The Digital Environment
Though I consider myself somewhat technology and internet savvy, I had, upon entry to JOMC 711, little experience with web publishing as a producer. I was an early adopter of web technology as a consumer. E-mail and communication of Word documents and spreadsheets were familiar to me, but the production of web content was still a mystery.
As a result of having started from a very basic understanding of how internet content is constructed and utilized, my knowledge has expanded in several directions.
Early Modules (one to four)
The first reading: “How to write with style” from Kurt Vonnegut provided a good deal of encouragement to me as I looked forward to developing writing skills atrophied from a career of writing clinical and research reports. Such reports, I realized as I read this piece, are not written with consideration of it’s readership. They are produced with purposes of precision of description and with a need for completeness and thoroughness. Redundency is valued in scientific writing. Self expression is extraneous.
I was encouraged because I believed that the principles outlined by Vonnegut of brevity, sympathy for the reader and injection of personality into written works provided a focus for my efforts to produce offerings that would be read by a public interested in my topic.
For the first writing exercise I chose a creative work as it lent itself best to challenging my incorporation of Vonnegut’s very practical ideas. The feedback from my partner and from the professor was very helpful in identifying areas of weakness in my writing that have been and will continue to be a focus of work in future course efforts. I believe that my writing is less stilted and direct as a result. Shorter, more direct sentences and elimination of verbiage has been a goal toward which I have made progress during this course. To some extent the “Principles of Good Writing” from the module 1&2 of the course workbook guided my efforts. I hope that my writing now reflects elements of brevity, consistency, use of the active voice and the avoidance of complex sentence structures. Continued improvement in simple things such as proofing and grammar have continued to dog my submissions. I am committed to the defined goal of zero tolerance of these writing oversights.
Other early readings were interesting, but I had a good deal of difficulty relating to the theoretical concepts, particularly those of Bolton and, to a lesser extent of Mitchell, as they attempted apparently to draw some abstract theory of internet content and process. I found these works to be perhaps early attempts at producing a theory about a phenomenon (Internet media) that is in rapid transition. I found them to be largely unhelpful and even obscure. Other readings providing observations about the growth and influence of the world wide web were interesting and served as a basis for more specific ideas presented later in the course that I found to be fascinating, such as blogging. These modules had little influence on my writing beyond creating further motivation to learn.
As we moved into discussion of eye-tracking, I was skeptical. As I worked through the assignment I realized how helpful this information could be in the design of a page or a site. The emphasis on the scanning practices of web users and the ways in which the creator of a page could capitalize on this knowledge convinced me that this was important and useful information. In fact, I believe that this laid the groundwork for some of the readings that I found most useful in subsequent modules. I had my first opportunity to experiment with digital writing when I revised my basic writing sample to digital format. I can now produce pop-ups, hyperlinks and provide a visual impact with the use of graphics.
During this intial phase the textbook served an an excellent companion in providing detailed practical information about the basics of writing. It also emphasized the need to relate to the expectations and short attention span of internet viewers. As I put these ideas into form with the writer’s workshop, I was developing habits of design that were intended to improve usability.
Modules five to seven
The reading that was most helpful in providing me with a grasp of the practice of producing content for the web were the Web Style Guide by Lynch and Horton. This very detained handbook offered sensible and concrete suggestions with well argued rationales for how to relate to an on-line readership. Concepts presented in this work including need for advanced planning and conceptualization of textural displays left me with an approach to the task of designing frameworks for digital content that were more likely to attract the interest of readers. This information was of critical importance in completing the complementary assignments. I will now consider not only content, but issues of visual appeal and ease of navigation as I write for a web based readership.
The journalism module made me a thirty-day-wonder reporter. While this may not be completely accurate, each of the readings here increased my appreciation for the responsibilities, opportunities and limitations of the journalistic endeavor. My learning increased dramatically here as each reading provided more new information about journalistic practice and ethics. I learned to make myself invisible as I related information provided by sources. I no longer will write with the elusive goal of objectivity. My writing is now more transparent. I feel confident that I can produce an acceptable newspaper article and revise it for digital publication.
The reporting assignment, in addition to introducing me to practical standards of journalistic practice, provided me with experiences that will serve me well into the future. A confrontation with editorial standards at the newspaper in my town provided the impetus for considering the value of journalistic ethics in a way that an abstract article could not. It has also provided me with an entree to a future publishing platform that I intend to use as I pursue my interest in medical journalism. My article was published in its entirety in the Washington Daily News. It has also been read in its digital form available on this blog site. As a result of this exercise as well as the blogging exercise, my efforts at digital publication will forever be “works in progress”, regularly updated and added to.
This module also introduced concepts of credibility and public support for journalism during a time when the function of the reporter was being challenged by the emergence of “on-line reporting”, a theme that would fortunately recur and be built upon. My writing has been consequently influenced by need for accuracy of facts and I have begun to develop an approach toward correction of errors in published material for print or for digital publication.
