In class today you did some writing to identify/clarify/ develop your topic for your web essay. Specifically, after writing about 100 words on your topic, you got some feedback from classmates with respect to : additional issues/questions you might want to raide; how the topic connects to concepts in ENG 3080; ideas about who might use an essay on this topic; & references, examples, or connections to "experts."
We then had a brief discussion of the reading from Johnson-Eilola, and you started on exercise 1, on page 19 - only you did your search and analysis for sites related to your topic.
For Blog 5, due on Monday, read through what you have so far on your topic and present a detailed description of what you plan to write about and the users you expect to connect to. Post as much (or all) of the writing you did in class as you need to explain your concept your issues/ideas for your essay.
Also - read Johnson-Eilola, 61-85.
See you Monday.
FAQs for your Web essay
* Is the essay just supposed to be our research and ideas about our topic?
This is not supposed to be a report - where you simply state what others have written on your topic - but neither is it supposed to be experimental research - where you create a situation and collect data on that situation. It is essentially a research project where you gather information from a range of sources and put that information together in a new way so as to come up with an original interpretation or idea with respect to your topic. For example, if you are writing about "illegal" activities associated with web forums such as craig's list - you might explore what the most frequent kinds of "crimes" that are connected to a particular forum, whether people are convicted more or less frequently for doing similar things using print media, whether and how both spaces are policed, and so on. Then - after reading through what you find from a number of sources - you will pose an explanation or "theory" for what you have found. For example, if you found that there were about the same number of "illegal" activities advertised for on craig's list as in regular newspapers, but that people generally went to jail for print violations but not digital violations - would come to some conclusion about what that means.
* What are the hyperlinks supposed to be hyper-linking to? Sites? Articles?
This should become more clear as we work through the web design materials. You should have external links to web sites that you analyze, as well as other articles on your topics. The internal links will reflect the structure of your essay. You will use one of the structures (set up in this weekend's reading assignment) to set forward your material.
* Are there length requirements? I am not going to give a word length - because presentation/design of your site makes those numbers not significant. You are expected to cover a subject in sufficient depth to develop some original thinking around that subject.
*When is it due? At the end of the term.
* Are you going to give us an assignment sheet that states the specific requirements?
I will give you a sheet that lists the criteria for the purpose of the assignment, a description of the assignment, and the criteria for the grade after you do the Wikipedia assignment. I hold off on giving the assignment sheet during the brainstorming phase because students regularly come up with ideas/topics that stretch my ideas of what will make a good project. This results in a revised assignment sheet - and I like to leave that possibility open.
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