School's Out for Summer!!!

Actually the title is a little misleading. BG is out, but I am taking summer classes so I am not really free. Got a mixed methods research class and MCOM history. Foust's class seems really interesting. I am going to explore historiography as a research method for my dissertation. Need to talk to OBB as well because I need to find a way to blend vis comm, emerging media, and political economy. Oh the fun that is grad school. Well, I wanted to make at least a brief appearance on my blog. Now it's off to yard work and studying. Quite a day planned!

Still not a better blogger

Well it's April, and I'm still not a better blogger. I do have my journalism class using them though. And to top it all off, yesterday was my birthday. The big four three! Yikes that sounds old. In seven years I'll be half of a century old. How depressing is that. And once again, I'm at the end of semester with too much to do and too little time. Tomorrow I leave for the Central States Communication Association (CSCA) conference in Indy. That's kinda exciting. My first conference as an academic. I am starting pretty low though since I am presenting as part of a panel. I guess it's a way of easing into this. The people I am working with are great though, and in my humble opinion, much more brilliant than I. Jake, Ian, Amy, Nikki, Rucha, Mike, Nick (or should I say Face!)...you guys are great and it is a privilege knowing and working with you. If I missed a name, my deepest apologies. Next fall I need to aim for NCA which is in San Antonio I believe. Ought to be warmer there than Ohio. That's definitely something to cheer the soul. I guess it's time to sign off. Got to read about Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. There's a good night's sleep in my future.

Take me to a warmer place

It's Been Awhile...Again

Oh, my dear blog...how I have neglected thee. It is time for an additional post after 1/2 a year's absence. I must admit that I was inspired by a friend of mine known as The Masked Doctoral Student. Check out his meandering ways if you get a chance. This entry is probably going to be depressing, so if you don't want to feel as crappy as I do, STOP READING NOW! The truth is, I do feel crappy. Physically, I am ill. Sore throat, nose, headache, tired, just want this semester to be over kind of BS. Mentally it is pretty much the same. Too much academic red tape to deal with. Thankfully, it is all winding down. Turn in my teaching portfolio tonight, show up for a brief class tomorrow (hasta la vista 600!), and then all I have to do is finish the research proposal for 640 (which I have conveniently procrastinated on for weeks). On top of it all, it is just too damn cold in NW Ohio. Precious commented last night that those of us who live here must be used to it. Not even close. You never get used to it although it might be easier to deal with than those, like Precious, from California.

On the positive side, Christmas is almost here, so if you are from California, or any other warm state, enjoy Christmas as it was meant to be enjoyed. After all, Santa doesn't wear a thick, red suit for no reason. Another positive - in just over three weeks, I will be enjoying the warm sunshine from a cruise ship in the Bahamas. We are sailing on January 2nd, and for all my dear friends out there, I will not be thinking of you! When I am in the Caribbean, my thoughts will basically be:

The weather is here. Wish you were nice.

Hey, I am starting to feel better all ready. Nothing like pounding out your worries on a keyboard. :) Perhaps I will now be inspired to be a better blogger. Till next time...

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.

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.

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 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

At any rate, those are my top six (four?) reasons for choosing MLA. We are supposed to have 250+ words for this entry, but I just don't know what else to say. I am out of words, which is actually strange for me. I usually have no trouble filling up my blog. Oh well - Have a great weekend!

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!

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.

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.

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.

PostSecret

This assignment asks us to write an extended critique on a non-classmate, non-friend's blog. So I went out searching for a blog that possibly tied in with some of my research interests including blogging and visual rhetoric. As I linked from site to site, I ended up at Samantha Blackmon's blog. As I searched through her postings I ran across a link that piqued my interest. The heading for the entry was simply "This is phenomenal and disturbing!" Below the heading was a link: PostSecret. Okay, she had my attention and what else could I do but click the link? What I discovered was both phenomenal and disturbing, and also very engrossing.

Part of the way down the page is this excerpt:

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project. People from around the world share their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. If you would like to mail in your secret(s) too, scroll down to the bottom of this page for directions.-Frank

At he bottom of the page you find:

You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a regret, hope, ,experience, unseen kindness, belief, fear, betrayal, desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

Essentially, individuals create these postcards, which include some sort of secret, mail them to "Frank," and he creates the post. I would encourage you to look over the blog. It is at once funny, heartbreaking, human, and cathartic. I do question how many of these "secrets" are really true. For all we know, many are simply made up by individuals trying to see if there postcard makes it onto the site. On the other hand, if even only a fraction are true, and the confessions help these people make it through another day, week, month, year...well, that's a pretty good thing isn't it? So far, I have been approaching blogging academically, and this helped me see another side of the equation. The side that involves personal expression and creativity.

Some of these posts are funny and questionably ethical at the same time. For instance, one post from 4/17, shows a traffic ticket. The text on the postcard explains that the person found a ticket on his/her windshield. The car in the next space also had a ticket, so this person switched the tickets. That ticket was paid, but the other one wasn't as it was used to send in for the post. I'll have to admit that I laughed in spite of myself and at the same time wondered where the responsibility and accountability had gone. Other posts were more disturbing as the one about the person who only sleeps well when he/she dreams of being shot. There are many others and I will leave them for the curious to browse on their own.

