User:AaHoward/NMAC 3108 Journal

June 2, 2019: Introduction

Hello, My name is Aaron Howard, I am an NMAC major. I am taking his class to enhance my writing skills within the Digital Media realm. I also hope to gain a better understanding of writing in general. The most interesting thing about me is that I am an Airforce veteran.

June 2, 2019: What I have learned so far

This has been a big learning experience for me, as I have no experience beyond reading Wikipedia articles. I am glad that I’m able to create pages and post links within the site. This week has been a bit of a challenge but, I have survived and am eager to learn more.

June 9, 2019: Article Evaluation

I chose to evaluate the article concerning JSTOR. I have seen this acronym many times, while looking for credible sources for other assignments, so I decided to learn about it. The article has 42 references with the majority leading to JSTORs website. The references to external links numbered 5, 6, 18, 30, 31, 33 and 34 are all broken. I find it interesting that a large portion of the article including the references surround Aaron Swartz in his attempt to make JSTOR data free to the public, his punishment, and reported suicide. The Article does give a fair amount of information about JSTOR, it’s history and it’s current direction regarding public use. The main issues are that many of the links are broken or lead to the same website. The incident regarding Aaron Swartz could be shortened with a wikilink to Aaron Swartz case. The sub heading "Use" seems very short in comparison to the other sub headings. It was neat to read the talk page, although there are not many productive and informational entries.

@AaHoward: Some solid points; did you help correct any of the errors? Be sure to proofread and revise: like, it's = it is. What about the talk page was "neat"? —Grlucas (talk) 15:31, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

June 9, 2019: Visual editor vs Source editor

Working with the Visual editor seems to be easier than using the Source editor. The Visual editor has a variety of typography styles with no need for a preview, allowing the user to view their potential changes as they type them. The Source editor requires the user to populate a preview to see their changes. It also calls for some memorization of commands similar to HTML but, it allows for manual control over posts which may prove to be more accurate and efficient. I’ve learned that using the Visual editor is ideal when making journal entries but from what I understand it Cannot be used on talk pages. The Source editor may be worth focusing on, as it is usable for editing in every situation.

@AaHoward: Any other benefit to using just the source editor? (I only use the source editor.) —Grlucas (talk) 15:33, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Dr. Lucas: To answer your question, this page provides a variety of reasons why using the VisualEditor could be a bad idea. Ultimately, if issues occur with one's code, it is nice to have the background knowledge to be able to fix the problem without damaging one's workflow. -TSchiroMGA (talk) 05:33, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

@AaHoward: 👍🏼 Yeah, I've always been a source-editor kind of guy. —Grlucas (talk) 11:25, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

@AaHoward: I agree, Visual editor is easier in some functions, but the source editor gives you more power. I try to use source edit mode as much as possible. Mightymize (talk) 14:00, 1 July 2019 (UTC)