Riki Thinks: One last for the road

Quite the storm brewing out there, quite a relaxing sound.  But that aside, what a long strange trip it has been, from Sept. to now.  Seen somethings that I thought I would never see (snow in Nov. Whats up with that eh?) and some I knew I would (essaysss).  But for the most part it all worked out.  One of the most important things I at least learned (may not apply) was the concept of They say/I say and how useful it can be when introduced o your paper.  I have written argument and persuasive  papers, but I have never been shown a tactic quite like this.  The thought of not only trying to forward my idea, but to also forward the idea of the opposition in order to make your idea seem more valid was almost absurd sounding.  Yet, when you look at it in practice, it really does seem to work, dispute what try to tell myself.  The apparent simplicity of it all, mention the oppositions argument, then mention your own in order to frame both sides of the story, to better explain just what the heck you are doing here, Tricksy hobbitses will never see it coming.  This is of course not all I learned, but for the most part, this was the newest fangled idea that I was introduced to, and one that I think will stick with me for a good while.

Fry Time: What makes a Community

A community is a pretty cool thing that does not care what you think. sorta. At its core, I would say it is a group of people, big or small, tied together by common ideals, beliefs or location.  For the longest time a community had to be formed in one area, and situated there for it to survive.  Now you can also have an online community, which is becoming much more popular in todays society.  The attractiveness of the online community is that you can access it just about anywhere you have internet.  You do not need to go out and talk to people or see them, you can just log on and chat with them.  But even online, communities still need to be bound together by a few simple things.  They have to have an overlying goal that will hold the people together, and you need to have a central place to meet. And thats what makes online so attractive, it provides all that and more.  Plus, being able to retain anonymousness is pretty legit.

Fry Time: Buying online?

Shopping online is a very important part of our economic growth.  More and more it seems that people are looking to the web for just about everything, and that includes shopping!  I can say that while I have not bought a lot, the things I have bought are very important (Video games).  And for the most part I will only buy from respected sources (People with good reviews and PayPal) because otherwise there is just to much that can go wrong.  And when things go wrong, they really go wrong and we do not want that to happen.  So, I just keep a very close I on the things I buy and where I buy them.  Without PayPal, you run a serious risk just right there.  I also think it is very important that wherever you are buying the item from allows for peer review.  Peer review is important because it lets you know if the source is trustworthy and legit.  I don't want to say I am paranoid, but for the most part I am paranoid.

Riki Thinks: SLO

Well its more like I am SOL.  But lets see, I am very capable of using an Academic Database. Especially one as well set up and maintained as the UWT Library.  It makes it very easy to gather resources that are relevant the the topic at hand.  For instance, one of the sources I used for my paper started out as a source I was just using for background information. In the end however, I found that it would be better served as an active source used on my paper than that of supplementary research.  Close reading is something I am not so good at. long spurts of reading such as we did with Rettburg are just not good with me.  I need to take more notes when doing that in order to be able to keep hold of that information.

Riki Thinks: Revising

Well, Revision is where you take something that is there, like a paper, and begin to change it.  These changes can be based on any number of new ideas, peer comments ect. that allow you to modify what ever it is you are trying to change.  Seems more often than not, when you are going back for a revision, or at least in my experiences, they are pretty big ones. Whole sections getting scrapped be they obsolete or vestigial. For the most part, a revision is an attempt to make something better, but sometimes you might make a change for the worse, but I think that is largely a matter of personal opinion. Point is... Change, when monitored and controlled can lead to advancement, and that is a lot like what we try and do when we revise.

Riki Thinks: Essay 2 Peer-Review

Oh boy! To early in the morning for this crap... Need to go to bed for once.  Paper was... Eh... Could have been worse, could have been better I guess.

Riki Thinks: Annotated Bibliography

This was fun. I really can not tell you why, but I just got some really twisted kicks out of this for some reason. Must be tired and delusional... Anyways, Found this article in the Library Archives. A full copy of this should be available Here. However, do to the fact that it requires you to be logged into the UW system, coupled with the fact that is deep in a search... That may just lead you to nowhere and cause your computer to melt down. But hay, that is half the fun right?  Just because I love you though, I cited the source (Probably wrong, but it gets the information you need across) below my annotation, and you can also try clicking the link in the Citation to get to the article.  If you really want to read it that much.

"This article follows a similar thought path as that of West, and discusses the lack of hard evidence in relation to the field of blogging in the Classroom and its effect on the learning environment, especially at Higher levels of education.  The author here takes a much more scientific approach to the writing of this paper, rather than the literary approach undertaken by West.  This is clearly demonstrated in the competent use of the Scientific theory in the examination, the writing style found within the article, and the discussion that takes place in the article.  I found this to be quite useful, the paper is very thoughtful and straight forward with the facts and conclusions reached.  This article makes for a great complement to the West article, but will also provide a much more Scientific read for those of you who are more inclined to that style.  Also, the Blogs referenced in the Article deal with Mathematics rather than a English based topic (as with West) lending to the science based writing style."


MacBride, R., et. al., Capitalizing on Emerging Technologies: A Case Study of Classroom Blogging. School Science and Mathematics 108. 5 (May 2008): 173-83. Web. 12 Nov. 2010.


^ Should be right.  Copied the one listed on the Library page and then cross-checked with Perdue.  Made a few minor changes but overall it looks