Although I have already written a piece on Elizabeth Podnieks' "Celebrity Bio Blogs: Hagiography, Pathography and Perez Hilton" for the short essay that was due on Wednesday, I feel as though I have no adequately explained my total feelings on the paper. Mainly towards her rather annoying use of quotes.

While I did enjoy the article's view point on Perez Hilton being both a wretched destroyer of reputations and a praiser of good deeds for his favorites at once, I must admit that Podnieks could've done a better job at getting her information across. Everything from her description of how perezhilton.com first started up to the very definitions of her main terms is second hand, quoted from someone else. Second hand information in analytical essays like these can be fine if you do it right and in moderation, but when literally 70%+ of your essay is made up of quotes from multiple sources you refuse to even elaborate on, you're got a serious problem. It makes your essay seem like it lack substance, that you yourself lack substance. Sure, from her endless quotes I can see she did her research on the blog and the terms for her analysis, but it doesn't leave room for other information directly from her. What did she learn? What did she discover? It's hard to explain, but I just want to know what she got out of it, not someone else.

The constant stream of quotes as evidence is pretty much the only problem I had with this essay. As a single problem though, it is a big one. An analysis is built on evidence, and if this evidence is unclear and too much of it is second-hand you have a pretty weak analysis. That's just what I believe. She got her point across and I found myself agreeing with her, but I'm not sure what actual professionals in her field thought. Did they see the flaws and like me, ignored them to discover that she may have a point underneath all of the jumbled quotes in her analysis? Or did they brush it off entirely? I hope they at least gave her paper a chance. It was a pretty interesting read, that's for sure.