This site is an amazing commentary on our culture. The web has often been held up as a place for all to freely share their sins. With anonymity, the outpouring is continual and neverending. This blog also says a lot about our society and how we accept, or reject, others based on superficial information. Where else do these people go for confession? Recent events in the Catholic church have made many uneasy about the clergy and psychotherapists charge an arm and a leg for counseling. To top it off, many insurance plans only minimally cover the counseling visits. So here we sit, with our monthly connection charge, pleading our case to the world, never worrying about judgment from those who would critique us. Cyberconfession, if you will....

Welcome

This blog is my new home and contains links to my other blogs maintained for my Resources and Research in Technical Communication and Online Documentation courses at BGSU. My hope is to actually begin blogging on a regular basis once this term is complete and I have more time. The title, "Bring Out Your Blog" is a reference to a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Bring Out Your Dead." Hopefully this blog does not die before it truly gets started. Oh and by the way, British humor rules! Stay tuned for further musings...

Methods to Madness

Today's entry - What research method am I proposing? I have to admit that I am puzzling over this a little. We have covered so many types of research over the past few weeks that it is difficult to figure out just where my project fits in. This blog entry will probably be less about the method I am proposing as much as it is a process I must go through to determine what the method will be. At its most basic level, the research I am proposing involves looking at several blogs and performing a genre analysis.

So let's start by trying to eliminate some of the obvious suspects. My first inclination is that this is definitely not ethnographic research. I am not immersing myself in any culture or organization to learn about how technical communication works inside that culture/organization. On the other hand, when I look to some of the uses of ethnographic research, I find that it includes identifying patterns of behavior "...that are important within a particular group" (Katz). Since I am performing a genre analysis, am I not looking for writing patterns within a particular group? There is no physical space to inhabit, so it would be different from an organization, and yet it is still a group or culture - cyberculture if you will. Therefore, ethnography is a possibility, but I am not sure if it is the primary suspect.

Second on the list is historical methods. This appears to be one of the front runners, since historical methods include using a variety of sources to gather information about something that has happened in the past. Haven't all of the blogs that I will be examining been written in the past? My job will be to examine those blogs and try to make sense of them through analysis. I kind of like this one. Surveys and questionnaires are third an the list and this is an obvious no. I will not be doing any type of surveys, questionnaires, interviews, etc. So let's scratch that one off of the list! In addition, I would have to say that this will most likely be a quasi-experimental design. It will be truly difficult to secure a completely random sample of blogs. Moreover, I will not be approaching the research from a feminist, cultural, or scientific perspective.

In the end, what I end up with is a quasi-experimental, possibly ethnographic, historical method of analyzing blog genres. What a mouthful!

Open Mic Night at the Blogstopper

So we get to blog on any topic related to research! What shall we talk about? Me thinks of speaking on the relevance of Monty Python humor on the United States and the infidels who do not get it, but me thinks that is also a little off topic. Oh well.

The topic then shall be on some other research I am doing that I have found very interesting. For my research project in the Visual Rhetoric class, I am examining idealized female images on video game covers. Surprisingly, little research has been done into the marketing of video games concerning the images used. A lot of research has been conducted on the images within the games, but not on the marketing. So far, virtually all of the game covers using a female image, use an idealized image. What does it mean? Does it even matter? I contend that yes, it does matter.

First of all there is the ethical issues related to using any idealized form - male or female. On the other hand, game manufacturers may be inadvertently offending a potential part of their market by using such images. Female gamers have been slowly taking up a larger part of the market. In addition, the average age is on the increase. Whereas a few years ago, the typical gamer was a teenager, now the average age is creeping into the upper twenties and even thirties. It seems to me that an older, smarter, savvier game buyer, will need to be marketed to in a different way.

On the other hand, maybe I am full of bologna, and no one really cares. Perhaps the average game buyer doesn't really worry about the images used on box covers, advertisements, and in the games themselves. My research involves looking at the past literature and conducting a semiotic analysis of the images. I would propose conducting additional research into whether or not these images do influence the potential market. My guess is they do.

Top Ten or Twelve

What are the top ten things I have learned in this class. Here goes - In Online Documentation, I have learned...

• that I need to learn a lot more about online documentation
• how to make a template in Dreamweaver (Thanks Tim!)
• basic HTML tags
• that I do not have any clue as to what Johnson is talking about in Datacloud
• that online environments are ludic and iterative
• Steve Jobs keeps his job in large part because of his charisma
• the current web site for S&TC sucks
• the feng shui web site can rock with a few tweaks
• it is important to know how people go about their daily work in order to determine how technology can best serve them
• there are good examples and formats for research proposals
• audience analysis is important in web design
• remediation can involve reverse engineering of prior and new technologies so that features can be liberally borrowed

Please note that these are not in any particular order.

