Week 11 (March 14-20) - Late

Price Chapter 8/9

Build Chunky Paragraphs! 

Design Each Paragraph around One Main Idea

- Make each paragraph distinct

- Write each paragraph as a different object.

- Each paragraph should serve a different purpose.

- Each paragraph should answer a different question.

- Have one sentence to sum up the entire paragraph.

- Make each paragraph organized.

- Keep familiar terms when moving into unexplored territory.

- Structure your paragraph in a coherent manner.

- Two ideas = two paragraphs.

- for e-mail, web pages, and discussions small single idea paragraphs are ideal.

Put the Idea of the Paragraph First

- On the internet the main point is first and in a book it is at the end of a sentence.

- Put your main point at the beginning of the paragraph.

- You can reiterate your point but make sure the main idea is first.

- Your paragraph could be recalled better if the main point is at the beginning.

If You Must Include the Context, Put That First

- Be sure to connect your paragraphs and ideas with words like Also, Next, Therefore.

- Make sure your word use connects ideas together.

- Reiterate previous ideas to set a context for your next idea.

- Avoid generalizations.

- Follow up thoughts to make sure your reader understood.

Put Your Conclusion or News Lead in the First Paragraph of the Article

- Most important at the top of your paragraph, then put it key important facts, and your least important information at the bottom of the paragraph.

- Writing for the web is more conclusion at the beginning.

- The first sentence needs to be BAM straight to the fact.

Chapter 9 Reduce Cognitive Burdens! 

Make a Positive Statement, so People Understand Right Away

- Remove - That, Who, Which, from your sentences because they make you put ideas inside of ideas.

- Don't shorten a sentence with that, which , and who it will confuse your reader.

- Readers understand one idea at a time.

Blow Up Nominalization and Noun Trains

-  Don't transform actions into things... suggest into suggestions = NO.

- Don't make a verb act like a noun "May register improvement" to "may improve"

- Don't clump up nouns it causes the sentence to be ambiguous.

Watch Out For Ambiguous Phrases a Reader Must Puzzle Over

- Don't use a word that could be taken two ways.

- Don't add words into a sentence that causes uncertainty. Be straight forward and to the point.

- Don't suggest a page if you don't know where your readers have come from.

- Describe something the way it is, don't use flowery language.

- Don't use your thesaurus button  (please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUAThApzhCw) 

Surface the Agent and Action, so Users Don’t Have to Guess Who Does What

-      - - Write in an active voice

-    - When constructing a sentence structure it as subject, verb and then direct object.

-    - Write your sentence in a way that your reader feels like they are doing the actions.

-    - You have to define terms.

Make a Positive Statement, so People Understand Right Away – without Having to Unpack a Nest of Negative.

-       - Write in a positive way.

-    -  Readers wont understand if you tell them to not do something. Tell them to put the remote on the table, instead of, do not put the remote on the floor.

-     - If you do have to use a negative use one negative rather than many. Don’t, shouldn’t, doubt, deny, fail, and lack.

-     - If you say no, then say why…

-     - Positives always out weigh the negatives, be more positive!

Reduce Scrolling

-       - It is hard enough for readers to situate themselves on a page on the Internet, don’t make them continually scroll up and down making them get even more lost.

-     - Put your information at the top of the page, some people don’t scroll at all and if they don’t you want them to get their information right away.

-     - When you make a menu be sure to make it so you can see the entire thing at one time. If you have a scrolling menu your readers may not see all that you have to offer, they can get lost, or just frustrated.

Let Users Print or Save the Entire Document at Once, to Avoid Reading Any More On-Screen

-       - Archive the printer-friendly version.

-       - Allow your readers to print your material. Reading from the screen can be difficult.

Bolter Chapter 10

Writing Culture – The Network Culture

         We live in a network culture, and as a culture we use the Internet as a way to connect through various networks of social media, e-mail and chat rooms.

         Today’s North American is one that is aware of their surroundings and is constantly joining new groups, leaving old groups, and have groups carry over into areas of their life both on and off the Internet. Through the Internet we have the ability to make stronger connections and more connections. We use computers to enhance the notion of community and our ancestral survival roots.

I the virtual environments that we so clearly need in our life we are taking the means of technology and creating more and more groups that are more empowering and democratic. Middle and upper class are settled in at the top of the Internet communication chain.

Our relationships through the online communities however, are not the same nor will they ever be the same as the community that existed on purely a connective face-to-face group of communities.

My thoughts

Price

Price brings up many good points in chapters 8/9. When it comes to writing a paragraph for the Internet it reminds me of writing a hard news story. It’s the inverted pyramid style that I find I have an easier time writing.

