Writing for the web

Photo courtesy Windy Angels.

My first ever "job" in journalism was a component of Career and Personal Planning 11, a position as a reporter at the Nelson Daily News.
I walked into the newsroom lost and... 15. My editor sat me down to give me a brief run down on whatever it is I'm spending my undergrad learning all about.

"Now, when you're writing for the newspaper, you need to forget everything has ever told you."
He explained the essences of the inverted pyramid, writing casually for people, and keeping your language objective.

A few years later, and I was a little less lost and a few years older. The basics of print were reiterated, only to be pounded into my brain a million times.

And then there were the broadcast classes, where formatting and language suddenly took on a whole new set of complicated rules.

So it only makes sense that writing for the web has it's own style, and it's own set of rules that force you to ignore everything that you've been previously taught.

Through the course of creating my own blog, I've noticed a few things about applied blog writing, contrasted with the theory on it we've read and discussed in this class. Thi9ngs I both agree and disagree with.

First off, I'm not a fan of the pictures Matt has told us to include before every post. Having worked at a print newspaper this past year, it's been important that every article have an image for visual stimulus. But a newspaper does not take time to load heavy images. I go online for quick and dirty information, not for somewhat relevant images.

I do like the oportunity to infuse more opinion in my writing. I think that it makes my motivation more credible, and comments provide the forum to discuss and defend my ideas.

I also like the publish, then select concept Cory Doctorow presents. Usually ideas steep in my brain developing for a while. My notebook is a mess of scribbles and appendages. Online provides a... tidyer way to convey that. And, also mentioned by Doctorow, it allows everyone to participate in that.

Comments are really key. At first, it was mostly just encouragement that people were actually reading what I wrote, but it's evolved into a way of keeping myself editing myself to keep he content of my posts something I could defend and back-up.

Finally, links are great! You don't have to provide people with the background! But they still aren't unfailable. Some websites aren't well set up for linking, and you need to state which part of the page you are referencing.

It's been an interesting learning curb, this whole concept of writing for the web, and not for air or paper.