Week 5 Class Discussion Post

During Wednesday’s class, we discussed chapters 1, 2, and 4 from Postmodern Interviewing, edited by Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein. Angela Speakman led the class discussion and brought up some interesting points about the book, not only in highlighting some of the most meaningful passages of the book but also by raising some thought-provoking questions. There is one particular aspect that stuck out to me during this discussion.

In chapter 2, Gubrium and Holstein call modern culture the “interview society.” Because interviews are so common, and have been for most of my lifetime, it never occurred to me that there was a way for society to be in which interviews did not play a large part. I took the importance of interviewing people about their own opinions for granted. On page 23, a survey is cited in which researchers ask people who are considered to be “informed” about the opinions and goals of other, “uninformed” people (informed people being officials, clergy members, etc.). It seems totally counterintuitive to go about gather information that way. After all, aren’t primary sources always considered to be better than secondary sources? Yet this is an instance of a very widespread practice where secondary sources trump primary sources.

But at the same time, the idea is not unlike voting practices in the United States. We are a democracy (supposedly, anyway), and to find out people opinions on who should be president we will ask them to ask the Electoral College to decide who they want to be president. I know it’s not that simple; nothing is. But that is what this process reminds me of. Wasn’t the Electoral College created for the same reason, to have informed citizens tell the government what the uninformed masses think? I think it is interesting to think about, anyway.

Using Zotero

I have a confession to make. I really hate downloading any kind of program onto my computer. My laptop is, well, old. I bought it with the money from a scholarship I received at the end of high school. I’ll have had it for four years in the beginning of April. I don’t download any program that I don’t absolutely need onto it, because I am terrified of messing it up. I’ve already had to have it fixed once, because there was a problem with the hard drive. Anyway, suffice it to say that this whole Zotero process was not something I was comfortable with. I had to download and install not only Zotero itself, but Firefox, too? Zotero and I didn’t exactly get our relationship started off on the right foot.

But this morning, I started trying to get the sources for my annotated bibliography loaded onto it. I was really just trying to figure out how many sources I had, because I had been waiting for several articles from Inter-Library Loan. Some had come through; others, not so much. Now, if you watch the introductory video on Zotero’s homepage, they make it look really easy to add sources. Go to the page you want with Firefox, click the little icon on the right side of the address bar, and it’s there. It didn’t work that way for me. It refused to add anything from the library databases, which was where 10 out of 12 of my sources came from. I had to click “New Journal Article” and manually enter all of the information to get each source in the library. Sounds like a pain, right? But now that I’ve done it, I am really liking Zotero. I tagged all of my sources as either “Scholarly” or “Creative/Journalistic,” and now all I have to do is click on one of the tags to see how many sources I have. If you right-click on the item once it is in the library, you can attach the full-text of the article, whether it is a PDF or a Word document. How awesome is that? No more trying to hunt the same sources down in the academic databases over and over again (because even if you copy down the “permanent” link to the article, you have to be logged in first or it won’t work, so usually I have to search for the article once again after I find it). I haven’t added any annotations yet, but it can’t be any more difficult to add a note than it is to add a tag, right? I made a folder specifically for my Core II research, because I’ve decided to use Zotero for all my research work now. I’ve got a psychology paper coming up, and it will be so much easier to find and deal with sources from the database now that I know how to use Zotero. I wish I didn’t have to add everything manually, but it’s definitely worth it.

Third Friday tonight…another update later.

Week 4 Research Post: finding my sources

Since there were no assigned readings for last Wednesday, I guess it’s another week to skip the “class discussion” post. Not that I mind. I have plenty to deal with with this research project.

I downloaded and installed the Zotero program without too much difficulty, but I’m not sure how to add articles to the library. Hopefully we’ll discuss this in class this week, because I’ve tried and am a little confused. I won’t worry about it too much though, since I’m still waiting on a lot of articles from the Inter-Library Loan.

I had a lot more difficulty finding my sources than I had expected. Mostly, I guess, because I found so many sources that were NOT scholarly. I searched for “arts district,” “community+art,” “cultural planning,” “revitalization,” “community development,” etc., but most of what I found was magazines. I did get a lot of New York Times, but again, it’s not scholarly. I got pretty frustrated. What ended up helping me was figuring out that you can search within journals. I went back to the few relevant articles I was able to find and started searching within the journals they were published in.

