Faithful Follower

The blogs I will be following:

The Ville Voice: a blog dedicated to updates about the city of Louisville.
http://thevillevoice.com/

InstaPundit: a conservative blog that will help keep me updated on politics, a topic I generally do not follow.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/

News Findings

As a class, most of our news comes from sources other than the typical newsprint and television media. I noticed more news being spread my word of mouth. We may be informed by the radio, something we read, or a television news cast, but we seem to generally talk about the news we hear with our peers and family. By doing this we develop our own opinions and understanding of the story.

The news we find on the internet tends to find us, instead of the other way around. I personally do not go looking for news stories unless it is to follow up on a previous story of interest. Most of the news we happen upon on the internet is from "pop-up" stories that appears across the tops, down the sides, and scattered throughout the various sundry of websites we visit during the day.

We all seem to be on the same opinion when it comes to stigmas about our generation and its ability to keep up on current events. Our generation does not want to completely avoid news; we just do not have the time to spend in front of a television or behind the headlines of a newspaper. With our constantly fast paced lives we only have time to catch up on current events when they interrupt music on the radio or  when we happen to catch snippets of news on the internet or through breaking news updates. It is unfair for people to judge our generation's current events knowledge when most teenagers have our own definition of news.

Fit to Print

As someone who is constantly on the go it is difficult to find time to catch up on current events. Luckily, with the amount of time I spend on the road between school, work, and home, the radio is available as my main source of news. Granted, most of the stations I listen to are filled with celebrity news and pop culture updates, when they feature actual news, the story is worthwhile and to the point.

Another main form of my news gathering includes the conversations my friends and I have. If one of us hears an interesting scoop about current or pop culture news we share and pick it apart until every fine detail has been discussed. You would be surprised about how your personal view of a topic can change by looking at it the way your friends interpret it. Of course, if all else fails, my mother would certainly never allow me to be left in the dark about top story news. If she believes for one second that I may not have heard about the story yet, she is sure to inform me.

The only time I will really sit down and read any part of the paper is on Sundays, this just happens to be the day when the Courier Journal is the fullest, making it worthwhile to look at. When I do this it is normally just skimming headlines, leads, and pictures with captions until something interesting comes up. Most of the news is either related to sports or local news; seeing as most international news has already been spread and I know the gist of the situation.

Finally...Rocking the Foundation 2.

Here is the latest edition of my essay.

Rocking the Foundation

Here is my first draft. It is by no means finished, as you can see by the length. But, it is all i could get out before the writers block set in and i started searching for an outside article that didn't pale in comparison to those we had already read.
If you edit on the document please do so in a differnt color or font. Thanks. 

Personal Growth

The once underestimated web writing has helped me grow as a writer. I have a new found respect for both web reading and writing. I did not understand how difficult it was to write the first thoughts, reactions, and emotions that came to mind until I was placed in the shoes of a blogger. The free form spontaneity is both awe-inspiring and a challenge. I used to not like writing because I thought the process of completing an "academic paper" was arduous. I know find that there is a comfort in the structure of writing for educational purposes and that spontaneous web writing is almost stressful.

I have started to notice that the change of how I read, write, and process information on the computer is actually affecting my everyday reading and writing. I find myself taking notes more frequently and much more carefully then I had in the past. Since having to take notes on articles for our blog posts I have found myself reading other pieces on the internet that I would have ordinarily just skimmed. I am now very much interested in the blogging community, though it is unlikely that I will create a personal blog. Now that I have looked at blogging from a different view point, I admit that I much prefer online information updates as opposed to that of newsprint.

All and all I must say that blogging has positively changed my views of internet reading and writing. While this change is taking some time to get used to I believe that it will help me in the future. The challenge of adapting my writing style to fit that of the fast paced blogging community is worth it, in my opinion.

Stepping Beyond Wikipedia

 I found the article stepping beyond  interesting because it talks, mostly, about how to search the internet through search resources, such as Wikipedia. It also mentions learning new literacy and reading techniques by aquiring the proper knowledge of how to use the internet.