Writing In & For Digital Environments

What is digital writing?

We are working towards a point in our world where (almost) everyone will have the resources to create content and promulgate it on the web. Be it a blog about right-wing politics or a meme posted to a message board ,the Internet puts everybody in their own spotlight, an idyllic creation for both the passive consumer and the active creator. So it behooves a digitally literate generation like ourselves to start asking questions about this multimedia world at our finger tips and the words we see there everyday.

Digital writing is a craft like any other.

Tanya Sasser compares digital writing to a handicraft, with the creator involved in every step of the process. From designing the layout of a page to populating the empty fields with words the author fulfills all creative roles. She cites Crawford’s theory of “The value of making and doing as both a practical and intellectual endeavor” and connects how this concept not only manifests itself in the physical but in digital realms too (Sasser 2012). By equating online communities as these digital quilting bees she points out that more often than not digital writing is a communal exchange. A free flowing stream of critique and criticism that can be changed and modified in a cab, on a lunch break, or sitting at home. Sasser even goes as far as to equate digital communities with, admittedly an equally modern practice, Maker Faires. She cites both as being attuned to the impulses and shifts in the ever-changing cultural and economic climates of the 21^st century. She also draws intensely interesting parallels between digital craft and some of the first books ever crafted by monks in monasteries (Sasser 2012). Indeed it can be seen in both of these vastly different mediums that the authors were not only concerning themselves with writing the words but also the placement, image, and aesthetics of the piece as a whole. Sasser challenges old notions of digital writing as a simple practice when in fact it requires a real eye for craftsmanship.

Digital writing is empowering.

In their piece, Sister Classrooms: Blogging Across Disciplines and Campuses Professors Amada Hagood and Camel Price consider how the addition of class blogs to their coursework changed the way their students grappled with the material. Both classes engaged with subjects related to environmentalism; Hagood, an environmental literature course at Hendrix College and Price, an environmental demography course at Furman University. Interestingly enough they come to the conclusion that it wasn’t simply just what they wrote on the blogs but the interactions that the digital spaces empowered the students to have. One student is quoted as saying “The blog, in a sense, made me feel like I was contributing to something instead of operating within the school system: write a paper, paper graded, paper handed back and filed” (Hagood & Price 2013). Digital writing, and blogs especially provide a very egalitarian space where everyone’s ideas had weight. It wasn’t so much that the essays being written for the blogs were of a professional caliber, it was that almost always did the writings spur some sort of innovative thinking. The classroom discussion was moving beyond the desks of Furman and Hendrix and into the spaces of wordpress and blogspot. This is a huge asset that digital writing provides to students in classes that may not always feel comfortable or welcome speaking in class. Moreover, these new digital learning spaces provide a valuable resource for facilitating good discussion; something that both Hagood and Price assert, “led to higher levels of cultural analysis” No longer are these digital spaces relegated to political arguments and pictures of vacation, now they create discussion and foster learning environments (Hagood & Price 2013).

Digital writing is a dynamic entity with multiple uses.

Sean Micheal Morris claims that “Today there is no value to our writing except as it is made useful.” He discusses this new “third-order-thinking” by asserting that online writers should have an expectation of reuse (Morris 2012). They should write with reinterpretation in mind. While this has potential to be a troublesome notion to any writer with opinions, Morris asserts that it’s not necessarily the worst thing claiming that the multilayered-ness of it all helps the readers “discover meaning below the meaning” (Morris 2012). One could certainly argue devil’s advocate however and push back against this idyllic version of the web. After all, what would be the point of the “no man’s land” of the Internet if, in an instant, anything can be reinterpreted? Is it fair for the writers to expect their work to be twisted, manipulated and used in whichever ways the next author deems worthy? When viewed thusly, digital writing morphs into a universal commodity, something that everybody is entitled to. We reach the point then as discerning scholars where we have to question the worthiness of digital writing. Putting ideas down on paper used to be a privilege relegated to the educated. But now when a subpar writer can start a blog about a radio show and nobody stops him from publishing essays claiming superior music taste, it somehow qualifies as a craft?

Morris brings up an interesting point in another one of his pieces when he addresses this concept of borrowed digital spaces. He cites auto-correct, Google docs and server hosting infrastructures as these “designers” of spaces for writers (Morris 2014). He even goes as far to encourage provocation within these spaces and to “mark our territories.”

This is a refreshing call to action, insofar that at least it is a call to action, something not seen all too often online, however one that I believe is misguided. Digital writing shouldn’t be utilized to upheave the facilitators but rather coordinate the producers. People are strongest when they are part of a group and what facilitates big groups better than the web. Look at every online naming poll spammed by the 4chan community. Instead of nameng the new flavor of Mountain Dew “Hitler did nothing wrong” why don’t we start demanding that educators get paid more (Everett 2012)? Digital writing has the potential to facilitate massive social change.

Digital writing creates new ways of reading.

Not only does the term Digital writing refer to what we are reading or writing but also how we are doing so. I’ll bet that the last piece of online writing you read had a hyperlink, or perhaps even and embedded video. Sometimes articles feel naked and readers overwhelmed when faced with a piece devoid of in-text distractions, afloat in sea of black font against a white background. The fact of the matter is that as our writing experiences technology facilitated changes, as does our reading. We transcend old definitions of literacy when we adapt to new mediums. Richard Lanham compares reading online text with speaking, “It recaptures the expressivity of oral cultures, which printed books, and handwritten manuscripts before them, excluded” (Lanham 1995). There’s something about the impermanence and fluidity of an online text that instills, in the reader, a sort of comfort. Promulgating lofty ideas is no longer relegated to dust covered books sitting on a shelf. Digital writing acts as an alternate conduit for these ideas, one where conversation and free thought are fostered and where we move beyond traditional definitions of writing, reading, and literacy.

https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/12-weeks-to-a-first-draft

Digital Writing is a requirement.

From the point of view of a jaded Internet-literate twenty two year old (myself) I think digital writing, and for that matter then Internet generally, is an entity of both scorn and affection. On one hand, digital mediums facilitate pretty much everything. Want to host a gathering? Make a Facebook event. Want to get people to come to a show? Tweet it out. Want to share music with your friends? send them a Spotify playlist. The Internet always has an answer to the question “How do I make this happen?” Digital writing is how you get things done. And as a millennial this is more evident to me now than ever before. The time has officially come for me to put on my big boy pants, think about a job I could stand going to everyday, and then start creating content tailored to that end. In this way, digital writing is a means. The only thing I’ve learned about the work force is, that while it might be who you know and not what you know, success now-a-days is dependent on how long you can stomach looking at a computer monitor.

It is becoming harder to envision a time when one could not simply post a rant on Facebook regarding the latest political gaffe or craft a blog post reviewing the newest superhero spin off movie. What on earth did people do before they couldn’t make their thoughts known to a populace as soon as they thought them? In 2007 (or as it will be known in the history books: The Year of the iPhone) this constant connectedness and always sharing mentality seemed like a fleeting whimsical reward for eons of technological achievement. Little did we know that in just 10 years we would become (knowingly or not) dependent on our screens to the point of structuring our days around our battery life.

While I certainly am fulfilling the “jaded” descriptions nicely, I do have a concession. Digital writing, despite its unintended importance, is still really cool. Without digital writing people couldn’t share their stories thoughts or ideas. All of the authors I mentioned at the top of this essay were onto something, they all see the vast potential digital writing possesses. On the web it becomes all to easy to get bogged down in the negative. It always seems like there is another awful thing that is splashed across our eyes, sometimes even across multiple platforms. But for every piece of disheartening content, there is the potential for a million positive ones. As official card-carrying members of the millennial generation we all have a responsibility to take an active part in said creation. So start a blog about your new horse, post a meme poking fun at something serious, or just leave a sincere comment on a Youtube video. Google defines “Writing” as The activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text. While the paper may be a blog, and the marking typing, one thing is for certain. Digital writing, like Google’s definition, will always matter.

Works Cited:

Hagood, Amanda, and Carmel Price. “Sister Classrooms: Blogging Across Disciplines and Campuses.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. Michigan Publishing, 15 September 2013. Web. 03 November 2016. http://webwriting.trincoll.edu/communities/hagood-price-2013

Morris, Sean Michael. “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-Order Thinking in the Digital Humanities.” Hybrid Pedagogy. 08 October 2012. Web. 03 November 2016.

Morris, Sean Michael. “Risk, Reward, and Digital Writing.” Hybrid Pedagogy. 28 October 2014. Web. 03 November 2016.

Lanham, Richard A. “Digital literacy.” Scientific American 273.3 (1995): 198-199.

Sasser, Tanya. “Digital Writing as Handicraft.” Digital Writing Month (2012).

Rosenfeld, Everett. “Mountain Dew’s ‘Dub the Dew’ Online Poll Goes Horribly Wrong.” TIME Magazine. 14 August 2012. http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/14/mountain-dews-dub-the-dew-online-poll-goes-horribly-wrong/

http://www.itproportal.com/2015/01/10/why-businesses-race-adapt-digital-world/

Writing has always been the most important and prevalent way in which we communicate our most complex ideas, but digital writing has taken it to a whole new level. Digital writing is distinct from traditional writing not only in terms of the way ideas are presented but how those ideas are born. Digital spaces allow for ideas to develop naturally, for the writer to receive feedback more frequently, and allow multiple forms of media to be integrated into the writing seamlessly. These developments are important not only because they change the way in which we think, but because we do it on a daily basis.

What is Digital Writing?

