Research Based Game by Daniel Torres, Adonas Morales, and Johnathan Lamberty
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/secretsofthesource/
Secrets of the Source
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Author Archives: Johnathan
Ties
I chose this simple and easy video of how to tie a tie. Something that is apparently looked up often as this video has over 6 millions views. The man stands with his neck at the top of the video and starts off with a completely unfolded tie and then slowly ties the tie and explains the process as he goes. You can tell the video was shot fairly quickly as the quality is fairly low, however it is good enough for this purpose. The audio is and pronunciation is easy enough to understand as well. The video documents the process well enough, although there is a complaint in the comments that because the bottom half of the tie is not visible at some points, a man broke his femur trying to follow the video, however this of course is a joke.
Why we document
It was quite interesting to read why we document things we write. I knew about the reasons Protection and Acknowledgment, but I never thought about Commentary, Tracing, or Validation. I always cited sources because I had to and to not get into trouble when it came to plagiarism, but now it makes sense that it also helps out readers in understanding a document more. Documentation adds credibility and further reading for those interested. With commentary the documentation can also add the author’s voice to the piece, without taking away from the main part of the document itself.
Scholarly Search
When I searched google scholar for atricles on my topic, I quickly used quotations and “AND” to make my search more specific. The sources I got from google scholar were a lot different from regular google searches. A regular search gave me a lot of news articles, which are opinionated to a point. However google scholar gave me articles that were more analytical and factual than a news article. Although it was harder to find more relevant articles, I did find a very good article on Lexis Nexis that I’m sure I will be using.
Research Journal
I haven’t had any difficulties with my research topic proposal just yet, however I’m quite sure that as I go on I’ll find a lot of sources with little or no value to my paper when looking at internet resources. Right now I’ve just been trying to finalize my question. I simplified it down from multiple topics to one, that topic being private browsing with Tor. However it still seems that I may have to mention one of my other original topics, BitCoin at one point in the paper. I’d have to get to the stage of writing the paper to see if this becomes problematic however.
Searching for Answers
Although I knew some about search engines, I didn’t know about all of the intricacies until I started reading. When I was younger I often got frustrated sifting through useless searches, so I began to familiarize myself with the use of AND, OR, and quotation marks. However I did wonder how search engines could be so different. The only thing I knew was the difference between regular search engines and meta search engines. But reading on how search engines can be different makes me want to mess around and put in some searches to see the differences in different search engines.
Net Neutrality
Originally my knowledge on Net Neutrality was hazy at best so I’m glad I got to read an article about it. Although I agree with what the government did with Net Neutrality, it still worries me. I always felt that the Internet never really belonged to any one country, so the attempt to apply laws to it by any one country wouldn’t work. That being said this ruling wasn’t directly on the internet, it was on American internet providers which is fine to me. However it still gives me the fear that the government will try to regulate the internet more in the future, something I am heavily against. In the end I can only wait and see what happens.
Cutting and Pasting
A story of a man who just couldn’t stop committing plagiarism is an interesting one. On the one hand it’s a terrible offense. On the other hand this man had a very unique skill, although I doubt I have any idea how to apply it other than to plagiarism. It was almost like book Photoshop. It was such an interesting skill that I almost wish I knew what could be done with it. To be able to mash up so many different pieces of work and put them together in a way that made it hard to detect plagiarism isn’t anything common for sure. There’s something of use there, I just don’t know what it is.
Wikipedia and Data Contribution
The last article, about the gender gap in Wikipedia’s contributors, was quite interesting. It pointed out that less than 15% of Wikipedia’s contributors were women, which I believe, but then it tried to bring up another fact. It compared articles on Wikipedia that had tendencies to different genders. One example used was friendship bracelets as opposed to baseball cards. Although I generally agree with the articles, I felt like its examples were weak. I could be biased, but there could be many reason for that such as the fact that baseball cards have a more well known origin than friendship bracelets. There’s also examples where a popular subject is compared to an unpopular subject, and although that probably contributes to what the article is trying to say, it is still weak.
Zines and Blogs
Out of the readings we had, the one I found most particularly interesting was the definition of zines along with Zines Are Not Blogs: A Not Unbiased Analysis by Jenna Freedman. After reading two articles before this one I already had the idea that Zines were at least somewhat like blogs. Although obviously biased, I did agree with most of the opinions the author shared. However I don’t know if i would completely agree with that Freedman said about both sources being outside the mainstream. I agree that both zines and blogs are outlets for voices you don’t hear in things like television or newspapers, but I’m not so sure blogs are outside the mainstream anymore. Although individual blogs aren’t mainstream, I would feel that blogging as a whole is. Blogging is in a weird gray area of being both mainstream and not to me.
