Writing: February 2004 Archive Page

Dog Canto

        Outside... il conformista
                walk milkbone
                                        roll-over
                                        il conformista
        Sit! sit!
                il conformista
        Paw! paw!
                il conformista
                                roll-over il conformista...
        Good doggy.
        Good good doggy.
                                Fidelius.

Brian Stefans --Il Conformista (Poem for a Dog) (Free Space Comix: The Blog)

A poem that uses only words that a (particular) dog understands. Found via GrandTextAuto.

Let's assume that you have a brilliant Idea. Let's say a sitcom about a group of different people living under the same roof. Or a story about a police unit who dedicate their lives to solving crimes. Or maybe some other equally original idea that demonstrates how creative and innovative sort of a person you are.

Now, let's continue by assuming that you'd want to make it as a virtual series with a staff of writers and producers and you want to release scripts in regular intervals.

This is all very nice and all, but you might not have an idea as to how to do it. Well, this is where I tell you one way of doing it. --T. Henrik Anttonen
--A Beginners Guide to Starting Virtual Series (Voice Over)

An interesting article about organizing a team of writers to produce scripts for a non-existent TV series. Writing is hard work; some of those who wanted to do it for fun gave up when they looked at the schedule. But whether you are hoping to hone your skills for a shot at a professional job, or you simply have a passion for using words to create, an exercise like this would be a tremendous experience.

I used to participate in a collaborative epistolatory science fiction epic, at the suggestion of my high school friend Gilbert Stack. We started off writing letters to each other in-character, but I started supplying one- or two-page fictional treatments to contextualize the letters (sometimes showing what the character chose NOT to put in the letter), and soon some of us were writing mock newspapers and scripts. Steve Spishak (a Medievalist and the drummer for the cheesy 80s cover band "Gonzo's Nose") wrote an entry in blank verse... I still remember one of the lines... "This churlish syntax burns my English tongue" (spoken as a blank verse aside, but referring to an unpleasant prose interaction with a minor character). Another friend, Christine Heath, and my brother, John Jerz, were also regular contributors. I also remember contributions from Chris Park, Carol Johnson, Sarah McLeod... This was in the late 80s, and we did it all through snail mail. I still have several thick 3-ring binders, and I keep telling myself that some day I'll turn my corner of that universe into an interactive fiction game.

While our interactive literary work doesn't quite have the style of existing as tattoos or stickers, it really helped focus my writing energies in a way that I wouldn't have been able to do if I were merely writing for myself, without any sense of an audience or people who were sometimes writing against what I wanted to happen in our shared fictional universe. I kept an encyclopedia of technology and culture and a timeline; I think someone else created a map showing travel routes and distances. God, was I a geek... but I really loved it. My old files simply called this "MAIL Game."

The point of my nostalgic trip: I am so glad that, when I was young and frequently bored, I spent enough time away from the TV and the joystick to create something that meant something to me and my friends. I wouldn't have the time to start something like that today. Of course, I write all the time, in my blog, in e-mail, in the margins of student papers... but I've been feeling the draw of creative writing again. I'm kicking around an idea for a somewhat quirky academic paper, but I'm also hoping that I'll get back into writing interactive fiction.

Two different things seem to have happened at the same place and time, according to the "spin" placed on two different reports from competing local papers.

Post-Gazette to seek wage concessions (Tribune-Review, reporting on its competition)
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is gushing red ink, prompting workers to vote today on wage and benefits concessions designed to save the newspaper from insolvency, union officials said Sunday during a special meeting.

Vote on contract adjustments by PG unions (Post-Gazette, reporting on itself)
Leaders of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 1,100 unionized employees urged the workers yesterday to approve contract adjustments that would help the company avoid a projected loss of $6.5 million in 2004.A Tale of Two LeadsTrib-Review/Post-Gazette)

Thanks for the links, Jess T.

Interesting comparison of stories... the Post-Gazette competes with the Trib-Review, so according to the Trib it is "gushing red ink". The Post-Gazette, reporting on itself, emphasizes the sacrifices its union employees are willing to make.

Competition is good for the public, because it keeps journalists on their toes and makes them accountable for their little mistakes (I presume that the Post-Gazette, which calls its owners "Block Communications Inc" is probably right, and the Trib, which calls the company "Blade Communications Co." is probably wrong) and biases (such as the Post-Gazette's privileging of the union leaders' plea to the rank-and-file union members).