In order to understand what digital writing is, we must first differentiate it from conventional writing. Most authors seemed to agree that traditional forms of writing are static in comparison to digital writing. Once it is published, it is no longer being developed. Digital writing, however, can easily be manipulated in many different ways, and at any point in time. This makes it much more dynamic and gives writing a sense of life. Pete Rorabaugh demonstrates this with his class and, as he calls it, the organic nature of his student’s writing. “Instead of generating multiple static drafts, we share dynamic versions of the piece as it develops. Here we see the organic and digital nature of the composition project simultaneously. With specific commenting assignments, writers get feedback on their drafting as it unfolds” (Rorabaugh). Not only are they able to edit the work at any stage of writing, the students can edit each other’s work in real time, as it is being written. This allows the writer to think critically more frequently and to constantly consider ideas from different perspectives.

http://www.atelier.net/en/trends/articles/revisu-brings-online-collaboration-design-projects

Digital networks also encourage the most important aspects of writing. “Digital environments maximize the potential for organic writing in three distinct ways: they rebuild “audience,” expose the organic layers of a composition, and invite outside participation in key stages along the way” (Rorabaugh). Rethinking the way in which we approach audience allows the writing we produce to reach not only a wider readership but one that is more likely to be engaged in the writing as well. Being able to cultivate thoughts as they happen allows for more fluid and well-developed insights. Receiving feedback at multiple steps in the process also helps the writer to understand how their ideas are being perceived by the reader, whether or not their ideas are coming across effectively, and sometimes inspires new thoughts.

http://www.robertwmills.com/2016/03/11/5-ways-you-can-keep-up-with-technology/

Not only is the process of writing digital different from traditional writing in terms of how it is created, it also differs in structure as a result. Being able to connect to other pieces of writing via links or to show images or insert audio allows for writing to engage the senses in a way that was never possible before. This allows a writer to convey much more information in ways that can sometimes be more effective. For instance, even the most detailed description of a sound pales in comparison to being able to hear it directly. “Digital technologies have made it easy to “write” in all sorts of new ways. We can use more modes and resources, such as image, sound, and video. We can remix the work of others — with and without permission — and share what we create more easily than ever before. And people do, all the time, and for all sorts of compelling reasons” (Grabill). It has become easy for people to create, and thus writing has become both more plentiful and creative.

Digital writing is also written for a different audience than traditional writing is. “Academic writing, intellectual writing — this writing right here — cannot know how it will be excerpted, repurposed, discovered, reimagined, plagiarized, undone. Undone by human author or by computer. Discovered through random Google search, corrupted by code, made poetic by an accident of electronic interference” (Morris). Therefore, when writing, one must consider the fact that just because the piece is finalized for the author, it is not done being written. The ideas within the writing will be broken down and used for different kinds of people, so they must speak in a way that will appeal to multiple types of readers (if they want it to be read by a wide audience). If an author wants the work to speak to a more specific type of reader, then they must use a voice that will attract that kind of audience, knowing that the work will be shared among readers with similar taste.

Writing is also often formatted differently in terms of length and style. As Dan Cohen says in his work called Blessay, pieces of writing that are somewhere between a blog post and an academic article now quite commonplace. They tend to be as long as they need to be, informed but not too fact-based, and voiced for both experts and a general audience (Cohen). They are not concerned with the more formal rules of writing that they would be confined to if they were to be written for a traditional media source. Digital not only provides the space to write freely, it makes it incredibly easy to do so.

Why is it important?

Now that we know what digital writing is, we can discuss why it is so important. There are many reasons, the most obvious being because we do it all the time. Whether it is through email, social media, instant messaging, or a blog, writing has become a constant in many of our lives. As noted in Because Digital Writing Matters, a video created by Kansas State University anthropologist Michael Wesch and his students documents how young people engage with digital media. “In a cultural climate in which some are quick to claim that students don’t write or read, this video cites examples that show the opposite, such as that 200 students made more than 360 edits to one online document, and that a student who will write 42 pages for her college classes in one semester will also compose over 500 pages of e-mail in that same time frame. In both of these cases- as well as many, many more that are happening in classrooms around the world- students and teachers are documenting the social changes they are experiencing and noting the ways in which technology is influencing how we compose messages for increasingly broader audiences” (DeVoss). Not everything we write is critically analyzed and well-thought through, but it is a necessary skill to develop. Writing this frequently allows us to develop certain skills such as how to convey tone effectively and helps us to develop a voice.

While writing is certainly important for our daily lives, it is also an important tool for our academic ones. “Writing is still an important act and an essential tool for learning and social participation. Skill in writing is still crucial inside and outside of our schools” (DeVoss). Writing helps synthesize and develop ideas, and by reading a student’s writing, a teacher can better understand what a student has learned and where their weaknesses lie. “In school, writing is a key language skill (if not a subject) and also supports learning in other content areas. In a knowledge society, written expression shapes success for individuals and groups. Because of computer networks, youth now in school will write more than any prior generation in human history” (Grabill).

http://giphy.com/search/busy

Digital writing is able to engage the student through their daily lives as well as many new resources that have been developed. “We have been inventing technologies like this out of our own teaching, such as Eli, a service that supports peer learning in writing. Increasingly, there are other services available that extend the ability of computer networks to be tools for learning in writing (see, for example, Crocodoc). We need many more efforts to support and share the innovations of teachers wrestling with how to teach digital writing in their schools” (Grabill). Services such as these are formatted to help streamline the digital writing process by making it easier to comment on and receive feedback on writing in a more academic sense. They help to attract the kind of community that wants to help and be helped with writing and facilitate the exchange of ideas.

Why is important to me?

As a student myself, digital writing is an extremely important aspect of my academic career. Being able to organically develop ideas as they come to me gives me the freedom to write about whatever idea is most fully developed in my head. I can jump from one paragraph to another and back again, thinking of new ways to convey a certain message or to add something I hadn’t thought of earlier. Whenever I get stuck, I can easily access more information to further inform my ideas, and incorporate them into my writing. I can bounce ideas off of things that other people have written about the topic, repurposing their writing to facilitate my own need to express a thought. Conversely, this means that my writing is going to be accessed by others in a similar fashion, which means I must be sure to convey my message clearly and be sure that what I write can stand up under scrutiny. This holds me to a higher standard than if just my professor was going to be the one reading my writing. Yet, at the same time, I feel less pressured when writing for a wider audience. This may seem counter-intuitive, but I think because I tend to imagine the audience as my peers, I don’t feel like I’m trying to appeal to a professor who has had a more extensive education and is more practiced at writing than I am.

As an East Asian Studies major, it can sometimes be difficult to find information on topics that I am researching. Dickinson has accumulated an impressive collection of books and materials on the region, but it can still be somewhat limited when discussing contemporary issues. For example, my senior thesis discusses how the internet has influenced feminist thought in Japan. Few of our resources discuss the internet at length as it is a relatively new phenomenon, and what we do have is often in Japanese, which I am not proficient enough at to be able to read very quickly. Having access to information from libraries across the country via the internet and writing produced digitally across the globe has enabled me to explore a topic I otherwise would likely not be able to. This also exposes me to topics I know nothing about and allows me to familiarize myself and engage with them.

http://www.bloglet.com/the-benefits-of-living-in-a-computer-world/

Works Cited

Cohen, Dan. “The Blessay.” Dan Cohen. 24 May 2012. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.

DeVoss, Dànielle Nicole., Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks. “Why Digital Writing Matters.” Introduction. Because Digital Writing Matters: Improving Student

Writing in Online and Multimedia Environments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 148-303. E-book.

Grabill, Jeff. “Why Digital Writing Matters in Education.” RSS. 11 June 2012. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.

Morris, Sean Michael. “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities – Hybrid Pedagogy.” Hybrid Pedagogy. 08 Oct. 2012. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.

Rorabaugh, Pete. “Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs – Hybrid Pedagogy.” Hybrid Pedagogy. 21 June 2012. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.

http://hooptap.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/9H-e1435850922498.jpg

What is Digital Writing?

We are always writing. As college students, we are constantly articulating thoughts into words, critically analyzing texts, and extrapolating meaning. We repeat this process over and over again throughout our day. No, I am not talking about the homework for your overwhelming “writing intensive” course. I am referencing the writing that we do outside of the classroom. The tweeting, texting, Facebook posting, blogging, Instagram-captioning, and Snapchatting. By interacting with these digital platforms, we have unconsciously turned ourselves into rabid writers, readers, and critical analysts.

In “Keeping Up With…Digital Writing in the College Classroom,” Andrea Baer defines digital writing as, “writing that is composed – and most often read – through digital environments and tools.” Digital writing can be anything from a highly-researched blog post, to a tweet about your cat. Today’s digital environment allows students to connect, collaborate, and express thoughts through unconventional and often multimodal forms of writing. As these digital platforms continue to transform communication and expression, teachers face a choice; either stick to traditional notions of how to teach “good writing,” or embrace and utilize the digital environment. Engage students in their work to make them better readers, writers, and thinkers inside and out of the classroom.

So, how can digital writing add to the classroom?

1. Digital Writing as a Communal Process: Deepen Critical Analysis and Discovery

Sean Michael Morris states in “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities,” that the words we post online are active. Whereas in a classroom, a student may turn in a paper never to explore the topic further, when posted online, that idea has the potential to spark a conversation. As Morris explains, “digital words have lives of their own.” Once writing is posted, the author has no way of predicting how it will be received or where the original idea will be taken by an online community. Morris explains this saying, “the growth of ideas is determined by the community.”  For example, if a student posts something to a blog and the post receives comments, this is a natural and indirect form of peer-review. This kind of critique may push students to dig deeper, to flesh out their idea a bit more, and to expand on a particular topic.  

http://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/files/Blog-comments.jpg

Many scholars who study today’s digital environment such as Sherry Turkle, make the case that despite technologies connective potential, we are more disconnected than ever. The digital world allows us to disengage rather than strike up a conversation face-to-face. However, Turkle goes on to say that despite the fact that “social media and the internet forces us to disconnect,” digital writing actually serves as a mode to connect. If taught how to critically engage online, students may learn to harness the communal power of digital world, and grow ideas together. Morris says it perfectly when he says “digital writing is communal writing.”   

In “Interactive Criticism and the Embodied Digital Humanities,“ Jesse Stommel calls this exchange of ideas, “interactive criticism:” the ongoing process of collaboration between reader and text that dismantles the “hierarchies of critical thought.” Therefore, students should be taught about this powerful way to use digital writing. In his Ted Talk, “Where Good Ideas Come From,” Steven Johnson explains that true discovery and innovation arises when individuals are given the time and space to discuss and collaborate on ideas or concepts. Who knows what secrets students have the power to unlock. Writing collaboratively online allows us to share with an infinite number of people, the power and possibilities are endless. 

