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 not often I bring God onto my academic blog, and I should. After all, had he not told me to come to TTU, I wouldn’t be three years in on a Ph.D.
I love how God will send you a quick little e-mail like, “Remember when THIS happened?” as a …

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 …

It goes live for purchase next month, and I finally saw a cover of it, Encyclopedia of Social Networks. A classmate forwarded the call for submission to me over a year or so ago, and I immediately contacted those in charge of the call. Unfortunately, by the time I contacted …

Statement about qualitative research that stuck out to me in Baym’s “Finding the Quality in Qualitative Internet Research”…
“Although counterarguments may be a little harder to predict, high-quality qualitative work should anticipate those counterarguments and provide a persuasive evidence-based case against them both in the structuring of the research design and …

I recently finished reading Martin Kevorkian’s Color Monitors: The Black Face of Technology in America [click cover to read more about book], and it was definitely a different way to examine the idea of race and technology. I have read many articles and several books that talk about the digital …

I wasn’t sure this day would happen, and it’s just a small, teeny tiny step in the progress, but it’s a step, so that makes it important. For the last month, month and a half, I’ve been going back and forth with my dissertation chair with my pre-proposal. With his …

As a doctoral student, I am always thinking about what I’ve done, what I’m about to do, what I will do in this journey. This is one of my first podcasts regarding the life of coursers, qualies, and dissertators–the phases we tend to go through as Ph.D. students. I hope …

I wanted to make sure I got this blog post in before 2011 because I wanted the post dated in the year the milestone was accomplished.
Some might not see this as much of a milestone, but when I think about how my personal life has changed and been changed since …

Early, early in the new day of December 15, I was finishing up the last project of my first semester in the doctoral program when a question popped into my head: “How many words have you written this month?”
For a second, I thought I was back in November; last month, I …

Every once in awhile, I plan to share some thoughts about this Ph.D. process.
The process is made a tad bit different in that as part of the fellowship this year I am required to take four classes. Most students take two or three. It’s been cumbersome, reading enough works just …