When I was an undergrad at U.Va., there were two competing daily student papers, the Cavalier Daily (or rather the "Cavalier Five-Day-A-Week-And-Weekly-During-The-Summer) and the University Journal (which was three days a week during my freshman year and gradually worked up to five). A few years after I graduated, I learned the UJ went under, which was really too bad. Reading someone else's version of the story you covered, or seeing the photo someone else took at the same event, is really a great learning experience, even if it is sometimes humbling.

I remember when I used to cover city council meetings and other dry stuff for a local radio station, if three things happened that night and I write radio stories on two of them, no matter what, the next day at noon, the local paper would be out on the stands, and the third thing -- the thing that I didn't cover -- would be in the headlines. Being a very green intern, I was convinced that my news sense was completely wrong -- until the wiser, saner folks at the radio station pointed out that the newspaper was trying to reach the very same audience that listened to our radio station on the way to work in the morning.

Oh, I should note that the city desk editor of the local paper was married to the news director of my radio station; they were extremely professional about their work, and would try to scoop each other all the time. Once I worked hard on a 20-year anniversary story (on the destruction caused by Hurricane Camille), and had produced a half dozen stories, one or two minutes long; they were scheduled to run, one per day, in the week leading up to the actual anniversary. The local paper published a beautiful, in-depth report the weekend before the anniversary, which pretty much exhausted everyone's interest in the subject. Each of my little jobbies looked pathetic and lame, limping along five or six days after everyone had already clipped out the paper's big spread and saved it in their scrapbooks.

I can still taste the beer.

I say this is a whole new kind of tired not because of the physical effects of my hangover. Believe me, that's not new at all. What's new is that I'm tired of this kind of tired. I'm tired of being fuzzy for the first half of each day. I'm tired of feeling like hell and looking out at a class full of students, wondering how I'll be able to pull off a lecture. I'm tired of a routine of drinking that I no longer enjoy, but feel compelled to do anyway. And I'm tired of throwing away my career a pint at a time.

At this point, you're probably thinking that this essay is another self-indulgent litany bred by our current culture of confession. And that's fine. Maybe it is. But there's a point to what I'm saying that bears directly upon the world of academe. --"James Waite" --Hung Over Again (Chronicle)

I don't know what I think about this article... it certainly got my heart pounding, but someone who can write so eloquently about his problem, yet who still feels helpless about it, is probably in some degree of denial.

Seton Hill University doesn't have a reputation as a party school, which is something that attracted me to it... it's hard to do my job when the students come to class hungover or drunk -- and if that does happen here at SHU, the students are discreet enough that it hasn't yet disrupted my classroom.

But this article examines what happens when the professor is the one going through the day in a haze. I personally don't drink; I never did in college because I was too busy, and I don't now because I'm too busy. But I have gone to class sick and sleep-deprived -- sometimes from cleaning up baby vomit (good excuse) and sometimes from becoming obsessed about a software bug (bad excuse). I really miss programming, but I really haven't had time for it at all (especially now that scholarship in both weblogs and game studies has taken off -- there's too much for me to keep up on).

As for the hungover professor, I think some students would jokingly say, "Well, as long as he gives As, that's fine with me," but "Waite" admits his ability to teach is suffering. Hmm... maybe the next time I'm really ill, I'll call in sick. I tell myself that if I cancel a class, both the students and I will have even more stress trying to catch up. And with two small kids at home, it's often more relaxing for me to come in to the office -- but maybe that's just the workaholic in me making excuses.

At any rate, I hope Waite writes again with an update.

Computers and Composition Online is the refereed online companion journal to Computers and Composition: An International Journal, now in its 21st year and published by Elsevier. Our goal is to be a significant online resource for scholar-teachers interested in the impact of new and emerging media upon the teaching of language and literacy in both virtual and face-to-face forums. As part of this goal, we wish to foster a sense of community and collegial sharing of ideas by providing an online space where select features, announcements, and community resources work together to promote a virtual exchange for the latest and best work in the field. --Computers and Composition Online Weblogcandconline.org)

Found via KairosNews. Not a whole lot of action on this site yet... and the mission statement I quoted above reeks of administrativeese. Is this part of an effort by Elsevier (publisher of C&C) to respond to boycotts and other acts of rebellion over the control it wields over academic publishing?