2. Digital Writing as Multimodal: Synthesize, Contextualize, Convey

Digital writing breaks the rules of traditional writing forms. Having students explore writing outside these “rules” gives them the freedom to write and convey messages in unique and creative ways. Both through format and tone, online writing is unrestricted and it becomes our own. This freedom presents the challenge of sifting through all of the information and tools the digital environment has to offer in order to construct a concise narrative. For instance, through the requirement of multimodal content for a student project such as linking, sharing, adding videos or pictures, students draw in various forms of material.

It is up to them to contextualize a topic in their own way and show that they understand what they are talking about from many different perspectives.

Students in a traditional writing class would not have the opportunity to access such a vast array of material and sources, to truly make a piece of writing their own. Synthesizing, contextualizing, and conveying a message for a class project may push students to deepen their understanding of a topic is a more holistic way. As Stommel says, digital writing is “prose less bound by the conventions of its various containers.” Free of the rules and “stiffness” of academic writing where students often feel the need to repress their unique voice to sound “academic,” the digital environment rewards creativity.

3. Digital Writing as a Tool: Making Students Better Writers

Digital writing, if taught properly, can have tremendous benefits for students as writers. In “Tweet Me a Story,” by Leigh Wright, she argues that digital platforms such as Twitter can be used to teach good writing. She states:

“[W]hen used deliberately [Twitter] can be an effective means of social communication and an effective means of teaching concise writing with a creative twist for pedagogical purposes. Using only 140 characters forces the writer to focus. Every character matters.”

In other words, giving students assignments in which they must write with more brevity, forces them to think carefully about the words and phrases they choose. They must whittle down the fluff to uncover what they find most important. The digital environment rewards not just brevity, but thoughtful, attention-grabbing brevity, to get a point across. Teaching this skill may make for better writers because as George Orwell advises in “Politics and the English Language,” “if it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.”

Writing for the digital environment can also improve student writing because it is public. To post something online is to be vulnerable. It is to take a labor of love and toss it out into the open for anyone to critique, for all eyes to see, for the rest of time. When a paper is turned into a teacher in a traditional writing course, that paper is for only the teacher’s eyes. But when a student posts something to say a class blog, that piece becomes part of their public online identity. While the topic of student privacy should be taken seriously, this vulnerability may invest students in their writings. “In Digital Writing: The Future of Writing is Now,” Cathy J. Pearman and Deanne Camp write:

“Researchers suggest when students know their writing is extended to a larger audience, they are more motivated to write and tend to do better work.”

Online writing is thought to be non-academic, but perhaps for this reason, the most analytical thought and time goes into “informal” online writing. When students know that their work will be seen by peers and the public, they are more likely to make it better and work harder because it is in their voice — attached to their name.

Digital Writing in Practice: What can it offer students like me?

I must admit, I am skeptical off all things digital. I took this class precisely because I wanted to learn how to utilize rather than resent the digital world. Much like Sherry Turkle, I was convinced that the face-to-face contact that has declined with the advent of digital media, has reduced our ability to listen, understand, and collaborate with others. But in taking this class on digital writing, I have gained the knowledge and skills to grow as a student within the digital environment.

The semester blog project has been a unique and valuable writing experience. First, it forced me to get over my fear of having others read my writing. For me, writing is a vulnerable process and to have others read what I have written, is to allow them into the intimacies of my thought process. To post my writing in a public way was scary and exhilarating all at once.

Second, having a semester long blog is a great idea for a digital media class, because students are rarely (if ever) given the prompt: “just write.” The freedom of the assignment is terrifying. Posting about whatever topic I wanted in whatever form I wanted, almost felt like stepping behind headlights naked with no prompt or “correct” form to hide behind. But in this fear, lied the rare opportunity to discover my own writing voice outside of “academic” writing, blurring the line between “sam” and “school sam.” This is what a liberal arts education is all about. It is about bringing your interests and passions into the academic arena and back out into the world again.

As a Political Science major at Dickinson, I had never had the chance to write so freely. I was able to tie in digital writing for our class with my interest in politics. One of my blog posts was a short personal reflection on living with two Trump supporters as a Hillary supporter during this divisive election. In writing this piece, I was able to delve into my major from my own personal perspective, connecting “school sam” with “sam.” My roommates and I often ease the partisan tension with digital tools by tagging each other in memes that reference the election:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/8c/28/d9/8c28d9034dadbc46e3d4ff8e1365e7f7.jpg

Digital writing has impacted me not just within the online eco-sphere, but in how I interact  with friends and family.  Around the dinner table at home, during a long “caf-sit” at school, or in my dorm having a conversation with a friend either over face-time or in person, we often share digital materials. This type of sharing is unique to the digital experience, because we can send a link in a group text, we can screenshot an interesting quote, or share an article within seconds. My mom has family email chain that she frequently uses to send us interesting articles she comes across online. If she thinks one of my friends will find a particular article interesting, she will add their email address to the ever growing chain. This kind of exploration and sharing between friends and family has fostered connection at an intellectual level in a way traditional writing and traditional mediums does not.  Like never before, we are discussing articles ideas, or insights, rather than how school was that day or what to wear for a party. For example, here is a screenshot of the last email my siblings and I received from my mom:

The ability to share, to link and to explore in the digital writing space has helped me become a more active learner, gaining insight and sharing those insights all at once.  

Digital writing  has no “correct” form or succinct definition, it feels like freedom and quick-sand, it’s enjoyable and terrifying all at once. Our digital environment is intimidating, but if the complexity of digital writing is harnessed and utilized in the classroom, students will become better writers, thinkers, and do-ers.

Works Cited:

Baer, Andrea. “Keeping Up With… Digital Writing in the College Classroom.” Association of College Research Libraries. American Library Association, n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2016. <http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/digital_writing>.

Johnson, Steven. Where Good Ideas Come From. Perf. TED, July 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2016. <http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from/transcript?language=en>.

Morris, Sean Michael. “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities.” Hybrid Pedagogy. Hybrid Pedagogy, 08 Oct. 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2016. <http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/digital-writing-uprising-third-order-thinking-in-the-digital-humanities/>.

Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” Propaganda (1974): 423-37. Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

Pearman, Cathy and Deanne Camp. “Digital Writing: The Future Of Writing Is Now.” Journal Of Reading Education 39.3 (2014): 29-32. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 4 Nov. 2016.

Stommel, Jesse. “Interactive Criticism and the Embodied Digital Humanities.” Hybrid Pedagogy. Hybrid Pedagogy, 05 June 2016. Web. 04 Nov. 2016. <http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/interactive-criticism-and-the-embodied-digital-humanities/>.

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York: Basic, 2011. Print.

Wright, Leigh. “Tweet Me A Story.” Web Writing. Ed. Jack Dougherty and Tennyson O’Donnell. University of Michigan Press/Trinity College EPress Edition, 2014. Web. 04 Nov. 2016. <http://epress.trincoll.edu/webwriting/chapter/wright/>.

“Hey, get off of your phone!” How many times have you heard that phrase or something similar hurled at you? Well, I definitely have more than once. I was born in 1994, so I consider myself a millennial. I grew up with a cellphone in one hand and a computer mouse in the other, unlike my parents. The accessibility that my brother and I have had to modern technology has occasionally caused a rift between us and our parents. Sometimes, the reliance that we have for our devices can turn a scolding, such as the aforementioned phrase, into a cry for help. When comparing yourself to your parents, there is a noticeable difference that is best seen through your natural reaction: when questioning something, one grabs the dictionary whereas the other opens a search engine application on their phone.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/grandma-finds-the-internet

The generational gap provides frustration, humor, and…mostly frustration. It also opens up a heavily-contested debate that questions the place of modern technologies and their usage in today’s society. It is the digital literacy of this generation that sets us apart from past generations. Simply stated, digital literacy is the level of competence one possesses in the realm of working with digital technologies and their network.

Digital literacy is an important part of our society and it expands a person as a reader and writer. “The word ‘literacy,’ meaning the ability to read and write, has gradually extended its grasp in the digital age until it has come to mean the ability to understand information, however it is presented,” says Richard Landham. Millennials and members of Generation Z have risen to this modified definition of literacy, but not without a proper foundation. From the research of Cathy J. Pearman and Deanne Camp, they concluded that “digital writing creates dimensions beyond traditional linear writing” and that “[digital writing] enables students to interface, collaborate, and incorporate the world in their writing.” From this, there is a greater responsibility placed upon the reader and writer that perhaps was not as prevalent before writing online existed. Jen Rajchel explains:

“At one level, web writing is about writing on the web: the flexibility as a multimodal piece, the ability to nimbly circulate, and the capacity to create a network of texts. At another level, the practice is about writing for the web and situating ourselves as readers and writers within its evolving architecture.”

However, there are other viewpoints to consider. Neil Postman states: “all technological change is a trade off” and that “culture always pays a price for technology.” This is an interesting mindset that challenges the conventional way of thinking. How technology could be bad? Technology is often thought about as something that helps, not harms. “The advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population. This means that every new technology benefits some and harms others,” says Postman. One of the biggest problems with the constant evolution of technology is that society cannot harness all of its energy. An example of this comes in the form of digital literacy. Marcus Wohlsen states that “digital literacy is the key to the future but we still don’t know what it means.” What good is technology if society cannot fully grasp it? In his article, Wohlsen includes a quote from Ari Geshner that sparked the title of the article: “The amount of potential unlocked by the industrial revolution is dwarfed in information terms by what you can do with computers.” Back again we go to the meme of grandma finds the internet, or even your parents when they ask you for help with a simple technological task.

Gary Waters/Getty

There are advantages and disadvantages to digital literacy, but overall it is an important piece of society because it expands our knowledge and connections. The adaptability and proof of reader and writer development due to digital literacy is evident. “Digital literacy greatly enhances our ability to suit the medium to the audience, to aim our communication at the part of the audience’s brain best able to receive it,” says Landham. In their study, Cathy J. Pearman and Deanne Camp deduced that there is a shift in literature and culture, which is shown through digital writing, and it starts with a solid basis. This basis, found through courses such as Professor Kersh’s “Writing In & For Digital Environments” at Dickinson College, is one that develops from the skills of digital literacy.

