Liam's English Blog

Literature Reviews:          The first of two documents on literature reviews, this document explained the most important aspects to consider. A literature review is based on the idea that you want to summarize the key ideas of an article. That is the simplest explanation, although the document also mentions that you can include synthesis, the reorganization of information, to better serve your purpose or reinterpret the document's data. The document also has much to say on the organization of a literature review, stressing that this is one of the most important aspects of writing one, as the bit on synthesis suggested. Lastly, a focus on the relevance of your sources, how current they are, and how many you need is brought up. Literature Review Workshop:           This document had more of a practical direction, as it was more concerned with directing students to create a literature review from two abstracts. As the abstracts were...

Clement: Where Is Methodology in Digital Humanities?        The article seemed to be focused on how Digital Humanities incorporates social studies and other scientific information. Clement brought up Michael Buckland as one of the most well-known theorists. His theory was of the three kinds of information: information as knowledge, information as thing, and information as process. The first, information as knowledge, is subjective and personal according to Buckland. Information as thing is more tangible and requires physical expression be it a sign or communication. Information as process allows researchers to narrow down a very specific sect of information for analysis. Tan: Four Ways to Show the Value of UX Writing        Tan focused intently on making information more accessible to people with lower reading levels, more objective pursuits, or just less time. Throughout the article she discussed and provided examples for becoming a better...

"Introduction" in "Debates in the Digital Humanities 2019"          Gold and Klein seem to be focusing on the actions of DHers in our current 2019 landscape. They discuss projects, such as digital mapping, that Digital Humanists have created as a means to help those suffering in the wake of hurricane Irma and those affected by child separation. This last point brings the article to its political leanings, as it clearly does not favor the current political headwind. In fact, it refers to these methods as ways for Digital Humanists to "resist" the current agenda that has become common place in the United States. Of course, when this agenda is referenced as "racism, sexism, xenophobia, and generalized vitriol," one can probably understand the authors' desire to find ways to "resist." What's Next: The Radical, Unrealized Potential of DH          Posner's article seems to be focused on the difficulty of projecting visualiz...

Thematic Research Collections:        We focus in this article on thematic research collections, or as Palmer later abbreviates it, thematic collections. These are a collection of primary and related sources that all focus on a theme, collected into one archive for the convenience of scholars. Palmer gives examples of these thematic collections through referencing The Dickinson Electronic Archives  and The Walt Whitman Archive .   In a simpler sense, all the works that are brought together into these electronic archives come from either print or manuscript sources, bridging the divide between standard text and electronic sources. Print Scholarship and Digital Resources:       Warwick's article, similar to Palmer's, is concerned with the mixing of solid books and electronic works. Warwick discusses the complex matters that go into the work processes for creating a solid anthology or collection of texts and information as opposed to buil...

A Political History of Digital Humanities:        This reading, like past readings, seemed to focus on defining what Digital Humanities both is and is not. Digital Humanities prefers lab based research and digital projects to over reading and writing when it comes to studying the humanities. The article also focused extensively on the onset of computers in scholarly learning, the creation of "computer specialists" who were mostly librarians, and their poor worth in the eyes of literary scholars. Jerome McGann and his Rossetti project are mentioned, as well as the necessity of computers in compiling the data required. And in the face of all of this, Digital Humanities is created from the anger and disdain carried by growing Digital Humanists as literary scholars looked down on them. The Scandal of Digital Humanities:       The article was about how people seemed to think that Digital Humanities represented and encouraged Neoliberalism. The aut...

What Are Digital Humanities?             The reading reading that we focused on had one question it sought to answer, and attempted as much through a myriad of ways, but overall the question was simply: what is digital humanities? The answer, of course, was not a difficult one as the author pointed out by googling the term in question and arriving at a fairly straightforward, if a bit lengthy, definition posited by Wikipedia. Kirschenbaum goes on to explain how digital humanities started as a small series of studies, but has grown in popularity over time. People identify as digital humanists and efforts have been made to spread the ideas and values of digital humanities as new ideas gain traction.              I'm still at work wrapping my head around digital humanities as a whole, which in turn may be the problem. Digital humanities seems to me, and indeed seems to be defined, as anything quantified or qualified, s...