I'm a bit suspicious, but I did contribute a long comment to C&C Online a few minutes ago. Overall I think it's good it's great to see yet another effort to rethink scholarship in light of new technology.

Email newsletters continue to be one of the most important ways to communicate with customers on the Internet. Newsletters build relationships with users, and also offer users an added social benefit in that they can forward relevant newsletters to friends and colleagues. Still, users are highly critical of newsletters that waste their time, and often ignore or delete newsletters that have insufficient usability. --Jakob Nielsen --Targeted Email Newsletters Show Continued Strength (Alertbox)

Students typically search only the most obvious parts of the Web, and rarely venture into what is sometimes called the "Dark Web," the walled gardens of information accessible only through specific databases, such as Lexis-Nexis or the Oxford English Dictionary. And most old books remain undigitized. The Library of Congress has about 19 million books with unique call numbers, plus another 9 million or so in unusual formats, but most have not made it onto the Web. That may change, but for the moment, a tremendous amount of human wisdom is invisible to researchers who just use the Internet.

"For a lot of kids today, the world started in 1996," says librarian and author Gary Price. --Joel Achenbach

--Search For Tomorrow: We Wanted Answers, And Google Really Clicked. What's Next?  (WashPost)

Of course, the archives of the Washington Post are part of the "dark net" -- most of the articles disappear behind a pay-per-view firewall after a few weeks.

Most of my students are working on their short midterm papers now, and a few have complained about the research exercises I have asked them to complete. I'm asking them to supply, in varying combinations, a sample thesis statement, quotations from their primary sources, a brief annotation of and quotations from secondary sources, a bibliography, and a revised thesis statement (showing how they have incorporated their research into their thesis statement). While students in my freshman comp class can expect me to read and comment on a complete rough draft, I can't supply that service to all my classes -- but the one- or two-page research & thesis exercise is still an excellent opportunity to provide feedback.

I have seen far too many student papers ruined by students who mistakenly trusted bad sources; some students first write an essay based on what they already believe, then they treat the research phase as if their goal is simply to "find quotes that support my opinion." Hint: if you've already written your opinion before you looked at outside sources, then you're not writing a research paper.

Writing is not easy.

<> !*''#
^"`$$-
!*=@$_
%*<> ~#4
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|{,,SYSTEM HALTED

Translation:

"Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH."

--Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese --Stuck Shift Key Poetry (Net Funny)

This interesting bit of geek poetry illustrates the orality of poetry. On the rare occasions when I get the chance to code, I tend to do it alone; and on the rare occasions when I do discuss programming, I sometimes have difficulty with the specialized vocabulary. This poem dates from about 1990, so I have no idea whether the transliteration still works with the current generation of programmers. How about it, Jess, Will, Rosemary, and any lurkers out there?

As for the poem itself, to read it aloud you have to pace yourself to follow the pattern set by the first line. The first line begins with two trochees (BAH buh), while the second line begins with a trochee and a single stressed beat -- that gives only three syllables to cover the space previously occupied by four. The phrases "bang splat" and "back-tick" match up, but where the first line has "tick tick" the second line asks you to say "dollar dollar," squeezing four syllables into the space previously occupied by two.

So this text, when read aloud, is really following an invisible musical notation. The first line reads as if it is six quarter notes and the final "hash" is a half note -- and that sets the pattern for the other lines. Line four is awkward because it starts with an unstressed syllable, but otherwise the pattern still fits. Still, "Vertical-bar" in the last line simply doesn't fit -- you either have to pronounce all three syllables of "Vertical" on one quarter-note and "bar" on the other, or spread out all the syllables equally, which makes a stress fall on "cal" (which should definitely be unstressed). At first I thought the acceleration in the final line was deliberate, since it leads to the "CRASH", but it's only the first foot that rushes -- the rest of the line falls back into the steady pattern.

Spotted in "Poegram" on MGK's "Digital Studies" course website.

