Author Archives: Ahmad Woods

The biggest issue I had with my research topic proposal was aiming it into the scope of this class. I feel like the best papers you can write are the ones you are actually passionate about and one thing I’m really into anime and other aspects of Japanese culture.  From the beginning I set out to write an academic paper on otaku culture once I was aware of the assignment.  The trick was figuring out how it fit into the class topics and at that point I had no idea how it could be done.  I even put aside a backup topic that had a higher chance of working in this class but one I was less enthusiastic to write about in the case this proposal fell through.  The discussion we had during class and the articles we read on social media however gave me some ideas.  A good portion of the discussion was focused on the negatives of social media but I wanted to make the case for the positives of it.  Then my topic idea hit me in the face; what if I can write about the positive effects social media has on niche cultures such as otaku cultures?  Of course I needed to flesh it out a bit more and the professor really helped me arrive at a proper sounding topic.

Would it sound crazy if I said search engines controls the internet? Maybe the word “controls” sounds a bit strong nearly implying that search engines are a collective internet Illuminati of sorts. However search engines do hold a large amount of power because it ultimately decides what we eventually click on. Why do you think corporations pay top dollar to have their web pages featured in Google’s first page search? I mean that has a lot to do with the fact that people normally do not look pass the first page but yeah.

The process behind searching through a search engine is rather intricate but the article explaining it excluded page ranks which is a big part of it all.

Every semester at the start of  a class where we’ll  be doing a decent amount of writing the professor briefs us on the syllabus then gets to the part on plagiarism  I promptly roll my eyes and stop paying attention there. That’s not to say I’m gonna plagiarize anyway, I haven’t as far as I know, I just don’t really take the warning seriously. Why? What’s really constitutes as plagiarism? I have had different professors tell me different things to point where the term plagiarism essentially means don’t get caught.

Plagiarism: a Lie of the Mind article puts things in perspective for me and clarified that the definition of plagiarism is not a chameleon; it doesn’t change to suit the professors interpretation of laziness. If you own your words then there should be no issue with plagiarism. Some one gave me a rather brilliant quote, “the key to creativity is hiding your influences” which relates some what to that.

It just feels good to know that I wont get blown up for using my favorite catch phrase or something in a paper.

So a term that always mystified me was the Web 2.0. The phrasing suggests that one day the old internet or Web 1.0 got a massive overhaul and is now reborn as Web 2.0 over night. That clearly is not the case. After reading a wiki article on Web 2.0 I am now enlightened.  Web 2.0 is a platform that involves the user with the internet. What that refers to is the social media or a web where users are able to contribute to the web in many different. Network as platform

The video posted “social media in plain english” was very charming in it’s presentation.  The ice cream factory as an example to explain contributory media made it easy too understand. I used to underestimate the power tagging has but the video clued me into another purpose it may serve.