keep up the good work!

Blogging in the Business World

More and more businesses use blogs. Some use them for marketing purposes, some use them as research platforms, or places to share corporate knowledge. Others use them as platforms for collaboration.

Dave Pollard has done a lot of writing on Web 2.0 applications like Blogs. Here's one of his better articles on the subject: http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/12/15.html#a1374

My student blogs are starting up: Aimee is blogging about the best family oriented companies at http://familyorientedcompanies.blogspot.com/. Its a good beginning. I ask my students to make their blogs more interesting by linking to other web pages of interest, and to use visuals, where applicable (be sure not to violate copyright when you post a visual.)

I'm lamenting the fact that I've become too busy to go to the Computers and Writing Conference this year. It's even close--at Wayne State, in Detroit. My colleague, Dr. Suzanne Rumsey will be presenting there. http://englishweb.clas.wayne.edu/~cw07/cw07/

Chapter 60: Finis!

Lurching towards an end, the novel finishes with this 70th chapter, which makes up all of Part 5, “Rue de Depart,” which is the street where Dally lives in Paris.

The Kit/Dally alliance isn’t without some bumps, and Dally can’t quite seem to give up Clive Crouchmas. It seems like the major female characters form a continuum, with Yashmeen, the most self-reliant, achieving the most love and happiness, with Estrella a little less independent and happy, Dally a bit less, and Lake, the unhappiest and loneliest.

In the last scene, the Inconvenience has become an entire world, populated by children of aeronauts, and aerodogs. All flying “toward grace” (1085).

Old man—you’ve written quite a fine novel—my most satisfying read in years. It’s not quite Gravity’s Rainbow, yet in some ways it’s a better novel than GR. I suppose having a Pynchon novel end with optimism is a bit like Cure fans listening to “Wild Mood Swings” after “Disintegration.” A bit shocking, but pleasurable in its own way.

Chapter 69: California Dreamin!

Now that the War has destroyed the Old Order, Pynhcon is starting to show us the modern that survives. Not surprisingly, we are back in California, his old haunting grounds, locale of Vineland and The Crying of Lot 49.

Lew makes a great Mulholland Drive detective, and we finally learn where Mrs. Deuce Kindred’s life has led. Deuce’s justice comes with his arrest as a mass murderer. No happy endings here.

Merle manages to reunite with Dally by means of modern technology—a distant father-daughter reunion there. Even Lew makes an effort to find the long-lost Troth!

Chapter 68: Kelvin's Legacy

The Chums, now including Pugnax’s Ksenija, catch a great updraft over the Sahara, yet end up descending towards a Counter-Earth, the Anti-Chthon of Philolaus of Tarentum. This seems to confirm Chick’s theory that:

“each star and planet we see in the Sky is but the reflection of our single Earth along a Minkowskian space-time track. Travel to other worlds is therefore travel to alternate versions of the same Earth. And if going up is like going north, with the common variable being cold, the analogous direction in Time, by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, ought to be from past to future, in the direction of increasing entropy” (1020).

The boys survive the passage, but return, on a mission in search of their Russian counterpart. Finding him, they join him in mercy missions during the war, dropping, not masonry, but food and medical supplies to victims of the European War.

This chapter takes the Chums through the Armistics, and they leave for a mission back to America where the aeronauts encounter the “Sodality of Aethernauts” (1030). Thus the Chums are paired into domesticity, Chick with Viridian, Lindsay with Primula, Miles with Glee, Randolph with Heartsease, and Darby with Blaze.

And finally, in LA, Chcik reunites with his Dad, his Dad’s new wife Treacle, and sidekicks Roswell Bounce and Merle Rideout.

Reunions and couplings all around! Seems like even cynical people like Pynchon believe in the power of Love.

Chapter 67: No More Bad Vibe

A battle between the miner and owners is brewing in Trinidad, and Scarsdale Vibe, Frank, Estrella, Ewball, and Jesse are all converging there. Just when it looks like Frank and Ewball will take the opportunity to finally get Vibe, Foley kills the industrialist, announcing “Hope you fellows don’t mind, but its payday today, and I’ve been in line years ahead of you” (1006).

Even Mother Jones enters the picture, opposing the violent union busting forces of John Chase.

Still the battle erupts, and Estrella and Jesse just escape, while Frank and Ewball are in the midst of the battle.

Chapter 66: Frank Sees the Light!

We’re back to Frank’s story.

In Mexico, Frank seems to be enduring one Mexican Revolution after another. After deposing the tyrant Diaz in 1911, Madero didn’t enact the land reforms, and seems to have betrayed the Anarchist’s cause. Soon the Vazquistas and the Orozquistas are challenging the Madero regime, and Frank takes up with the latter, who are defated by the murderous General Huerta.

Franks turns to working for his friend, Gunther von Quassel at the latter’s coffee plantation in Chiapas. The mysterious Cucuji beetle, noted for its bioluminescence, is revered by the natives, and “Frank came to understand this bearer of light was his soul” (991).

Frank finally gets disgusted with Mexico and heads back to Colorado where there is a reunion with Ewball Oust, who tells Frank about the end of Ewball’s relationship with Stray: “She’s all yours, pardner…She always was” (997). He learns Mayva is there too, so yet another reunion, another lurch towards a happy ending.

Chapter 65: Mom's Back

After the long chapter, a short one, where Stray and Ewball Oust visit the family mansion in Colorado. Compared to the rich, but bad Vibes, the Ousts seem to be decent sorts.
And who works for the family, but Mayva!