Philip Ventimiglia and George L. Pullman advocate for the importance of digital literacy in their article From Written to Digital: The New Literacy: “The need for students to learn digital literacy skills should not be surprising, given that this generation of students has known technology only from a consumer perspective. […] Despite having grown up with access to an increasing amount of technology, students now need to learn how to use technology to solve problems in academic and professional settings.”

http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/3/from-written-to-digital-the-new-literacy

From looking at the above figure, it is clear that digital literacy boasts many more skills. Ventimiglia and Pullman highlight six skills: 1) find and vet information online; 2) see problems from different perspectives; 3) become self-dictated learners; 4) obtain digital solutions; 5) learn software quickly; and 6) design and create digital solutions. None of these skills are possible without modern technologies, which is why millennials possess a more dynamic quality to their reading and writing than those of preceding generations. Ventimiglia and Pullman say it best, summarizing that:

“Digital literacy incorporation across core subjects and colleges and universities will prepare their students to live at the intersection of humanity and technology.”

One of the best examples of how digital literacy impacts a reader and writer is through a recent academic experience of mine. In the Spring of 2016, I took a French seminar course titled “France Between the Wars / Interwar France” taught by my favorite professor at Dickinson (as well as my advisor), Professor Dominique Laurent. He is the reason why I am a French & Francophone Studies major, and I have had the good fortune of taking at least one of his classes for six consecutive semesters. Aside from the grammar and history lessons, one of the biggest things I learned is Professor Laurent’s limited literacy with the technology of the computer. One of the best examples of this is how I have never had a Moodle page for any of his classes — never mind the countless times when the autoplay feature on YouTube got the best of him, or how he would get lost in the multiple windows of internet browsers that each had too many active tabs open.

After six semesters, I have grown accustomed to the constant email communication as well as dropping in for his office hours outside of the many hours we are together for classes. However, once I began taking his once-weekly seminar, it called for an adjustment to our communications about classes as well as academic advising. The seminar course concluded with a research project with the requirements of: a minimum of ten sources, ten pages, and a topic of your choice that related to the course. At the end of the semester, I submitted what I lovingly call my “mini-thesis” that tallied a total of fourteen sources, twelve pages, and about 3,700 words about the cavalries in Europe during the first World War, interwar period, second World War, and how it transitioned into the modern sport of three-day eventing, which was showcased during the 1920 Olympic Games in Paris, France.

http://www.horsenation.com/2013/07/25/18-cavalry-photos-you-have-to-see-to-believe/

Frequently, I reminisce about my mini-thesis and the process of tackling it. It is not the longest paper I have ever written, but is perhaps the most concentrated work I have ever done that pulled from many differing directions. The sentimental factor was one part of what made my mini-thesis such an ordeal. It felt like a culmination of everything I had learned since my first French class – where Professor Laurent was stooping over my shoulder and correcting my basic sentences about eating ice cream that contained incorrectly conjugated verbs – and that along with my personal interest in the subject made it enjoyable to work on over the course of multiple months. I carry the lessons I learned from writing a paper of such depth and length with me to other courses, in writing mindset as well as research and planning methods. The intersection of my mini-thesis and this course bring me to the technological side of my learning experience.

My horse, Ender, and I competing in the modernized sport of three-day eventing that evolved from cavalry training. Follow our adventures!

First off, it was incredible having all of this history at my fingertips. Somewhere, there is an ironic connection between me studying history on a modern device… Having said that, I used a combination of books and online articles. Looking back with a more appreciative lens, it was amazing how quickly I was able to acquire so many resources so quickly — for this, I owe a great deal of gratitude to Dickinson’s Waidner-Spahr Library and its connection with a network of systems. In the mindset of Ventimiglia and Pullman, I am a product of the digital literacy era. One of the largest lessons I had from this experience was the dissimilar interactions I had with the different mediums of my resources. Once I narrowed down my online sources, I printed all of them out so that I could mark them with my notes. This was not the first time I printed out a source that was originally digital, because I know that it is a necessity for my learning style. And all while I was writing my notes and paper’s plan by hand, I was using my beloved online dictionary, WordReference.com, because about half of my sources were in English and needed to be paraphrased into French. Using the chart included above that was featured in Ventimiglia and Pullman’s article, I used every single skill listed under “digital literacy” for the course and its final paper.

When thinking about how I can best connect the digital aspect of this course affected me, I find that it was the necessity for me to be self-sufficient and self-driven about my use of technology due to the expectation from Professor Laurent from his millennial students. Along with my understanding of history and skill in the French language, my digital literacy was influential in the creation of my mini-thesis; a perfect example of the “intersection of humanity and technology.”

Works Cited:
Lanham, Richard. “Richard Lanham: Digital Literacy.” Richard Lanham: Digital Literacy. (1995). Web. http://www2.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/lanham-digital-lit.htm

Pearman, Cathy J.1, and Deanne1 Camp. “Digital Writing: The Future Of Writing Is Now.” Journal Of Reading Education 39.3 (2014): 29-32. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web.

Postman, Neil: “Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change.” (1998). Web. http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/postman.pdf

Rajchel, Jen. “Consider the Audience.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. (2013). Web. http://epress.trincoll.edu/webwriting/chapter/rajchel/

Williams, Alex. “Move Over, Millennials, Here Comes Generation Z.” The New York Times. (2015). Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/fashion/move-over-millennials-here-comes-generation-z.html

Wohlsen, Marcus. “Digital Literacy Is the Key to the Future, But We Still Don’t Know What It Means”. WIRED. (2014). Web. https://www.wired.com/2014/09/digital-literacy-key-future-still-dont-know-means/

Ventimiglia, Phillip & Pullman, George. “From Written to Digital: The New Literacy”. EDUCAUSE. (2016). Web. http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/3/from-written-to-digital-the-new-literacy

Digital writing has a lot of stigma associated with it. Society has anxieties related to the Millennial generation being less literate and successful academically because of the close relationship they have with technology. It is quite the opposite, academia and literacy are getting an update, they are  growing and expanding to meet the needs of people today. Today every teenager or adolescent has access or personally owns at least one device that they use to go online and look at social media. “Evidence of reading’s decline in American life might run the risk of blinding us to signs of literary culture’s continued proliferation, including the increasing number of devices and platforms and services through which we read today,” said Fitzpatrick in “Networking in the Field“.  If the Millennial generation is so highly equipped with these devices and are so regularly using them then the means of educating them must change and adapt.

Digital Misbeliefs

“Anxieties about the effects of digital media abound: it’s too often taken as read that the technologies that facilitate such easy communication are causing our actual communications skills to deteriorate.” -Fitzpatrick

The negative stigma associated with digital writing and this digital age that the world is transitioning to stem from a misunderstanding. Society believes that Millennials and students that are constantly digitally engaged are less literate, they have poor grammar, and do not know how to write well.  Fitzpatrick claims that a common belief is that “today’s text messaging is undermining spelling and grammar, and Twitter is replacing critical thought with soundbites. And everyone knows that the kids today are managing to graduate from college without knowing how to write.” People believe that this generation is always multitasking and dividing their attention between so many things that Millennials can not create deeper connections or find distinct meanings within one.

A common misconception that people believe about a digitally connected generation is that technology is only used as social communication. When in reality teenagers and college students are self-publishing scholarly pieces and not just scrolling through Instagram or Twitter. But this creates another stigma associated with self-publications: Who is editing them? How can they be considered credible? People believe online writing is too democratic and easily changed, therefore nothing can be taken seriously or as truth. When in reality online writing creates a community and a networking of editing that may not have been accessed through print. In “Digital Literacy“, Lanham claims that “the new digital literacy is thus profoundly democratic. It insists that the rich mixture of perceptive talents once thought to distinguish a ruling aristocracy must now be extended to everyone.”

Digital Writing as Academically Effective

“More people in the U.S. [are] doing more writing than every before- and the opportunities for such writing, and for sharing this writing with others, have simply exploded.” -Fitzpatrick

Opportunity to Write and Develop

Online writing creates practice. Students who frequently use media platforms to write, other than in conversational terms, become practiced in writing and have the opportunity to develop their skills. In “Writing as Curation,” the authors Coco and Torres discuss types of assignments that are effective for incorporating digital writing in education. They believe that assignments such as blogging “prompts critical reflection about the application of disciplinary knowledge.” This prompts students to critically analyze information, choose what to include, and how to organize it consciously.  Another author analyzed education similarly, in “Tweet Me a Story“, by Leigh Wright, the author writes about using Twitter and other social media as effective means of teaching and social communication. “With just 140 characters, it forces the writer to focus. Every character matters.” This method teaches a student to write concisely and thoughtfully, every word matters. Wright, like Coco and Torres, claims that requiring students to tweet and curate their information for specific media platforms forces them to critically analyze the information and discover how to present it effectively. This development of analytical skills and practice of writing allows these students to relate to the concepts and further understand them. A student who tweets frequently or uses short captions on media often can now relate to lessons and apply skills that they may have already developed through their digital use. Therefore, this means of typical communication and source of stigma for Millennials has now become a tool in teaching and developing proper writing.

Coco and Torres also argue that writing blogs or other digital writings that are easily accessed and commented on allow student authors to find their voice “with a collective sense of shared knowledge that resides in a public sphere….and it require[s] the search for a collaboratively-inclined voice through which we can speak respectfully about others and ourselves.” In this article the authors claim that commentary on each other’s writing demonstrated the potential of digital writing to curate the skills of public scholarship and created “an infinite public community.” This community allows for students to connect and engage in their own writing through commentary  and find their own voice by engaging and critiquing  other’s work.