Some have at first for wits, then poets pass'd,
Turn'd critics next, and prov'd plain fools at last;
Some neither can for wits nor critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.
Those half-learn'd witlings, num'rous in our isle
As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile;
Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call,
Their generation's so equivocal:
To tell 'em, would a hundred tongues require,
Or one vain wit's, that might a hundred tire.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Part I, Part II, Part III --An Essay on Criticism (Representative Poetry Online)

I think it's probably safe to guess what Alexander Pope would think of blogging. Bear in mind, though, that he was writing this at the ripe old age of 20.

[I recently received the following e-mail... --DGJ]

Dear Sir:

I am presently working on a science fair project for my school. I found your article, Instructions: How to Write for Busy, Grouchy People. I was hoping you could expand on that a little more for me.

I am in the 7th grade. My project this year is attempting to prove that 99% of people fail to read the following directions after being told and read to do so. I was wondering if you could help me document as to why people think they are above having to read instructions? Truly most of the people I have tested have come straight out and said instructions are for idiots, or fools with too much time. Needless to say these fools did not pass the simple task laid out before them.

One of my questions because of the failure rate of this test is: are people so transfixed or gullible to believe they can do anything without reading the how to's first?

I would like to thank you up front for any advice or help you can offer towards my Science fair project. I look forward to hearing your answers to questions and any other responses that may help my research.

Sincerely,

Heather
7th grade

Why people think they are above having to read instructionsJerz's Literacy Weblog)

I was so impressed with the professionalism of Heather's request that (after asking her permission, and after she checked with her parents) I'm posting her question along with my response.

Most of us probably remember more vividly the time we wasted reading instructions that don't help, than the time that we save by reading instructions that really do help. Think about it -- if you are late for an appointment and you are stuck in traffic, you will probably dwell on the miserable experience you are having (because there is nothing else to do). When things are going well, you are free to daydream -- and time flies when you're having fun. While there are some optimists who prefer to accentuate the positive, people who turn to instruction manuals are already having a problem of some sort, so they tend to be grouchy and stressed (and they probably associate those feelings of stress with the action of consulting instructions, making them even more reluctant to consult instructions in the future).

Even though I have taught hundreds of students in technical writing (the kind of professional writing that emphasizes instructions, manuals, and other documents that help people get work done), and I should probably know better, I myself usually try to avoid reading instructions, for all the usual reasons:

1. stopping to get help seems like it will take up more time than it will save
2. I'm too proud and stubborn to admit I don't know what I'm doing
3. I've already put so much time into this that I don't want to give up until I try just one more thing... and one more... and one more.

Researchers call this the "Paradox of the Active User." Even when timed experiments show that people usually save time when they read the instructions first, we tend to get anxious unless we are doing something. Reading instructions feels like doing nothing -- especially when the clock is ticking.

My wife, who is not fond of computers, can't for the life of her remember the three-step procedure that connects her to the Internet (turn on the computer, click the little telephone icon, and click the blue "e" icon). Rather than spend precious mental energy on these steps (or finding the piece of paper on which I wrote them), she prefers to ask me to carry out her online business. Likewise, I have no idea where she keeps stack of bills to be paid or the extra toothpaste. Our specialized behavior works for us, because we know we can rely on each other.

Women typically have more complex and more powerful social networks than men, which may explain why women are more likely to ask for help -- those who work harder on a daily basis maintaining their social networks (by talking on the phone, chatting online, or even passing notes in class) are more likely to be able to depend on that network being there the next time they need help.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I suspect that our brains are hard-wired so that, if we don't feel the source of help will always be around whenever we need it, we prefer to solve problems on our own. Students who are trained to rely on step-by-step instructions can feel lost when they enter college (or the real world) and realize that few problems are as neatly laid out, and few answers are as clear or as universally accepted, as their middle-school or high school textbooks might have suggested. It's well-accepted that people remember things longer, understand them more fully, and feel a greater sense of satisfaction about the work they accomplish when they work things out by themselves. So perhaps generations of human experience has trained us that, in the long run, we really are better off when we solve problems on our own.

While it is annoying not to be able to set the VCR or fix a plumbing problem the right way the first time, truth be told, the consequences of our daily failures don't mount up to much in modern society. The average person is surrounded by a lot of very complex gadgets that consume a great deal of our time -- which is bothersome, but the inconvenience level is low enough that most of us aren't motivated to change our behavior.

