This article presented some challenges to me. The parts that I think I did well on were the summary and the key terms. The author uses several terms that I am not familiar with so it was fun to learn what some of those terms meant and the application of them in the article was very interesting. I also found the article to be well written because the author provides facts on the topic. The last couple articles we’ve read have been written by people who sit behind a computer screen and watch cat videos all day, and then when a hot button topic comes up they all of a sudden have an opinion but don’t want to say anything or do anything about it in the real world.
The summary was relatively easy to come up with as I used my previous techniques to write the summary. However, it was very difficult to find out what the main idea of the article was. The author starts the article by using an analogy that was created by a study done on blogging. He states that the blogosphere is a lot like an iceberg. It starts as this big noticeable object, then it floats into nothingness. I figured the article would be about how blogging in today’s times would be deteriorating. I was horribly mistaken. He then goes on about how we’ve created imaginary communities, journalism, and third world countries. Then at the end of the article, he never restates anything of what he said in the entire writing piece. How am I supposed to summarize something if the author won’t make a clear statement about what his article is about? There was no brief introduction given in the article to help me find out what the article’s end point was. Was this to inform, persuade, or entertain me? Or was it just to confuse me?
Now I know there’s a lot of you reading this right now that are probably like “This guy’s a moron. How could he not get what the author was trying to say?” If any of you are saying that in your heads right now, PLEASE come talk to me. I read the article 4-5 times through and I still can’t get it through my head as to what he’s talking about. I have a hard time reading between the lines and making inferences on what is being read. I would like to think that I did really well on the assignment, but from the looks of my note-taking, you may think otherwise. Despite all the scrambled key-terms and the summary, I still tried my hardest to make sure that it was comprehensible and meaningful to those who look at my notes. The author didn’t do anything wrong or bad, it just provided more of an intellectual challenge on my part. Which allowed me to explore new vocabulary and meanings to those words help me expand my mind. Overall, Very good read and I am looking forward to what will be coming next.
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