PWR2 Blog
I think that the e-Rhetorics class was mainly useful in making me learn FrontPage to create a web site, and in showing some presentation strategies for future reference. I guess it's possible that I'll have to make many powerpoints in future classes and that presentation dynamic is a big thing in the real world as well. However, I thought that much of the course content and projects were superficial and covered basic ideas for many people who are already familiar with technology. The proposal was a good way to make me organize and think about my points for the research hypertext, but the blog seemed like just a chore I had to do at the end of each week. The hypertext was useful in terms of learning the basics of setting up a Web site, and the presentations made me think a little about oral presentations and how to make them effective. I think I learned more from watching others' presentations than mine, because I could objectively see what works and what doesn't. Hopefully, in the future presentation preparation will be a little faster and easier because of this class.
Peace
had my conference the other day. i think it was productive, i got a few tips on my hypertext design and then a ton in an email later. i implemented most of those imporvements tonite, and hopefully i'll think of something to make the site better before the whole thing is due. my presentation was pretty crappy but hopefully my hypertext will turn out ok. i have a really strange topic, a lot more technical and esoteric than others', but i guess the content amount isn't really too small. recently i haven't been doing much except messing around with that thefacebook.com thing, its pretty convenient like friendster for stanford. it works well, is customizable, and you can find people's contacts easily. its amazing what a following it has already: stanford studnets are pretty bored.
arg. still haven't really done much on the hypertext for a while. This weekend I'll try to do something, like citations or additional content. I feel like my written content isnt so bad, but maybe I need some more volume. Also the visual rhetoric elelment is importnat too, whether its just a style element or actually useful in showing character display. There's also the presentation, which I'll work on just a PowerPoint (standard format). it looks like these two weekeneds I have a considerable amount of work to do, but after that I can basically chill (or maybe not....) but basically I need to get all of this done ASAP.
I think this project is shaping up. I did lil more work on the hypertext and thought out some design issues, but hopefully i dont need a whole lot more of actual content. I do need to back up my points with citations etc. and make it look well researched. However since the design element was easy i can just focus on the minor details and some more content points. Maybe I should add more gimmicks like a real search function or graphics, background paper. But overall I think i can start thinking about presentations and check out the peer reviews to get a few more ideas.
it looks like this project is kind of on track. making a few "nodes" for the website wasn't that hard, and i have the formatting/site layout basically in place. i think if i spend a few hours on sunday i'll basically be finished, with another day reserved for fixing formatting and checking off assignment requirements. also citations need to be done too, but that won't be a big deal. this project is sorta low key compared to the research paper in pwr1...less writing for the same level of research. i think it helps that some of the people in the class seem to be computer n00bs so that a lot of the focus is on setting up the website.
arg. i need to accomplish some research this weekend. meaning sunday, which is work day here for evyone since its completely free and theres nothing goin on. i really gotta establish some sorta structure for this damn "hypertext" = web page so that i can start typing. i think i have enough sources as it is, but i still dont have a really good argument, i need to focus on one aspect and make up a thesis. i mean this is a pretty old issue (i discovered), so i dunno really what the current issues are. i jsut thought, oh this is interesting and started doing this project. and now its kinda late to turn back, but i think i can pull this together. probably wont have much other work for a while, so nows a good time to get ahead.
I haven't accomplished much on my research recently due to other pressing matters like recording and other work, but the presentations (mine and others) gave me some idea of direction. now i need a good solid arguable thesis to build my work on. the problem is that Unihan process has been going on for about 10 years from now, so my thesis needs to be really specific. Also I only have a few opinionated sources to draw upon and I need to find my own examples for the other sources. Perhaps over the weekend I can get something done, but I won't count on it cuz I have an IHUM paper and chem midterm coming up. In the meantime, I can google for more sources in my free time and maybe even peruse the Unicode Standard v4.0 at the CS library.