For my site, it is more of a bullet point style of writing but the most important information, or so I feel, is at the top of the paragraph rather than the bottom.

I try to rarely use negatives in my writing as well. A while ago I was reading a study as well that related to this. Children learned how to listen to their parents it they didn’t say no. So a parent would tell a child to go play with their toys instead of don’t draw on the wall (not word for word) but still along the same type of idea. I am not good with my speech and staying positive, but I do try really hard!

Bolter

I find that as a community based on the Internet we use the Internet for our communicative capabilities rather than our own means of face-to-face communication. There is something however, to be said about the Internet and its means of building a community. Using Facebook as my example again, there is a way that they have been able to become a platform for many companies to create fans. They also use their Facebook page as a mean of connecting to their clientele. The Internet also allows for friends from other countries to stay in touch in the community that Facebook provides. Internet chat rooms however, since I have never been on them, don’t offer the same type of community that Facebook does in respect to my specific community of friends.

Week 13 (March 28-April 3)

This is going to be my second last post, I didn't finish week 11 so that will be going up after week 13.
Also, I wrote the wrong chapter last week so I will be doing Price chapter 10 this week instead of 17 which I was supposed to do last week.

Price Chapter 10: Idea #6: Write Menus That Mean Something! 


Write a Heading as an Object You Will Reuse Many Times
- Plan to use the same heading over and over again
- Reassure your readings by reusing your heading to make sure they know they are on the right page.
- Write longer headings - make sure your reader knows what the page is going to be.
- Your heading explains what a given function does (Copper, 1995)
- Make your heading explain what the user will see... introduction = Introducing the Unified Process
- Make your headings uniform and explain the pages content.
- Straightforward, consistent headings and titles reassure your readers.
- Indicate to your readers that you are going to tell them something.
- Don't be funny about it just tell it how it is, also to reassure your readers.

Write Each Menu So It Offers a Meaningful Structure
- People learn through your structure.
- Presenting a menu structure will offer your guests guidance through your site.
- Try out different organizational methods; move your headings around to see if they make more sense, eliminate duplicate topics, annotate your topics, add in topics and delete ones that are unnecessary. Replace topics with components, divide a topic into different components. Pretty much the key here is to make it as simple and easy to understand as possible. The thing with headers is that they can be difficult to navigate, if they aren't to the point the reader may not be able to understand what you're getting at.
- A menu is meaningful and is like a site map, it lets you know all of the information that you will be presenting.
- If a menu is presented well your reader will be able to tell because you will have topic groupings, and organization.
- Grouping your menu items by purpose ie: how to's and types.
- Create menus with sub menues.

Offer Multiple Routes to the Same Information
- Encourage your guests to take their own way to a certain page but offer them more than one way to get there.
- Offer similar headings in multiple menus.
- Multiple menus that will take you to the same place will offer the same outcome.

Write and Display Several Levels at Once
- Have menus that lead to other menus that will lead you to what you are looking for.
- Don't hide menus, they are important for the navigation of your site.
- Show multiple menus at a time.
- Make a filtering menu that will take it to more specific pages.

When Users Arrive at the Target, Make Success OBVIOUS
- Confirm that the link they clicked worked, change the title, headings, introductory text, and caption under photos.
- Make sure the text from the link and the title match.

Confirm the Location by Showing the Position of This Informative Object in the Hierarchy
- Leave a trail from where they came from to where they are now
- Make sure they can get back to where they came from
- Be sure to let them know where they are in the menu

My Thoughts. 

Menus are possibly the easiest way to navigate through a site, however it is often that I get lost. Let me tell you that I am horrible at creating menus, and making my way to the place I want to be. I tend to google to where I want to go. Or possibly ctrl. F to get the where I am going.
I was searching on the Canada website to find jobs and I had a lot of trouble finding where I wanted to go. There wasn't links to find it so I have to go to the site inventory to find where I wanted to go rather than having it all laid out with links to the jobs/careers site.
I find that Price offers many good suggestions that I wish more sites would use, like multiple ways to get to the same page. Or if you are on a page and want to know where you came from. I find that WebCT does this very well. If you look at the top of the page just above the page that you're on it will tell you how far into that page you've gone, which I always find very helpful.
Needless to say menus are an important part of website development and navigation that I really appreciate.

