More Research!

Research is so important in any academic field, and it is going to be extremely important for our literary reading in the digital age project.  I am excited that we are going to start incorporating our research findings into our chapters.  In order to do this effectively, Dr. Burton asked us to create an annotated bibliography to keep track of our research.

Digitizing Classic Literature: A New Love Via Reconsumption

New media adaptions of classic literature are changing peoples’ views, and encouraging people to reconsume classic literature in its original form.  Online Platforms such as Goodreads are facilitating this bridge between new media and classic literary representations.

Social Graph: I am particularly interested to see how representations of classic literature in new media affect reconsumption of classic literature in different age groups.  I am assuming that different age groups will have different exposure to classic lit new media representations because different age groups tend to use different social networks and tend to use the internet for different amounts of time.  I have two teenage brothers in high school, and both have different interests.  I am thinking it would be an awesome idea to ask them about specific new media representations of classic lit, and how that has or hasn’t affected their desire to read more classic literature.  I also plan on asking my college roommates similar questions.  It also might be an excellent idea to post similar questions on my Facebook to attract adults who might be interested in the topic.

New Media: I think that classic lit representations in media are particularly important.  I don’t really think that many people can say that they’ve never watched a movie based off of classic literature.

Click here, here, here, and here to see some examples of what I am talking about!

Social Networks: Of course I am going to use Goodreads, but I also think that using Twitter is going to be super helpful.  Just browsing through Twitter with a search of "classic lit" has turned up with tons of results of people talking about new film adaptions of classic lit.  Click here to see what I am talking about. 

Traditional Scholarly Sources: Like I said above, I think that discussing literature in the realm of film is super important.  Click here to find an article that discusses that very subject.  

Dispelling Old Prejudices: The New Face of Libraries

The face of libraries are changing, and digital libraries allow for the user to become the “librarian.”

Social Graph: We’ve talked about this in class a lot, and I am planning on contacting some librarians at BYU and potentially at other colleges/universities.  I am also going to contact some “librarians” on Goodreads and ask them about what they do.  I can also pull on my own experience with Goodreads and libraries. 

New Media: I found a couple of great articles that talk about traditional libraries and digital libraries.  Click here, here, and here, to see what I am talking about. 

Social Networks: I am also planning on using Twitter as well for this chapter.  I've never been the biggest user of Twitter so I think now might be an awesome time to start! I typed in the two keywords "digital" and "librarians" and I found out that a lot of people are talking about these two subjects!

Traditional Scholarly Sources: This link here leads to an article that discusses digital librarians vs. traditional (print) librarians.  This article is obviously completely applicable to my chapter. 

Sampling and Experimenting Research

So this is my family minus my dad. 5 sisters and we couldn't be more different! 

My Own Mini-Experiment

Last weekend I spent the weekend with my family, and I was talking about our semester project that my English class is doing together. I explained that we would be collectively writing and ebook based on the Kindle, Goodreads, and Amazon.
I thought they would have some interest because my family is a pretty avid user of Amazon, but more for materialistic purchases. However, we all love to read and I became curious as to if my family would be interested in owning their own personal Kindle. So my curiosity took over and I just asked simply, "Hey would you like to own a Kindle? and why or why not?"
Only one of my sisters said an affirmative YES! She responded that she loves reading, and would love to have a device just to devote to reading. The rest with the exception of one were undecided. They simply stated that they would not mind having a Kindle. My sister that responded that she would never want a Kindle had no reason at all.
Although this isn't exactly a well planned experiment, I think it proves the point that the Kindle doesn't get the credit it deserves. It reminded me of my initial reaction to buying a Kindle; I definitely wasn't completely opposed but I wasn't all for it either. With the exception of one sister they weren't really able to explain why or why not a Kindle would be a good purchase. The Kindle is often overlooked by its simplicity.

Facebook Status

As a class we are trying to diversify our research, and an interesting social research would to have a discussion on Facebook. For example to write a post with a somewhat specific question. One of the chapters I am writing for the ebook is just about the Kindle, what it is, features of it, and so on. So I could write a Facebook status like: "If you own a Kindle and iPad which do you use more to read why?" Or something like that... let me know if you have something better in mind before I post my status.

