This post is the first blog of Meiqi, aim at answering [the question from Dr. Hemphill] (https://libbyh.github.io/methods-f16/first-things-first/).

1. Which research methods do you most want to learn?

There are many research methods in Digital Humanities: Audio/Visual Projects, Data Curation, Data Visualization, Digital Publishing, Geospatial Information Systems (GIS), Image Analysis, Text Encoding, Text Mining and Machine Learning. The one interests me the most is the Geospatial Information Systems (GIS). Because when I saw the GIS defination and thought about doing research by asking “How does space influence events?” or “What has this space meant in history?” would help researcheres have deeper thoughts and also helps researcheres narrow the top down and have some specific topic target to work on, for example, in chronologically or based on spatial. Also, creating the spatial map to help understanding the humanistic research would help not only researcheres but also readers to get better knowledges/understandings of what the research is, and help them to memorize it, organize it, think about it, and finally make conclusions about it. The “go back and forth” process is neccessary and unavoidable during the research work, GIS would help make it more specific and easy to comprehend. I want to know more about it, since doing a research could be difficult and I think GIS would be heplful to solve the problem when we meet our chock point.

2. What topics in digital humanities research interest you?

In fact, there are many of topics in digital humanties research insterests me, but as I mentioned in the first question’s answer, I’m attracted to the GIS method, there is an research project report about it, “General Lee’s View of Gettysburg,” “Auschwitz Under Construction,” “Mapping the Salem Witch Trials”. I’m interested in it, and also I wish I could learn more about other topics in digital humanities research.

3. Which digital literacies do you most want to master?

Networking. By organizing, integrating, combining and the resources and make it easy to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information is very useful and powerful. Sometimes what we found are in pieces - fragmentary and unilateral - they are like dots we found, individual and sometimes makes no sense; networking puts them in order and making them in sense - I think it’s like puzzles - you have no idea what the puzzle looks like when you were looking at a single piece of it, but after you organize it and put them in a whole picture, you will get what it is, and how it works. I think Networking really helps in doing the research.

References:

Examples of Spatial Humanities Projects. (2011, July 26). Retrieved August 28, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/27/arts/spatial-maps.html?_r=0

Research Methods in Digital Humanities. (n.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2016, from http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/services/Digital_Humanities/Research_Methods.html

What is Digital Humanities? (n.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2016, from http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/services/Digital_Humanities/