Author Archives: A.Morales

Process Documentation

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I chose a video on How to Steep Tea.  According to David Wong, “There are three “how’s” of steeping: how hot the water should be, how much tea to use, and how long to steep.” Wong says that when you bring water to a full boil, your boiling the oxygen out of the water which can flatten the taste of your tea.  Next, he says that if you brew the tea longer than 3-5 minutes, you start to over brew the stems which causes the tea to become bitter.  Lastly, the amount of tea he suggests is 3-5 grams, which is usually about a teaspoon.  In conclusion, I do believe that the video was documented thoroughly, and I also learned new ways on how to make a good cup of tea.

Google, reading response.

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According to James Grimmelmann, “Whoever controls search engines has enormous influence on us all.” As I started reading The Google Dilemma, that sentence immediately reminded me of earlier in the class when Gatekeeping was discussed.  Throughout the semester we tried different search engines, yet they all seemed to keep track of what we searched.  The Talentless Hack section of the article goes into detail about this.  It also mentions Google’s system, which is called PageRank that goes around the web counting links where the pages with the most links will be displayed higher in its results.  This was accidentally discovered by a college student named Adam Mathes.  He then wrote a blog discovering a technique he called Googlebombing, which I found very interesting.

Hauptman, reading response.

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According to Bugeja and Dimitrova, “It would take five years for half of the online citations in journals to decay.”  Prior to reading these articles I was unaware of this, and some other useful tips that the authors shared.  What I also thought was interesting was the article saying, “Different online domains may be more stable than others.” So depending on whether a website ends in .org, .net, .edu, or .gov, the authors say some were more stable for online citations than others were.  I thought that this would be useful to know, especially since there are papers that require this and the semester is coming to a close.

Mapping Brooklyn

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“As an artifact, land-and the structures we build upon it-carries our experiences, memories, and voices.” I appreciated this quote by Jennifer Maravillas. 71 square miles from 2012-2015 it took her to walk and collect a piece of litter paper to create the 10 x 10 map. For someone to take that much time and effort to create and share this map with us, that interested me. I don’t believe my perspective changed on maps, but it did remind me how small we are in this vast universe. If I could visualize my daily life on a map, I would probably want to capture those unforgettable moments I’ve had in my life, in the different locations they took place on a map. It would be interesting because I can look back at my life when I get older (younger), and possibly share it with my family in the future.

Research Journal

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I could immediately notice the difference when using Google Scholar, from other search engines. In class using Google Scholar in settings I didn’t know that I could access library subscriptions; I thought that was pretty helpful, especially when other classes that I’m attending require me to do so. I did find different information sources than I would have doing a regular information search. For example, searching a social networking site on Google would take me to the webpage. When using Google Scholar I searched the same social networking site and the first link took me to a online library page showing me a book on the benefits of using online social networking sites.

Research Journal

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The first difficulty with my research proposal was trying to take my idea and form it into a good question. I needed to be more specific with my topic at first when it came to forming it correctly. As I started to do some research, I started to see the different aspects of what I could start with. I was interested in the subject I chose at first, but after some trial and error I found so many different areas that I can touch upon than I previously realized. One of the strategies that I’ve used so far was continuing to use different searches until I found what I was looking for, sometimes finding more.

Badke, reading response.

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“With an AND search always look for the fewest number of terms required to get data that is on target with your search goals.” which was taken from chapter 3 of Research Strategies. In my opinion this is one of the most helpful sections of this chapter. Growing up using the internet I found that the words you use can either get you to where you want to go, or add time to your search. Badke put it nicely saying, “The more unnecessary terms you add, the more you risk screening good data…” In my experience I agree. While reading this article I see how useful the internet has been for me, but I also know it has it’s moments.

Graphs by MIT, reading response.

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“To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.” That was a quote given from the video in the article, “Graphs by MIT Students Show The Enormously Intrusive Nature of Metadata.” I already knew of this knowledge, but the information they shared was fascinating. I believe the quote they used at the end of the students video was valid because with access to that much of someone’s personal metadata, I’m sure that can cause many people to feel uneasy. The question that comes to mind is, where is this metadata going to take us in the future?

Swartz, reading response.

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“What was Internet activist Aaron Swartz thinking when he downloaded 4 million articles from JSTOR (short for journal storage), a digital library of scholarly articles… Because of his suicide this month, we will never know for sure.” This was taken from the article “Aaron Swartz: Opening access to knowledge.” That had me very curious. So Mr. Swartz was downloading millions of articles, then commits suicide. Why? The article says that the internet provides amazing opportunities to open more access to knowledge, and he wanted to help. What would drive someone trying to help provide knowledge, to commit suicide? This article reminds me of the Gatekeepers theme discussed earlier in class.

Walsh, reading response.

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What stood out to me while reading “Senator’s Thesis Turns Out to Be Remix of Others’ Works, Uncited” was, “at least a quarter of his thesis on American Middle East policy from other authors’ works, with no attribution.” So, he was appointed to the United States Senate and his thesis paper was written in 2007. The article on the other hand was written in 2014. Interesting. Who went to the trouble of researching Walsh’s thesis paper? I believe peoples ideas are a complex topic. I was told once, “Your responsible for what you know, your not responsible for what you don’t know.” I believe that applies here.