Written Communication
Writing is a very significant part of our lives. From centuries ago till now, we have used writing as a reliable medium for communication even as technology and other forms of communication were still evolving. Even today, we use writing menially when we grab a scrap piece of paper or sticky note and write something that we need to remember. We even use writing in most professional manner by using technical writing.
Even though the language of writing and the medium through which thoughts are recorded in writing have changed significantly over the years, writing has still remained an essential part of our lives. Letters were relied upon in the past for communication whereas now we rely upon text messages, emails, blog postings, and even social networking sites to display and share our written communication.
I have utilized written communications in many different ways throughout this course. The following sections are about the various ways I have used written communication, how they have aided me, and what I have learned from them.
Written
JumpStart Presentation
Although the JumpStart presentation for our group was mainly oral, we did choose to incorporate a powerpoint presentation into it. Through this, we learned that the style of writing in a powerpoint presentation is significantly different from that in essays in general.
The powerpoint was mainly there in order to provide images and key ideas that we wanted to reinforce during our presentation. The text had to be carefully written so that the powerpoint slides did not look very convoluted. This way, the viewers would be able to better understand the content of the presentation because they would actually be able to read the slides simply be skimming.
“This I believe” Essay
The this I believe essay was written and revised as a result of a feedback process to build up and improve the first draft. The initial draft was looked at by Professor Shetty. Based on her comments I made various changes. The final version of my “This I believe” essay was much more effective than the first.
My first draft was much too short and although it was a good beginning to an essay, it required more content. I had a convincing argument: gymnasts have the capability of flight. This argument was followed by metaphors for the term flight. However, the end of the essay did not provide the audience with enough closure about my purpose behind the essay (to convey that I use gymnastics as a medium of escape from the constraints of life and therefore it is equivalent to flying). Professor Shetty had indicated this in her comments about my essay.
Thus, I revised and edited my essay until I believed it had reached a sufficient length. My essay is now able to fully communicate to an audience the role gymnastics has played in my life.
The “This I believe” essay was much different than most of the writing I have had to do at Georgia Tech. It was a personal narrative about whatever I felt was important enough about me to share. Rather than using technical and professional language, in the “This I believe” essay I used more similes and metaphors (something that is taboo in technical writing). Moreover, I did not always use complete sentences. Sometimes phrases or fragments fully emphasized my purpose. Overall, the writing in this essay was significantly different from the writing involved in a formal research paper in many ways.
Blog Postings
Throughout this year, Professor Shetty has had us keep up with a blog. This blog contains questions about various topics related to language and communication. It also contains the many different responses that each of the students had to the question at hand.
This form of written communication was extremely different from the writing that I had done in Prezis or in research essays. The purpose of a blog is to share your personal thoughts and opinions about any topic. Moreover, one of the keys to writing blogs is to maintain the attention of the audience, the reader. Very little is known about the reader, other than the fact that they have managed to find your blog. As a result, you must have very interesting things to talk about in your blog.
In my blog postings I attempted to argue the opposite of what everyone else was arguing. As a result of me playing the devil’s advocate, the reader was able to gain new perspectives and incite about the topic.
Network Project Prezi
The writing that is contained in a Prezi presentation is completely different from that in a research essay or any other kind of formal writing. Prezi presentations combine text and graphics in a manner that people find something (a quote or a picture) that sticks with them. Thus, they remember the purpose of the presentation better.
Additionally, the writing is also has very few similarities to writing in blogs. Although blogs themselves are extremely distinct from formal essays, they are also dissimilar to Prezi presentations. The amount of text is comparatively less in a Prezi presentation. Moreover, the focus in a Prezi presentation is on the speaker, not the text on the screen, as a result of this, every opinion and idea is not expressed fully in a Prezi. It is left up to the speaker.
Writing in a prezi consists of very short lines of text. There are mainly titles, extremely short captions, and few bullet points if necessary. The reason behind this is to avoid large chunks of text that will cause the audience to lose interest in the presentation as a whole or even lose interest in the speaker if they choose to read the text.
In the Network Project Prezi, my group chose to avoid text as much as possible. We had titles and main points. There were no paragraphs or even complete sentences. Key words were used to trigger our memory about the focus of the presentation.
Web Portfolio
This web portfolio can also be used as an example for the differences in writing among the different modes of communication. Websites in general must grasp the attention of the reader. Thus, the writing is formatted in a manner to achieve this goal.
Although paragraphs are used to organize ideas, the paragraphs are kept as short as possible. This is simply done so that the reader is not scared away by a large section of text.
Studies have shown that readers automatically choose not to read articles or web pages because they contain too much text. I kept this study in mind when writing the text for this web portfolio.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Activities
My group’s assigned activity for the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (ELIC) was to redesign a book cover. We had two examples to take into consideration. Focusing on the text, we noticed that the front cover of the book had very little text whereas the back of the book cover contained a lot more information about the book as well as the author.
We followed this example when designing this book cover (on the right).
ALIZEH'S PORTFOLIO