What is Style?: Part Deuce – The Finale!

Although this class was just 7.5 weeks long, there was a lot to be learned in a very short amount of time.
After looking over my last sixteen blog entries, I really got a feel for what I expect Dr. Krause wanted us to carry away from this course. At the beginning of the semester, my response for the question of “What is Style?” was:

“I think that style is each writer’s way in which he or she writes. Just as each individual person has their own style in the way that we dress, walk, etc., we all have our own writing style.”

And that was my best stab at it. Now that we are approaching the last two days of class, I feel that I have a better idea on how to answer that question. I think that style has to do with a whole slue of things:

• From the technologies that writers choose to publish their writing with – whether it be the ol ink on paper, a blog such as this one, a wiki page, a set of comics, or even a YouTube video,
• To  the grammar and punctuation rules that are followed, and broken,
• To the voice that a writer chooses to use.

I have learned so much, not only on how to become a better writer, but the many tools that are available to me as a writer to help better illustrate my point.
I really feel that the flow of this class was very appropriate, starting from writing technologies, and exploring the technologies that we were already familiar with, moving onto style, to visual rhetoric, and the idea that writing can be anything from a pencil and a piece of paper to a series of photos, and onto making and producing our very own YouTube video.
As this class ties up, I can walk away with a whole new definition for what I view as writing, technologies to help writers, and the many tools that are out there for writers.

Peer Review Recap, Part 4

Peer review is always something that I find helpful, mostly because it helps to bounce ideas off of other people.  I usually submit an unfinished paper because I am unsure what direction I really  want to go in, and I want to hear what my classmates think about what I have thus far. This time, I just had the input of one other classmate, Deborah. She was very helpful,  I was just a little bummed to only get one person’s perspective on my writing, and I am sure she felt the same way.
I find it helpful to read my classmates’ writing as well because it really gives me a feel for their interpretation of the assignment as well.
Throughout this term I have received some very  helpful advice, and it was fun using new technologies to peer review such as google.docs and the style wiki. I was a little disappointed that the last two papers didn’t get a new technology to go along with our peer review.
I always try to be as helpful as I know how to be in peer review, because that is the kind of responses I want as well. I don’t focus as much on the punctuation or spelling as I do asking questions. I always find it when my peers ask me questions that makes for a better paper, whereas if they just focus on my errors (which I usually catch while writing my final draft) I don’t benefit as much from that. Fortunately, this time around I received both kind of input!
Overall, this was a positive experience and I think that it has  helped my writing process.

YouTube/Low-bridge videos: Are they good? Are they bad? Are they writing?

When the “Video Collaboration” section of this class was presented, I honestly have to say that I was less than enthused!
Much like Juhasz in her piece Why Not to Teach on YouTube, I had always thought that YouTube was just a site filled with a bunch of low-quality videos that held nothing of any significance. However, my mind, unlike Juhasz’s, was soon to be changed.
My first annoyance with this section was that we were being forced to watch a video on YouTube that was almost an hour long!!! The LAST way I ever wanted to spend an hour was by watching a YouTube video about YouTube, but boy am I glad that I did. The second annoyance with this section of the course can be summed up in one word: collaboration (dun dun duuuunnn!). I have never had any desire to make a video to post on YouTube, I also have never had too many good experiences with group work. Making a video to post on YouTube collaboratively with a GROUP seemed like a little piece of hell to me. My opinion on this too was about to change.
I attended the optional, yet strongly encouraged face-to-face meeting mainly to voice my fears in person about being in a group. I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in my classmates, not because I don’t have faith in mankind at all, but more because this was an online class and I had never met any of these people. After the meeting I felt semi-better about the whole project, and I felt 10x better within fifteen minutes of speaking with my group. Everyone began chatting right away. It didn’t take long at all for us to come up with a topic OR assign “jobs” to everyone in the group. From there, one of our group members (who couldn’t make it to Ypsi) wrote the script (which was a very good script), we had a person that loved editing videos (she even called it a hobby), and we had two people (including myself) that were willing to “act.” From there, we all discussed possible times to record this video and everything fell into place nicely.
I think that this is a great way to round-out the semester and the class. The use of YouTube doesn’t only tie together everything we’ve already been learning about, but it challenges us (the students) to do something that I, personally, probably wouldn’t ever have done (post a video on YouTube). Also, throughout this course, Dr. Krause has been pairing YouTube videos along with his instructions and I have found these postings to really help explain things for me. One of my biggest fears with taking this class (I had never taken an online class before) was that it would be too impersonal and I wouldn’t feel like I was really taking anything away from the course. I really feel like YouTube helped to personalize this online course, and I can really see the benefits of using it, especially in a course such as this. YouTube not only put a face to the professor, it also gave him a voice that I feel would have been absent (not only his literal voice, but figurative voice) had it not been for some form of “low-bridge video.”
In this day and age, I think that it is imperative for us (the students and future educators of this fine nation and world) to be versatile in our teaching styles, learning styles, and in the technologies that our future students are going to be using! It is time for education and technology to become allies, not enemies!