Week 12 (March 21-27)

Price: So You Wannabe a Web Writer or Editor

Where web writers and editors come from: 


Price discusses becoming a web writer and editor and the skills that you need to have. The pay is also from $35,000-100,000. To be a web writer there is a wide range of skills that you need to have, and knowledge of the internet and your consumer base is one of the main ingredients to a great website. My FAVORITE website happens to be the National Geographic site. I know that it is maintained by a professional web editing firm, however there are still people who have to decide what is best for the web and what is better to keep for their magazine.
I recently went on a tour of the London Free Press, and got a chance to talk to the sports editor David Langford about how they use the web in their writing. I was told that they use twitter as a place to get stories and post little nibblers of their stories. I was also told that while they do print their articles they often use the web as a place to regurgitate their material, and often write things specifically for the web, just little snippets of their stories. Pretty cool eh!
Basic knowledge of HTML and XML can be important but aren't necessary for writing for the web. I know that this is what Price says however, in this day and age I believe that knowledge of HTML is now essential to the web writer. Like for this course we were going to have to use Dream Weaver but I have never done basic HTML anything. I also talked to the people at ITS at Western and they said that if I don't know anything about HTML that I would totally flop on Dream Weaver because thats what is needed.

Web Editing - The basics:

Word Count = Words that Count! Price says that it is important to be a person who can make the words that count hit the page rather than sending in a whole bunch of words in a story that don't really matter. I am known to have a bit of word vomit as it hits the page and have to constantly go back over my stories to cut them down to size. This is why I don't think I would be a good web editor according to Price.

Editors Tools:
- Word
- Be able to follow a template
- How to create simple web pages
- Be able to take screen shots
- Be able to edit photos
- Be Organized.

Editors must be:
- Organized
- Self-determined
- Flexible
- Ethical
- Persistent
- Sense of Humour
- Humility

Make your text consistent, think on a global scale but relate it locally. Remember there are many different names for being a web editor.

The Debate: Free Lance Gigs vs. a Staff Job:

On Staff: there are many benefits to working on staff... 
- Health benefits
- Workman's Comp
- Pay you can count on
- Office relationships (friends!!)
- Good computer
- Lots of schmooze time
- Compensation package if laid off
- Job title for your resume

Boo working on staff...
- Work long hours
- CUBICAL
- Sharing a printer
- Lunch rooms
- Meetings
- You don't have privacy
- Horrible office coffee
- Less freedom

YAY FREELANCE
- Spending all day in your housecoat
- You can take as long as you need to wake up
- You can write for as many people at a time as you want
- If you want to stop writing you can

Freelance = bad
- No paid sick leave
- Work isn't constant
- No health benefits
- No options
- Not a constant cash flow
- Miss out on breaking news
- No close office friends

Freelance Markets for Web Writers and Editors: 

Every writing class that I've been in has pitched for the students to write freelance. There is nothing different from Price. There are so many markets for free lance writers out there. Almost every magazine allows for free lance, and are looking for ideas and stories. And for us Western Students, writing for he Gazette is the perfect place to start writing to get clips. Clips will help a person get hired for a writing job, everyone will always ask for clippings of your work, and its great to offer more than just something you've handed in to class.



My Personal Site: BAKING

My site is informative.

There are a lot of people who turn to the internet to learn new recipes, and tricks that will help them if they aren't a real baker. It has always been said that baking is a science. I am going to have several pages on my site:
1. Welcome (home)
2. Tools (pots, bowls, pans, utensils)
3. My recipes
4. Terms of interest
5. Links to other pages that may be of interest (products, other baking sites, bakeware)

Wikis Create Online Communities

FINAL EDITED 

The Internet has progressed and has been adapted to conform to the needs of the user. Web 2.0 and user generated content is where the Internet is currently operating. There are still domains that are dominated by its creator and doesn’t allow for outside content. However wikis allow for collaboration on the web. A wiki is a website that allows for user generated content. They also allow for communal and collaborative writing on the web, where a user can contribute whatever information they want. A wiki also lets you incorporate hypertext linking various websites to the central wiki site, which allows for the expansion of a central idea. Although some wikis like Wikipedia are open forums on the web, others are private. The private wikis are most commonly provided by corporations and can only be edited and updated by that specific enterprise. Various wiki sites allow for an increase in user generated content and connectivity between users on the Internet. In today’s western culture wikis have become an essential part of everyday life on the Internet. Wikis have become credible online encyclopedias that have current and credible information, and create a larger online information-sharing centre.

Wikipedia the worlds leading wiki site, the tag line The Free Encyclopedia. “In this century American encyclopedia have cut out scholarly subjects in favour of articles of popular interest in order to maintain the largest possible readership” (Bolter, 90). The Wikipedia site has millions of topics to pick from, currently there is 3 588 000 wiki sites within the main site of Wikipedia. There are also more than 14 million contributors with named accounts who collaborate on Wikipedia, the Internets largest wiki. One of the sites within Wikipedia for example, is the topic of writing. From this wiki site someone would be able to discover the definition, history, and other various information regarding the topic. There are also links on the page that will take a person from writing to other related topics. There are twenty-four references for the writing page alone, this does not count how many people actually contribute to the site however.

