Michael’s Comments (group member since Nov 18, 2010)

Michael’s comments from the The Extra Cool Group! (of people Michael is experimenting on) group.

Brian..Shhhhhhhh.......

I WANT you guys to ask some questions! Part of femist rhetorical theory, in fact, points out that if I don't allow my research subjects to have some say in what is important, I'm basically taking my own opinions of what is important and using other people to prove them. I don't want to do that, so, I've been asking questions, but I'm all about other people asking them, too! Plus, they're actually making me work here at work today. Which sucks.

A couple people have mentioned using LibraryThing in addition to Goodreads. If you do write book reviews on other sites as well (or in a blog, or some other context I'm not thinking of), where?

Do you approach the review-writing process any different there?

How did you end up using both, and why do you continue to?

Wow, you people do awesome stuff! I've just read so many posts that I can't be more specific than that.

I was from Indiana, but from the Indianapolis area. I might've been to South Bend before, I have no idea.

And I also like pitty votes.

And I've gotten a lot of compliments on the "press" section of my site.

That sounds like the press I got when I was trying to publish my first novel. (For anyone curious, it's still not out.)

When it comes to the YA thing Phoebe posted about, I haven't encountered many from that group, probably because I haven't read much YA since I joined this site. But, I've gotten in some arguments after saying very mean and nasty things about Stephanie Meyer--who is a shitty author--with people who insisted that, without a (published) novel, I had no right to critique a novelist's writing ability. This is only one of a string of nonsensical arguments for why I shouldn't say mean things about a book. What's the point of a book review if you have to be nice? Or mean? What's the point if you can't say what you really think?

This kinda came up in the other voting threads, but I think it's a slightly separate mental process: how do you determine which reviews to vote for?

If I write a review that nobody votes for, I assume there was a technical glitch and nobody at all read it. That might make me arrogant.

It's nice to get votes just because it's a sign that my reviews have entertained people, but I'd much rather generate conversation than get votes. And, when I first made it onto the review board, I paid a lot of attention to which reviews were getting votes, who was voting, etc. Recently, I haven't paid that much attention, just because I don't have enough time on goodreads, and I'd rather be conversating, writing reviews or reading them. There's not enough time to think about votes.

For now, it sounds as though the penis tree has the most votes. Plus, I love the penis tree. But, this is still an important issue that is up for debate. Jason's picture is pretty awesome, too.

So, think about your review-writing process. Do votes you've received in the past, or assumptions about what readers on here value, affect your decisions about how to approach a book review?

Who do you perceive as your audience when you write on goodreads?

do you have specific questions??

Yes. I didn't get a chance to post much on here yesterday because I was running around campus all day, but I'm going to start some new threads today with specific questions.

Hey, everybody, I have a grand idea! Let's take a vote on what the group mascot will be! Anyone can contribute pictures, and then we'll all vote in a half-assed fashion and not really tell anyone it's happening!

Umm, yeah. We shall have an image soon. But isn't that question mark mysterious?

I got invited a long time ago by a friend who joined the site, rated a bunch of books, and then disappeared. I only gradually got interested in actually reviewing, and at first was pretty nervous about sounding like a dumbass. Now, I clearly don't care.

I think I started taking reviewing seriously after I started reading reviews by some articulate people including Jacob, Kelly and Brad, and then I started writing much weirder things after I started reading Manny's reviews a while after that. As I started writing more meta-reviews, I somehow started getting votes and stuff, and I'm going to second something that I THINK Ceridwen said, but I'm too lazy to scroll up...I think having friends who vote and don't just read the reviews is a huge part of who ends up on The List.

There's definitely a lot that could be said about The List, but the only thing I find interesting about it is how it does (or doesn't) change decisions we make as reviewers. Hmmm, I might start another thread for that question.

I think there's something a little dismissive about saying they are blog-like. I think the fact that we continually write these reviews as we continue reading gives them a certain bloggish..what is word...a certain bloggish something, but I think the responses are genuine and honest in a way that most professional reviewers aren't. Except for Jacob, who only writes reviews when payola is involved.

P.S. Please, everyone, invite people without discretion. I've invited EVERYONE on my friends list who hasn't totally abandoned the site, and I'm not trying to get responses from any one group or demographic. I want to hear from casual users as well as the goodreads.com celebrities and the romance peoples and the Twilight children. Ooooh, that sounds spooky.

That helped me judge if I wanted to keep going.

Wow, I hadn't thought of that. I usually don't pay much attention to status updates, so that's interesting. Very often, I find the threads a hell of a lot more interesting than reviews..other than YOUR reviews, of course, person who is reading this thread. At one point, I was planning on looking at just specific books and how different people reviewed them, but I think that would limit my results too much. But, I still plan on looking at whether there's any substantial differences between fiction reviews versus non-fiction or poetry. I'm also interested in reading reviews from the romance side of the site...I haven't read many romance reviews, so I don't know what I'll discover over there.

Also, several book reviews were chosen specifically as a springboard for completely unrelated issues.

I agree that some reviews are like this, like my review of In the Night Kitchen, but I actually think there was some premeditation in Meredith's decision to make that a Twilight review. I don't know whether I'll be able to make an argument that it's actually a book review, though...premeditation doesn't necessarily make it a book review.

Hooray for avoiding the midwest! I'll drink to that. I'm originally from Indianapolis, but finally escaped. Somehow, I don't think I've ever been to South Bend.

I'm a college senior studying Literature/Creative Writing.

Good degree choice! You can't do anything with it other than sound smart--mine's creative writing and philosophy--but, as long as you're already planning to be a trophy wife / panhandler, it should work out perfectly for ya.


I do research on body image (nonverbal and male mostly)

That sounds pretty badass. I'd imagine a lot less people are researching male body image than female..or am I wrong?

Cite each other's work.

Good idea. We can give each other shoutouts and we'll both get famouser!

Yes, that's definitely a part of what I've noticed as well. Looking at them from a formal angle, reviews are very likely to be personal, a response as a casual reader and not as an "owner" of the text, and there's a lot more emphasis on humor than you get in other reviewing contexts.

And, I think the threads that follow reviews add a dynamic that doesn't exist in most other places. Reviews are often more of a conversation STARTER than an attempt to encapsulate all the important parts of the book.

Thanks, MFSO! I'll have to get in touch with her about what she's working on. I'd heard that, but I don't want her to think I'm jacking her ideas. I know how suspicious she can be.

I gave up academia for wine.

I suppose I can provide you with wine instead of beer, then, Miriam.

Since everyone else is sharing, I should say that I'm a grad student in English (OBVIOUSLY), a full-timer at a bank, and I'm also writing a long-ass novel at the pace of roughly one word a day.

This is awesome! I'm learning all kinds of new things about you people! It's just like The Breakfast Club!

I've changed my mind yet again about the free beer. I have a six pack waiting for everyone here in Arizona, and you can claim it next time you're in the neighborhood.

Oh, shit, Brian is gonna totally call me on this next week.

My project is going to take reviews themselves, feedback from you people, and literature about genre (as defined within rhetoric), and it's going to try and situate book reviews on goodreads within the broader world of online book reviews. As far as I can tell, almost no research has been done into websites like this one, and I lucked into finding a class for next semester where I'll get to actually carry out this project. I thought up until a couple weeks ago that I was just going to plan it and then move on, but now I get to do the fun part!