Merle John

A musician and student who is passionate about all aspects of music.

[vrvu-mu]

What I like about my learning!

Something I find very admirable about my own learning style is how I am able to be adaptive in my education. I do not read well. I never have been good at reading and it is something I dislike. When it comes to writing I obviously need to read a lot, whether that be other source material or what I actually wrote. So I am happy that I can push myself to learn new curriculum and skills even when I find some aspects difficult. This winter semester my learning was really pushed in a new way because I was taking 3 courses in such a short amount of time. I was able to manage it well and that makes me feel proud of myself and my abilities. I love to learn and I am always pleased when I am able to see my own understanding after the class is over!

[merlejohnh]

Great Post! I like how you talk about you writing improving over the semester, and how you started using new processes to do so. I also completely understand being pushed this semester with three classes because I also took 3 classes this semester.

[taliajoy]

Strengthening my essay!

I think something I need to incorporate within my essay to strengthen it is referring back to our class assignments. At the end of the day, the projects weve worked on are the actual tests to show weve been learning and can then apply these skills. So, by using examples from class work, I can fully convey the knowledge I've acquired and demonstrate how I've been using it throughout the semester.

[merlejohnh]

I completely agree with your post, and this is something I need to make sure I am adamant about including in my essay. When writing this essay, I realize it is very important to reference classwork as examples, to complete the assignment correctly, but this is one thing I know I would potentially overlook as well. I also like how you point out that what we have learned and worked on in class have been to develop these skills and prepare us to use them.

[merlejohnh]

What are you most proud of with your writing process?

What I am most proud of with my writing process is the improvements I have made through time with the different writing courses I have taken. Before taking all the college writing courses I have taken I would say I was an ok writer, with a lot to improve on, and now after having taken at least 3 writing courses in college, I have improved so much, but also have more to improve on. I feel that through this course and other writing courses I have been able to write more clearly as well as convey my points in a more concise way.

[merlejohnh]

What do you like the most about your essay?

What I like most about my essay is that I have the freedom to answer the questions true to me, as well as elaborate on my writing process. I also really like how the essay is a list of questions, that we then respond too, with the responses being subjective to what we learned and what we gained from the course. I also like this format for a final assignment because it allows us to answer how we would answer, but also is set up like an interview, and can help students prepare for a job interview.

[merlejohnh]

What do you like most about your learning?

What I like most about my learning is that I am learning skills I can later apply to all the different things I write. I have gained new insight on topics like context, and audience, as well has how to improve my writing process so that it is more methodical and clear. With these new skills I will be taking a more methodical approach to my writing starting with an idea rather than a brainstorm to find my idea like before. I also like that I have been able to understand the different aspects of certain online spaces, and gain insight into the different ways to web write.

[merlejohnh]

Check in Post

Hello Dr.P,

My main question about web writing that will help me after this course is: When web writing is the process used completely subjective to different types of content, the creators, and the message they are trying to convey, or are there certain things that remain the same like writing process for posts or methods of reaching out to fans.

I have two questions about writing skills development. When writing over time you obviously improve but at what point would you say you are fluent in your desired skills? My second question is: When developing writing skills do these skill vary wildly among different styles of writing say Journalism vs Writing a novel vs Web Writing?

The question I have for the assignments is when doing reflection number 5 are we including all our tumblr posts from this semester or just the ones from this week.

@npfannen

[vrvu-mu]

Method Help

If you were to follow my method do you think you could replicate my study? Should I include anything else?

[merlejohnh]

I think that I would be able to replicate your study If I followed this and do not think anything needs to be added.

[vrvu-mu]

Data Analysis Help

This is the first part of my data analysis. I want to make sure I am accurately conveying what I actually mean to say. With so much data and so many thought my brain tends to trail off. I am writing comprehensively?

[merlejohnh]

I think that you should be good here, but I would add some more of the numbers from your data in. If you add in more numbers from your data to your analysis it will be easier to drive your point home, as well as make a clearer representation of the data. Otherwise the analysis looks good.

