week 3

The first presentation for this course.

After the presentation, my topic has been narrowed down to "The psychological factors of Japanese youths creating kyara(character) to themselves."

At first, I wanted to carry out survey to investigate the perception of Japanese youths towards kyara-ka. But from the literature review, I can find and identify the psychological factors those contribute to this phenomenon. However, if survey is necessary for me to achieve my objectives, I will create questionnaire through the internet to get answers from Japanese Youths.

Furthermore, after listening and writing feedback to the presentations from other friends in class, I think I learnt how to narrow down a focus. Which it might be helpful for any coming paper writing in future.

week 2

course schedule:

week 3 presentation 1 topic, aim and objectives (10marks)
week 6, assignment 1.
week 9 presentation 2 - writing references
week 10 presentation 3
week 11 assignment 2
week 13 final report

online library search:
e-book
newspaper
textbooks
reference books
conference proceedings
periodicals

check out vocabulary from:
dictionary.cambridge.org

what we did in class:
1. Surfing internet for references.

At first, when we tried to look up for the resources, I kind of regretted about choosing kyara-ization as my topic and struggled about whether should I change it because it is hard to access to the information and resources in English language.
Fortunately, after we learnt how to search with google scholar, I found a few articles about my topic and hence I can keep writing about my topic! yay!

2. APA citation

How to do citation correctly.
www.citationmachine.net

I tried out the website above.I tried both key in information manually and automatically.

Senuma, F. (2015). Observations on Intra-Nebular Kyara Among Youth. ALA Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 5(2), 43-50.

Sadanobu, T. (2015). "Characters" in Japanese Communication and Language: An Overview. ALA Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 5(2), 9.

Debra, O. J. (2010). Consuming Kyara ‘Characters:’Anthropomorphization and Marketing in Contemporary Japan. Comparative Culture, the Journal of Miyazaki International College, 15, 78-87.

news from online. www.japantimes.co.jp

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2007/11/13/language/pick-a-charismatic-kyara-to-sweeten-up-your-life/#.V9kmHvl97IU

http://www.bolton.ac.uk/bissto/Writing-a-Dissertation/Topic-Aims-Objectives.aspx

Thanks to the second class. Now I know where to get the resources for my paper and the correct way to do citation. 

first day class

Hi guys! Nice to be in the same class with you all. My name is Yi Ning. A student from the Japanese Division, currently doing my third year in UM.  

  Talking about writing a paper (a thesis-like), I’m actually full of fear like every one of us. I have no idea what to write, what topic is good, afraid of troubles, worrying if there’s too much works to be done and so on.

  Gladly I attended the class today. Thanks to Dr. Sheena, I was able to know at least a little bit about what to do. It sounds like it is going to have a lot of works, but I think we are going to learn useful skills which are going to help us in the future.  

  My current fear now is: what is a good topic to choose. Dr. Sheena explained that it is better if we choose a topic which close to our heart. It is better if it is something I know, I understand, experiencing, and accessible to the sources needed.  

  At the moment, my idea for my research topic is:  

Characterization among Japanese youth

Why do I chosen this topic?

       -          Characterization (kyara-ka) is basically refers to how ones pick a character or characteristic and act on it, it becomes an image of ones, and ones carry out communicate with the others base on the character or characteristic chosen.

       -          This is an interesting phenomenon happening among the youth nowadays, especially in Japan.  I have deep interest in this problem and experienced watching this happening around. This has becoming an issue in Japan, but at the same time it has certain benefits.

What is my main focus about the topic?

      -          Why is characterization happening in Japan and became an issue?

      -          Is it something necessary in the society?

How to collect data?

      -         Via questionnaire, target respondents are Japanese youth and elderly, and international students who been to or in Japan.  

I wonder if this is a good topic. Please don’t be hesitated to comment and let me know your opinion. I appreciate your time and idea. ;)