Annotated Bibliography Assignment

By Christian Galvan, Timeline Project

1. Wortham, Jenna. "After 10 Years of Blogs, the Future's Brighter Than Ever." Wired. Dec. 17 2007. 13 Feb 2008 <http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/news/2007/12/blog_anniversary>.

This article elaborates on the evolution of blogs. An idea that has been around since 1997, the blog has helped people express themselves online and has given them a form for others to read and share their ideas. Fast forward ten years later, in 2007, there are more than 100 million blogs that are archived in the internet, showing the growing phase that this phenomenon has taken on. As Jeff Jarvis puts it: “It's the easiest, cheapest, fastest publishing tool ever invented," which shows why it has garnered much interest from the internet community. But besides serving as simple internet diaries, blogs have sparked interest in big companies, as manufacturers can communicate with their audience in an organized manner. For example, one can see the blog of Microsoft’s Robert Scoble, who helped mediate the relationship between Microsoft and its consumers, which in the end allowed the encounters to be more personal and human rather than a big corporation advertising its  products. Moreover, blogs have helped to keep communication intact within people, making everyday reading such as the news somewhat useless, since blogs are effective and are displayed in a chronological manner. For this reason, the article explains that there is only more room for Blogs to keep on growing, and shows that these blogs are a great model for communication and the interaction between users, both far and near. Additionally, even in a timeline project, a blog would help clarify many concepts in the book, as through a blog, one can be more personal and engage in an informal manner that would modernize even the most classic literature. Finally, the article goes on to say that besides organizing information, blogs can be used for nearly anything, such as sharing music, files, reports, restaurant menus, and even store specials, showing that this is one revolution that might replace the printing press, and even the online internet news that one is so used to.

2. "Livejournal." Livejournal. 13 Feb 2008 <http://www.livejournal.com/>.

For the timeline project, online blog software will have to be used. This online tool has been around for quite some time now, and is one of the most popular online blogs on the net. Even though it tends to appeal to young teenagers, the features of this online blog are endless and allow for much customization and interaction with others. For one, it can serve a dual purpose and function as a personal and private online journal. On the other side, it can be the blog that has been around for many years and a method of conveying thoughts in a very effective manner. The emphasis on this website seems to be the online community that it upholds, as one can create an account, and befriend others that have a livejournal account. After this, it is only a matter of uploading a personal avatar that will serve as visualization for the person posting on the blog. This can be anything from a pre set and fictional avatar that might represent the user in a symbolic manner, or an actual picture one may have taken from a digital camera. From the moment this project was created, there has been an array of users, ranging from up to 14,000,000 users that post an average of 200,000 times a day. This is considered a quite vast community, and helps to explain why the concept became so popular. Additionally, the relative ease to create an account makes this tool very accessible to the non computer friendly person, and can make it easy for a person of any age (13 and up!) to create an account. There is no set audience for this journal, and any crowd can feel right at home creating their own online blog, which makes livejournal much more intuitive than other blogs such as blogger.com, that seem to favor the computer elite. The website is open source and is updated by members of the community, which makes it similar to the wiki in that it is not owned by a huge corporation, but rather a conglomeration of collective members upgrading and maintaining the database. This takes away from the revenue oriented business mindset and establishes a much more accessible website that allows the community themselves to be a part of it. Once a user posts a blog, they can customize their post even further by implementing emoticons that portray their “Current” mood, or the mood that applies to when the blog was posted. By using this livejournal tool as a basis for our characters from the Canterbury Tales, we can make blog entries for these characters and allow the reader to delve further in their mind. Moreover, the characters can interact with each other in their own respective blogs, which can make livejournal serve as a model for the book. Through this tool, many new ideas can be conveyed by the characters that were not so clear in the book, thus making this website an excellent source for communication and expression.

3. Hiatt, Alfred. "Geoffrey Chaucer, d. 1400." Literature Online biography (2000).

Born in London in the 1340’s Chaucer’s influence on literature is seen as the groundbreaker for the English language. Before Chaucer, languages such as French and Latin were the basis for a common work of art or literature. It would not be until Chaucer’s emergence that the English language was manipulated in a form that extended beyond that of the vernacular. After becoming educated in Latin during the younger years of his life, Chaucer would go on to work on several works that would bring his career into a rising pattern. Through this move, he was able to expand his reader base, and spread the usage of the English langugage in his works. He is considered the foremost author in writing works in English during that time, making him a staple of the English language and style. His London dialect found in many of his poems set the standard for many other authors as this was the format generally accepted during that time, and the format that would hold through for years to come. But it would be until the 14^th century that he would release one of his most influential works ever created, “The Canterbury Tales”. A collection of tales mostly written in verse, this collection of short stories highlighted Chaucer’s articulate yet vernacular language and style that we are so familiar with today. To this day, “The Canterbury Tales" is considered Chaucer’s greatest work, even though it remains unfinished to this day. While possibly being controversial at the time for writing in middle English at the time, Chaucer started the trend that would establish English as the staple langugage for literature in the following years.

4. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Bantam Classics, 1982.

The Canterbury Tales take place in a place called the Tabard Inn where the narrator joins 29 other pilgrims going on the same journey that he is embarking on. Among these are clergymen, monks, and even knights. Once there, the host decides that since they are all going the same path, then they might as well entertain each other. The deal details are as follows: each of the travelers will tell two stories on their way to Canterbury, and then another two on the way back. The winner of this contest receives a free meal that is paid for by all the other pilgrims. With small interjections between each story, the book ends up reading like a collection of short stories, with small commentaries by the characters found in between these stories. As a result, we see instances where the Cook enjoys the Reeve’s tale, which leads him to tell a funny one in exchange. Usually, each story has a message that might be something bothering the author or may just be an entertaining story to ponder about. Another example might be the Wife of Bath’s tale, as it depicts a woman that marries five men, and comes to the conclusion that none will be happy with her. In the end, she realizes that she could find a young and attractive husband that will be distracted by other women, or an older man that will appreciate her for who she is. The "Canterbury Tales" goes on to display more stories like these, and in the end, the whole book plays out like a series of small episodes that interweave as the different pilgrims relate their tales to each other, making it perfect to depict in a blog like setting.

5. Simile Tools, "Simile|Timeline." Timeline. Simile. 14 Feb 2008 <http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/>.

This web-based tool designed by Simile is an interactive piece of code that allows a user to create his/her own timeline that can be manipulated and dragged by the user in an innovative manner. The website explains: “Timeline is a DHTML-based AJAXy widget for visualizing time-based events. It is like Google Maps for time-based information. Below is a live example that you can play with. Pan the timeline by dragging it horizontally.” Like Google Maps, the timeline tool works effortlessly on your computer as it does not require the hardware to install any software and any user, whether he/her uses Windows XP or Mac OSX can use it. By playing with one of the example timelines, it is apparent that a well coded timeline can be dragged and played around with, as it slides depending on the motion of the clicker. Additionally by clicking over on one of the markers, a user can easily point and click to access more information that is pertinent to the date. This ends up looking as a timeline that could easily be mistaken for a greater flash project that looks well organized and very accessible, making it an accurate model for time. To create the timeline though, the user must be somewhat familiar with java script and must know some of the codes that must be processed by the Java machine correctly such as the following:

<html>

  <head>

    ...

    <script src="http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/api/timeline-api.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

    ...

  </head>

  <body>

    ...

  </body>

</html>