Lolita

Researching a topic you know nothing about can be quite interesting. I choose the word Lolita to research, because it sounded familiar like I had heard somewhere else before. The source I choose first was the Oxford dictionary, in which I looked up the word or name Lolita. What I found was Lolita was “the name of a novel (1958) and its main character by Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) about a precocious schoolgirl seduced by a middle-aged man, used to designate people and situations resembling those in the book”. (Oxford English Dictionary, 1) I also found that the novel Lolita was also a film, by looking at a movie review for the film. The review called Lolita a film worth seeing, it also stated “She still isn't the 12-year-old of the book, but Dominique Swain is an adolescent killer, and Jeremy Irons does some nice suffering.” (Kauffmann, 26) Also by looking at the Oxford dictionary it describes different ways in which the term Lolita has been used in history starting in the year 1959. (Oxford English Dictionary, 1). The website sparknotes has a lot of resourceful information on the novel Lolita, it displays the context of the novel, and it has summaries of each chapter in good detail, character analyses, review questions and further reading. ( Sparknotes) I did research on the author of Lolita and found Vladimir Nabokov was the author who wrote Lolita, he was born in Russia, The Nabokov’s family was known for their high culture and commitment to public service. In 1940 Vladimir moved to the United States where he began writing in English which he really didn’t like doing. Though his passion was not writing in English, one of Vladimir best work Lolita was written in English. (Vladimir Nabokov). The resource I used was again a type of dictionary, but in this dictionary I found a actually definition of the word Lolita it says “a precociously seductive girl” (Merriam Webster Online).

Snoop Dogg Research

The first website that came to my mind while looking for information on Snoop Dogg was MTV. Why, because I know that MTV is constantly updated on artist’s songs and videos. Next I decided to visit his official home page , because I knew I could get all the information about his life and all the albums, songs, and videos he has done and there names and years, official homepages are usually greatly detailed. I visited his Myspace page because I knew I could see what people and fans wrote to him, and I could see his latest videos, and other videos pertaining to him. I also visited the Wikipedia to see if any information was changed about him, since anyone is free post what the want on Wikipedia. Last I decided to take a look at a fans page that had been made for Snoop so I could get a taste into the fans life and what they had posted about Snoop and his career. The disadvantage of looking at MTV is that its entertainment based which means it’s likely to show and talk about his mistakes rather then his achievements. The advantage of looking at his official homepage is that it’s more likely to show his achievements in the music business. Taking a look at Myspace has a disadvantage because everything on the page will be in the artist’s benefit, and an advantage would be the fans comments and postings. Wikipedia would definitely be a disadvantage because the information stated on this website could be wrong. Last looking at a fans page is a disadvantage, because you will only get the fans view, which will contain all positive things.

Hip Hop America

The book Hip Hop America by George Nelson talks about the history of Hip Hop starting from the 70’s to present day Hip Hop culture that affects fashion, movies, sports, and advertising. I know that this book would be interesting to me because it explains the history of Hip Hop which I know so little about and would like to learn more about. It also talks about different themes that are known in the Hip Hop culture like language, drugs, incarceration, and entrepreneurship , which would interest me to learn more about these themes and there affects on the Hip Hop culture. This book also has a interview with Sean Combs in it a key player in the Hip Hop world and it would be nice to read his opinions on the present day Hip Hop Culture. George Nelson the author of this book is a considered one the most knowledgeable hip hop writers on the planet. Nelson is a good candidate for writing this book, because he is a longtime music and cultural critic , and he has been a major key role figure in the developments of Hip Hop. As said before, Nelson knows the history of hip hop like the back of his hand from beginning to present day. He also grew up in the era when it was started so he personal experiences from being there at that time in history.

Dizzee Rascal

Dylan Mills, professional known as Dizzee Rascal is an England based rapper, who incorporates different styles like garage MCing, conventional rap, grime and ragga, with extremely eclectic samples and more exotic styles to create his own blend of music. Dizzee Rascal was introduced to music production by his school teacher who took interest in him. Dizzee Rascal is also known for his fast rapping style that can be compared to the rapper Twister in America. Through Dizzee’s life there were many happy and sad moments. Dizzee Rascal grew up in the East End of London were as a young teenager he was arrested for stealing cars. In his life Dizzee won numerous awards and stayed on the top charts with his hits. In 2003 Dizzee was stabbed five times, tabloids liked the stabbing to a feud going on between Dizzee and So Solid Crew. Dizzee Rascal has made five albums so far in his and is still going with his 2007 hit song “Flex”. By just giving a brief overview into Dizzee Rascal’s life one can see many similarities between him and the Hip Hop Culture in America. First Dizzee was introduced to music by school teacher, usually there is always someone cares whether it be a teacher, parent, sibling, or someone already in the music world who gives a lending to that person to get started. Second, we see Dizzee Rascal created his own persona in the rap industry, no two rappers are alike, and Dizzee adds different unique styles to his music making it his own. Third, in a lot of his songs Dizzee raps about situations going on in his life and around him whether they be good or bad, which is quite similar to old school Hip Hop in America. Last, the incident in which Dizzee Rascal was stabbed fives is common especially in the America Hip Hop culture whether it’s for the publicity or real “beef” as they call it in the Hip Hop culture.

Peer Review

I actually really enjoyed the peer review, coming from a class last semester where we just turned papers in without any peer review or rough drafts. I like the fact that I got the chance to allow one of my audiences (students) read, edit, and review my paper. The whole process went pretty well, we all switched papers, read each others paper, and gave comments and suggestions. I received some good advice on how to make last paragraph fit better into my entire essay. I was also advised to put an example of personal experience dealing with one of the issues a talked about in my paper. I think I also made some helpful contributions to my group members’ papers. Though I thought the peer review was helpful to me and my other group members, a big issue was time. I didn’t have enough time to analyze and make comments like I wanted. Another issue that didn’t work well with the peer review was the sheets we had to fill out with each paper. I was to busy trying to finish the worksheet that I didn’t spend enough time on the paper, which I believe should have been the main focus of peer review.