Internet writing

1. Internet writing Skills: none Concepts: importance, frequency, quality and types of Internet writing, text as a data type This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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

3. Internet writing is important When hiring, Jason Fried looks for: • A positive attitude • A well rounded, flexible person • A quick learner • Trustworthiness – an independent worker • A good writer Probably the most important thing and probably one of the surprises is you have to work with people who are good writers. All five criteria (2m 42sec) Writing (34 sec)

4. Writing is important for technical people Being able to write clearly, to write English clearly is more important to developing useful software I think than almost anything else. Joel Spolsky, 2009. Listen:

5. Parents and teens say writing is important • 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

6. Students do a lot of Internet reading and writing Watch the video • I spend 3 1/2 hours a day online. • I will write 42 pages for class this semester ... and over 500 pages of email. • I will read 8 books this year ... 2,300 Web pages and 1,281 FaceBook profiles. • I buy $100 textbooks that I never open. Michael Wesch's class survey, more information

7. US undergraduates are online a lot How many hours per week do you spend online? • 44.8% post videos on the Web • 41.9% post on wikis • 37.3% contribute to blogs Educause study of US undergraduates More information

8. Children write too • 75% said they write regularly -- online and off. • 56% said they had a profile on a social networking site, such as Bebo or Facebook. 24% said that they have their own blog. • Children who write on a blog were more likely than others to enjoy writing in general and to enjoy writing for family/friends. • Children with blogs and social network profiles were confident, more likely to believe themselves to be good writers than others. Survey of UK children ages 9-16, more information

9. Undergrads are writing more and better • Students are writing more than ever • Some of their “life writing” is profound • Their writing is done to achieve some purpose or goal Stanford five year study on undergraduate writing, more information

10. Internet writing is easily copied

11. Internet writing is different

12. Conversational writing

13. Writing short documents Internet Print

14. Collaborative writing

15. Tips for • Conversational writing • Writing short documents • Collaborative writing

16. Summary We will focus on three types of Internet writing • Writing short documents • Conversational writing • Collaborative writing Internet writing is • An important skill • Done frequently • High quality • Easily copied

17. Self-study questions Do you recall the three types of Internet writing we will cover in our class? We saw four characteristics of Internet writing – do you recall them? Do you agree that Internet writing is an important professional skill? What have you written on the Internet today? During the last week? Have you done Internet writing for any of your classes? If so what did you do? What does Jason Fried look for when interviewing prospective employees?

18. Resources • Some blog posts on writing for the Internet: http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/search/label/writing • Beloit College mindset list, more information • Joel Spolsky’s talk on software design and development: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4044.html • Jason Fried’s talk on software design and development: http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail471.html • Pew survey on writing: http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/2009/12/findings-from-pew-survey-on-writing.html • Pew Project on the Internet in American Life: http://www.pewinternet.org/ • Michael Wesch’s class survey: http://cis471.blogspot.com/2008/03/characteristics-of-todays-students.html • Educause study of undergraduates and information technology: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0906/rs/ERS0906w.pdf • Survey of UK children’s writing: http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/2009/12/many-uk-children-write-on-internet-and.html • Stanford study of undergraduate writing: http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/2009/11/research-on-writing-for-internet.html