Looking back at past readings, looking forward to the essay about the movie-making process

As this class has progressed, there has been the underlying theme of how technology has an effect on writing. That was expected, after all, the title of the class is Writing, Style, and Technology. However, instead of breaking the class up into those three elements, it has been focused, in one way or another, on all three throughout the semester.
We started the class off with readings and discussion on Plato, Ong, Carr, Baron and Manguel and their feelings on written word. Starting with Plato, we learned that back in his time, writing was viewed as a technology that would destroy man’s memory, make man lazy, and the inability for wisdom to be portrayed through writing.
As the course progressed, we changed gears from the technology aspect of the course, to style in writing. By looking at two style books: “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White and “Style:  Toward Clarity and Grace” by Williams. These books didn’t only bark style rules at their readers, but (Williams book especially) helped explain ways to become a more effective writer.
In the third section of the course, we went sort of combined style and technology in looking at written word together with images (focused on comics). We looked at two parts of two books, and read the entire book of “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud. This was my favorite part of the course. The readings were easy, but more importantly INTERESTING, and the project itself was a lot of fun.
Finally, we have reached the final portion of the course, the video portion. I thought that it was really fun that one of the readings was actually an (almost) hour long YouTube video (that was super interesting!).
All in all, the readings were all pertinent to the sections of the course, and to the course itself. I enjoyed almost all of them, with my only real complaint being with Anderson’s “Computers and Composition” and I could even see the importance in that reading, it was just a bit boring.

Peer Review Recap, Part 3

Throughout this class, I have seen improvement, and been increasingly more pleased, with each of the peer editing experiences.
I did like this time that there were fewer bells and whistles. What I mean by that is, because we weren’t using google.docs or the wiki, things seemed to run soother due to less confusion. Everyone knows how to use the discussion space on emuonline, and everyone (at least in my group) knows how to make comments on a piece using Microsoft Word.
As far as the feedback that I received, I found it to be very helpful. I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to take my paper in, and my group was helpful in both saying that they liked what direction I had gone in, and giving me helpful feedback on how to make my paper better.
This was the most helpful experience I had in peer editing for this class thus far, and I also felt that I had a better idea on what to look for in my peers’ papers. I feel that I provided much better feedback this time around because I have figured out what is expected by Dr. Krause. I tried to be very helpful not only fixing errors, but to give ideas.
I feel that this was a successful experience.

Reading and Writing about Comics ala McCloud, Part 2

For this blog entry, I checked out Maxine’s blog entry. Maxine did a comic entitled Porphyria’s Lover which is a poem by Robert Browning and put to comics by our beloved Scott McCloud. I think that McCloud did a great job of really helping me understand what the heck Robert Browning was trying to say in this poem.
In her blog entry, Maxine notes that McCloud, “a variety of pictorial representations from the realistic to the very abstract.” This is absolutely true, McCloud points out in his book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, “even when there is little or no distortion of the characters in a given scene, a distorted or expressionistic background will usually affect our “reading” of characters’ inner states. Certain patterns can produce an almost physiological effect in the viewer” (132). That is the basis of the comics in Porphyria’s Lover. Maxine also takes note of McCloud’s use of color in the comic as discussed in McCloud’s book, “the differences between black-and-white and color comics are vast and profound, affecting every level of the reading experience…through more expressive colors, comics can become an intoxicating environment of sensations that any color can give” (192). McCloud really utilizes the use of colors in this comic. Every single panel is filled with rich color. Now, because this is an online comic, the color costs are relatively cheap (actually, I am sure that color comes with the package – not costing anything more), so the same problems (color costs lots of money) that McCloud discusses in Chapter 8 of his book don’t apply. McCloud explains the troubles (high cost), and benefits (people like color), of including color, especially when it was a newer technology, to comics in print (187-191).
It is very interesting to me that McCloud chose a poem (that he didn’t write) to put pictures, and then transforming into comics. In Chapter 6, McCloud discusses the relationship between words and pictures in regards to comics. “Words and pictures in combination has had tremendous influence on its growth…and indeed, words and pictures have great powers to tell stories when creators fully exploit them both” (152). By putting both the poem (which didn’t have any pictures) and the pictures (which definitely help explain the poem better) the reader not only has a better understanding of the poem, the reader identifies more with the poem. I believe that Porphyria’s Lover (the comics) is additive. McCloud explains that additive is a type of picture/word combination where the pictures elaborate on the words, or vice versa (154). Obviously, the poem can stand on its own because I’m sure that Robert Browning never even dreamed that his poem would be transformed into comics. The pictures contribute to both the reader involvement with the comics and clarity.