The Internet is littered with various wikis, from personal wiki space to a search engine that searches specific wikis from Wikipedia to personal and encyclopedia wikis. Creating your own wiki can allow you to develop a space that is of personal interest to the creator. From there you can collaborate with other wikis, and not just wikis there is also the opportunity to link to other information on the Internet that is pertinent to what you are discussing.

User generated interconnectivity on the Internet through wikis is really an art form of its own. “The computer could textualize all the arts: that is, it could incorporate sound and images into hypertext as easily as words” (Bolter, 184). Which, is what wiki’s have the ability to do, they have the ability to tie various medias together. Hypertext and links link text, visuals, and sounds together to elaborate a specific point, argument, or topic together.

The way in which a wiki works is that all wikis have an edit button that allows the user to edit the page on the wiki site. Once the user clicks edit the page becomes like a word document, this is where the user can edit the text. Once finished editing the text the user clicks save and the document turns back into a web page. From here the user can also edit to attach links within the wiki page. The links connect different sites and wiki sites together. Wiki in plain English describes how a wiki works by editing, saving, and having several people do the editing and saving to create a completed document. Because of e-mail and other social medias that have been relied on to complete a task, wikis have been proven to be a better solution.

It seems as though the Internet is becoming one mass space for information. The ‘information highway’ as it has been referred to. However, it is no longer just straight paths through the Internet to straightforward information. There are now links to pages, and pages linked to photos and videos, and back to text. There is no longer straightforward paths with no links to other pages. The information runs through different pathways that allow the read/user to navigate through a web of information. The links have the ability to lead the reader to sites that are not pertinent to their search.

A book titles Hot Text by Jonathan Price and Lisa Price is a book on writing for the online reader. They decipher the reader and the writer for the online world. What they say in chapter 7 of their book entitled Cook Up Hot Links tells the writer to create links within their writing, but only links that will emphasize a specific point that they are trying to elaborate. It is difficult to decipher the useful links form the ones that will in no way enhance the understanding of the topic that is being presented. The links do increase the connectivity through the Internet from site to site, but if the link does not enhance the point that it is not worth it to put a link it. This is where it is hard to navigate through some wikis. Wikipedia for example will highlight words as links to take the reader from one site within the Wikipedia domain to another. The only disadvantage of this is that it may be a single word and not the entire idea that is being linked to another site.

One of the largest issues with wikis is making sure that the user-generated content is in fact the most correct and the most current. Wikipedia will argue however that their content is closely monitored and that incorrect content is caught quickly and taken down. In one instance the page for Nickleback on the Wikipedia site has been blocked from user generated content and can now only be updated privately by Wikipedia staff.

What certain wiki’s will boost is that the connectivity between wikis is outstanding. The Nickleback page links to the band members through hypertext and then can connect you to their hometowns and other information that is presented from that page. It is still very likely that a user can get lost in the amount of information that is being thrown at them.

It is because of wikis that it seems there is a decrease in the amount of people who use books from the library. The more information that is available from the Internet and through wikis is much faster to find and navigate. The wiki is now an essential part of everyday Internet use because it is a mecca of information. This is evident in Wikipedia being the 8^th most popular and used site on the top 500 sites list. This could be because of its vast amount of information, and connectivity between the wikis. It could also be because users have the ability to alter the information if they find out something new or important. Much like a blog people want to leave their mark and through a wiki like Wikipedia they have the opportunity to have their work seen and noted through the reference list.

            Wikis are an asset on the information highway of the Internet. It allows people to connect and contribute in a different form that e-mail and plain text. The linkage in the wiki also allows for a reader to become more involved and dig deeper into a topic that he/she is looking for. Wikis have become credible online encyclopedias, which are arguably more credible than a printed version of an encyclopedia because it is constantly updated. Wikis are an important and integral part of the Internet that create a connectivity between users and an increase in information sharing online.

Works cited.

Alexa: The Web Information Company. http://www.alexa.com/topsites. Web. 17 March 2011

Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print.

New York: Routledge, 2001. Print.

Leelefever. Wiki in Plain English. Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY. Web Video. 29 March 2007.

Nickleback. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickelback. Web. 16 March 2011

Your Dictionary. http://computer.yourdictionary.com/wiki. Nd. Web. 18 March 2011.

Wiki Search Engine. http://www.wiki.com/. Nd. Web. 16 March. 2011

Wikipedia. Wikipedia.org. Web. 18 March 2011.