I found a really good creative source, a book called Millville from the Images of America series. It’s all photographs of the city throughout history. There’s a copy in the library, but it’s non-circulating. That makes it a little more of a challenge. The good news, though, is that I finally have my excuse to visit the “forbidden” 5th floor tower of the library.

This coming Friday is Third Friday, so I have a lot to do in preparation. I think I should write a short letter explaining who I am and what the project is about, make copies of it, and have them on hand to distribute too people I talk to at Third Friday. I’ll make sure I have a notebook so I can take down contact information of people who might be willing to talk to me — like the owners of shops, the artists, someone involved with the Levoy Theatre restoration project. I’ll also get to do my own immersive research. It will be great to be back in some of the places I used to enjoy going to, and to visit some new places. I’m thinking grabbing some dinner at the Looking Glass Cafe and spending some time writing in the “Secret Garden.” It will be a challenge because I’m not a very outgoing person, especially with people I don’t know. But I think it will be fun, too, and I don’t think it will be too hard convincing people to let me interview them for the paper. The people involved in the arts district are usually very passionate about it. I’ve spent some time talking to artists and shop owners when I visited the galleries before, and they’ve always been very interested in talking.

Let you know how it goes next week.

Research Proposal

            For my research project, I plan to learn more about the Glasstown Arts District in Millville, New Jersey. I would like to focus on the district’s Third Friday events in particular, and incorporate some more general information about the Arts District into the article to flesh it out. I am interested in researching and writing about the Arts District because I used to enjoy going to the Third Friday events when I was in high school. The development of the Arts District has benefited the city by bringing artists and new businesses to the area and providing citizens with a sense of community and social and cultural events.  I remember several locations in the Arts District that would make for engrossing, detail-rich descriptions that would pull readers into the writing and would encourage them to visit the Arts District if they haven’t already done so. A discussion of the historic Levoy Theatre, which is in the process of being renovated, would bring attention to an important cause. Reviewing several of the shops and restaurants would appeal to people who are interested in visiting the Arts District. Although I am not sure what specific publication would be interested in the article, I’m sure that either a local publication or a magazine or journal that focuses on attractions in the larger area might be interested in it.

            Although the scholarly sources I would use for this project would be limited to more background information, like the effects of creating arts districts in communities in general, I would have plenty of opportunity to gain information through in-person and electronic interviews. I could interview some of the artists, one of the people involved with the Levoy Theatre restoration project, some of the business owners, and even some of the gallery coordinators. Of course, it would also be necessary to attend a couple of Third Friday events in person. Although I don’t know the names of the people I should interview yet, I think many people involved with the Arts District would be willing to help me. If I were to get the article published, even in a local paper, it could encourage more people to attend the events and help the businesses and artists financially.

            Although I frequently visited the Arts District in high school, it’s been a few years since I’ve attended a Third Friday, and over a year since I attended any other Arts District events. What I remember is more of the atmosphere, the feeling of excitement and creativity, than any concrete information about the Arts District. I know many things have changed since my last visit; some of the places that I frequented are unfortunately no longer in existence, and I’m sure new galleries and businesses have moved in. Although the topic is not new to me in the sense that I know nothing about it, it is new because what little knowledge I had, through experience, is not really up to date anymore. Because this research would require so much interaction in the form of interviews, and because I don’t know any of the people I would have to interview, this project will challenge me as a writer and as a person. I’m not at all extroverted, but if I am to get the interviews I need to write this article, I will have to go out of my way to track down the best people to interview and convince them that they should make the time to talk to me. Although this topic is local, I feel like it has implications for a much larger audience. Millville is hardly the only city investing in an arts district. Philadelphia is one of the larger ones, but many other, smaller cities like Millville are also investing in the arts. Cities that have already begun this process can learn from reading about the strengths and weaknesses of Millville’s district, and cities who are considering investing in an arts district can decide if it would help their community.

Week 3 Research Progress: Deciding

Welcome back! No class discussion post this week, since I was the discussion leader for Wednesday’s class. For now, I’m exploring a little more about my research project. I’m in the early process of drafting an official Research Proposal (to be posted here later this week).  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Millville’s Glasstown Arts District or Third Fridays but are interested in learning more (and because I have to post a link, image, and video in this post), here’s some stuff you can check out.

