Internet writing is different and important
Skills: none
IT concepts: Importance of Internet writing,
types of Internet writing, extent of Internet
writing
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Where does this topic fit?
• Internet concepts
– Applications
– Technology
– Implications
• Internet skills
– Application development
– Content creation (text)
When hiring, Jason Fried, founder of 37 Signals, a
leading Internet software company looks for good
writers:
“Probably the most important thing, and
probably one of the surprises, is you have to
work with people who are good writers.”
“Everybody has to be a good writer.”
Jason Fried
(34 sec)
Jason Fried
Joel Spolsky says writing is important
The co-founder of Fog Creek, a leading Internet software
company:
Being able to write clearly, write English clearly is
more important to developing useful software, I think,
than almost anything else. The full podcast, 2009.
(15 sec)
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
Internet writing is different
One of our content-creation data types is text – written
documents. Three types of writing are common on the
Internet:
• Writing short documents
• Conversational writing
• Collaborative writing
Some blog posts on writing for the Internet:
http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/search/label/writing
The class of 2013
• They have never used a card catalog to find a book.
• Text has always been hyper.
• They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.
• They have always watched wars, coups, and police arrests unfold
on television in real time.
• Everyone has always known what the evening news was before the
Evening News came on.
Beloit College Mindset List, more information
Children write regularly, enjoy writing
and are confident
• 75% of young people said they write regularly -- online and off.
• 56% of young people said they had a profile on a social
networking site, such as Bebo or Facebook. 24% said that they
have their own blog.
• Young people who write on a blog were more likely than young
people who do not write on a blog to enjoy writing in general (57%
vs. 40%) and to enjoy writing for family/friends in particular (79%
vs. 55%).
• Young people with a blog (61%) as well as young people with a
profile on a social networking site (56%) also displayed greater
confidence, believing themselves to be good writers.
Survey of UK children ages 9-16, more information
US Undergrad writing
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
Undergrads write 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
Kansas State
undergrad experience
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
Is this is your brain on …
MTV
Multi-tasking
Hypertext
Video games
More information
Internet writing is easy to copy
If Internet writing is different and
important, so you should work on it.
• Writing short documents
• Conversational writing
• Collaborative writing
Some blog posts on writing for the Internet:
http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/search/label/writing
A few questions
We discussed three common types of writing on the
Internet. Without looking back, do you recall them?
Can you give examples of each?
Have you done each? What, for example?
Can you personally identify with any of the conclusions in
the studies of writing we mentioned?
Do you feel you are as productive when multitasking as
when you work on tasks one at a time?
Internet writing – different and important
Skills: none
IT concepts: Importance of Internet writing,
types of Internet writing, extent of Internet
writing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialShare Alike 3.0 License.
Bonus material – Fried’s hiring criteria
When hiring, Jason Fried, founder of 37 Signals, a leading
Internet software company looks for:
•
•
•
•
•
A positive attitude
A well rounded, flexible person
A quick learner
Trustworthiness – an independent worker
A good writer
(2m 42sec)
Jason Fried
The entire talk on software projects and design (44 min)