WikiSpace: Personal Wiki Space. http://www.wikispaces.com/. Nd. Web. 18 March 2011

Writing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing. Web. 17 March 2011.

Week 11 March 14-20

Hypertext Essay: Thus far with no edits...

The Internet has progressed and has been adapted to conform to the needs of the user. Web 2.0 and user generated content is where the Internet is currently operating. There are still domains that are dominated by its creator and doesn’t allow for outside content. However wikis allow for collaboration on the web. A wiki is a website that allows for user generated content. They also allow for communal and collaborative writing on the web, where a user can contribute whatever information they want. A wiki also lets you incorporate hypertext linking various websites to the central wiki site, which allows for the expansion of a central idea. Although some wikis like Wikipedia are open forums on the web, others are private. The private wikis are most commonly provided by corporations and can only be edited and updated by that specific enterprise. Various wiki sites allow for an increase in user generated content and connectivity between users on the Internet. It is because of the interconnectivity of the Internet through wikis that creates a blob of information is a web that can be difficult to navigate.

Wikipedia the worlds leading wiki site, the tag line The Free Encyclopedia. When in the Wikipedia site there are millions of topics to pick from. Whatever a person is researching can be found in some part on Wikipedia. For example, if someone were to look up writing on Wikipedia they would find a page with the history, definition, and the references used to help build that page, further reading and external links. Currently another wiki site is being launched by Wikipedia called Wikiquote which, is a quotation repository the “project is to produce collaboratively a vast reference of quotations from prominent people, books, films and proverbs, and to give details about them with appropriate attribution” (Wikipedia.com).

The Internet is littered with various wikis, from personal wiki space to a search engine that searches specific wikis from Wikipedia to personal and encyclopedia wikis. Creating your own wiki can allow you to develop a space that is of personal interest to the creator. From there you can collaborate with other wikis, and not just wikis other information on the Internet that is pertinent to what you are discussing.

User generated interconnectivity on the Internet through wikis is really an art form of its own. “The computer could textualize all the arts: that is, it could incorporate sound and images into hypertext as easily as words” (Bolter, 184). Which, is what wiki’s have the ability to do, they have the ability to tie various medias together. Hypertext and links link text, visuals, and sounds together to elaborate a specific point, argument, or topic together.

The way in which a wiki works is that all wikis have an edit button that allows the user to edit the page on the wiki site. Once the user clicks edit the page becomes like a word document, this is where the user can edit the text. Once finished editing the text the user clicks save and the document turns back into a web page. From here the user can also edit to attach links within the wiki page. The links connect different sites and wiki sites together.

It seems as though the Internet is becoming one mass space for information. The ‘information highway’ as it has been referred to. However, it is no longer just straight paths through the Internet to straightforward information. There are now links to pages, and pages linked to photos and videos. There is no longer very many straightforward sites that just have information listed. The information runs through different pathways that allow the read/user to navigate through a web of information. The links have the ability to lead the reader to sites that are not pertinent to their search.

A book titles Hot Text by Jonathan Price and Lisa Price is a book on writing for the online reader. They decipher the reader and the writer for the online world. What they say in chapter 7 of their book entitled Cook Up Hot Links tells the writer to create links within their writing, but only links that will emphasize a specific point that they are trying to elaborate. It is difficult to decipher the useful links form the ones that will in no way enhance the understanding of the topic that is being presented. The links do increase the connectivity through the Internet from site to site, but if the link does not enhance the point that it is not worth it to put a link it. This is where it is hard to navigate through some wikis. Wikipedia for example will highlight words as links to take the reader from one site within the Wikipedia domain to another. The only disadvantage of this is that it may be a single word and not the entire idea that is being linked to another site. 

Week 10 - Web Writing: Self and Other (March 7-13)

Bolter Chapter 9: Writing the Self

This chapter discusses the connection between reading, writing, and the intelligent mind. In order to produce some sort of intelligent thought it had to be shared. Through writing has been the way of great philosophers to express their thought. This connection isn’t far from the truth, today in a world of people producing thought it is judged on a mass scale by the READER.

The philosophers Snell, Havelock, and Ong all thought that the writing process allowed for there to be thought without emotions to defile and confuse the original and most central thought. Which emphasized Descartes notion that we as a society have the ability to reason.

Cartesian philosophy however, isn’t simply confined by print technology. Cartesian philosophy defined writing as the ego. Everyone has an ego and writing is simply lining our ego’s out on paper (or some form or cataloging thought in writing). 

Price Chapter 7: Cook Up Hot Links

This chapter discusses links and how to utilize and emphasize a link. It also discusses the advantages of describing the link so that the user can either skip or continue with the link. The advantage of the link is to allow the audience to further explore a topic, but one thing that is often skipped is describing the link and wasting the readers time. 