For more about Third Fridays, check out this link. You can also access information about other Millville attractions, like Wheaton Arts (better known as Wheaton Village) and the Glasstown Arts District in general.

It might not look like much right now, but just wait until the third Friday of the month. High street comes alive with galleries, shops, and restaurants open late and live entertainment.

Finally,  here is a very short commercial for Millville arts and attractions, including Third Fridays.

Hope you enjoy the content. More about the research project — specifically, the official Proposal — later this week.

Week 2 Research Progress: Brainstorming

Hello again. This is my first post regarding my research project, and for now I am just brainstorming ideas. See, there’s a ton of things that I’m interested in researching, but the limitations of this particular project make it more difficult to decide on something. The topic has to be local. Local, for me, means Millville, NJ. To be honest, there’s not a whole lot going on here. Further complicating things is the fact that this local thing has to have at least 8 academic sources that go with it. So coming up with a decent topic is by no means an easy task. So far I have thought of a couple of possibilities, but there are problems with each of them.

 The topic that is most likely to be in academic articles, I think, is a man by the name of Leon Henderson. Henderson was a Millville man who became involved with politics in the 1930’s and 1940’s and worked as an economic advisor to President Roosevelt (according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Henderson). One of my high school history teachers was a Leon Henderson enthusiast, and he talked about him a lot. So the good news is that, if I went with this choice, I could probably set up an interview with that history teacher. The bad news is that I really don’t have an interest in politics, especially politics from that long ago, especially very unpopular politicians. I just don’t see this topic sustaining my interest for an entire semester, or more than a couple of days, for that matter.

I am slightly more interested in writing about either Wheaton Arts or the Glasstown Center Arts District. In the early 2000’s, Millville tried to improve its image and business by revamping High Street. They opened several art galleries and many new shops moved in. There’s currently a campaign going on to renovate the long-closed Levoy Theatre. And the more I write about this, the better the idea sounds. In high school and my early years of college, I loved to go to the monthly “Third Fridays,” when all the businesses and galleries were opened late and there was live entertainment and many artists willing to chat with the public. I’m thinking how great it would be to write an article about the Glasstown Center Arts District in general and Third Fridays in particular. But the problem with this idea is that I don’t think I will find the number of academic articles necessary for the assignment. That’s actually sort of sad. How are you ever supposed to write something new if everything has to be based on other people’s academic articles? The one way I think it could work would be to use academic articles about other, larger cities’ attempts at building arts districts. The topic of Wheaton Arts, formerly Wheaton Village, is less appealing but might actually tie into a project about Third Fridays and the Glasstown Center Arts District.

 I don’t know if I can make it work, but the idea of writing about Third Fridays sounds like a better idea. I think I might give it a shot. Thoughts, anyone?

Week 2 Discussion

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the first “real” post on my research blog. For those of you readers who are not in the class, this blog is dedicated to a graduate level class at Rowan University called “Core 2: Research Methods for Writers.” This post will be about this week’s class discussion, but other posts will be about my research project for this course.

 For this week’s class, we read a series of articles published in magazines like Harper’s and Esquire. These articles focused on everything from a profile of the late David Foster Wallace to breakthroughs in understanding of whales’ behavior. We also read articles about blogs and Twitter, both of which we will be using this semester for our research.

 So, what to discuss? Research methods, I suppose. In class we discussed the many ways these authors used research in their article. Interviews were common, but so were personal observations, academic sources, promotional materials, and historical research. I’m sure that, given the time to brainstorm, one could find even more to say about the different types of research. For now, these all seem like very effective methods of researching and presenting a topic. For any of the ideas I am considering – more about that in a later post – I can imagine how these methods can be used together to create a piece that is informative, entertaining, engaging, and most importantly, meaningful.

 One thing we didn’t discuss in as much detail in class was what made these articles different from academic articles. Surely they have information in them, as do academic articles. And surely they have a point, they are not simply for entertainment or pleasure. But they are feature articles that make the subject human, personal, in a way that academic articles typically do not. I think that is what intrigues me about this project. I can think of ideas of what to write, and I am trying to imagine how I would do it, how to combine these techniques of research to create as fully realized an article as these examples are. Because that is what separates these features from an academic article on the same subject, really; academic articles that have only an academic understanding of the subject are superficial in comparison, while these articles show each subject as multifaceted. Writing my own article should be an interesting challenge.