Internet writing is different and important

Skills: noneIT 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)

“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

When hiring, Jason Fried, founder of 37 Signals, a leading Internet software company looks for good writers:

Jason Fried

(34 sec)

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)

•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

Internet writing is different

• Writing short documents• Conversational writing• Collaborative writing

One of our content-creation data types is text – written documents. Three types of writing are common on the Internet:

Some blog posts on writing for the Internet: http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/search/label/writing

•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

The class of 2013

•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.

Children write regularly, enjoy writing and are confident

Survey of UK children ages 9-16, more information

US Undergrad writing

More information

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

•Students are writing more than ever•Some of their “life writing” is profound•Their writing is done to achieve some purpose or goal

Undergrads write more and better

Stanford five year study on undergraduate writing, more information

•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.

Kansas State undergrad experience

Michael Wesch's class survey, more information

Watch the video

Is this is your brain on …

Hypertext

Multi-tasking

MTV

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: noneIT concepts: Importance of Internet writing, types of Internet writing, extent of Internet writing

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share 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)