Methods
My dissertation uses a mixed-method approach to examine African-American mom bloggers’ online identity creation–individually and socially, and how these identities and the use of blogs enable interaction with readers and development of a community among African-American bloggers and their readers. This approach is three-fold: interviews with African-American mom bloggers, a …

Framework
At least three foregrounded identities present themselves for the African-American mom blogger: African-American (race), Woman (gender), and Mother (work). Each of these identities is embedded with its own history that must be negotiated by the woman. It’s not a one-time negotiation; it’s fluid, changing to reflect new experiences outside and …

Intro
In the summer of 2010, I took an Internet Writing course, and in the class, we had to write a paper that focused on some aspect of writing for the Internet. At the time of the class, I was in my last leg of course work and was trying to …

It’s been awhile since I’ve last posted. Last semester was a tough one for me, but I managed to accomplish the things I had set before me. I took and passed the qualifying exams at the end of August, I wrote and had approved my full proposal, and I submitted …

I recently learned that I passed my qualifying exams: the day would be September 9, 2011. It was a hot day, and I had been waiting 11 days, on pins and needles, awaiting a call from my chair. As I typed…no, I won’t bore you with the narration of the big …

I’m not sure how one is supposed to feel when she reaches this moment, but I was over-the-moon happy. What moment is this? Finally having my pre-proposal approved and quals date set.
I went through three revisions of the pre-proposal with my diss chair before we submitted it to the entire …

There are no words right now. Tomorrow, well, later on in the day, I will be able to reflect on the fact that my first semester of doctoral work is complete! It’s been a long journey, and I will discuss that later.
I just finished my last project, a replication study …

Well, I finished the final for Research Methods today. When I read through the final, I just knew it would take two days to do. There was so much. Four parts, short answers, develop research methods for project, critique the methods of two studies, and develop/propose a course or program…you …

Well, knocked out another project today: the micro-study for ENGL 5363: Research Methods in Technical Communication and Composition.
The micro-study is titled “What Students Can Learn about Writing in the Workplace”; it is available [here].
And yet again, to feed my addiction, here is the wordle.

Image created by Wordle.

For 5363, Introduction to Research Methods in Technical Communication and Composition, we have to do both a replication study and a micro-study.
For the replication study, I decided to imitate Maxine Hairston’s study, “Not All Errors Are Created Equal: Nonacademic Readers in the Professions Respond to Lapses in Usage.” What I …

On the first day of school, I recited – many times – subjects that interest me as possible research topics. They include hypertext, social media, online communities, rhet. comp., writing instruction, and rhetoric of blogging.
While reading chapters one and three of Mary Sue MacNealy’s book Strategies for Empirical Research in …

The use of this spot on the web is two-fold. Through the blog, I will write about various topics within the courses I’m taking in the Ph.D. program in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University. Through the pages that are linked at the top of the site, I …