Using a link as a clincher in a sentence also emphasizes it as important, and catches the attention of the reader. Highlighting and creating a clincher link makes the reader want to click on it to find out more information. However, Price does say on page 142, that you don't have to announce a link, the reader will understand its their and click if they want to. 

Making sure that the link is visible and not over elaborated is a key in making writing coherent and non abrasive towards the reader. Outbound links create increased credibility. By adding links to outside sites it shows the reader that you know what you're talking about. Outbound links also have the ability to show people who you are and your credentials. 

Your URL is also important. Price says that it is important to keep it short, simple, and straight to the point. Companies need to get the URL that pertains to their company name. This is why I try to choose websites that have my name in it since I am not associated with a company. This is how companies become more recognizable on the web, making their companies easy to find. 

My Final:

What I have chosen to do is a wordpress site. I am going to do it on baking. There will be various pages, I want the first one to be about the science behind baking and how it is important to get measurements right; this will be the informational type of baking site. The second page will be about various baking equipment. Baking sheets, cookie tins, and tools to help with the actual baking process. I also want a page with recipes, ones that are easy and work every time. The forth page is going to be mine, and I mean that as I will bake things and put them on the site for people to see and comment on. I want people to know they can trust what I am saying and by putting up various things I have actually done I feel it would help my credibility. For the final page I want to have ways of presenting the baked goods. Not only will it be the presentation but there will be lots of links to other sites that show fun and interesting ways to make novice baking look like a super star bake off! 

Week 7 (Feb 14-20)

Price and Price Chapter 5

Cut 50% of your text

Text buttons and links, headings, menus, intro sentence are important

Make it worthwhile

Make it straight to the point

Make paragraphs short – 2-3 paragraphs

Don’t over exaggerate

Use simple direct language

Connect to the reader and prove to be part of their community

Use your side bar for important information

Use charts to compare your data.

Keep it short but keep it understandable

Write out your words: don’t = do not

This week in Price they were discussing the importance of making your information easy to read. Cutting out all of the talking text that is pointless make the reader happier and more likely to keep reading. This is why I did a point form style of note summary for Price this week.

When I write on the web, especially in blog style I ramble, and it tends to stray from my over al purpose. The reading this week will definitely help me tighten up my text.

Bolter Chapter 7 

In Bolter chapter 7 hypertext is referred to as literary expression. Hypertext is truly a new form of expression, it offers the ability to link ideas and different sites together. The below quote is from Robert Coovers book on hypertext fiction. 

"Hypertext is truly a new and unique environment. Artists who work there must be read there. And they will probably be judged there as well: criticism, like fiction, is moving off the page and on line, and it is itself susceptible to continuous changes of mind and text. Fluidity, contingency, indeterminacy, plurality, discontinuity are the hypertext buzzwords of the day, and they seem to be fast becoming principles, in the same way that relativity not so long ago displaced the falling apple." 

Hypertext is used in one main website and links it to other websites in a non-linear form. Reading an essay off of a printed page doesn't offer any further expression or links to other ideas. Where as an online environment offers links and various pages with no set beginning and no ending. 

Submit Edge - Content writing service

They submit content for your website. Giving you content oriented writing. The required content will be 100% original with topics being handled and given originality. All of the content in price varies, there will be no key word stuffing. As soon as the order is received the requirements will be met. 

What Service does this company provide? 

They are a content company providing content for your web page. 

With what verbal and visual strategies does this company sell its service? 

This company uses both audio and visual content to draw in their customers. They use photographic and pictorial evidence to emphasize their point of making strong content and working as a team to achieve a plagiarism free content based website. 

Does this company "do" what it sells on its web site? 

This company claims to offer content but I feel after looking at their website that they don't offer the content but rather offer increased publicity for the website that they are highered to help. 

They offer: 

Guaranteed ten day indexing of websites

Manual directory submission

Social bookmarking services

Search engine optimisation

The website isn't super clear on the main page of what they are offering but once you go into corporate information the above is listed. In the youtube video they claimed to be a content company when they actually just help to advertise for the company through social networking sites and various search engines. 

Would you hire this company? Would you work for it? 

I wouldn't hire this company nor would I work for it. This is for a few reasons. Optimizing your website in a search engine isn't hard to do, and when it comes to making websites there are other website designers that would offer me more of what I am looking for. 

Week 6 (February 7-13)

Bolter chapter 6

Bolter starts out in chapter 6 talking about how writing and reading is like reading music and having it come to life. When a musician reads music they have the ability to bring it through life through their instrument. When a reader brings a book to life they do it through speaking. 