“One style does not fit every situation.” -Wright

When a student is able to find their own voice through an online community and in their digital writing, they can then begin to use specific voices for certain situations, with practice. “A student might experiment with a more engaging and creative style for an English class but need to develop a more authoritative style for a history  or political science class,” Wright claims. When a student has digital projects and assignments like those Coco, Torres, and Wright suggest they can begin to apply these skills across disciplines effectively.

Application of Knowledge

“Through digital writing we form a new relationship to our words: text becomes functional.”-Sean Michael Morris in “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities“

Online writing pushes students towards “real world application of knowledge,” as Coco and Torres said. It allows students to analyze digital humanities and understand the learning benefits.

“Media studies, game studies, critical code studies, and various other disciplines have brought wonderful new things to humanistic study.” -Stephen Ramsey in “Stephen Ramsey: On Building“

Coco and Torres argue that digital writing allows students to apply knowledge in new ways. When a student builds knowledge online using different tools that are visual, contextual, or create content in other forms they become engaged in ways they can not when just reading from a textbook or writing on a page. When they begin to critically analyze media platforms they apply principles learned in the classroom but differently. Students become “more critical users of digital technology.”

Morris argues that “there is no value to our writing except as it is made useful.” If writing online is only valuable in terms of readership, we begin to reconstruct our writing rather than just interpret it and our writing changes accordingly. Online platforms allow people to write and be openly critiqued and analyzed which makes people better writers. It allows students to get constant feedback on their work and apply their knowledge to give others feedback. Morris also says that “writing is both compiled and original.” Every writer incorporates their thoughts and opinions within the words they write.  But Morris states that the real caveat to digital writing is that “words are repurposed.. [and] they are reflown, for that is when we begin to detect multiple intentions and, like archaeologists, discover meaning lying below meaning.”

Communal Writing

Online writing allows students to transform their individual ideas and perspectives. Many scholars and writers today are writing a significant amount online, in informal venues or academic venues in order to get feedback and reach an audience more quickly and directly. Coco and Torres said that writing online forces a student to write with an audience in mind. This idea allows students to critically analyze their own writing and continue to rewrite. Cummings and Jarrett state in “Only Typing? Informal Writing, Blogging, and the Academy” that writing for an audience also makes academics more accessible and for a writer “it can provide a much-needed sense of wider relevance.” They continue to say that audiences cause academics to seek to make their writing interesting, whether through blogging or other online platforms. A well kept blog for an academic can create crowd-sourcing. Where the academic can always receive feedback and advice, forming “a kind of collegiality that is no less real for being expressed in type.” As writing becomes more digital, it is easy to see the great possibility of collaboration. The creation of literal networks through social networks make collaboration purposeful, as Morris argues. This also applies to students and not just established academics. Students can create crowd-sourcing within a course or within a specific field which can then attract experts or specialists on matters they may not have previously had access to.

Students have the ability to generate “static drafts…[and] share dynamic versions of a piece as it develops,” said Pete Rorabaugh in “Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs.” This causes writing to become both organic and digital. Rorabaugh argues that specific projects centered around community and commentary allows writers to get feedback as their draft is developing. This community fosters growth of student’s writing through critique and allows the draft to become a paper or a piece by helping it move through different stages of writing.

“Using the digital landscape to frame academic composition allows us to attend closely to that process and encourage research fluency and critical inquiry.” -Rorabaugh

Effectiveness of Digital Writing as a College Student

In past courses I have taken as a high school and college student, social media and online platforms have been considered a “no fly zone.” I have always heard to find scholarly articles from published journals and that nothing else is acceptable. An online article was never to be used as a source in an assignment nor would I ever imagine to incorporate links or media within a paper. But like all the authors above have said writing online and reading online platforms has allowed me to think differently but still academically. When reading something online you must analyze the content carefully and think about the approach of the author, what audience they were trying to attract, what sort of collaboration has taken place to write the piece, etc, things that I do not usually consider when reading a science paper on PubMed.

As a biochemistry major my writing in most courses has been extremely limited. It is centered around lab reports and very straightforward essays that are not open to much interpretation. Not only in my writing, but in my readings as well, the content is very  “cut and dry” attempting to get the exact point across as concisely and to the point as possible. In these pieces, nothing is really to be critically analyzed, sure data and experimental approach are analyzed, but when reading or writing these pieces nothing is to be interpreted or comprehended in the way papers or essays are in other more humanity related departments.

This is what attracted me most to a liberal arts education and to this class, “Writing in and for Digital Environments.” I have always had a passion for science and love being a biochemistry major but I have interests outside of the natural sciences. I find it so important in education to develop all your skills and interests rather than just one. I could have attended the University of Georgia and been a biochemistry major and been isolated to the science department and never have developed any skills other than those needed to be efficient in science courses. But instead I chose Dickinson College where I am required to branch out and develop myself outside of the sciences and become a well rounded student.

Digital writing is a lot like a liberal arts education. People who write know how to write, they can use grammar, spell things correctly, frame an argument, and do all the things necessary to write a good paper. Those who write strictly on paper or for print are like science majors at a non liberal arts school, isolated to this one platform and one way of writing. While those who write in digital platforms are like liberal arts students. Writing online forces you to write multi-modally, incorporating graphics, media, hyperlinks, etc. and learning to write for specific audiences and apply skills in different ways. This is exactly what a liberal arts education prepares it’s students to do; apply knowledge, adjust to different scenarios, and apply skills in different ways.

Works Cited

Coco, Pete and Torres, Gabriela M. “Writing as Curation.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. (2014). http://epress.trincoll.edu/webwriting/chapter/coco-torres/

Cummings, Alex Sayf  and Jonathan Jarrett, “Only Typing? Informal Writing, Blogging and the Academy,” Writing History in the Digital Age. (2012). http://writinghistory.trincoll.edu/collaborative/cummings-jarrett-2012-spring/

Fitzpatrick, Kathleen. “Networking the Field.” Planned Adolescence. (2012). http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/networking-the-field/

Morris, Sean Michael. “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities.” Hybrid Pedagogy. (2012). http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/digital-writing-uprising-third-order-thinking-in-the-digital-humanities/

Lanham, Richard. “Richard Lanham: Digital Literacy.” Richard Lanham: Digital Literacy. (1995).   http://www2.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/lanham-digital-lit.htm

Ramsey, Stephen. “On Building.” Creative Commons Attribution. (2010). http://stephenramsay.us/text/2011/01/11/on-building/

Rorabaugh, Pete. “Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs.” Hybrid Pedagogy (2012) http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/organic-writing-and-digital-media-seeds-and-organs/

Wright, Leigh. “Tweet Me A Story.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. (2013). http://webwriting2013.trincoll.edu/engagement/wright-2013/

In the last decade, technology has infiltrated society and become an  integral component of everyday life. If you need convincing just visit the Eric Pickersgill‘s photo blog where he portrays the invasiveness of technology.

http://www.ericpickersgill.com/removed/

Social media connects us to our friends and family while news apps and blogs connect us to current events that are happening around the world.  In this digital age many things are changing, including writing. The National Writing Project acknowledged the importance of the transition towards digital writing by releasing their new book, “Because Digital Writing Matters.” DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl, and Hicks define digital writing as, “compositions created with, and often times for reading or viewing on, a computer or other device that is connected to the internet” (DeVoss, Eidman -Aadahl, and Hicks 2010). According to this definition digital writing encompasses a wide range of forms from blogging, to twitter, to texting.  However, for the purpose of this essay I will mainly focus on blogging. In order to clearly represent the tenets of digital writing I will compare and contrast aspects of online writing to those of the traditional analogue and essay style of writing.

Digital Literacy

Before discussing the specific qualities of digital writing we should explore what it means to be digitally literate. In its most basic form literacy is very plainly the capacity to read and write. However, as we move towards digital writing we must add to that definition. As a multimodal platform, digital writing incorporates elements other than text. In my Writing in and for Digital Environments class the professor constantly pushes us to make our blogs multimodal. This can be rather difficult if you are new to technology or are just not very comfortable with it.

The purpose of making online writing multimodal is to engage all of the senses through the incorporation of videos, pictures, and links to relevant sources. In an article titled “Digital Literacy” Richard Lanham states that digital literacy, ” is the ability to understand information however it is presented (Lanham 1995). I would go one step further and say that digital literacy also requires one to have the ability to produce writing that can be understood through different mediums. A writer who can do this successfully, engages a broader audience which is critical to online writing and is something I will discuss in greater depth later in this piece.

IT’S ALIVE!

The most noticeable difference between digital and analogue writing is the organic versus inorganic nature of the piece. When writing an academic essay you follow a very formal and accepted path. Often you are handed a topic and then begin a literature search to find sources that will support a claim you have made based on class readings and discussions. In the next step you get together a rough draft that alternates between quotes and your own analysis. After receiving feedback from a professor or classmate you then revise the paper and turn it in. If what you just read sounded very formulaic and boring that’s because it is!

The organic nature of digital writing provides a stark contrast when compared to analog. In Cheryl Smith’s paper “Technologies for Transcending a Focus on Error: Blogs and Democratic Aspirations in First-Year Composition” she states that:

Digital writing resists a static notion of learning, in which the goal is a final paper that gets turned in for a grade, and instead prioritizes the development and circulation of ideas, which remain open to refinement and change. (Smith 2012).

Instead of your writing being personal, you are now publishing it for the entire internet community, where it will exist forever. This prospect can be both exciting and terrifying. Unlike a hardcopy of an essay, web writing platforms allow readers to comment on the work and share it with whomever they like. While this is stressful it can also add a sense of value to your writing. Instead of the audience being limited to two people, in the case of an academic paper, you are now able to reach an audience of millions.

As writing transitions from a personal practice to a communal practice the audience begins to play a much bigger role in both the development of the writing and the critique of the final product. In an articles titled “Digital Writing Uprising: Third Order Thinking in The Digital Humanities” Sean Michael Morris adds that when it comes to online writing, “There is no value to [it] except as it is made useful” (Morris 2012). This statement changes the criteria for what is considered valuable writing. The author is now supposed to write with the purpose of creating something useful to the online readers.

