Trust me?

Jonathon and I will be collaborating on a website focused on user trust. We are playing with the idea of linking the home page to two sites, one would be more serious and one more playful, each site would require users to enter personal information to continue and as the links continue, the sites would require more and more information. First they must verify age, then name, then email address. Both would link to an end page with questions like "are you really 18 years old?" "Why did you disclose so much information?" "what makes you trust a website?" To the effect that users will evaluate how the structure of a site effects how much they trust it. I'm not sure this is the route we're going to go, but we're going to definately be making a website about user trust.

Freewriting on Possible Website Topics

I don't really want to create a website about my review on Posterous, because it was just that: a review. I felt the least connected to that paper, and don't think there is enough content to create a website.

I would be self-concious about creating a website based on my research paper, because my research paper is based on pro-eating disorder websites, and I do not want to create something with a lot of pro-eating disorder content. I had a couple points in this paper, that the success of these websites is due to site structure including produsage and anonymity. Another point I made was how identity is constructed through these websites. Maybe I could start with stereotypes and you click on a stereotype "saint" "normal" "hater"? I'm not sure how a story would unfold, and I would want people to have similar ideas that I have, and I don't want to guide people.

Trust: Online Identity--anonymity vs. personal identification-- pick one and then go down a path of quotes and phrases and different options to see what qualities in a site are necessary for user-trust.

Or I could do a site on my literacy autobiography and have a little cartoon go different places and communicate with people in different ways to the effect that the site communicates the idea of global community through the Internet.

Research Frustrations

I actually enjoy doing research in things I am in interested in. My paper focuses on pro-Eating Disorder (pro-ED) websites, and I was having trouble bridging my desire to write about the psychological/sociological impact of these websites and the class' required focus on technological writing. I tried researching the structure of websites in general, and found an article that was very useful. I also found multiple articles related to pro-anorexia websites including a few experiments, which I found interesting to read and useful to my paper. I used EBSCO because they email the article with the MLA citation. Evidently, I needed to check the MLA citations more carefully myself, because some of the citations were improperly formatted.
My frustration really came with the reaction to the research. I found out less than a day before my paper is due, that my focus is off, and I should have done more research in another field. I did not have the time to completely refocus my paper and to find research that fit this new focus. My current frustration with research now, is the time I have to find it and integrate it into my final draft.