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 …