Discussion of hyperlinks and credibility had a great impact, I believe, on how I will choose to link to the content of other web sites. While initially I may have had a tendency to be “hyperlink crazy”, I now would consider carefully the effect of including a link on user readability and credibility.
Societal Aspects of Digital Media – modules eight to twelve
Modules eight through eleven were of great interest to me as we explored the consequences that the digital revolutions has had on social interactions.
The rapidly changing social universe of the web was explored and a variety of opinions offered about how the web will effect social interactions in the future.
The phenomenon of blogging was introduced leading to an enlightening experience of providing real time reporting of events by sequential posts close to the locale and at the time that they were taking place. In addition to providing for a fascinating weekend of learning, the exercise on blogging left me wanting to know more about the multimedia aspects of the internet, as the communication of my experience would have been greatly enhanced by this ability. I will continue to contribute to blogs in my community. I am able to produce a blog with support of appropriate design, links and graphics. I did not have this capability before entering the course.
Issues of editing were somewhat foreign to me, but interesting in the abstract. The preparation for development of a content piece provided another challenge, not so much for the production of content, but for the design and formatting challenges that it presented. I chose an area that intersected my two great interests, boating and medicine. I provided a ”review and recommendations” piece on seasickness. Some of the intended visual impact of this offering was limited by my lack of experience with the web publishing platform. It served, again, as a basis for setting goals for future learning. I have produced a “Power Point” version of this material that I have presented to a regional boating group as a live presentation. I found that this medium was easier for me to work with. I intend to explore how I can transform the effect provided in such a presentation to the digital publishing format.
Modules twelve to fifteen
I found that I was able to learn more about the application of digital media to a business and the formal work environment. While I am not likely to be involved with work such as the management of intranets or the production of press releases, the information seemed generally quite useful. I could apply the principles learned if necessary.
I was quite fascinated by the readings and discussion related to the “long tail” phenomenon described by Chris Anderson. As theory, this seemed to be the most cogent expression of a concept presented during the course for elucidating various internet influences as this explosion of new found energy continues to evolve. I read the short book with the same title that introduced me to Anderson’s broadening of this theory.
As the modules treated topics with broader implications, the study book seemed to provide an increasing number of ways in which future efforts could be directed.
I believe that my journey towards producing credible internet reporting of news from my field of medicine has begun. The path to the future is somewhat more clear. I now have many skills that I lacked four months ago.
I will continue to participate in other certificate courses and continue to produce content in the form of blogs, newspaper and magazine submissions in my community and beyond. I am now more confident in my approach to this task.
Many questions remain unanswered. My immediate priority will be to focus on mastering the software aspects of web publishing to assure that I am not distracted while attempting to provide useful and readable content.
Suggestions for Improvement
As I had mentioned in the mid-term comments, the WordPress platform has been an enormous and time consuming obstacle to completing assignments that have acceptable appearance. WordPress is, for the most part, quite easy to use, but when it is naughty, it is very, very naughty. I have had a very difficult time with spacing and headline formatting in particular. Whatever I did the blog would not retain.
I do not know if another blog platform would be more manageable. I do believe that I must be exposed now to a variety of software approaches to web design and publishing if I expect to make very much more progress in digital writing. My best single suggestion is for hands-on support for whatever technological infrastructure is utilized in this course.
Given my lack of experience and my reflections about my reactions to the JOMC 711 course material, I am reluctant to offer advise about significant changes to content. I have learned much more that I expected from the readings, assignments and class interactions. I would suggest less emphasis of the highly theoretical readings mentioned before. I would like to pass along the observation that too little coverage is given to managing the electronic tranformation of words and sentences when divorced from vocal inflection or body language. Humor and expression of anger or annoyance are sometime indistinguishable in web communication. I have been misunderstood several times as a result of this curious phenomenon. I will be more thoughtful in the future in producing electronic posts that consider that the reader has no way to appreciate non-verbal subtleties within this medium. This impediment to communication bears further discussion and exploration.
Readings most useful were the Vonnegut piece, the Web Style Guide by Lynch and Horton, the Jakob Nielson’s readability articles and associated links. The readings on journalism including the New York Times Ethics Handbook and Haimans Best Practices were quite useful in introducing me to the practice of journalism.
The reading with module four, “Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective” was somewhat pivotal, I thought, in emphasizing how writing for digital content differed from that of print media. Wallaces “Web Writing” was similarly helpful.
McAdams’ “It’s all in the Links“ provided new and useful information and ideas. Other readings were informative but less important to me. Taken as a whole I believed the collection of readings was excellent.
The most interesting were the pieces on blogging, social networking and those covering the “Long Tail“.
The course workbook, authored by our instructor, and about to be put into textbook publication was an invaluable companion throughout the course. I found the content to be most useful and I appreciated the many references to other materials, many of which I enjoyed exploring.
Given the range and abilities of my fellow students in this class, the instructor’s involvement was optimal. I have been fortunate to take this course with a group blessed with an abundance of intelligence, insight and accomplishment. I have greatly appreciated the experience.
