Discovery Essay "Glossing"

Although we have only written two papers in this class, this essay seems to be the hardest for me. However, I am really enjoying writing and reading about technology, becasue it truly is amazing how far we have come. I think that my essay has a recurring theme of the affects of being addicted to the Blackberry. Although I discuss good things and bad things about this phone, all of the points in my paper could somehow be incorporated to addiction. For example, one of the positive affects that I mention in the paper is that people end up working longer hours which earns them higher paychecks. However, this could also be seen as being "addicted" to the Blackberry because people are easily tempted to work on their phone all day if it earns them more money. The theme of family in the second and sixth paragraphs surprised me because I was struggling to find a way to bring my own personal life into my paper. the most high-tech thing I own is an Ipod, so naturally it was hard for me to find a good personal story to add into my essay. I found it kind of ironic that I mention my dad in this discovery essay on technology, becasue he is usually the last person that would come to my mind when I think about technology. I think that this theme of family and my personal experience with the Blackberry needs to be developed a lot more so that the reader will stay interested in my paper. I hope to make the paper more interesting by adding more stories about my dad and his new Blackberry as opposed to statistics and facts. For the most part, I think that my themes fit together pretty nicely. They all have a connection through the Blackberry even though I discuss positive and negative effects of the phone. My main concern about the essay is the organization of it. I do move from personal experience to public information, but I try to transition in a manner that is not confusing for the reader. However, I think that I need to add more personal experience in my essay because it does not balance out as well as I would like. I think adding more personaly exeperience would help the audience understnad my positive and negative points more. It might also give them a more personal feeling about the paper. All in all I think that my paper is good start, but I could definitely clean up my transition sentences a bit. There is room for personal opinions and stories in order to make my paper longer, so hopefully I can take care of that as well. I look forward to editing my paper and putting more of my own thoughts into it.

Researching Experience

As I was researching my topic I found that it was very easy to find information on the Blackberry phone in general. There were plenty of websites that popped up, but it was challenging trying to find sites that discussed the time people spend on Blackberries. There are plenty of people who want to talk about the good aspects of Blackberry phones, but there are not quite as many that want to discuss the pros and cons of being available all the time. I used a variety of words in my search like Blackberry, Blackberry and time consumption, Blackberry cell phones and so on. I am not quite sure if it will be an easy topic to do but I do not want to give up on it. It really does interest me but i'm just worried that I will not gather enough information. I would advise my classmates to make sure that their topic is narrow, but also not too make it too narrow to the point where you can't research it. The internet has a very wide range of sources so whatever your topic may be, it should be very easy to come up with some sort of information. I am really looking forward to finding out more about my topic and question, but it might be a little bit challenging.

Research Essay Topic

The topic I have chosen to research is the original Blackberry phone. There are so many different types of Blackberry phones but I am focusing on the fact that it is an all-access phone. Besides just being a phone, it also provides access to the internet, and email which allows someone to be available at all times of the day. Therefore, my question is: Is it always a good thing to be available at all times? I'm a little concerned about my question being too broad. I figured that in order to narrow it down I would discuss the pros and cons of being available at all hours of the day. I think that narrows my topic down to the right size. Blackberry phones have become very popular over the years so I am confident that I will be able to find a sufficient amount of information on them. I also think that this topic can be debated both ways so it will keep me asking questions. I hope that my research will present more questions as well. This topic is obviously interesting to me and I hope that it would be for other people as well. I think if I found statistics like, how many hours a day someone typically spends on their Blackberry, then maybe it would spark the interest of others.
I have always been the one with the cheapest cell phone which is fine by me. However, that does not mean that I have not always dreamt of having a blackberry. Basically, I really like those phones and I was interested in researching more about it. It is also interesting to me because my dad, who is the most technologically challenged man on Earth, just recently got a Blackberry becasue his job supplied it. He suddenly turned into this whiz at email, cell phones, and sending pictures over the internet since his phone comes with a camera. He is teaching me things about his phone that I neer would ahve known so that is another big reason behind my interest in this topic. I hope that through my research I will be able to find out whether or not people prefer to be available at all times or not. It is not a perfect topic, but it is something to work with. I hope that I will be able to come up with good research that will give me a good paper.