Reflection on Unit I

Directions: briefly summarize what you learned from the Unit I assignment. Describe one or two ways you believe the assignment helped, and describe one or two ways you think the assignment could have been more helpful. What would you have liked to know more about before turning in the assignment? Limit your response to 200 words, and keep your language and tone academic and professional.

Blog due by 5pm on September 10th.

Practice Writing an Annotated Bibliography (Discovery)

Part One

Directions for your practice Annotated Bibliography: summarize both “The Ideal Elf: Identity Exploration in World of Warcraft,” by Katherine Bessiere, et al, and “Cyberrace,” by Lisa Nakamura. In order to summarize, you will write 2-3 sentences of what you believe the jist of the articles to be. You will need to correctly cite both of your sources, as well. Use minimal quotations, if any. Take note of the example below.

Ex. 

Bessier, Katherine, A. Fleming Seay, and Sara Kiesler. "The Ideal Elf: Identity Exploration in World of Warcraft." From Inquiry to Academic Writing: a Text and Reader. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 495-504. Print. (Is this the real citation? Why, yes it is. pg. 677, #2 + pg. 487 in the LBH, #25.)

"The Ideal Elf" is about the psychological nature of self-identity on the game World of Warcraft. Bessier, Seay, and Kiesler, discuss the "methods" behind creating the analysis of "identity" and online gaming, concluding that gamers' online identities either closely resemble the gamers or are positive, "idealized" versions of the gamer (498, 499). The "limitation" in the study comes from the sample of gamers, which was entirely "college students" (503).

Due before class on September 3rd.

Part Two

Directions: Re-read both “The Ideal Elf: Identity Exploration in World of Warcraft,” by Katherine Bessiere, et al, and “Cyberrace,” by Lisa Nakamura, and contextualize the two articles. In one to two sentences, explain why each article would be important to a particular claim/argument/thesis.

Ex.

Bessier, Katherine, A. Fleming Seay, and Sara Kiesler. "The Ideal Elf: Identity Exploration in World of Warcraft." From Inquiry to Academic Writing: a Text and Reader. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. 495-504. Print. (Is this the real citation? Why, yes it is. pg. 677, #2 + pg. 487 in the LBH, #25.)

"The Ideal Elf" would help to explain one aspect of how people form online identity, especially males.

Due by 5 pm on September 3rd.

Replies: Ask a classmate a question or two about part one and part two.

Ex. 

Part One: Do you think that age was a limitation as well? If so, how?

Part Two: What part of the article do you think would be most useful to explain introversion?

Replies due by 5 pm on September 5th.

Welcome!

This blog will be a place for you to log your progress in your research throughout the semester (a sort of online journal). Using your classmates as a research community, you will discuss your successes and difficulties in your process, and your classmates will offer support and their own best practices to help you improve your process.

Blogging is mandatory, as is respect for your fellow classmates. Each week, you will respond to a different prompt.

See the syllabus for the two different types of blog grading.

For this week's assignment, simply reply to this blog so that I know you are ready to get started.

Reminders:

1. See D2L Newsfeed, under "Welcome!" for the Blogger sign-in process.
2. You must be signed in to Google under a gmail account in order to post.
3. Your blogging name must reflect your real name in order for you to receive credit (or you must sign your posts with your real name).
4. Write your blog response in some kind of word processing document and then copy and paste it into the posting form for submission (Blogger is fallible and can lose assignments, but cannot be blamed for lost assignments).
5. Spell-check, read-aloud, and edit your posts before submitting.
6. No swearing. While the forum is meant to encourage freedom of speech, a certain amount of professionalism is expected.