Contemporary Media (and how to use it)

A little while ago, I wrote a blog about two corners of the rhetorical triangle: the rhetorical situation, and the rhetorical appeal. Today I would like to talk about the third corner: contemporary media.

There are four basic forms of media: traditional print, innovative print, traditional web site, and innovative web site. There are relatively self-explanatory, but I'll run through them quickly to answer any questions.

1. Traditional print: Words that appear on a page. Books. Newspapers. Newletters. Black and white words on paper. Simple enough.

2.  Innovative print: Words that work with pictures and style to make the page more interesting. This could mean different fonts, different print sizes, different colors, embossing, shadows, borders, images, and what-have-you. 

3. Traditional web site: The web site where you go and read from the page. You scroll through, and there aren't any videos, there's nothing to click, you can't add to the web site; it is just giving you information.

4. Innovative web site: A website that allows you to play with it: the information and design of the website is dependent upon what you put into it. These are websites where you can change the information or leave comments behind. Wikipedia, social networks and blogs are probably the most prevalent examples of innovative websites.

Now obviously, there are certain mediums that speak better to certain people. If you wanted to change how 80+-year-olds feel about the legal drinking age, it would probably be better to give them something to read than require them to join a web site where they are going to have to upload things, comment on other people's posts, input information, or change the user interface. However, if you were trying to get 14-year-olds to change their opinion about the legal drinking age, that is probably exactly what you'd want them to do: use an innovative web site. 

So deciding which media to use and when is something that all writers have to do. Recently, Stephen King published nearly an entire novel online only. There are actually many authors (not necessarily good ones) that publish almost exclusively online. There is a whole new era of text novels. And let's not overlook the use of Kindles and iPads. These are all combining different mediums together to publish many forms of writing. It's kind of exciting to be able to publish however we want, isn't it? 

The National Undergraduate Literature Conference

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend the National Undergraduate Literature Conference at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. At this conference, undergrads present fiction, poetry, non-fiction and literary criticism in panels that deal with the same genre or similar subjects. There are also guest authors that come to address the students and revel in the literary richness of it all.

Two of the authors that came to visit this year were Lawson Fusao Inada and Ana Menendez. I very much enjoyed their writing, but they also gave interesting insights to the writing process.

Inada encouraged us to carry a notebook or anything to write down thoughts and inspiration whenever they come. He actually suggested carrying around an extra register in your checkbook because it is much less bulky and more convenient. I've been told to do this by several writing professors of other writers, but I've never quite adopted it. In high school I carried around a fat little notebook in which to write emo poetry, but since I've come to college I haven't been so great at it. And I know that I have lost so many half-formed poems and ideas for stories or resolutions to struggles I was having with characters or plots in stories that I'm working on. Perhaps it was the simplicity of the checkbook suggestion. Perhaps it was Inada's amiable nature. Perhaps it was being around so many great minds and so much literature. Perhaps it was a number of things. But this time, I really felt a need to follow the advice.

There are clearly huge advantages to carrying around an observation notebook:

• Being able to captures ideas on the spot
• Being able to write down bits of conversation as you hear them
• Writing lines of a poem as they form
• Compiling ideas to use at a future time

Menendez gave advice that is somewhat new to me: write to the pain. I'm pretty sure that my creative writing teacher in high school may have said something to the same effect, but I questioned her sanity and probably didn't take her seriously. But Menendez suggested that where it is painful is where there is the most meat, so to speak, to write from. Whether it is emotional pain, as in writing about a personally painful experience, or mental pain, as in a concept you can't quite articulate or research that doesn't quite come to a conclusion, that is probably where all the gold in your writing will be mined from. I believe that writing to the pain is more satisfying in the end as well.

Pain is just another form of passion and we all know that passionate writing is better in every aspect than bored writing. For example, my social psychology textbook is probably the most entertaining textbook I've ever read, and I'm certain that is because the authors engage their emotions and personalities in the text. I practically feel like I'm on a first name basis with them.

I hope to improve my writing by implementing these two techniques I learned at the feet of two masters. Or at least two published authors (I did highly enjoy their writing).

I am the Grammar Snob About Whom Your Mother Warned.

I know I've written quite a few blogs on grammar, but hey, I really do love it.

I was talking last night with a friend who is taking a grammar class this coming semester from the same teacher I took it from three years ago. He was rather excited to gain the skills to correct his roommates' grammar. I told him that class really only affected my knowledge of written grammar rather than spoken grammar. It was learning German that corrected my spoken grammar. German is, after all, the initial parent language of English, and our grammar is very similar.

In German, if you don't conjugate your verbs correctly, you may as well be speaking Norwegian ("cave man English", according to the aforementioned friend who happens to speak Norwegian). Verb conjugation is absolutely essential to being understood in German. In German there are clearly three parts to every verb. the verb for "have" is "haben" and the three participles are "haben, hatte, gehabt" while in English we have "have, had, had." The second and third participle are the same because the past and perfect tense are the same...? It's English--it doesn't have to make sense. But because they are the same, people get confused when it comes time to express something is present perfect ("have had") and especially past perfect ("had had") and even future perfect ("will have had"). Many native English speakers have no concept of the perfect tense and how to form it. That is why I frequently feel the need to step in and...help them out.

Another huge consideration is preposition use. Germans don't use prepositions like we do. For example, they use "auf" which can be translated to "upon" for so many uses: "it depends" is "das haengt darauf" which is literally translated to "it hangs upon." I don't consider that to be intuitive for English speakers. But with that lurking in the back of my head, it is so much easier for me choose the correct preposition in English. I always stop to think "What does this preposition really mean?" before I put it in a sentence.

But for those of you lacking the German background, Melissa Donovan of Writing Forward gave some great tips in her latest blog post about incorporating good grammar into your daily life:

1. Stop Being Lazy – When you’re not sure if the way you’ve written a sentence is correct, take a couple of minutes to go look it up instead of either rewriting it or hoping for the best.
2. Invest in Writing Tools – These include reference books that deal with grammar and style. My personal favorite is The Chicago Manual of Style.
3. Make it a Chore – Some chores you do every day, while others can be tackled weekly or monthly. Set a schedule for regular grammar lessons and stick to it. They don’t have to be long. You can learn something valuable in five short minutes!
4. Talk About It – Turn your grammar questions into conversations. Ask others how they use language. Oddly, I find that even non-writers have interest in basic grammar questions. And if you can’t find anyone who wants to discuss good grammar, take your conversation online. Remember you should always use a credible resource, but discussing grammar related issues is an ideal way to learn the nuances, intricacies, and to gain broader understanding.
5. Put it to Practice – Every time you learn something new, incorporate it into your writing until it becomes second nature. When I learned that it wasn’t traditionally correct to end sentences with prepositions, I stopped completely until it was as natural as putting terminal punctuation marks inside of quotation marks.
6. Bonus! Don’t Be OCD – Well, you can be OCD if you want. I like to break the rules sometimes. Eventually, I returned to ending sentences with prepositions, but only when it was the best way to communicate an action or idea.

I've done many of these things without even realizing it (I think that comes from being an English major--I have a wider pool of people who readily engage in grammar discussions). As for the chore, might I suggest that simply reading and paying attention to words the writer uses and where they put them is sometimes enough to improve your own grammar. I am a strong believer in the idea that through reading can nearly all of life's questions be answered.

If you struggle with grammar, don't lose heart. It is a matter of practice and discipline, but it is completely worth it. The truth is, if you can use grammar correctly, you will sound much smarter than you probably actually are, and who doesn't want to sound smarter? I rest my case.