[callie1305]

Peer Review Request #1

These are some of my graphs used for our Content Analysis Project! I feel like they might be a little too heavy and a bit hard to understand. Do you guys think I should revise them or keep them as they are?

[merlejohnh]

I think that these graphs can be kept but I would suggest also making a chart of the median and averages for the accounts as well as graphs of this, this will help organize skewed data and give you more of an overview. Otherwise looks good.

[merlejohnh]

Context Analysis Peer Review

How is my context analysis? Did I miss anything? Should I add anything? Is there more on the space I need to talk about or just topics relating to my research project?

[merlejohnh]

Data and Content Analysis Peer Review

How does my data and content analysis section look? Should I add anything? Did I miss anything?

[merlejohnh]

Method Peer Review

How does my method look? Does my method make sense to you? If you were to follow my method would you be able to collect the data and results I collected? Is there anything I should add?

[merlejohnh]

Week 4 Check in

Hello Dr.P!

My main question is: where can I find the prompts for the Week 4 tumblr Original content? I was also a bit confused as to what questions to ask as part of the Week 4 Check in post. I wanted to also ask about the drafts for the content analysis assignment, is the second draft going to be different than the first other than revisions?

@npfannen

[merlejohnh]

What is my go-to video content

My got to video content is Music content, I usually watch concert videos, or clips as well as people playing and teaching songs. I am a musician and love to see what others create and play, and am always interested in that type of content, my favorite styles of music to watch are bluegrass and jam bands. The content I view is from YouTube and Instagram.

[kateh29]

Original Content Writing

Research question - what did you learn about writing a research question that can be answered through social media data + content strategy ideas? How will this help you in this module?

I had a bit of a tough time thinking of a research question. Based off the Capriotti et al. article and the data analysis from module 3, I thought that my research question had to be based strictly off engagement. However, after looking through terms defined in modules 2 and 3, I discovered that there are other variables you can measure besides engagement. So, I chose to do my research question based on visual content. This refers to what visuals are shown in each post and how it correlates to the purpose of the account.

Ex: Porsche posts a video of their cars speeding on a raceway. This visual highlights the sportiness and performance in their vehicles (purpose).

[merlejohnh]

Great post. I also had trouble formulating my research question and need to do some revisions on it. I also initially thought that we had to measure engagement but after going through the content for this module and seeing your post, I feel more comfortable possible using a different metric for my data. I also am intrigued by your choice of visuals and interested what you will find in relation to the purpose of the account.

[callie1305]

Original Content Writing

“What digital space are you planning to focus on and WHY?”

I am planning on diving into the world on Instagram family influencers! Instagram is a platform where authenticity is highly valued. The audience wants to see the “real” life events happening in their daily life. Of course any influencer carefully curates posts to appear a specific way, but I am curious how these influencers balance their personal lives while already sharing so much of their life on social media. I am also curious to dig into how influencers strategically use brand deals on their accounts, and balance how much of each type of content they are posting.

[merlejohnh]

I really like how you talk about instagram being a platform where authenticity is highly valued. This is one of the reasons in my personal life I gravitate towards instagram. I also am interested by your question of how influencers use brand deals on their accounts as this is something that most if not all big content creators do.

[mfrick]

How does your experience analyzing data to draw conclusions about writing help you with this project?

My experience analyzing data to draw conclusions about writing really helps with this project because it has taught me to slow down and look past my first impressions. Instead of focusing on whether I like a post or not, I am more comfortable looking for patterns and trends that show how writing is actually working. This experience also helps me separate personal opinion from evidence and focus on what the content is doing in its digital space. Because of this, the project feels more manageable and less overwhelming since I know my conclusions are based on data and examples rather than guesses.

[merlejohnh]

Great post! I like how you talk about not needing to look at data and posts as good and bad but rather see the data as information that can help with your writing and prove or disprove a hypothesis.