End-of-Semester Blog

1. Write an end-of-semester blog post that catalogs, explores and details how your writing for and understanding of digital environments have changed.

• Discuss how your writing has changed since the beginning of the course.
• What you have learned in the course that you think will prove most
  useful going forward.
• What unanswered questions remain for you.
• How this course could be enhanced, improved, changed.
• What the instructor could perhaps do to better facilitate maximum learning.
• Discuss how your writing has changed since the beginning of the course.

A.) Discuss how your writing has changed since the beginning of the course.

My writing changed because I have made a greater effort to cater to an online audience. And that includes writing short, taut sentences. Removing introductory clauses. Giving equal emphasis to how the words read and look onscreen.

Or, in other words, thinking about how to present my writing in digestible chunks. The key I learned is to rewrite text made for a print publication — say a brochure or magazine article — into short paragraphs. The Web reader skips and skims over the text, so short paragraphs make online content easier to consume. The tools I consistently turn to increase scannability on my Web pages include:

• Using meaningful headings
• Using bulleted lists (my favorite content organizational tool)
• Using highlighting and emphasis
• Placing the most important information first

(All bulleted points provided by Hot Text: Web Writing That Works by Jonathan and Lisa Price. 2002.)

I have forwarded a lot of the readings and discussion points to my colleagues and they are beginning to incorporate those lessons into their own writing.

B.) What you have learned in the course that you think will prove most useful going forward?

I now understand links must give the Web site visitor an idea of what content will appear upon clicking the hyperlink. I’ll go back for a moment to my first days as the Web editor for the Biotechnology Center.

The first page I created for my company in 2003 was a primer on the state’s activities to nurture biotechnology. A feeling of accomplishment washed over my supervisors after they counted 21 one-word links scattered throughout the 319-word article. My supervisors said, “Great use of hyperlinks.”

I look at the page today and all I can say is “Ugh.”

Now that I have nearly completed the digital writing class, I will always remember links are signs along a highway offering suggestions to the web traveler where to go next. The page in question led too many visitors into traffic jams. I now design pages that eliminate any confusion (think “mystery meat” navigation) relating to the site’s navigational and linking hierarchy.

So I now spend two hours a week reviewing pages to create more descriptive links, in an effort to make www.ncbiotech.org a true web portal to all things biotechnology in North Carolina.

Some examples:

• Library Home Page
• Intellectual Exchange Home Page

C.) What unanswered questions remain for you?

I would have to say at this point, I am still struggling to decide how to best craft a style guide governing writing and editing for the Biotechnology Center Web site. As a former newspaper/magazine reporter for four years, I am partial to the Associated Press Style Guide. So that means, for example, writing “Web site” as two words. Other manuals I have studied write “website” as one word (Wired magazine).

So which is the better choice?

And since I work for an organization that does not have a large roster of writers on board, I am trying to determine the right balance between using the Associated Press and other style guides while allowing for some “author flexibility,” as Brian Carroll wrote (Writing for Digital Media study book) to meet my co-workers’ needs.

The final question would be how to entice my co-workers to use the guide.

D.) How this course could be enhanced, improved, changed (be brutal!)

“Writing for Digital Media” was one of the two classes I enrolled in to satisfy the Certificate in Technology and Communication requirements. So my suggestions will focus on three areas:

• Blogging Software
• Writing Length
• Class Standing

Blogging Software

I would recommend allowing students to use any blogging software such as Blogger or Live Journal. My time on WordPress.com was one marred with frustrations. After hand-coding my pages, the blogging system did not display my writing samples properly.

Writing Length

I’m sure a few posters have mentioned the slight confusion regarding writing length. One class rule is to write short and tight, but yet, the some assignments call for at least 700 words.

Class Standing

I would estimate I spent about 12 hours a week studying the assigned readings, thinking and posting messages on the class discussion board and completing the assignments. Yet, I never had a true sense if I was exceeding Brian Carroll’s expectations as a student in this graduate-level class. I know Mr. Carroll is not a “vending machine for grades,” but I often wondered how I was truly performing in the class. I valued Genie Tyburski’s grading scale for JOMC 714: Database Research.

E.) What the instructor could perhaps do to better facilitate maximum learning.

Mr. Carroll, I think you did an admirable job in offering constructive criticism to our writing. You also offered points and readings that allowed the class to think about the digital writing world in a different context.

This was the first class in my academic career where “burn out” did not become an issue. So for that, I thank you. And I don’t think you need to ask this question in the future because the students enrolling in your class are serious about contributing and growing as writers in the digital world.