Google Alerts

I have also enjoyed reading blog posts. I found a few blog posts using the Google alerts that I JUST learned about today! So you have to sift through a bunch of useless material but there are some good finds just as Google normally is, that should be no surprise. I have not found any scholarly sources yet... but I have found some appealing arguments, and opinions I had not thought of myself.

So it's been a fun process. I still need to work on the scholarly sources, but the social sources are so fun and surprisingly useful!

The Social Research Resources

I love that our class is taking a new approach to research.  To help along the progress of our eBook project, we have looked at a few different sources in order to find more information to put in our chapters.  As an English major, I thought that this class would require a lot of hours in the library, pouring over giant books with even bigger words that were impossible to understand, just to figure out the hidden meaning of a classic paragraph.

Well, I'm still spending hours in the library.

However, this research is much different than what I thought it would be!  Instead of sticking to the traditional forms of learning, we have been encouraged to check out social sources.  This is basically my favorite activity, because I think that communicating over the internet is super cool.  To find out more about the great innovation of the Amazon Kindle and Goodreads.com, I checked out a few sites that I visit every day, but with a very different purpose!

For example, I headed over to Pinterest to see if there was any discussion or info over there,  While they had a lot of great stuff on teaching how to be digitally aware, safe, productive, etc., I didn't find much about our topic in particular.  However, Twitter turned out to be really useful with its hashtag searches.  There were a couple good articles that I found there about using Kindles in the classroom and how they have affected education.  Facebook was not the best option for me.  I don't think that many people see it as a place for literary discussion quite as much as other forums, etc.  Obviously that's based on my own connections, but I think that the majority of people who are interested in our topic are found on other forums, etc.

So...I went to forums!  I just typed in "Forums about Kindle" into Google and was taken to a ton of sites.  Amazon has one right on their page, but I think that one was pretty biased and they took any negative stuff off.  This obviously makes sense from a business perspective, but isn't the most accurate source.  The other site that I found here had a lot of topics and opinions.  It was cool!

As far as scholarly sources, I could use some help.  I found a few on the HBLL site, but nothing very specific as to what we're trying to write about.  If anyone finds some, let me know by commenting or just putting them on the drive!

A New Side to the Digital Me

In today’s ever-digitalized culture, people can learn a lot about one another—hometown, favorite band, who the ex-boyfriend was, what sport was played in high school—all without ever having spoken to each other.  They make judgments about whether to hire people for jobs or even ask them out on a date based on a common practice of our time: Facebook stalking.  It’s growing ever clearer that we must take care to create a good image for ourselves both on- and offline.  In her article, “’Words with Friends’: Socially Networked Reading on Goodreads,” Lisa Nakamura shows how popular literary website Goodreads.com solidifies intellectual identities by allowing users to create bookshelves, share favorite works, participate in online discussions, review and recommend books to friends, and discover new genres and authors.          

 

Nakamura brings up a point that I definitely relate to.  Of the online bookshelf feature, she says, “Goodreads shelves remediate earlier reading cultures where books were displayed in the home as signs of taste and status.”  She’s right!  People can tell a lot about each other from the things what books are read and kept in the home!  For example, I work as a nanny.  Whenever I get an interview with a potential family, I’m sure to sneak a glance at their libraries when I get to the house.  Many times have I avoided an undesirable job after seeing stacks of titles like, The Official Guide to Dysfunctional Parenting.  No nanny wants into that mess.  But with cool sites like Goodreads, we can create a more attractive side to ourselves.  Want to be seen as a classy gal?  Stock your shelves with Jane Austin, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, all the fine ladies and gents of literature.   Looking to find a more adventurous crowd?  Read, rate, and review things like Ender’s Game, The Hobbit, or DaVinci Code.  Choosing how to present yourself is one of the fun and creative aspects that Goodreads has to offer.

Goodreads or Badreads?

