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.

5 Ways to Write Better

Howard Rheingold's Net Smart outlines 5 fundamental literacies for maximizing the Internet as a participatory learning environment. Each of these literacies--attention management, crap detection, participation power, collective intelligence, and network awareness--will help us become better online researchers. Rheingold's book, however, does not directly address the other major concern featured in this course's title: writing.

In order to supplement Rheingold's 5 digital literacies, throughout the semester we'll also discuss and practice 5 ways to write better:

1. Read like a writer. (collect take-away points and passages to ponder)
2. Pre-write for conceptual development and organization. (big picture issues)
3. Revise for clarity, concision, and style. (sentence-level issues)
4. Solicit specific feedback on your writing--and learn from it.
5. Write on a regular basis.

Blog Project Ideas

As I mentioned at the end of class on Wednesday, I'd like you to share the topic(s) you're considering for the blog project. Just describe your interests in a sentence or two, and take a look at everyone's ideas to see if you may be able to form a group based around a shared topic. Click on the title of this post, then share your ideas as a comment underneath it.

Resources for Web Searching: Techniques & Technologies

GOOGLE SEARCH TECHNIQUES

Google a Day Puzzles

How Search Works (video)

Advanced Techniques

Image Search

Google Tips & Tricks

Google Scholar

ALTERNATIVE SEARCH ENGINES

Bottlenose

Spezify

MillionShort

Internet Archive

Wayback Machine

FILTERS AND BUFFERS

Reminder about Reflection Essay Assignment

HOMEWORK: Reflection Essay ONE: What are your goals for this class?
What do you feel you need to know about writing and research online?
How would you characterize your daily engagement with the internet and digital technologies? 

Craft your response to these questions in the form multiple paragraphs, applying some of the paragraph structuring techniques discussed in class to organize your writing.

Reflection Essay ONE is due at 11:59pm Friday, August 31. To "turn it in," just post it on your WordPress blog. All reflection essays must be 350 to 500 words in length. 

Links to readings for Wednesday 9/29

These first three readings outline tips and techniques for structuring paragraphs effectively.

 "Paragraphs and Paragraphing" from Purdue OWL

"How to Structure a Paragraph With a Hamburger" from Acephalous

"Paragraph Structure" from the UMUC Effective Writing Center

After reading about paragraph structure, consider how each of the two online articles below employ techniques for organizing content and creating smooth transitions. Be prepared to discuss your observations in class.

"Apple Is Knight Rider, Google Is Terminator, Microsoft Is Minority Report" by Jason Gibert

"Augmented Reality’s Path From Science Fiction to Future Fact" by John Abell

Web 2.0: The Machine is Us/ing Us

How might we rethink writing and research for the Web?

Intro Video

Welcome to EMAC 2321

Course Description

Digital media play an extremely important role in contemporary writing and research techniques. 
Of course, the platforms and technologies that make up digital media are constantly changing and shifting. 
Anyone who only learns writing and research techniques tied too closely to a single platform is likely to 
find that these skills rapidly go out of date. 

This course, Writing and Research for New Media, seeks to avoid this pitfall by helping students learn 
broad, transferable skills that will help them use current platforms successfully, and adapt to new platforms 
as they emerge. As such, this course stresses the process of learning over rote memorization. Students are 
expected to experiment with techniques, and learn to be comfortable exploring new platforms and tools.

This course website is the best place to keep up to date with readings and assignments. 
The "Schedule & Readings" page contains links to all online readings. 

Course Readings

This course requires one book: Net Smart: How to Thrive Online by Howard Rheingold (ISBN:978-0262017459). 
This book is available at the off-campus bookstore. Electronic versions are also available from Amazon, 
Google, and Barnes and Noble for ereader devices. Warning: electronic versions will not have the 
same pagination used in the syllabus.