A maximum of 140 characters for a single post on Twitter, referred to as a tweet, has some feeling a bit limited. Condensing information to answer "What are you doing" for a social networking site can be overwhelming. Yet it's Twitter's purpose to simplify internet clutter to bite-size chunks.
By restricting status updates to short blurbs all in one central place, Twitter helps facilitate the summarization of messages coming in from friends, bloggers, news stations, companies, celebrities, etc. Instead of reading and writing lengthy entries like on a blog, Twitter emphasizes to-the-point posts called microblogging.
A general rule for many written works is to keep everything brief cutting out any wordiness. Going on and on concerning a single topic can be dull and repetitive. The 140 character limitation for Twitter posts forces its users to ultimately practice trimming down sentences to the bare essentials.
As an individual willing and eager to share my thoughts to the world, I associate with numerous social networks constantly looking for the next new way to communicate. Although I am a member of Facebook, Tumblr, among other sites, none have challenged my writing abilities as much as Twitter. Being an active member of Twitter, I have gained a better sense of what needs to be said in contrast to what can be said. Reworking sentences to fit in the space provided is, in a sense, training me to come up with creative ways of wording phrases.
Admittedly, my experience isn't the one everyone shares. Many Twitter users resort to abbreviating words such as "u" in place of "you" or "gr8" instead of "great." This sort of perversion of the English language is quite common on the internet referred to as "txtspk" (text speak). Similar to Twitter, texting, where most of the txtspk language came from, is limited to only 160 characters per message. In order to save money on the cell phone bill people utilized txtspk to cram as much information into a single SMS message as possible. Since Twitter is proud to offer the feature of using SMS to update one's status on-the-go, the practice was passed on to the microblogging site as a means to save followers from the annoyance of receiving multiple tweets.
Despite those members who do not use proper spelling and grammar, Twitter can be a unique learning tool for anyone seeking some encouragement to explore various syntax. My writing has certainly improved in precision thanks to Twitter's ingenious system of quick occasional posts.
I can't deny that attending Comm 439 was a great experience, but it wasn't always easy. Getting my feet wet, so to speak, was my biggest challenge. I had high expectations for my video as a self-proclaimed tech guy that I essentially made myself too nervous to even start. I wanted there to be a great story with lots of amazing visuals that would rival any professional video news report. I soon realized, however, that even though I wanted to show off my technological know-how my initial plan wasn't practical.
I wanted to get started filming some of my interviews but the deadline seemed so far away in the beginning that procrastination sounded so much better. I wish there were clearly outlined checkpoints along the way so that I could have made steady progress instead wait until the entire project was due in two weeks. A check list from the get-go would have also helped me visualize what step in the individual story process I should do next. I'm all for the freedom to choose not to follow these guidelines, which is why I would be against having the drafts graded, but for those who are new to journalism it would be nice to have a kind of cheat sheet made by someone with experience.
Another considerable downfall of mine was not having much time in my schedule for meetings with Professor Warner. Having a solid block of classes and work from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. along with other events in the evenings nearly everyday made it difficult to find the time to even contact her let alone find a meeting time that worked for both of us. Yet I was glad to have Erica and Geoff, two Knight-Wallace Fellows, working with me on our group video story. Having them on our team made it convenient to ask questions and receive advice. Even with them, I am still having problems with just getting to the editing portion.
I suppose my shortcomings are mostly to blame on my own faults, but I wish I would have had a check list early on. The deadline isn't going to be pushed back so I just have to make the time to finish up my interviews, edit, and submit.
I wanted to get started filming some of my interviews but the deadline seemed so far away in the beginning that procrastination sounded so much better. I wish there were clearly outlined checkpoints along the way so that I could have made steady progress instead wait until the entire project was due in two weeks. A check list from the get-go would have also helped me visualize what step in the individual story process I should do next. I'm all for the freedom to choose not to follow these guidelines, which is why I would be against having the drafts graded, but for those who are new to journalism it would be nice to have a kind of cheat sheet made by someone with experience.
Another considerable downfall of mine was not having much time in my schedule for meetings with Professor Warner. Having a solid block of classes and work from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. along with other events in the evenings nearly everyday made it difficult to find the time to even contact her let alone find a meeting time that worked for both of us. Yet I was glad to have Erica and Geoff, two Knight-Wallace Fellows, working with me on our group video story. Having them on our team made it convenient to ask questions and receive advice. Even with them, I am still having problems with just getting to the editing portion.
I suppose my shortcomings are mostly to blame on my own faults, but I wish I would have had a check list early on. The deadline isn't going to be pushed back so I just have to make the time to finish up my interviews, edit, and submit.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Writing a news article is a completely new experience for me despite having written essays, research papers, blog posts, and fictional stories. My biggest issue now is where to begin with my individual story and how to introduce my audience to the overall argument of the piece.
I'm so used to easing the reader into my essays through background information or putting my own personal spin on a story on my other blog that going straight to the point in a news article is a totally different style that I must master. I thought just reading news articles would inspire me and tell me everything I would need to know but in practice I still fall into my old writing habits.
As someone who Twitters on a regular basis, I also find it rather difficult to give so much detail. Whenever I write anything now I'm always conscious of my character limit trying to keep everything under 140 just like on Twitter. Using Twitter has certainly helped me condense information but I need to work on more descriptions to create an effective and engaging news story.
My only sources so far are my roommate, a high-ranking Guitar Hero player, and Dave Carter, coordinator of the Duderstadt's Computer and Video Game Archive. I initially thought that talking to these two would lead too more interviewees but none have come up so far. I've been meaning to camp-out at the Comptuer and Video Game Archive asking for on-the-spot interviews, however, I haven't had the time available just yet. I plan on doing so on Thursday and, hopefully, my story will develope even more so that my question, where do U of M gamers play, will have a clear direction for a written and video news story.
I'm so used to easing the reader into my essays through background information or putting my own personal spin on a story on my other blog that going straight to the point in a news article is a totally different style that I must master. I thought just reading news articles would inspire me and tell me everything I would need to know but in practice I still fall into my old writing habits.
As someone who Twitters on a regular basis, I also find it rather difficult to give so much detail. Whenever I write anything now I'm always conscious of my character limit trying to keep everything under 140 just like on Twitter. Using Twitter has certainly helped me condense information but I need to work on more descriptions to create an effective and engaging news story.
My only sources so far are my roommate, a high-ranking Guitar Hero player, and Dave Carter, coordinator of the Duderstadt's Computer and Video Game Archive. I initially thought that talking to these two would lead too more interviewees but none have come up so far. I've been meaning to camp-out at the Comptuer and Video Game Archive asking for on-the-spot interviews, however, I haven't had the time available just yet. I plan on doing so on Thursday and, hopefully, my story will develope even more so that my question, where do U of M gamers play, will have a clear direction for a written and video news story.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
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