Imagine, for a moment, that we lived in a bizarre world where large packs of robotic dogs would appear randomly and bite out all our car tires, unless we performed a special ceremonial dance that put the robot-dogs in a trance. Since a car with four chewed-out tires is a serious inconvenience, people would probably learn how to perform that dance pretty quickly.

Soldiers are trained to follow orders. Firefighters know their equipment inside and out. Lawyers choose their words very carefully and pay close attention to the fine print in contracts. When the stakes are high, people are much better at noticing details and following instructions.

We only really notice instructions, manuals, guidebooks or maps when we are already frustrated and angry. Too often, we'll find ourselves sifting through registration cards, tossing away advertisements for related products, scanning diagrams of doohickeys and whatsits, none of which seems relevant to solving the immediate problem: the gear thingy on our gizmo is stuck and we don't know why.

If, on the other hand, the manual is clearly written and well-organized, we can grab it off the shelf, find the info we need, and put it away again in half a minute -- so perhaps we are likely to forget how helpful the manual really was.

We cannot change human nature -- the fact remains that people are generally very impatient when it comes to following instructions or reading manuals. But equally at fault are the people who design objects that are too complex for their intended users. Some objects with complex functions simply have to be complex -- but there's plenty of needless complexity in our daily lives.

At the left is a picture I took in a game room in a hotel in Wisconsin. Elsewhere in the game room were vending machines that took money, and arcade games that took only tokens.

The picture shows a typical change machine. Well above eye level is a large decorative sign that reads "PURCHASE GAME TOKENS HERE." On the left front of the machine, someone has taped a piece of paper that reads "This machine gives out tokens, not quarters."

Sherlock Holmes would confidently conclude that the hotel guests regularly ignored the large wall-mounted sign, thus leading a hotel employee to print out and post a clarification right on the machine.

"Why do we get so many stupid customers who don't read signs?" the hotel worker was probably thinking. But posting yet another sign for the customer to read (or ignore) merely added to the problem.

Put yourself in the flip-flops of a poolside hotel guest with a caffeine craving. You spot the soda machine, near a familiar brown box with a huge label that reads "CHANGE." Why should you expect it do dispense anything but change? You approach the machine, fishing in your wallet or purse for bills, and you notice the official-looking sign with the green, yellow and red boxes. Some safety inspector probably figured it was a good idea to place this important sign at eye level, but it has nothing to do with change or tokens, so you ignore it. The little brown machine also includes signs and labels bearing additional instructions on how to insert bills, a safety warning, and the telephone number and address of the company that services the machine.

You've already identified a familiar machine, and you expect it to act in a familiar way. That's perfectly reasonable behavior, and not remotely idiotic or foolish. Most of the signs on and around this particular machine are not in the least helpful in getting you the change you want. So you ignore them.

Why didn't the hotel management simply cover over the word "CHANGE" and replace it with "TOKENS"? A smaller line of type underneath it could supply directions to the nearest change machine. I bet few people would have trouble following those instructions!

You can't change human nature. You can't expect people to read every word in the instruction manual and study every diagram before they do anything, because that's simply not the way people work in the real world. But you can change the way you write, in order to make the most of your reader's limited attention span.

For more about writing technical reports, see "Short Reports: How To Write Routine Technical Documents." For an excellent case study that describes how to offer criticism in a way that won't enrage your reader, see "Ask Tog: How to Deliver a Report Without Getting Lynched."

[A]t least two transformations appear to distinguish the production of new-media news from the typical case of print and broadcast media: The news seems to be shaped by greater and more varied groups of actors, and this places a premium on the practices that coordinate productive activities across these groups.

This, in turn, seems to influence the content and form of online news in three ways. The news moves from being mostly journalist-centered, communicated as a monologue, and primarily local, to also being increasingly audience-centered, part of multiple conversations, and micro-local.

In the online environment, a greater variety of groups of actors appear to be involved in, and have a more direct impact on, the production process than what is typically accounted for in studies of print and broadcast newsrooms. These studies have tended to focus on the work of editors and reporters. Based on the analysis presented in the previous chapters, it is reasonable to speculate that at least four additional groups of players may be having a growing degree of agency in new-media news production. --Pablo J. Boczkowski --Redefining the News Online  (OJR)

The "news world" is an interesting concept. I can't help but think of virtual worlds...

