I'm feeling very "meta" after this week's reading, so I thought I would pose a question about reading and blogging:
My dad and I were talking about the way that academics use blogs. He was telling me that, at his seminary, students are getting into theological debates on a class blog. The quality of their discussion, however, is far below what they produce as written texts. I would posit that that is true of most things posted on blogs, facebook notes, myspace, etc.
Thus my question: Why is internet writing that is often much more widely disseminated than our classwork usually so sub par?
My first thought is that the act of producing a physical text creates a form of ownership for the work. Having to submit an actual piece of paper that exists in the physical world and not simply the electronic world forces the writer to take responsibility for the paper and its contents. I also wonder if the fact that blogs have a much looser structure (ie. no MLA conventions on how to set up the document, etc) allows the writer to treat the text as if it is inconsequential.
Thoughts?
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I think that those bloggers that I visit use their blogs in such a relaxed mode because they want their readers to see them in an actual conversation as opposed to a written text conversation. Many of these bloggers write like they speak in a relaxed-over-coffee-with-a-friend. I don’t see it as sub-par; I see it as conversational writing. While I don’t critique my colleagues’ vernacular or dialect, I do critique their writing; however, the blogging quality has certain aspects that are okay and others that are not so good. For instance if a blogger messes up with their subject/verb agreement, I am compelled to say, WTF. However, I don’t get uptight about a fragment or a comma splice because I see those elements of grammar as being adjustable for relaxed writing. I guess my comment is that blogging is just written verbal conversations and as such follow the rules of spoken English as opposed to the real writing that we do to impress friends and influence people.
ReplyDeleteOh, that Zelda is me, Jeannie.
ReplyDelete"I guess my comment is that blogging is just written verbal conversations"
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting thought. Do you think that blogs have genres just like written texts do?
I do think they have genres, but I think that they are not as easy defined as written texts. For instance, a blog may be all about politics and then one day the blogger will throw down a short story about his one night stand in Texas. Or, there may be a blog that's all about literature and then the kid does something spectacular and the blogger has to bring every day life into it. If that's what you mean.
ReplyDeleteI can offer five popular responses:
ReplyDelete1. The other person knows what I mean."
2. It's quicker."
3. I write like I talk; nobody talks like that (Standardized English) in real life."
4. It's not graded, and the only people who care [about grammar] are the English teachers."
5. This is becoming the 'new text.'"
The final two alternatives keep me up at night for fear that our focus of study will become obsolete as silicon and pixels replace ink and parchment.
I'm not sure that I agree with the equation of a paper with a sense of ownership. I think (and I think some ed research suggests) that writers feel an increased sense of responsibility for what they write when their work is published -- when people other than the teacher see it. I would expect, then, to see some high quality work on blogs... and sometimes I do. (An example that comes to mind is benandalice.com, but there are a million goodies out there.)
ReplyDeletePerhaps the poor quality of some blogging has to do with the dearth of instruction in forms other than the five-paragraph, expository essay. Our students are vaguely aware of genre and ideas about SE and the evolution of language like those Butters, I mean Prof. Chaos, points out above. They want to throw off convention and play with language, but have to develop from scratch their strategies for doing so. Could we improve the language and style of electronic communication by teaching students about narrative or by giving them the opportunity to write inventively in class? Or should we leave blogging alone and let it evolve outside of school models of literacy?
Go Megan. i totally agree that a writer's responsibility increases in an online-published text. And if it doesn't who cares!! Seriously,i think that bloggers are more aware of the universality of their writings and the wider range of their audience. they are ideologially driven (not grade), and the last thing bloggers need is English teachers. Besides, imperfect writing might also have some nice things about being imperfect like the sense of grandeur it bring to English teachers when the find a comma splice.
ReplyDeleteRe: The assertion that electronic writing is poor compared to hard-copy writing; I'd want to see more evidence. I enjoy experimenting with textual/linguistic responses to the speed of chatting online; and the speed of readers' attentiveness. Since I first started using the web, I have assumed it to be a good thing for textual people like ourselves; a new relevance perhaps for writing and writing instruction and experimentation. There is something about the web that demands language be fresh, inventive, and rigorously economical with its word/meaning ratio.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I think it (the difference in quality) probably has to do with bloggers' self-perception as writers or speakers. Being a writer myself, I always bring myself to the task of creating texts as a writer, even to the point of subordinating the specific task to linguistic nuance and word play. But web writers who see themselves as speakers and don't bring themselves to electronic texts as writers may see blogging as an informal discursive forum. They may only be writers when they have to be.
ReplyDelete