The dialogues that are created to the written word are much different through printed word because they are written rather than spoken. Bolter said that the biggest fail in literature was when people didn't have the ability to read and write. Plato provided us with a dialogue through his writing there was a compromise between written and spoken language. 

Conversation written on a page is a much more skillful task than flat linear writing like an instruction manual. On the web users who are interested in a topic click to different links on the page rather than just clicking next, next, next. There is more than just a linear way of getting to the end. The way in which we arrive at the end is much more fun, or I find when you get to click around about a subject you can learn a lot more. 

Price and Price chapter 11-16

In order for me to deconstruct the text from P&P this week I am going to use the article below and the Toronto Star website as an example. P&P first say that when writing on the web you have to make the subject line mean something. There is no clearer way to announce an article than to tell the reader exactly what is going on "York bus strike possible at midnight" clearly states that there could be a bus strike in the York region at midnight. On page 360 they say to put the subject into the title, which is exactly what the Toronto Star writer did. 

On page 346 P&P state that you should provide more information not less. While, in this article there isn't much extensive information in this article the way it is set up is to give less more direct information. All of the information however, is still in the article. 

There is also a hypertext link to the York Region Transit website for people who want more information about the pending strike. 

Online Article 

The Toronto Star printed this article in their online paper (contradiction I know but I still feel that even though it is online it is still a news paper) 

York bus strike possible at midnight 

Alexandra MacAulay Abdelwahab

Staff Reporter

The deadline to avert a transit strike in Vaughan on Monday is close and so far no deal has been reached.

The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113, which provides service for the southwest YRT area, may go on strike at 12:01 a.m. if they can’t reach a contract agreement with private contractor Veolia Transportation Services.

This means 28,000 Vaughan transit riders might have to make other arrangements to get to work Monday morning, as 24 YRT bus routes that operate mainly in Vaughan, but also Richmond Hill, Newmarket, Aurora and Markham would be affected.

As of 6 p.m., Bob Kinnear, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, said the union and management were no closer to reaching a deal.

The strike would affect the 214 drivers and mechanics that maintain the 131 buses managed by Veolia.

If there is a strike, YRT Transit Inspectors and Customer Information Representatives will be at busy transit stops to help riders with their trip planning, according to a release issued by the Municipality of York.

A full list of buses that would be affected by the strike is available on the YRT website.

My Thoughts

The above is a hard news story; its purpose is to inform the audience of the hard facts. The writing is done in a pyramid style with the most important information at the top of the article moving to less important information near the end. There is also a hypertext link to another website to allow people to find further information on the topic. The lead gives the information that everyone who would read the article is looking for. There is a strike deadline Monday and still no agreement. Straight to the point with no dancing around the details. The paragraphs are short because this article is strictly informative and about the facts. The article is telling the facts rather than showing them however, it is important for articles such as this to tell the strict facts. 

Week 5 (January 31- February 6)

Finding stuff to write about isn’t really difficult for me. In fact I rather like the idea of finding different things to write about. However, do my readers just want random information? NO. and this is what chapter 11 of Price and Price’s Hot Text is really hitting on. You are writing for the reader and not the other way around. Engaging the readers in your writing, answering their questions and writing in a style that they can understand is a way of keeping readers.

The way in which Price and Price are explaining genres and websites is to make it idiot proof. Let me explain, by idiot proof I mean incredibly easy to navigate. Help should be offered where needed, information should be explained and if you need someone’s information that should be explained as well. Embedding links and hypertext to explain your idea’s is a great way to keep the audience coming back because they know they can get their information and it will have reliable sources, which, are proven through the links.

Main lesson: Customer first. Make them understand everything, and if they don’t, HELP THEM!

The move to electronic writing

How cool would it have been if we were able to go back in time and see what life would be like with out electronic means of writing? Originally, as Bolter says, people wrote on 25 foot long pieces of papyrus. There weren’t mass produced books, no one had the option of continually reading and rereading books. People had the option to listen to a writer read his book. Now we have books printed in mass, we have encyclopedia’s and we have online everything. I think it would be safe to say that the digital age is here to stay.

I WENT TO THE LIBRARY!  

Like Bolter was saying in chapter 5, there has been so much change since the beginning of time and the act of writing, reading, and the distribution of texts.

I went to the Weldon Library yesterday and went to the 2^nd floor found one of the larger books, around 700 pages, picked it up, cracked it open and took a wiff. From the Sex and the City movie, I am a lot like Carrie. She uses the public library and takes out books and just loves the smell – as do I. While the smell might be mould there is something about the old pages that really turns my crank.