Warning... if you are one of those whose eyes glaze over whenever a geek starts blathering about Star Trek, you might want to skip to next paragraph. Okay, are they gone now? Good. I always wondered why Star Trek: The Next Generation didn't feature the Holodeck as a communications medium... Picard is being honored at a ceremony back on Earth, at which he is holographically present... perhaps a witness to a crime is prohibited from leaving her homeworld... or perhaps a race of aliens use facial expressions so different from ours that we can't understand them without the holodeck's mediation (though that would require the creation of alien physiognomy more complex than forehead bumps and splotches). I believe I saw an episode of Deep Space 9 in which Dax turned the captain's image into an alien of some sort, but there it was presented as a clever trick (and of course was never again mentioned in any other episode when a similar deception would have helped).

We're taught not to believe everything we hear, but it's hard not to have intense emotional responses to complex multi-sensory stimuli -- even when, intellectually, we know that what we're seeing has been manipulated or even completely manufactured.

I'm thinking of this topic more than usual because the student paper which I advise has published its first online edition: Setonian Online.

Brian McCollum designed the site as part of an independent study. I'm sure he'll welcome constructive comments.

Original	Rewritten	Comments
At the bottom of this form you can choose to leave your name, address and telephone number. If you leave your name and number you may be contacted in the future to participate in a survey to help us improve this site.	[Removed]	42 words reduced to 0. Instructions/information should not be given in advance.
If you have comments or concerns that require a response, please contact Customer Service.	Do not use this form for customer service enquiries. Contact Customer Service instead.	14 words reduced to 13. More directly stated. Also added a direct link to contact customer service.

--Writing for the Web (Monash University ITS)

Hmm... I don't think I agree with the general statement "Instructions/information should not be given in advance." Perhaps in some cases the instructions are given too far in advance, and should therefore be delayed until when the user might actually need them... and certainly if a web interface is so complex that it requires instructions, it would make more sense to revise the website so that it follows standard online conventions (which would reduce the user's cognitive burden when faced with a new system).

And while it's true that the revised customer service text is shorter and adding the link to the instructions is very helpful, the revision is also blunt. I try to state instructions in positive terms -- emphasizing what the user should do: "We don't check these survey results on a regular basis, so if you want to talk to somebody, use the customer service form instead." But the revision depends heavily on context.

Which leads me to another problem... I recognize some of the content on this website as being copied and pasted from other source, but there are few outbound links -- if I like what I saw in the excerpt from Jakob Nielsen's page, I'd like to be able to link to it directly. (Yes, there are links at the bottom of the page, but as a college writing instrutor I cringe at writers who don't take the time to cite properly, in the body of their text, precisely when they are using borrowed material, and to identify from where they borrowed it. (If the author simply numbered the end notes and inserted those numbers in brackets in the body of the text, I would be satisfied, though there's really no good reason why the online material couldn't be directly linked.)

I presume that the screen grabs that show various forms of microcontent is original, since it uses examples from Monash University, but there's no way to link directly to those original examples; the page also does not identify an author or a date. (I had to hack the URL to learn about the site where this page was posted.) My guess is that somebody threw these links up to use during a workshop, but there's no way to be sure.

Link found via Crawford Kilian's blog, "Writing for the Web." (I've used Kilian's elegant book of the same name in several courses, most recently in "Writing for the Internet.")

Rant or Remark? Invective or Discussion?Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Doesn't this just make your blood boil?

Writing

Instructor Loses Job for Discussing Iraq War in Class
WINSTON-SALEM, NC—Forsyth Technical

Community College (FTCC) writing instructor Elizabeth Ito has been dismissed for taking a brief part

of her class to discuss the war in Iraq. Ito criticized the Iraq war in a writing class on March 28,

2003, while the ground invasion was still underway. Her remarks, which later served as the basis for a writing assignment, lasted only ten minutes, but as a result administrators at the college decided not to renew her contract.

