Network Analysis Assignment

For this assignment, you need to pick an online supernode -- a website that networks people who share common interests. The website you pick may or may not relate to the blogging community you participate in; you may do the assignment with a partner or by yourself. Everyone will briefly present their analysis in class this Wednesday (11/14).

You have two objectives: (1) create a Prezi that visualizes or maps out the general flow of information across the supernode's network; (2) present your analysis (claims + evidence) to explain how the supernode creates and sustains such a thriving network.

Your Prezi could include screenshots, images from the Web, and "homemade" graphics. Essentially, you need to provide a visual overview of how the supernode's content is solicited, generated, arranged, and accessed -- as well as remixed, rated, shared, or responded to (if applicable).

Here are some questions to jump start your analysis:

• What interest(s) does the supernode cater to? 
• How does it build a community around those interests?
• Who generally uses and/or contributes content to the supernode's network?
• How does the supernode promote its network and attract new users and content?
• Why do they choose to submit their content to that network (instead of or in addition to other venues)?
• In what ways can users engage with content and communicate with other users of that network?
• What innovative features distinguish this supernode from similar websites that appear to host less thriving networks? 

*You may use your network analysis as this week's advocate post on your blog, provided that the supernode you examine relates to your blogging community. 

Social Reading

For the most part, the social media platforms we've discussed enable people to curate and share content, links, and status updates. Today -- to follow up on our conversation about Wikipedia -- we'll talk about a few more projects optimized for collaborative knowledge production, specifically platforms that target online reading experiences. 

Here's a few materials we'll look at in class:

Academic Research & Social Reading

Poetry & Social Reading

Crowdsourcing: Videos & Websites

We'll be discussing these materials in class...

Popular Online Crowdsourcing Platforms:

Innocentive

iStockphoto

Yelp

Wikipedia

Urban Dictionary

Crowdsourcing & Art:

Kickstarter

99Designs

The One Million Masterpiece

Concision: The Paramedic Method

from the Purdue OWL...

Use the Paramedic Method (originally developed by Richard Lanham in Revising Prose) to edit any kind of professional writing. Editing your professional writing using the Paramedic Method will make your prose easier to read. Sentences that are easy to read are more persuasive and more user-centered.

Professional writers understand the need for clear, concise prose. An industry standard for helping workplace writers achieve user-centered, persuasive, and clear prose is the Paramedic Method. When you use the Paramedic Method, you will reduce your word count by eliminating unnecessary words. The Paramedic Method also helps you activate your sentences by eliminating passive voice and redundancies. The Paramedic Method is an easy to learn, systematic way to make your sentences more persuasive and more user-centered.

Follow the seven steps below to improve the readability of your sentences.

The Paramedic Method

1. Circle the prepositions (of, in, about, for, onto, into)
2. Draw a box around the "is" verb forms
3. Ask, "Where's the action?"
4. Change the "action" into a simple verb
5. Move the doer into the subject (Who's kicking whom)
6. Eliminate any unnecessary slow wind-ups
7. Eliminate any redundancies.

Now You Try

Use the Paramedic Method in the sentences below to practice making your sentences more concise. 

1. The point I wish to make is that the employees working at this company are in need of a much better manager of their money.
2. It is widely known that the engineers at Sandia Labs have become active participants in the Search and Rescue operations in most years.
3. After reviewing the results of your previous research, and in light of the relevant information found within the context of the study, there is ample evidence for making important, significant changes to our operating procedures.

Writing to Advocate

Here's an example of an advocate-style blog post, written by best-selling author Steven Johnson, which we'll be discussing in class today: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2012/03/why-the-bay-area-needs-the-bay-lights.html

Writing to Emphasize and Contextualize

Good filter-style blog posts emphasize. As a blog writer, your job is to find and select the most relevant resources -- emphasizing their value over and apart from the loads of other material variously related to your post's topic. In addition, the text you write needs to emphasize which aspects of that resource are most important (e.g., useful, interesting, humorous, insightful, etc.) to your readers. Your points of emphasis need to spark readers' interest and, perhaps, add value to their experience of the resource you've given them.

So, let's practice writing to emphasize. In 50 words or less, emphasize something in this painting by Edgar Degas:

Connector-style posts ask you to take things a step further by connecting your points of emphasis to another source of information. Here, the objective is to foster inquiry or channel an insight. You are equipping your reader with a provocative connection. Perhaps you haven't thought about this connection long enough to offer an answer to the questions it might provoke. In any case, you're just a liaison here; set your readers on a path and let them do the work. In 50 words or less, make a connection between an aspect of the painting you emphasized and an additional piece of information relevant to that aspect of the painting.

EMAC Club

The following is a message from the newly formed EMAC Club at UT Dallas:

The EMAC Student Group is now an official UTDallas student organization. We'll be participating in on-campus events, peer mentoring and more.  More information to come in the next week or two, as well as our officer meeting TBA. 

If they have any questions or would like to join, email me at laurenvoneper@gmail.com, message on FB or twitter @laurenvoneper.