Then I went through all the steps it would take to produce a book that was produced in the 1800s. A person would either have to conduct the research himself/herself or, find another book that had already done the research and figure out facts. The book would have to be written, sent to a publisher, be printed, distributed, and then sent to the library. Libraries weren’t always categorized the way they are now. The Dewey Decimal system wasn’t invented until 1876 and has since been greatly modified. Needless to say, I feel our society has become increasingly lazy and innovative. Thusly we have to do things with the least effort possible… aka use the internet for everything (at least this is the way I feel about most of the Western culture) 

Week 4 (January 24-30)

ATTENTION - Hot Text


Finding a website that has the ability to catch you're attention is definitely a difficult task. As Price and Price say on page 81 "Simplicity saves attention" and this couldn't be more true. Yes, while flashy websites tend to be more eye catching there is no flow through the website that readers are able to follow. I find that I tend to get lost in the flashiness of websites if there are too many distractions. But when a website offers a flow to it I can certainly navigate it better. Take this site for example. It is cleanly organized with the posts coming through the middle of the screen and if someone needs to find a post there is an index on the side. There is the ability for the site to get more complicated with more photos. However, the melding of photos and textual contend is a fine art. 


The Mix of Text and Photos - Writing Space 


Integrating text and visuals has a way of emphasizing a piece of written text. Hypertext can also link photos to other sites or the text to other photos. Having photos in text breaks up the text and offers an increase in visual appeal. The most important thing is to make the text and visual, pictorial, or audio/visual content have a common theme and not vary in content. The linking of text and picture content needs to offer a stronger argument than what you are making the picture and the text has to compliment each other and make the argument increasingly stronger. 


Sports Writing 


I am in sports writing class and recently had to do a story about the men's volleyball team winning against Windsor on Friday night. The content of the story discussed the abilities of the team member and which ones excelled over the other players. I feel that having photographical content would greatly enhance and honor the players who did exceptionally well. This is why I enjoy reading bio's about players at Western who have had outstanding performances and actually know who they are. 
When I write anything for the web I feel that adding photos or videos will grab the attention of the readers. 

Hypertext

Price and Price have very set ideas that online writing and writing for books and print media are two very different things. As they said the writing in print on pages is 2500 pixels where on screen, which is much harder, to read is only 75.  When writing in print and on the computer people find that the more trusty worthy writing (according to Price and Price) is in print. They say that anyone can write on the Internet but there are less people who have the ability to get published.

I had no idea what hypertext was until I read about it in Bolter. Hypertext is the highlighted text within text on the web that someone can click to get to a related link. I think that Wikipedia has to be one of the best examples of the hypertext that Bolter is discussing in this chapter. “Writing as we think” is what hypertext allows us to do, when we are writing down a thought and don’t explain the original thought it is then, that hyper text has the ability to swoop in and make our thinking full. I mean full as in we will be able to understand concepts fully.

I personally am a very linear thinking and once I get on a track I need to stick to it, this is why hypertext and linking is an increasingly desirable tool. The adaption of hypertext into all forms of writing offer an increased understanding of concepts that can be linked. Above the highlighted words are examples of hypertext. I find that when I learn new things I have to practice to fully understand. 

From the Beginning

The books that I am going to be talking about through the semester are Writing Space by David Bolter, and Hot Text by Jonathan and Lisa Price. 


So far I have read up to chapter two in both texts. 


Writing Space talks about the development of writing and the changes that it has endured over its existence from the beginning of time. 


Writing is truly one of the most changing elements of human existence. Every few hundred years, and even more so now, we are experiencing a change in how people communicate. Almost every form of communication has to do with written text. Cave drawings, written words in books, carved in stone, or today's digital writing on computers, the internet and phone texting. 


Remediation is what Bolter would refer to in these changes. I would have to say that my FAVORITE remediation of writing in the western world would have to be the move from paper writing to online writing or even just the ability to type rather than print on paper. 
I have troubles writing with a pen because I could never figure out how to hold the pen properly, but with typing on a keyboard I am able to type much faster than a lot of people can write. 


I feel this is remediation because it is a whole new form offered to me dealing with textual communication. Yes it is still text that we read and write but it just offers a new form of writing (typing) and reading (off a screen rather than a paper page).


Digital technology according to Bolter is "one of the more traumatic remediations in the history of Western writing," because it is such a dramatic move. Let me explain further, writing for the past 2000 recorded years has been in pictographs on cave walls, or writing on papyrus, or in libraries and done by monks. But writing digitally opens up a world of possibilities, so many more people have the opportunities to express themselves. 


Writing has changed as time has changed. I wonder where writing will move next?