If it doesn't make your blood boil, then it's not doing its job. The dateline at the beginning makes it look like a news article, but it's actually a press release from the "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education." Sounds like a noble organization with a respectable mission... but I can't help feeling annoyed by the clumsy attempts to "spin" the facts in Ito's favor. How many rules of basic journalism does the headline alone violate? A journalist needs an open mind, but has to stick to facts. Consider the AP version of the story:

College teacher

believes views on Iraq cost her a job

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - A former English teacher at Forsyth Technical Community College is appealing

the school's decision not to renew her contract, which she claims is the result of her political

views about the war in Iraq. | Elizabeth Ito accepts criticism of her professional demeanor for

railing against the war during a business-writing class one day last spring. | But she says the

firing was a punishment for her political views.

While FIRE puts in the lead that Ito "has been dismissed for taking a brief part of her class to

discuss the war in Iraq," the AP story more accurately identifies that as a claim -- one that

the school contests. Whereas the press release says Ito was "dismissed," the news article gives the wordier but more neutral "the school's decision not to renew her contract."

While the press release uses the word "discuss" to describe Ito's handling of the political material, the AP story says "Ito accepts criticism of her professional demeanor for railing against the war" and describes the incident as follows:

Ito walked into her business-writing class, closed the door and said, "I guess we're going to liberate the Iraqis
even if it means killing every damned one of them."

"You could call it a rant, you could call it in an invective," Ito acknowledges. "I admitted I didn't do a good job. That's not a point of contention."

Two students walked out of class that day and complained to Susan Keener, the chairman of the humanities and communication department. At least one said that Ito had shouted down any student
with a viewpoint different from her own.

The press release refers to "remarks, which later served as the basis for a writing assignment," but
the idea for the assignment came only after Ito realized she "may not have given the subject a
balanced hearing," and in the AP story, Ito herself supplied "invective" and "rant" to describe what

the press release characterizes as "discussing".

Another passage from the press release is worth a mention:

President Green did not respond to FIRE's letter, instead choosing to explain FTCC's actions in a public statement posted on FTCC's website. Green accused Ito of, among other things, "a lack of competence." The college could provide no support for this accusation, however, and the statement was eventually removed from FTCC's website.

We can safely ignore FIRE's attempt to insert itself into the story here... but let's look at the rest of this excerpt. By placing in close proximity the statement that the school did not support its claims that Ito was incompetent and the observation that the statement was removed from the website, the press release may give the illusion of an association between those details -- the kind of potential misunderstanding a trained journalist would actively work against. Simply because the college has not offered proof does not mean that there is no proof. I am not a lawyer, but it doesn't seem to me that the college is under any obligation to divulge the contents of a private personnel file. Note that in both versions of the story, Ito accepts partial responsibility -- the press release only challenges the college's inability to come up with evidence of her incompetence.

Although the college's statement has been removed from the web, a Google search returns the URL http://www.forsythtech.edu/welcome/pressconf.html for the document. Given that the article was stuffed in the "welcome" directory (rather than a dated archive) and given the generic name "pressconf.html" one should probably not be surprised that this document has been moved. I can't find any trace of it online (which helps Ito in her effort to paint herself as an ideological victim), but Google yields a cached copy.

The "other things" with which Ito is accused include the following:

First and foremost, this is not about freedom of speech, academic freedom, politics, or the war. This is not about a single incident. Frankly, the college and I do not care whether she supports or opposes war in Iraq. This is about a lack of competence, professionalism, and ability to meet standards of professional behavior. It is about a first-year probationary teacher who did not do her job adequately.

Elizabeth Ito was at times unprepared to teach class, dismissing her class early because of failure to prepare. She spent time on issues outside of the regular class content, failing to relate the issues to the curriculum, and did not permit students to express their opinions. She failed to respect diverse ideas of students and in their own words, “shouted them down” when their views differed from hers. It’s important to note that the complaints of her own students brought much of this to our attention. When her supervisors tried to address these problems with her, she would not accept their valid constructive criticism.

If FIRE makes the appeal to silence -- arguing that, since the college hasn't provided evidence of her incompetence, it must not have any -- then perhaps we should note that FIRE does not say that the college has no evidence to support its claims that Ito lacked professionalism and professional behavior (terms mentioned in the same sentence as "lack of competence"); nor does FIRE object to the college's claims that Ito was "at times unprepared," that she did not respect diversity of opinion or relate material to the syllabus.