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/edulearn15lairecasteleynmottartdigitalmediawritingtoolsthetheoryofwritingcurriculatherealityofteachi-150703130637-lva1-app6892/95/edulearn-15-laire-casteleyn-mottart-digital-media-writing-tools-the-theory-of-writing-curricula-the-reality-of-teaching-practices-2-638.jpg?cb=1435928823

Knowing that you are writing for a global audience comes with the responsibility of appealing to many different personalities and points of view. As an author of an online work one also has to contend with how different members of the audience best absorb information. However, with multimodal resources at your disposal the challenge of appealing to a diverse group becomes a much more feasible task. Whether the audience could benefit from the use of pictures, videos, or links to background information on the topic, it is important that the author considers every possibility when designing a piece of web writing (Lanham 1995).

Why is it important?

In the digital age there is no slowing down. As millennials, we especially are expected to know how to use new technologies and keep on top of the new trends that exist in the digital world. This may seem like a burden, but becoming involved with digital writing has benefits as well.

Digital writing has proven itself useful as a way of learning and as a means of developing critical thinking skills. In traditional classes papers are typically assigned in which students in which they are expected to demonstrate a clear understanding of what has been taught in lecture and to potentially apply it to a new topic. Recently, professors at many universities have started using digital writing in the form of class blogs to challenge this model. In “Sister Classrooms: Blogging across disciplines and campuses” Hagood and Price declare that, “a course blog can create a uniquely powerful learning community that invites students to learn through writing, rather than use writing as a means to prove mastery” (Hagood and Price 2013). As students commented on each others blogs it prompted class discussions and led to students expanding on previous blog posts. As they constantly interacted with their own writing and the blogs of their classmates, students developed a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, and they began to develop into better writers (Hagood and Price 2013). In another article, titled “Writing as Curation,” Coco and Torres discuss how the method of “building” and “breaking” in blog writing fosters the development of critical thinking skills (Coco and Torres 2014). By nature, blog posts are relatively short pieces. This aspect forces the author to be concise and get directly to the point. This can be a challenge when trying to comb through various sources to to “build” a blog post. However, this challenge can greatly improve ones ability to think critically and make connections when practiced frequently, which the brevity of crafting posts allows.

http://digitalwritingresources.pbworks.com/f/1268088002/digital%20writing%20definition%20wordle.png

Digital writing is important because it ultimately pushes the author to create a better product. In “Consider the Audience” Jen Rajchel analyzed student surveys and found that, “When students feel an increased level of investment in their projects and a heightened sense of responsibility to an actual audience, the work becomes less about grades and more about shaping their scholarship” (Rajchel 2014). When you keep a blog, you commit to writing regularly and developing your writing skills while having the freedom to incorporate your own interests. To me it seems natural then that this method often produces better writing than traditional essay form. If being a good writer is a highly desirable trait in school and the professional world, writing digitally is of the utmost importance.

Personal Thoughts

From my own experience in a digital writing class I have found tremendous value in practicing digital writing. As a biology major I rarely write anything other than lab reports. However, I now blog almost every week and my writing has improved throughout the course of the semester. A few weeks ago the lacrosse team met with Phil Jones from the career center. He gave a presentation on how to secure internships and develop skills that companies repeatedly list as the most desirable qualities they look for in applications. Some skills varied across different industries but being a good writer remained constant. In my academic career at Dickinson I could have taken more writing courses and I regret not doing so. However, I now know that something as simple as blogging a couple days a week can act as a great tool to keep your writing skills.

When I sit down to write I almost feel as if I am using a different part of my brain or at least a different mode of thinking than when I’m doing math homework or studying for a test. While you think critically in both tasks, I feel as though I do it in a more deliberate fashion when I write. I think about each individual step I take and why it is related to the previous one instead of absentmindedly applying an equation.  This deliberate way of thinking has made me more engaged in the subject material and caused me to take a step further than just gaining a general understanding of assigned readings.

After graduation I want to follow my dream of becoming a doctor and attend medical school. Much like the digital world, medical techniques and information is advancing and changing on a frequent basis. Publishing research is a requirement for physicians at most hospitals. Over the last few summers I have had the amazing opportunity to work alongside doctors and see what this process entails. When examining medical research and digital writing I can’t help but notice one glaring similarity, they are both communal practices. Every medical research article I have read lists the name of at least three authors on the top of the page. It is a collaborative process that involves critique and teamwork. The authors collaborate amongst themselves and reach out to other physicians across the country for feedback and direction. While the content is vastly different, the process is similar to that which exists in the blogosphere. If I can make a connection between blogging and conducting medical research I’m sure that this worthwhile practice can and should find a way into your regular habits.

Works Cited

Coco, Pete and Torres, Gabriela M. “Writing as Curation.” Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning. (2014). Web. 25 Oct. 2016 http://epress.trincoll.edu/webwriting/chapter/coco-torres/

https://unsplash.com/search/social-media?photo=DfMMzzi3rmg

Think about how often you check your phone or your laptop, or the how often you hear: “Hey, have you seen this thing on Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr?” Then ask your parents how often they did those things when they were your age. Chances are the generational divide is pretty steep. The social media sites we know and love – like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr – are an invention of the 21^st century. Facebook was created in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Instagram in 2010, and Tumblr in 2007. It’s hard for us to imagine life without them; even those of us that don’t subscribe to social medias are influenced by their sway. As technology evolves, the discussion surrounding it evolves as well, especially on college campuses, which have a tendency to be breeding grounds for revolutionary ideas. Digital media offers people a chance to use their voice in a way they might not have been able to otherwise and it gives writers the opportunity to experiment with different styles in a much more accessible way. Because of the growing importance of digital literacy, teaching digital writing courses and implementing more technology in the classroom is imperative and should be encouraged more widely.

Technology on the college campus strikes most as a given. This assumption is not without cause. A study by Pew Research Center published in 2011 found that 98% of American undergraduates are internet users compared to 75% of all American adults. Additionally, 96% of American undergraduates own a cell phone and 88% own a laptop (compared to 82% and 52% of all American adults respectively). These numbers can have only gone up in recent years as technology has become both better and cheaper. To me, this shows that the technology is already there in the classrooms and it is up to us to come up with a productive way to integrate it or we risk wasting its potential.

https://unsplash.com/search/cellphone?photo=pb_lF8VWaPU

A study published in the Journal of Media Education ties in well with Pew Research Center’s study. They found that around 34% of students checked their digital device during class for a non-class reason 1-3 times per day and 28% checked their device during class 4-10 times per day. Only 3% of students surveyed said they never checked their digital device during class, while the remaining students reported that they checked their device more than 10 times per day during class. This is despite the fact that 72% of students reported that their professors had policies regarding the use of technology in the classroom, and that 53% of students believed that these policies were helpful. The most telling statistic from this study was that 91.6% of students said that their use of technology for non-class activities during class resulted in a distraction from learning.

This study shows that not only do a majority of college students check their devices during class, they are also distracted by them. I believe that if devices were encouraged for use in class-related purposes during class, students would spend less time distracted by their devices and more time focused on learning. While students might still use their devices for non-class-related purposes, to me it seems much less distracting to briefly switch tabs on a computer than it is to pull out your phone. This pro-device attitude could also encourage classes to delve further into topics in real-time during class. Instead of a static learning environment, the classroom would become much more open and interactive.

It has become standard to write into course policies what you can and can’t do with your phone, laptop, and tablet during class. In my experience, most professors tend to favor a complete ban on personal technology in the classroom, with the exception of laptops for taking notes (and even this practice is often discouraged). This attitude reads to me as a reluctant acceptance of change at best and an outright opposition of it at worst. While a majority of teachers still favor a strict ban, other professors have been more lenient about technology in and out of the classroom and even go as far as writing it into their syllabus.

An example of the University of Oklahoma’s tablet project in action. http://academictech.ou.edu/dev/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/12-3-12.jpg

One way that teachers at Dickinson College are integrating technology into their courses is through the Tablet Project, a program through the Media Center that allows professors to request that students check out iPads for their course for the semester – completely free of charge. A program introduced in the fall semester of 2011 in only two courses, the initiative has grown to accommodate anywhere from five to seven courses a semester. The courses integrated so far have encompassed topics ranging from “Writing in and for Digital Environments” to “Advanced Organic Chemistry” to “Spanish Composition”. This program is a great tool that encourages professors from all departments to come up with new and creative ways to incorporate technology into the classroom, which I think is a definite step in the right direction. By taking away the issue of cost and availability, the Tablet Project makes it that much easier for professors to actually integrate technology into the classroom instead of just theorize about it.

And it has been met with excellent results.

The faculty response for the Tablet Project has been overwhelmingly positive. Professors absolutely raved about the use of iPads in class. They noted that the presence of tablets made class more efficient, more interesting, and more interactive. Classes used the iPads to do everything from share videos to provide annotations on essays to investigate the 3D structures of molecules in real time. The concerns that professors brought up were mainly minor, such as the iPads’ short battery life and the learning curve for certain apps. Only two professors mentioned concern that some students would be tempted to multitask (check Facebook, email, etc.) on their iPads during class but thanks to the Journal of Media Education’s study, we know that students do these things even when there aren’t iPads being used for class. To me, this kind of response from professors is outstanding and shows that no matter the discipline, technology can be used to improve learning. It affords students the space to explore different trains of thought and to think about topics in ways that are essential for the growing digital media culture.

https://unsplash.com/search/laptop?photo=gp8BLyaTaA0

Digital writing is immediate and it is permanent. You can compose a post for WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, and after you hit send it is there and it is there for good. This is a great way for people to spread information and ideas faster than they ever could have before. It is a tool that unites people, inspires discussions, and gives a voice to the otherwise voiceless. However, it is also a thing that can come back to bite you. Often, employers will Google search a potential employee as a part of the application process and whatever they find about them on the internet will influence their opinion on them – and potentially cost them the job. It is also not unheard of for people already working at a job to be fired because of something they said on the internet.

One example of this was the case of Justine Sacco, former senior director of corporate communications at American media company IAC. Stacco posted a racially insensitive joke on her Twitter account before getting onto an 11-hour flight. By the time she landed, she was trending worldwide on Twitter and was soon thereafter fired due to the backlash.

