Thursday, October 29, 2009

Blog #6: Research Narrative

I am very glad to say that I finally started to write about my topic!! So far I have 4 pages, which is quite a lot considering that it took me ages to write them!! This research is harder than what I expected...Most of my info are in Italian and so I have to read, analyze, translate it in my head, and then put everything together and write about the topic.

So far, I wrote an introduction about Gallura, covered the Geography section, and I am almost done with the Demographics.
By the end of next week, I would like to be done with both the Demographics and the Economic section.

I am not having any particular problem so far, I am afraid the hardest part has yet to come and it will be putting everything together before publishing the article (including checking grammar, Wikipedia formate and so on...)!
Anyway, so far so good...

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Blog #5: Long Bibliography


I started to take a deep look through articles that I might be using for my research and the following are some of them:



This website is about sardinia in general. However, one can click on the option Gallura to read about the history of Gallura (I might take this source to write about Gallura's history on my Wikipedia article). Moreover, there is another option called Olbia-Tempio, which is the main city in Gallura. So I could use it to add more info about this city, which will be the one I will write longer about.




Both links conduct to sections dedicated to the enviroment in Gallura, specifically talking about the flora and fauna and also about renewable resources.



This is one of the best websites I have found. It has information about pretty much everything in Gallura, from Geography to the history of all the main cities.



This is the website I will use the most since it is the officila website of Sardinia, where there is consequently a huge part dedicated to Gallura, from the history to the food and the traditions.


Those are the websites I looked at so far. I read them carefully and I believe that so far I collected enough information in order to start writing a pretty good research.

I will keep on looking for other websites of course and I will publish them on this blog eventually.




Blog #4: Venue


Since I decided to create an article for Wikipedia about Gallura, which is a region situated in Sardegna, Italy, I took a look at already existing articles about a topic similar to mine.


For instance, I took a look at Sardinia itself, which is a much broader topic if we consider that Gallura is only a small part of it. The following represents the scheme I will be following for my article:


1. Geography I should specify where it is situated, which are the main mountains, rivers, and lake, and how is the climate like.


2. History

-from neolithic up to today

-immigration tendencies

3. Economy

-GDP and GDP per Capita

-Describe each of the three sectors (primary, secondary, tertiary), specifying which one is the most important.

3.1 Transportation


4. Demographics

-Population Density, and how it changed during the years

-life expectancy (when available)

4.1 Genetic Peculiarities (maybe)


5. Government and Politics

Who has the power and how it is administrated. Probably I will write also a little intro about Sardinia's Government in general.


6.Culture

6.1 Language-gallurese

6.2 Music

6.3 Sport

6.4 Food-typical dishes


7. Enviroment

-Flora and Fauna (plants, animals...)

-Natural Parks (Limbara)

-Renewable Energies


8.Notes


9.References


10.External Links


The last three parts are still a little bit unclear to me and I would like to discuss them further with the professor

Monday, October 5, 2009

Blog #2: Reading Response


The beginning of the book Literary Journalism has been very interesting. I have always written essays in the standard way: giving examples, putting my opinion, following my thesis statement. However, this chapter helped me to analyze deeper my way of writing and I discovered several new ideas that will improve my writing making it much more interesting both for the reader and for me.


For instance, I really enjoyed reading about Ted Conover.I appreciated his idea of "Partecipant observation" (13), which allows the writer to testify not just what he/she saw, but actually what he/she experienced on his/her own skin. Surely enough, when the readers will get to know that what they are reading is an actual experience of the writer and not just a mere story-telling, their interest about the article will grow more and more!


Most of the journalists believe that the most powerful weapon in journalism is patience. For instance, Mark Singer believes that a journalist never has to forget to :"shut up and let the subject talk. Don't be as intrusive, litterally as intrusive, in an interview. Just let the subjects talk and they will reveal things to you" (8). Joseph Mitchell as well agrees with the same technique: "I am not easily bored. I can talk to anybody. If I talk to them long enough, the most amazing things come out" (11). Joe Nocera also stresses this very important point: "In any kind of journalism you have to build a bond of trust. You have to get people to let their hair down when you're around, to be willing to forget about you as a reporter, and to say things" (6).


Of all the journalists in this chapter, those four are the ones who catched my attention the most. The reason is that they tought me a very important lesson: if you really want to write about a topic, you have to be willing to get into that in the best way you can, making as much researches as you can and if it is possible you should actually experience what you are going to write about. Moreover, you have to have the patience to listen to people since in journalism is not your point of view that counts the most but the one of who is actually doing the experiences who want to write about.

Blog #3: My Research's Topic




My Research's Topic will be a place in Italy called Gallura.
Gallura is part of Sardinia, a big, famous Italian island. I will research this topic in order to write an article for the English Wikipidia.
The reason why I choosed this topic is that, even though I come from Rome, I think that Sardinia, with its history and its beautiful landscape, is one the most beautiful places in the world. Since Sardinia is a very broad topic, I decided to focus my research on Gallura, which is situated in the North of Sardinia.It represents the place where I spent unforgettable vacations. Moreover, I am very interested about Sardinia (and Gallura in particular) since both my mother and my boyfriend come from there.
I personally think that it will be interesting for people to get to know this beutiful place, along with its culture and its cities. I am also planning to publish several pictures, in order to make my research more interesting and complete.