Online reading, in one form or another, is inevitable in this modern, digitized age.  There are still many questions dealing with online reading that remain unanswered because such practices are stil relatively new.  Our English 251 class (who is updating this blog, by the way) is setting out to uncover some of the unanswered questions.  We are particularly focusing on platforms such as Amazon, Kindle, and Goodreads.

An article written by Lisa Nakamura entitled, "'Words with Friends': Socially Networked Reading on Goodreads," discusses the pros, cons, and social implications of "social reading."  I believe that two things she stated in her article are especially applicable to our project.  Firstly, she states that Goodreads  has all the markings of a successful social networking site.  I believe that this will be important for our project because it shows that Goodreads is around for the long-run, and its existence reaches and will continue to reach a wider range of people.  Rather than be some obscure social reading website, Goodreads picked up on important aspects of other social sites that contribute to its longevity.  Secondly, on the cons side, Nakamura points out that Goodreads is a for-profit site, hinting that the site might detract for the genuine reading experience because we become commodities.  This will be helpful for a project as we analyze how to best utilize online tools and resources to create the best academic and leisure reading experiences.  

One Does Not Simply Write a Review

Trying to write a book review for Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was difficult because I was so worried about sounding like an idiot. I gladly did some perusing of others’ reviews on Amazon and Goodreads in order to get a better grasp on what makes a good review. I found that the best reviews contained at least one of three essential things – personality of the reviewer, quotes from the book, and a reason for the rating.

A personality is someone’s outlook on life, an attitude, a way of thinking and doing. I could take a book summary review and form an opinion of my own, but I’d rather read purposeful sentences written by another human being about why he or she loved or hated a book. A review should have a personalized view of what the book meant to you, the reader. 

Next to personality is the importance of quotes in a review. For example, a review that says something like “Heart of Darkness was dark, dreary, and powerful” doesn’t actually show that the reviewer read the book (SparkNotes, anyone?). Providing evidence from the text to show why it’s dark or why it’s powerful gives the author of the review credibility and an edge. I say edge because those quotes are typically preceded by or followed by a solid reason of how that specific quote affected the book reviewer’s life or how that specific quote centralized the main message of the book.

Last, but certainly not least, is that a good review must provide a reason for the rating. If I give a 1-star rating, I better back it up. For example, let’s say your friend walks into your room and asks, “How does this shirt look with these pants?” and all you say is “bad”. Your poor friend is going to walk away dejected and not sure why he or she doesn’t look good. But if you say “it doesn’t look good because your shirt is on backwards”, your friend is going to walk away with the decided purpose of fixing the problem. The same goes for a review; the rating given needs to be back up by good reasoning. Quotes and explanation of the quotes are great ways to provide that reasoning.

When I found reviews with these essentials, I automatically liked them. The personality aspect lead me to want to find out more about the author of the review. I went to profile pages of the reviewers and found that the most credible reviewers contained several books on their virtual bookshelves, but more specifically those bookshelves contained several different genres – this shows that the author of that review is experimental in their reading and will be able to compare and contrast different books. Another important aspect in a reviewer’s credibility is their “about me” section on their profile. It shows their level of education, their love of books, or even their love of critiquing books.

After my study of reviews I was ready to post my own review of Heart of Darkness on Amazon and Goodreads, and then Facebook via Goodreads. I tried engaging people in their reviews, but it’s all one-sided at this point, and I haven't received much feedback on either platform for my own review. I did, however, receive 3 “likes” on my Facebook (one from my sister and two from friends in Las Vegas)! Hey, it all starts somewhere. I also decided to join a network called Literature Network Forums so that I could try and get some more feedback on my specific review. I created a profile and posted a new thread on the forum called “Write a Book Review”. I got one comment! I thanked the commenter for his comment and asked him a question too, but haven’t heard back yet. I like this forum because you can also see how many people have viewed your thread or post (106 views for my review!).



It’s exciting and a little nerve-wracking to post a review because it shows a lot about who you are as a person. I tried to shape my review after the essentials I found in my research of good reviews. Here's a link to my review! Let me know what you think!