Skills: none Concepts: data types, the importance of writing in the Internet era, types of Internet documents This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Internet writing is important

Where does this topic fit? Internet concepts – Applications – Technology – Implications Internet skills – Application development – Content creation (text) – User skills

Content creation data types Video Image Text Audio

Internet writing is important Images from a video presenting the results of a class survey conducted by professor Michael Wescha videoclass survey

Good writing requires careful reading

Internet reading and writing is more about my school and social life than my professional life: true or false?

Jason Fried’s hiring criteria Probably the most important thing and probably one of the surprises is you have to work with people who are good writers. A positive attitude A well rounded, flexible person A quick learner Trustworthiness – an independent worker A good writer Writing (34 sec) All five criteria (2m 42sec) Listen to the audio excerpts from Jason Fried’s talk.

83% of parents of teens feel there is a greater need to write well today than there was 20 years ago. 94% of black parents say that good writing skills are more important now than in the past, compared with 82% of white parents and 79% of English-speaking Hispanic parents. 86% of teens believe good writing is important to success in life. Pew survey, more information Parents and teens say writing is important

Short documents Conversational writing Collaborative writing Types of Internet writing

“[Texting] is a whole new way of writing that young people are developing, which they're using alongside their ordinary writing skills. … It's an expansion of their linguistic repertoire.” TED talk on texting Very short documents – text messages and chats Do you consider texting to be writing? Is it used professionally or just for personal conversations?

Very short documents – tweets

Summary

Self-study questions 1.Without looking back, do you recall Jason Fried’s hiring criteria? 2.Without looking back, do you recall the kinds of Internet writing we will focus on? 3.Give some examples of professional writing on the Internet. 4.Does texting have a place in professional life? 5.Does Twitter have a place in professional life? 6.John Mcwhorter says texting is changing writing – give an example of a non-conventional abbreviation, term or convention you use while texting.

Resources Joel Spolsky’s talk on software design and development: Jason Fried’s talk on software design and development: Pew survey on writing: on-writing.html on-writing.html Pew Project on the Internet in American Life: Presentation on Michael Wesch’s class survey: Educause study of undergraduates and information technology: Survey of UK children’s writing: internet-and.html internet-and.html Stanford study of undergraduate writing: internet.html internet.html