To me, situations like these further prove the importance of being educated in how to write in a digital environment. These situations demonstrate that it is not enough to simply be able to write well to be a successful online presence; one must also understand the impact their writing could have on an audience as far reaching as an online one.

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Joel Stein touches on this topic in his article, “Tyranny of the Mob”. In this article, Stein investigates the phenomenon of internet trolls, who are people who hide behind computer screens and spark negativity and controversy for attention. Trolls can be hurtful and hateful, and while people can be mean in real life, it is much easier to be so when all it takes is a few keystrokes instead of demeaning someone to their face. Trolls tend to target people who they deem more vulnerable, and these people are disproportionately members of underprivileged groups (such as women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community). This is something that definitely affects my work as Pride Coordinator for News, Marketing, and Public Relations for the Office of LGBTQ Services at Dickinson. While – luckily – we have not the target of any internet hate, it is something that I always keep in the back of my mind as a possibility.

In my opinion, the brilliance of digital writing lies in the communities and opportunities it creates. You can do anything you want on the internet. Absolutely anything. Not only that, but chances are that there are ten or twenty or a hundred or fifteen thousand other people who are also interested in the exact same thing.

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This is especially important to me in terms of my love of creative writing. Joining online communities around creative writing is as easy as finding a writing-centered blog. Posting my own creative work online is as easy as clicking a button. There are far fewer walls that keep people out of digital writing communities than print ones. Additionally, writing online gives me the opportunity to follow my passion for creative writing in a way that I definitely wouldn’t have been able to otherwise as a student majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology. I am also able to get feedback on my work from other internet users, whether that’s in the form of a like or a comment, which helps me shape and improve my work without the need for an instructor. Communities help each other learn. Through online writing communities, I am able to share my own voice in ways that I never would have been able to otherwise. I’m also able to experiment with new ideas and formats in a fairly low-stakes environment – and with the potential for instant feedback.

Knowing how to write and act digitally is a skill that is useful in essentially every field. Digital writing gives a voice to the voiceless, allows for freedom for experimentation, and provides easily accessible communities for every interest imaginable. Digital literacy is crucial in order for students to be able to harness the full potential of the technologies of this new millennium; without it we risk being left in the antiquated dust.

Works Cited

Children today are born into a world of tablets, computers, and cell phones that allow for them to see the whole world just by sitting in the comfort of their own bed. A world where technology is constantly improving, providing them with even more opportunities to expand their knowledge and views. The digital world is growing rapidly and unrolling itself quickly in the academic world. Elementary, middle, and high schools are beginning to provide children with their own tablets or computers, either in school or even at home, so that the virtual connection that they were born into is something that they can utilize. This is important because communities, workforces, and most people use digital writing regularly to industrialize their businesses or ideas, and this next generation must know how to become a part of this major change.

What is digital writing specifically? Digital writing is found in many forms, such as small blogs posted by the author herself, a blog posted by a major corporation, or small posts on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. The digital age has come and is continuing to arrive so why not take advantage of the benefits it has to offer?

http://www.dospeedtest.com/blog/internet-revolution-and-internet-usage-facts/

Since digital writing is seeping its way into our lives, we are learning new and unique ways to write. Forget about a pen and paper, focus on your fingers and the keypad in front of you. Is it difficult or effortless to write a seven-page essay just by hitting the tabs on a board? Obviously it takes practice to become good at typing, but are you getting your ideas across clearly? Or are you adding unnecessary words and phrases just because it’s easier to do so than to hand write each letter word for word? That’s half the argument. Writing digitally may seem useless to some and an easy way to waste space and save time but it can be, and is starting to be utilized by the next generation through blogs and social media platforms because of the wide range of capabilities it offers.

I’ve constantly read in various articles from people like Jeff Grabill and organizations like the National Writing Project (NWP) that this generation of children are writing more than any other have, or children today are writing more than ever seen in human history.  Either way it’s stated, children are writing, and they’re writing a lot. Yet a lot of this writing isn’t considered “real” writing because majority of it comes from online social media platforms. In his article “Why Digital Writing Matters in Education”,  Grabill argues that “digital writing challenges what counts as writing and reveals the gap between how writing works in the world and how we teach it in schools”. To break this down we first have to ask, what actually does count as writing? That easily is an opinion up for debate, but in this case Grabill is referring to what counts as academically written pieces such as research assignments, analytical arguments, and basically anything perceived as written in school.

https://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/courses/12-weeks-to-a-first-draft

The second thing we have to look at is how digital writing is challenging this notion because much of it is not in five paragraph essay format and not automatically seen as high quality pieces of writing. Much of what digital writing is, is an idea on a topic written either carelessly or rather well, and Grabill’s argument is that it can be considered high quality writing if we learn to teach it properly in schools. Teachers need to be engaged with the environments online. So sending a teacher onto WordPress or twitter with the intention of looking for well written pieces of work could easily help expand views on digital writing.

Grabill’s second argument is “digital writing platforms and services are ways to innovate instruction and learning”. This is where the benefits of digital platforms make their appearance. Networks are created from digital writing. Grabill applies Wikipedia as an excellent example of how networks work. Wikipedia wouldn’t be full of as much ample information without the constant editing and rearranging of information from others. The same argument can be made for blog posts and Facebook posts. Without the help of others much of what is written on the internet can just be left unread, but with comment sections and the capability to view anything, people are able to gather tips and helpful information to make their pieces more unique, more interesting, and more important.

The audience is very important when writing online. One of the biggest challenges according to Jen Rajchel in her article “Consider the Audience” is “reaching out across multiple audiences with varied interests and deciphering which platforms are best suited to one’s content”.  Audience is both a rewarding part of digital writing and one of its major drawbacks. To reach and connect to multiple audiences is difficult but a skill that should be grasped by students in the academic field because their writing will be seen by all types of people. In order to find the audience, you have to know what you’re writing about and manipulate words and phrases to connect to them. For example, when writing online for a teacher you would not write carelessly as if you were texting, instead you would use proper grammar and a sophisticated tone. But should you be writing to a younger audience, perhaps using slang would help put you on their level and them on your level.

http://www.swcreatives.com/swc-blog/knowing-your-nonprofit-organizations-audience

But once you  have found your audience and they have found you, the benefits of online writing are immense. You can formulate conversations, get feedback, or even excel in a job. For example in Racjchel’s article she discusses how Hema Surendranathan changed her vocabulary from a normal subject line in an email to something that was “cool” and would make her stand out from dozens of other subject lines. By making herself stand out to her audience she could facilitate her goals.

So we have our teachers and we have our audience. How exactly can we make our online writing thoughtful and meaningful without just adding unnecessary information?  In an article written by Todd Finley about the digital writer, Troy Hicks, we learn five important ways to help understand author’s writing goals. Mode (genre), media, audience, purpose, situation.

You first have to find your genre and understand what you are writing about. What is your exact subject, don’t stray from your subject? What media are you using? A blog on WordPress or a post on Facebook? Find your platform and don’t misuse it. Thirdly, know your audience. As stated before the audience is key when writing online because that is how you will appeal to at least one small piece of an immense world on the internet. Then find the purpose. The purpose is why you are writing. Why you want your work to be read. And finally, the situation. Is it graded or is it simply for your pleasure? Don’t focus too much on one of these but focus on what you want the essay to be read like. Once you find the set ways and rules for yourself when writing digitally it can positively be read and portrayed by the respective audience and respective situation.

The National Writing Projects says that “Digital writing is more than just a skill it is a means of interfacing with ideas and the world” as well as, “digital writing can help students develop critical thinking skills and support learning across all subject areas”. But why and how? Digital writing is going beyond just the regular pen and paper school setting, it is allowing for Racjchel’s and Grabill’s ideas to be combined. If properly taught in schools’ kids could acknowledge their capabilities and harness the endlessness of the internet, then connect with the world through online platforms. They can write properly, meet their audience, and do something meaningful with all of these ideas.

http://digitalwritingsu13.wikidot.com/

Digital writing can offer us a wide variety of uses. Although I haven’t been at Dickinson College for that long of a time, I do believe utilizing digital writing is going to be very important to me. In middle school we were told to create “Facebook posts” for famous people from the 17^th century. They weren’t real, but it was the first interaction I had come across with digital writing in school, and we all giggled when we got the assignment because it seemed silly to be making a fake social media page for people who weren’t even alive. I understand now that it was important to know what people were saying, because that’s what digital media is sometimes, a place where people can say more than just what was verbally remembered.

Three years later, our high school began a digital program where they provided us with our own computers to use in school and outside of school. Through this we began using more social media platforms such as twitter and small blog websites to do projects, typing more essays and passing them in online, and connecting in the classroom differently than we ever had before. We could tweet at other students and our teachers, we could share writing pieces through email or google docs, and we could participate digitally rather than mechanically. I learned how to utilize a 140-character limit, write a well written piece of work for more than just the eyes of my teacher, and get help from fellow students online. As Pete Rorabaugh said in his article “Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs”, “Students post thesis statements to a twitter hashtag and reply to their peers’ work, or we have a more extended discussion through a forum”. Basically what Rorabaugh described is what we began to utilize in school. We could help each other and grow our ideas with the help of others. I know that when my school provided us with our computers we were able to harness the powers of digital writing and the internet.

Manny Crisostomo
http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2011/04/04/02digital.h04.html

Not only did I learn how to write online through this, I believe I was better prepared for college because of it. Writing college applications is now a virtual concept, emailing teachers is a major form of communication, and writing and reading online pieces of work is an everyday occurrence for a class. I felt I was prepared to go to college with previous experience with digital writing, but I also felt it would be important to learn more. That is why I took a digital writing class. I needed to prepare myself for more than just college. Many jobs want their applicants to be able to harness the internet as a tool to expand business through social media. A digital writing class, I thought, would help further my experience with writing online. I don’t know what I want to major in, and probably won’t know for a while, but I think that by taking a course like this one I can help myself for when I do figure that out.

