Summer Comes to an End, Another Semester Begins

First of all, I realize I am a terrible blogger. I don't know what I can do to remedy this. I like blogging and I was really excited for this blog to be an archive of my PhD experience, but obviously excitement doesn't equal writing. A schedule perhaps?

The summer hasn't been all fun and games (although it has been a lot of fun and games). I've put a lot of work into the class I am teaching in the fall, The Rhetoric of Going Green. I've worked on IRB applications and surveys for a research project I am doing with a fellow student this fall. I've volunteered on a conference that will take place at NMSU this fall. I feel as though I've had a very productive summer.

I am really nervous about the fall semester. I am done with coursework as of the spring, so this semester will be preparing for my comprehensive exam, that I hope to have done in March. I am nervous for two reasons:

1. I've never been a student and not gone to class. This will be a huge test of self-motivation. I don't doubt that I can do it, I just...well, I don't know. I won't miss class and having to deal with all the personalities that come with classes, but I will miss bouncing ideas off people and hearing new perspectives.

2. I am just nervous about the whole process. Picking questions, finding roughly 140-160 sources, writing 40 pages....sounds daunting. I admit, I am saying this before I've looked at the questions, before I've even thought about sources. But I am nervous and even though I know I need to just sit down for an afternoon and figure stuff out, I am afraid and the fear is keeping me from doing anything....

which might scare me most of all - that fear will keep me from moving any further. I think I understand how people never actually finish their PhD.

Fortunately, I don't really think I'll be one of them. Or I hope anyway. I suppose we'll find out. Since I am such an awesome blogger, the next blog post might be about doing my comps.

I Really Want to be a Good Academic Blogger...

...but being a graduate student gets in the way sometimes. But not for much longer. This time next week I will be completely done with the semester. Writing, grading - DONE! Yay. I'm also done with coursework, so next year will be my journey through the comprehensive exam.

I am hoping to more closely document that journey here. I am hoping that turns into closely documenting my dissertation journey as well.

Something amazing happened last week. I was brainstorming some conference panel ideas with a colleague and we came up with something that would be really cool to do and would probably be even publishable and we were excited! At such a late and tiring point in the semester, we were giddy on research. We were giddy in spite of having to fill out an IRB, making sure no one else had done what we wanted to do, and having to quickly come up with survey questions. We can't wait!

What is this exciting idea, you ask? We're interested in looking at how instructors in a border institute use technology in the composition classroom. One, we're curious as to whether instructors use it purposefully in the composition process. Two, there really aren't digital natives at my border institute. This is such a low socioeconomic area that most kids don't have experience with a computer.

There is a lot of work to be done, but it'll be exciting - all of it, comps, conference, dissertation.

Now ask me again after I ride out the end of the semester high.

The Internet is Still Scary?

Recently I had a discussion with someone about my research interests. It probably seems like a safe question to ask someone who is getting a PhD. Everyone at least knows that I have to write a a dissertation. So I went into my usual spiel:

"I am interested in how people talk about natural or man-made disasters on Twitter. It's interesting because the conversation is about one single event and yet, people say so much it doesn't seem like just one event. I am interested in the ethos people are trying to create when they communicate their 140 characters - whether it is authentic or performative based on an identity they are actively trying to create."

When I finished my most recent spiel, the person I was talking to said, "Cool." That is a pretty standard response because most people don't really care when they ask the question and they don't really care to learn anymore. They're just being polite.

But in addition to "cool," the most recent person went on to tell me that just doesn't resonate with him because he doesn't go online. He checks his email and Facebook, but he just doesn't "surf."

I say bullshit.

Now I realize that I love the internet a lot more than a lot of people. I depend on it, I live my life on it and I am making my future based on it. But saying that the internet is just not a part of someone's life? That's like the pseudo-intellectuals who say they never watch tv because it wastes time and doesn't really provide intellectual stimulation for them or whatever their myriad of excuses are.

I think it's bullshit and I don't trust them and I kind of don't think they are saying the whole truth.

When will studying communication on the internet be considered fully legit? When will just liking the internet become fully legit?

New dissertation topic?

Private Me? Public Me?

I wouldn't say that I am a critic of Clancy Ratliff and her blog, but I don't read it because she blends her personal and academic life together on it. I like to go to specific places to read about specific things and if I want to read about some interesting research or perspectives about the rhetoric field then I go to places that aren't peppered with stories about children or child-rearing. I have no problem with hearing about children or child-rearing, I just don't want to be surprised by it.