Citation:
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.

Reading and Writing about Comics ala McCloud, Part 1

My Obsession With Chessby Scott McCloud is an online comic about his obsession since adolescent-hood with chess. McCloud talks about the many tournaments he played in as a youth, how it literally ran his life for a short while as a teen, and how chess played a part in his life as an adult, though it shared the obsession spotlight with comics at this point in his life, and never reached the heights of obsession as it did when he was a teenager. This comic is very long, and is a short autobiography on chess in his life.

In Scott McCloud’s book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, he breaks down comics explaining them in depth. It is interesting analyzing an online comic written by McCloud with McCloud’s book because although this comic is online, the format isn’t too different from the typical paper comics.
In chapter one of Understanding Comics, McCloud gives comics the following definition:

“n. plural in form, used with a singular verb. 1. Juxtaposed pictoral and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” (20).

McCloud further explains that although this definition opens a lot of doors, it closes the possibility that a single panel could be considered comics (20-21). McCloud’s comic My Obsession With Chess is definitely not a single panel picture though, it is a very long comic!

In chapter 3 of Understanding Comics, McCloud breaks down the different types of panel-to-panel transitions. He puts breaks them into six different groups:

• type 1: moment-to-moment panel transitions, 
• type 2: action-to-action panel transitions,
• type 3: subject-to-subject panel transitions,
• type 4: scene-to-scene panel transitions,
• type 5: aspect-to-aspect panel transitions, and
• type 6: non-sequitur panel transitions (70-74). 

McCloud goes on to explain that after a random sampling of comics in America, the panel-to-panel transition used most often is the action-to-action, next is the subject-to-subject, next scene-to-scene, then aspect-to-aspect with non-sequitur and moment-to-moment panel transitions being used the least often (75).
I attempted multiple times to try and break down this comic (My Obsession With Chess) into the six categories, but failed miserably…I should probably start with small, simpler comics.
I’m looking forward to finishing this book and learning even more about comics.

Citation:
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.