For instance, since I’ve grown up with social media and writing online I know how important it is to make sure I check everything I write or post because it stays online forever. I learned that in high school when they gave us our computers and provided us examples of how the internet can ruin lives. From my digital writing class now I’ve learned what goes into creating a visually pleasing piece of online writing, how to stay connected with an extremely large audience, and how to make myself stand out from the crowd to make myself heard. We created blogs in class and my blog was going to be a simple blog about interviewing people on campus. Then, since I’ve been in the class, I realized that that is not enough. So I created a blog about two things that are interesting, the people on campus and delicious food. I make sure to stay on point, focus on my target audience (college students), and I write well online without sounding too casual. Digital writing is beneficial to students in a surprising number of ways, it just needs to be utilized properly in the educational system.

So let us first learn as best as we can about digital writing and harness its power to our advantage in an age that is rapidly expanding as a digital world. 

http://crei.com.br/noticia/internet-e-redes-sociais

Works Cited

Finley, Todd. “Troy Hicks: A Conversation About Digital Writing.” RSS. George Lucas Educational Foundation, 26 July 2013. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.

Grabill, Jeff. “Why Digital Writing Matters in Education.” RSS. George Lucas Educational Foundation, 11 June 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.

“National Writing Project.” What Is Digital Writing and Why Does It Matter? National Writing Project, n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.

Rajchel, Jen, “Consider the Audience,” in Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning, ed. Jack Dougherty and Tennyson O’Donnell (University of Michigan Press/Trinity College ePress edition, 2014), http://epress.trincoll.edu/webwriting/chapter/rajchel.

Rorabaugh, Pete. “Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs – Hybrid Pedagogy.”Hybrid Pedagogy. Digital Pedagogy, 21 June 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.

Technology today encompasses most every part of our lives. Whether you are waiting for the new iPhone to be released, listening to the radio on your way to work, tuning into the nightly news on TV, or even just shopping online, technology surrounds us. More specifically, I cannot imagine my day to day life without the internet and social media. From every Facebook post, Buzzfeed article, blog entry, or online newspaper article I read, I realize digital writing was involved.

Older generations complain about how these days, “we are always on the internet” and do not “read real books or articles anymore.” We are also “always on our phones” and “do not really engage and talk to people” as much anymore. These claims play to the idea that today’s generations are less social and less connected with one another. I completely disagree. While primary face to face interactions for communication and reading in analogue are more practices of the past, I think it is safe to say that we are as interconnected with people through digital writing and technology than generations before could ever imagine.

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How does digital writing connect us all?

Digital writing serves as a platform for people to stay connected through not only reading but also participating. Brian Carroll in his book Writing for Digital Media in the chapter “Blogito, Ergo, Sum” emphasizes how the tools of web publishing have revolutionized culture, society and mass media in ways that involve people to participate, not only take in (137). He describes that online writing through many different forms- blogging, journalism, and desktop publishing, have added many job opportunities as companies and businesses have taken advantage of the outlets these can have in connections to clients and publicity through blogs, online articles, promotions, etc.

Carroll focuses on one form of digital writing, blogs, to prove his points about how this form can interconnect people on many levels. One level of this is the “connective tissue” that blog posts create through the use of hyperlinks to other sources that are just one click away (139). This allows for readers to instantly go to another source to learn more information about a certain topic.

Carroll also asserts that the wide variety of topics that blogs talk about can engage readers because of the forms of expression that the platform allows. This interest in expression promotes interconnectivity not only through reader fellowship, but with the ability for readers to comment and interact with the author and the audience who is reading the same things they are. Carroll says that “the internet has empowered ordinary citizens to become fact-checkers and analysts… people can collaborate online, sharing knowledge, sources and ideas, and challenging each other’s facts” (Carroll 143).

Sean McCarthy and Andrew Witmer in their article “Notes Toward a Value’s Driven Framework for Digital Humanities Pedagogy” describe the values in digital pedagogy, one of them being collaboration, touching on Carroll’s idea. Digital pedagogy is the attempt to use technology to alter ways of teaching and learning. McCarthy and Witmer describe how digital humanities and writing offer critical thinking, collaboration, production, and openness to those who participate.

The digital humanities challenge us to think critically using the variety of sources, types of audience, access, and tools that can be implemented to get what we put online out to audiences. The collaborative aspect of the digital humanities stems from the creation of new knowledge when we work with others to form new ideas. Digital tools allow for creative ways to produce what it is you are writing, for example different interfaces, or even something as simple as a meme can produce visual effects that grab a reader in. And lastly, the open nature of the internet acts as an invitation to get everyone involved, whether it be through writing, commenting, sharing, etc.

http://www.gmbtechnology.com/

How can you get involved and make your writing useful?

The digital community is open to all people who want to get involved. Rebecca Blood in her article “Weblogs: A History and Perspective” demonstrates how user friendly the digital community is through websites that have predesigned interface and customizable features to make sites your own. She writes how blogs these days also allow writers the freedom to post what they want without having to go through channels of approval. Blood also articulates how blog posts can be updated, changed, and filtered in order to keep the information posted relevant, accurate, and up to date. As a blogger, she says you have the ability to “by virtue of simply writing down whatever is on [the] mind” confront the writer with their own thoughts, leading to a more developed opinion, increased confidence in their perspective, and finally helps nurture them from consumers of online writing into the creators of it.

But once you start getting involved with online writing, how can you make it useful, read, and shared? Sean Michael Morris in his article “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-Order Thinking in the Digital Humanities” argues that there is “no value to our writing except as it is made useful.” Morris proposes that because digital writing is an action, meaning it can always be altered, that the words have “lives of their own.” The words, and growth of theses words, in order to implore a meaning, are determined by the community they are read by. Morris thus argues that the “real novelty of digital writing comes when words are repurposed, when they… discover meaning lying below meaning.” Your digital writing becomes meaningful through association with this online community, where your words become active in collaboration with others thoughts.

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Digital Writing is Useful for More than Social Media

John Muthyala in his article “Whither the Digital Humanities?” explains how the digital environment is useful for more than just social media and entertainment because it alters how we receive all types of information found on the internet. He argues that web writing can be viewed as emerging and emergent. Digital humanities and online writing are seen as emerging because they have grown within their use as a platform for journals, books, courses, and programs- just to name a few. However, the digital humanities can also be seen as emergent because of the response to changes in technology, and “generating flexible, for-the-moment modes to appropriate the digital to study” with tools to enhance communication, learning, and entertainment. Technology impacts all fields of knowledge, learning, and communication.

McCarthy and Witmer’s model fosters larger discussions about the importance of digital writing and the community it brings. They promote the idea that there is a large space for the use of digital pedagogy on campus’s as a way to expand on the humanities. Professors have the ability to connect with students outside of the classroom with online assignments that allow for students to critique, learn, and share the work that others do with the platforms that digital writing offers. McCarthy and Witmer understand the digital humanities as “central rather than peripheral” meaning that today, with such time and energy spent on the internet and technology, that it is key to take learning and scholarship onto digital platforms as a way to further study and academia.

via GIPHY

How I Think Digital Writing Affects Us Inside and Outside of the Classroom

There are many valuable things that I have taken away so far about digital writing through my class. One thing I find most important is the flexibility that this type of writing can teach. Throughout class we focus on good writing skills that can be applied to the various platforms used when writing on the internet. Whether it be how to create insightful comments on a peer’s post that draw on their argument and engage with them further, or writing on our own blog for an audience, our adaptability makes us useful “players” in the online writing field. Writing not only your own content but also knowing how commenting, having the ability to share posts, and fact check other’s writing fosters a collaboration within the online community.

Within the classroom setting we engage with other peer’s writing, but also in the beginning of this “blogging journey” were encouraged to seek out blogs that we could use as inspiration. This forced us to branch out into the expansive community of blogs that are out there and learn from these already established.

The practice of sharing blogs with just a simple link, tweet, or Facebook post, makes even stranger’s blogs accessible and now connected to whoever shared it. This showed us in the classroom that anyone could search and find our blogs, thus holding us accountable for how our writing would be seen. Did we put our best ideas forward? Were we concise in our thinking, and would what we wrote be a beneficial addition to the online community?

When I think about how learning to write for digital environments will affect future internships, and jobs, I realize how beneficial it truly is. While online writing can sometimes be thought of as “less serious” and more “conversational,” it shares the need for strong writing skills and a level of engagement by the reader that all types of academic writing have. Digital writing taught me to be adaptable and ready to revise my claims because the digital environment is always changing and in collaboration with others viewpoints on what is being said.

For my American Studies major we often read articles that talk about social movements and how popular culture influences these. The digital environment in today’s society is a large factor in many social movements and issues, so knowing the other side of that- being a writer- I can have a unique perspective when analyzing these issues.

With future internships and jobs, knowing how to write digitally and navigate to find strong online writing will be a key for research and creativity. Developing these skills in this class has opened my writing up to a whole new platform that offers an expansive network of opportunity to engage in.

It is inevitable to interact with digital writing in this day and age whether you want to admit to it or not. But actually taking the step to further immerse yourself in the online community through writing, researching, or even commenting on articles you enjoy, will broaden your knowledge and opportunities in most fields today and be truly beneficial in the long run.

Works Cited

Blood, Rebecca. “Weblogs: A History and Perspective.” Rebecca’s  Pocket. N.p., 7 Sept. 2000. Web.

Carroll, Brian. “”Blogito, Ergo Sum.” Writing for Digital Media. New York, NY: Routledge, 2010. N. pag. Print.

McCarthy, Sean, and Andrew Witmer. “Notes Toward a Values-Driven Framework for Digital Humanities Pedagogy – Hybrid Pedagogy.” Hybrid Pedagogy. N.p., 05 June 2016. Web.

Morris, Sean Michael. “Digital Writing Uprising: Third-Order Thinking in the Digital Humanities – Hybrid Pedagogy.” Hybrid Pedagogy. N.p., 08 Oct. 2012. Web. Nov. 2016.

Muthyala, John. “Whither the Digital Humanities? – Hybrid Pedagogy.” Hybrid Pedagogy. N.p.,05 June 2016. Web. Nov. 2016.