Blog Post 4

Introduction:

“As soon as he wakes up in the morning, Ronnie, an undergraduate student at a large, Midwestern research university, sends a tweet from his phone, which lets his roommates know he’s awake”

·         This is Buck’s first sentence, however I find it very interesting. It immediately hooks the reader in and makes them want to continue reading. It’s very important to have that kind of introduction, otherwise the reader has no motivation to continue, I hope to include an intro like this.

“Ronnie’s experiences represent common ones for undergraduate students across the United States. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, as of August 2011, 83% of 18–29 year-olds used a social network site (Madden, 2012).”

·         I chose this quote because I think this if an important thing to include, although often over looked. I find it important for the audience to know that this paper can apply to many people, and Ronnie is just a normal person.

Methods:

“Ronnie’s case study is part of a larger study of undergraduate and graduate students’ literacy practices on social network sites.”

·         I like how Buck stated this, I could incorporate this into my paper by talking about how everyone in the class is also participating in this study, even myself.

“Data Collection- In order to study Ronnie’s literacy practices on social network sites, I followed his online activity for two semesters, Spring 2010 and Fall 2010, and I collected data from the following four sources:”

·         I never thought to include a small explanation like this before listing my methods of data collection, I like this sort of introduction to the methods section, and plan on using something similar in my paper!

Results:

“Through these tweets, Ronnie showed himself to be an overcommitted and engaged college student, preoccupied with a busy schedule and sleep-deprived in the first and last tweets, always online, and managing school and leisure tasks online through projects and side activities like fantasy hockey”

·         Buck’s way of combining all his seemly unrelated tweets into one paragraph that makes perfect sense is impressive, I hope I can do that with my partner’s Facebook posts. This is a good way to make the paper flow better and sound much less choppy.

“Ronnie envisioned different audiences with different concerns and interests on both Facebook and Twitter and constructed his identity on both sites with these audiences in mind. Ronnie had approximately 700 friends on Facebook during this study while sending updates to a list of roughly 200 Twitter followers.”

·         I think including numbers, like how many friends/followers your partner has is a very important piece of data to add to this paper. That number can say a lot about a person, especially when it opens up the idea of follower to following ratio, which Buck does discuss.

Discussion:

“Oudshoorn and Pinch (2003) note the importance of studying users’ connections to and take-up of technologies and to study those technologies within “their context of use”

·         It would be very interesting to include outside sources into this discussion section. I believe it would make a paper much stronger and more thought provoking, I hope to find relatable outside sources to include!

“There have always been technological, material, social, and rhetorical constraints placed on literacy (Brandt, 2001), and social network sites provide one example through which to consider how writers work within specific forms of constraints to represent themselves in digital spaces and to interact with others.”

·         I find this discussion point interesting. I want to form this into a question to ask my partner in our next interview, so I can include something like this into my own paper.

Conclusion:

“He does, however, represent one of what Sheridan, Street, and Bloome (2000) call “telling cases,” which Sheridan-Rabideau (2008) describes as cases that “exceed what generalized theories might expect of them and work against the flattening theoretical appraisals that offer predictable answers” (Sheridan-Rabideau, 2008, p. 8).”

·         I love the fact that Buck took a quote from someone else to describe Ronnie’s social media usage. I will definitely look for quotes online that could be used in my paper, I think that would add an element that most others wouldn’t include in theirs.

“Students like Ronnie develop sophisticated rhetorical and literacy skills through these environments. Rather than focusing only on the ways that social network sites might be used in the classroom, considering the ways students integrate the use of such sites into their daily lives can help researchers and teachers better understand students’ writing activities and digital literacy practices within digital environments.

·         This is Buck’s ending sentence. I like how she pulled all her information into one ending paragraph. Even though this is only a few sentences, Buck does a great job of encompassing her subject into it, and ends her paper very well.