Picturing Texts on the Web

In light of the recent events, and due to the fact that I am a Detroiter, the website that I chose that was both interesting and compelling in design to me was the General Motors website.
The first page of the website is a picture of a big old SUV (how American) in the middle of the woods (even more American!) with three blue buttons across the middle of the page, each a link. The first link is titled “Our Mission,” the second “Our Vehicles,” and the third “Our Company.”
Just as it is pointed out in Picturing Texts:  Composition in a Visual Age, “All texts are created by a person or persons for some purpose. A good way to begin thinking about a text is to ask who wrote the words or created the image or designed the graphic, what the subject is, and who the intended audience is. When you identify this information, you can begin to draw conclusions about what the author or authors wanted to accomplish and why the text was created” (14). The texts on the homepage of GM’s website is very simple, from the images to the words. As I mentioned above, the SUV is in the woods and light is poking through the trees; this is a very simple image. As far as the words that are found on the image, “Our Mission,” “Our Vehicles,” and “Our Company,” I believe that GM is drawing our attention to the basics: what they’re about, what they’re selling, and who they are.
The three links in the middle of the picture are all symmetrical: placed an even distance from one another, in the center of the page both vertically and horizontally (26). Along with the actual image itself which has the SUV located on the right of the page at an angle towards the center and the light peering through the trees is located at the left of the picture shining towards the middle of the page.
By GM using three phrases, all two words each, and all beginning with the word “Our,” I believe that they are putting the emphasis on all of us and taking it away from the company itself. GM didn’t say, GM’s Mission, although it is obvious that is who’s mission it is (you are at gm.com), but the emphasis is on “our,” not “GM the company that just filed bankruptcy and is going to close down seven local plants.” “In most images, emphasis can be created by composition, by choosing and arranging elements in order to direct the viewers’ eyes to whatever the designer wants them to notice” (34). GM is clearly taking the viewers’ attention and directing it on the three things that it wants viewers to see the most, what they want to portray as what they’re all about: their mission, their cars, their company. That’s what matters to them, and that is what they want to matter to their consumers (hopefully).
Although their homepage isn’t telling much of a story with written word (remember, there’s only six words on the homepage), GM is telling their own kind of story, they’re telling viewers what they want them to see. There isn’t obvious sequence, but there is sequence. They’ve broken things down to the bare essentials, they’re telling everyone their story, they’re telling everyone what they’re about, their very own narration. Also, the image portrays this same story,  the same narration, ” images can tell stories” (38). It is obvious that GM’s image is clearly reflecting the same narration that their words are telling…and it is all based on simplicity (getting back to the basics) and what this company stands for (or what they want you to believe that they stand for).
Anyway, check it out – GM’s website…and Picturing Texts: Composition in a Visual Age too if you’d like!
Citation
Faigley, Lester; Diana George, Anna Palchik, and Cynthia Selfe. Picturing Texts: Composition in a Visual Age. New York: WW Norton, 2004.

Peer Review Recap, Part 2

I think that peer review went better, all around, this time. For whatever reason, it seems that it was easier for folks to figure out the wiki than it was for them to figure out google docs (I think the toughest part about google docs is inviting people).
This time around, I got way more advice, not only from the people in my own group, but from everyone. I also enjoyed being able to read more people’s essays. I think that it is easier to figure out what I am supposed to be doing when I can see other examples; sometimes one example isn’t enough to make things click in my head.
Anyway, people seemed a bit more enthusiastic about this assignment, both in their writing and in their comments.
I got some helpful suggestions, especially one places that I could add in stuff from the readings – I always have trouble figuring that stuff out.
So I give this experience two thumbs up, one more thumb than I give the first peer review.
And that’s that.

What are others saying?

As I began to read over my fellow classmates’ blogs in order to prepare for this entry, I found a lot of things that I agreed with them on, but I was surprised at how much I disagreed with them on. It seems like the class is pretty divided on which book they like more and found more useful.
I think that Rose Spybrook really identified how I felt by saying, “I thought The Elements of Style was a bit difficult to read and ostentatious in its teachings, but after reading Style I would have to say that I much prefer Strunk and Williams.” I really thought that I was being tortured when I began to read The Elements of Style, that is until I began to read Style: Toward Clarity and Grace.
Thus far, I only have one regret for taking this class in the spring and online: we had to read Style in about a week. I would have loved to have been able to really discuss this book in class because some of it was just clear over my head. As I read Jordan Schotz’s blog post, I was surprised that she said that she believed, “Style: Toward Clarity and Grace should be required reading for every high schooler.  Most of the concepts wouldn’t be too hard to understand to a high schooler,” because I had such a hard time understanding some of the points Williams was making as a college senior. I really think that class discussion in a classroom would have helped to clear some of my questions up. I agree with Nicole Clingan when she said that she isn’t sure if she would even recommend Style to undergrads unless he or she was going to be a professional writer. Style did help with some of the basic problems that I often have with writing, but it was very hard for me to get through this book. Nicole also mentions that she would recommend The Elements of Style for high school students, and I absolutely agree. I think that The Elements of Style contains many rules that help to form a foundation for writers and if they don’t learn them young, it could be hard for them to figure them out later when they’re working on improving their writing style.
Maxine perfectly stated things by saying, “They both [The Elements of Style and Style: Towards Clarity and Grace] offer tools that can assist a writer to craft a better work, but, just as a hammer and saw provide a different purpose for the carpenter, the books fulfill a different need that the writer might have. The Strunk and White book provides the rules of grammar and the Williams books provides principles of sound writing.” I understand that both books are important in helping writers to become more effective and more clear, but I think that they are clearly meant for different levels of writers.