Therefore, I always thought I would keep my personal and professional thoughts separate, but now I know why it seems appealing to do a hybrid blog. It's not as time consuming. Now that I have this blog, I feel as though I am ignoring my personal blog and in order to update that blog, I have to go to the dashboard...and well it's not a lot of extra work, but just enough that something gets ignored.

But I don't want to write about the things I write about on my other blog. It's easy enough for anyone to find it, so I am not afraid of others reading it. But I want this space to be exclusively for school, as a place for me to think through ideas and research and come to terms with concepts in rhetoric and professional communication. I would like this to be an archive of the process of becoming an academic, of studying for comps, of writing my dissertation.

So, I guess I will continue to have to take a few extra minutes to talk about both my lives.

Digital Writing Research

If you are interested in research in digital environments, even just a little, I suggest you read Digital Writing Research Technologies, Methodologies, and Ethical Issues edited by Heidi McKee and Danielle Nicole DeVoss. This book deals with a lot of issues that are really important to digital writing research - different methodologies that can be used, ethical issues to consider (including IRB concerns), how to incorporate technology as a research tool, cultural implications...

I am taking a qualitative research class right now and will soon be thinking about research for my dissertation. My interests are primarily in digital environments. My last post discussed some of these ideas. I just feel that these are spaces really rich for analysis in how people choose to communicate. It's been a slow concept (research in digital environments) to reach a lot of people and it's a small field, but that too makes it such a great place for research. It's new and exciting and full of possibilities and it's nice to find a text devoted to that.

What I've liked best about it is that it is has provided me with a vocabulary to talk about these issues and to articulate what I mean when I talk about my research interests. Previously, when I've talked about my ideas, people have had questions (oddly, one question I seem to come upon all the time is, "What about the rhetoric?" I find this odd because I am in Rhetoric and Professional Communication program - isn't rhetoric implied in everything we do? Beside the fact - the internet is FULL of rhetoric - an amazing place for analysis). But after reading this, I feel as though I can better explain that what makes these spaces so interesting is the continuous shift, both culturally and technologically, in the internet, makes this kind of research so fascinating. It is never stable - there are new power relationships, ideologies, and new people entering these social spaces all the time. This creates new ways of communication constantly.

It's an exciting time!

Three Ideas and One Way to Go (Eventually)

I thought of a new dissertation idea last week and I like it the best. I liked the last dissertation idea the best too. And probably the one before that as well.

Number one argued that online communities have helped further the green movement. This was of personal interest to me because more and more I have streamlined my life to be more environmentally friendly and online spaces have really helped me with that. Especially since I have few family members and friends and essentially, face-to-face community to help and support me with this. I've written a paper and given a conference presentation and am planning a proposing a 200 level writing class around it, so this has helped me a lot.

Number two asked what happens to online spaces when they are no longer used or popular (i.e. AOL, Friendster, Geocities). I don't have any personal stakes in this. I think it may be too large in scope for me. I am currently taking a qualitative research methods class and I am having a hard time articulating the question in terms my professor and textbooks would like. This could be a problem. But I know there is something there. I just am not sure.

Number three deals with how people interact online in the face of a national disaster or catastrophe. Last year I began a project on using the Pentad on a series of Tweets that dealt with a school shooting in Alabama. It was cool to do because the dominant term was purpose, rather than technology as agency, which so many people would think it was. After the earthquate in Haiti, all sorts of people spoke up on Twitter and Facebook and asked people to donate or to do something little. I think this is important because so many people, even those who blog or are on Facebook are very dismissive of online spaces doing any good. I wonder when "going online" will be less of a dirty little hobby or timesuck and more of a respected practice.

So those are my ideas and I need to chose one at some point. With this qualitative research class I've been thinking a lot about the dissertation process. Which is important to think about, but I forget about my comps.

One step at a time I guess.

Good NYT articles

Found a couple of articles in the New York Times on Friday night (what an exciting Friday I know...perusing The New York Times online) that pertained to some research I've done and some classes I am taking.

Of course it's a huge deal that a Beatles Rock Band is coming out. This would've been amazing to write about for my Master's thesis. And this article really gets to how the Beatles have really rearticulated themselves through technology and that has helped them remain relevant 40 years after they have broken up. People don't need album covers anymore...they can totally be interactive with visuals surrounding the music. I'm not sure if I am really interested in revisiting my Masters thesis...but it would be a cool topic. I think I may be a cultural studies person too.

Another interesting article was about Ikea changing the font in their catalogs. They switched to a cheaper font and people noticed. They feel a company that really pushes clean design has gone against everything they stand for by switching fonts. I am currently taking Document Design and I think that this article proves that document design is important for users.

It would've been crazy if I had found an article about Richard Weaver - who I am currently reading for Modern Rhetorical Theory.