Remediation unveiled

Well, it's back to blogging. It seems like a long time, but I guess that is due to spring break. In addition, my hard drive crashed last Friday and I have been spending time reloading what I could salvage. As a result I am a bit behind in my work (sorry Dr. Mara!). At any rate, I need to define what remediation is. To start, let's look at what Bolter and Grusin have to say. The definition in the text basically says that remediation is the process by which new media technologies improve upon or remedy prior technologies. This remind me of a discussion from a class last term. We were discussion resistance to new media and the topic of "tally sticks" came up. Tally sticks were used to keep financial records in England until they were replaced by paper. Following is an excerpt from eXplore Parliament:

Tally sticks were an ancient method of accounting used by the Treasury.
Notches were cut into wooden sticks according to a code. The sticks were then
split down the middle and the Treasury kept one half and the debtor the other.
When the debt was paid the two halves were matched to see if they 'tallied'.
Tally sticks were abolished in 1783 but their use continued until 1826. The fire
at the Palace of Westminster in 1834 was caused by the burning of old tally
sticks. The fire soon got out of control as there were huge numbers of these
sticks.

Eventually, the new replaced the old. In more recent times, you can see the same thing happening with CDs and vinyl records, as well as DVDs and VHS. I don't believe that the old is always replaced though. Take paintings for example, which were not replaced by the photograph.

In addition, new media oftentimes borrow from older technologies and the old from the new. Pictures use the frame just as paintings do and DVDs use chapters just like books. On the flip side, TV news now uses many features found on Web pages. It has become hypermedia in the sense that there is audio, video, images, and scrolling text, all in multiple frames on the screen. So there it is. Those are my thoughts so far on remediation. I am interested to see where this takes us in the next few weeks.

Mechanism-Telos

Tonight's entry contains the answers to three questions.

1. Out of the list generated in class, pick the two most important mechanisms.
2. Connect the mechanism with the telos. Describe how they are related.
3. How do you measure each mechanism?

The two mechanisms that we chose are employment and certification and they are related to the telos (status of the field) in a number of ways. For one, certification elevates, or at least maintains, the status of the field. By producing qualified graduates with the appropriate credentials, colleges and universities supply the field with a continuous flow of knowledgeable workers. Likewise, employment ties into status for a similar reason. Employers are looking for credentialed prospects and once the student gains employment they begin contributing to the status of the field.

Finally, how do you measure each mechanism? I think the obvious answers are that employment is measured by placement rates and certification (or graduating with a diploma) can be measured by graduation rates and/or completion of program rates. In addition, post-graduation surveys such as employer satisfaction surveys and graduate surveys can be conducted. Following is an explanation of each.

1. Placement rate - measure the number of graduates who find gainful employment in their field. Obviously the key words are "in their field." Finding employment in any area is not a measure and there would be no connection to the telos/status if the graduate isn't employed in his or her field.
2. Completion of program - measure how many students who enroll actually complete their program of study. Students who do not complete the program cannot contribute to the field and should not be considered a successful "product" of the program.
3. Employer satisfaction surveys - measure employer's satisfaction with the graduate and his or her skills as developed via the program.
4. Graduate surveys - measure the graduate's satisfaction with the program and how well that student perceives the education he or she has received. Does the student believe that the education he or she completed has prepared him or her for employment in the field.

What Have I Done for My Research Project?

What I have I done? Well, I am not sure that this will take 250 words, but here goes. (Isn't technical communication about bringing down the walls of text? I could probably do this in a few bullet points.)

There are several things I have done for my research project. Please realize that some of these cross over into my thesis and Online Documentation class. At this point, I have actually done quite a bit of research. This has mainly included looking at what has been done in relation to blog genres. Some of the people I have (figuratively) run into in cyberspace include Carolyn Miller, who conducted a lot of the original work in this area of genres, Rebecca Blood (gotta love the name), Jill Walker, and although not technically a person, the Media class at Richard Stockton College in New Jersey. There have been a few others that are currently on my annotated bibliography, but those listed are the ones I have utilized the most.

In addition, I have been kind of in a continual state of revision with my research proposal. I think it is finally pretty close to complete. I am trying not to get too hung up with this because I could end up wasting time by rehashing the same old stuff. However, I do find that it helps clarify my thoughts and the "plan" becomes ingrained in my mind.

Last week, I spent a few minutes talking with Dr. Mara about where this was all heading. That was a definite plus because, as a result, I finally got the proposal to where I think it ought to be. I have always found that I work best when I can bounce ideas off of someone else. Sometimes my wife is a big help in that area; sometimes it needs to be some else who has more knowledge of the topic, or who is more familiar with my own personal work.

At any rate, that's about it. This next week is going to be spent getting the annotated "bib" together. Even though it is spring break and I would rather be someplace warm, it is kind of relaxing to just sit and read at a slower pace than what usually occurs during a regular class week. However, thoughts of the Caribbean still linger...