The administrator who defends the college's actions by saying "We're not here to spin out theories and sit around and blather about the world" is not exactly demonstrating intellectual curiosity; the quote makes me clutch at my heart and suck air in through my teeth. I don't see him winning any "educator of the year" awards, though he might have a career in politics. Ito fits pretty neatly into the stereotype of the out-of-touch campus radical consumed by an irrational passion for one ideological issue -- I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I've seen nothing so far that suggests otherwise.

Teaching is not easy work; I have made more than my share of mistakes, and I'm sure I'll keep making them.

Still, I can think of all kinds of ways to combine a technical writing

curriculum with a critical discussion of the military/corporate/political/legalistic complex -- and

one of the ways I did that was by

href="http://jerz.setonhill.edu/design/jupiter/jup-crit.htm">critiquing press releases.
I introduced the iteration and testing of psychological warfare

documents (surrender leaflets) dropped behind enemy lines. You may remember the story of a large Iraqi family gunned down in their vehicle because the driver didn't stop at a checkpoint -- because, according to an army specialist, the family misunderstood the meaning of a leaflet that was intended to instruct them to stay in their homes. I also used a document, full of passive

verbs and nominalizations, written by a Nazi engineer recommending improvements in the efficiency of

a gas chamber. I was conscious of the fact that I often had students who were freshly out of the

military and sometimes still in the reserves, and one of my former students was actually in psychological operations. Ultimately, I tried to argue language has the power to heal and the power to destroy.

Update: Oops, corrected the link to the AP story. Thanks, Mike.

Update: CommonDreams has a much more persuasive, much more effective press release... if I had read "North Carolina Teacher Fired for Antiwar Remarks" first, I probably wouldn't have been motivated to write this blog entry. The press release is marked as coming from the "Ito Defense Fund," so the bias in the headline is perfectly expected. I heard a warning bell when I noticed that the author refers to Ito as "Elizabeth," and John Slade, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, as "Dean Slade" rather than "John". That's a rhetorical strategy, designed to personalize Ito and emphasize her powerlessness in comparison to the administration -- but unlike the FIRE article's rhetorical efforts, this one works, and I suppose it's very possible that the article simply records an existing power imbalance on the campus; but as a writing teacher I am probably so sensitized to the use parallel structure and gender issues that I wouldn't take my reaction as typical. Nevertheless, the "Ito Defense Fund" release doesn't characterize Ito's classroom action as either a "rant" or a "discussion," but instead says Ito "spent ten minutes at the beginning of her business writing class voicing her concerns." I see nothing duplicitous or dishonest about that phrasing. The author of this piece describes Ito writing numbers on the board and inviting the class to respond to them. This is a good instance of showing details that lead the reader to make a conclusion -- in this case, Ito was not a ranting nutcase, but was instead using current events to spark a discussion. (I take back what I said earlier about not seeing anything that works against the image of Ito as a stereotypical ranting radical -- this was all I needed, and I was surprised that FIRE didn't do a better job of describing the controversial event.)

The article doesn't include any of Ito's statements indicating that she is willing to share the blame, but rather notes that one of the students who complained about Ito "did not think Elizabeth should have been fired for her remarks". None of this really examines the economic factors involved -- was Ito, as a new hire, simply at the bottom of the totem pole during a time of budget cutbacks, or were there newer, less experienced (and less vocal) people hired the semester after her contract wasn't renewed?

I'm going to hold onto these documents, and Mike Arnzen's thoughtful response to this blog entry, for the next time I teach journalism.

I recently posted a comment on Mike's blog in praise of "risk" as a criteria for grading student writing, and I feel I took a bit of a risk myself in writing this blog entry... but it's been an exhilarating couple of hours.

Oh, gaack... it looks like the curricular weblogs are down. Well, I hope it's just temporary. I'd better cut this off now...

[P]ress releases are unreal and possibly pointless. First, you write the press release from other already-written things. You can even fudge quotes, which is a big no-no in journalism. Then you have to get everything approved by absolutely everybody. I'm not big on getting stuff "approved." I think it's weird that you have to do this when what you wrote the release from was "approved" to begin with. Very odd. Anyway, you put six or so hours into this article, and then you send it out to news organizations. They can decide to use your article for a story idea, not use your article at all, or they can hack it up into bits and make it a "news brief."

That is scary. -- Julie Young --Write What? (A Work in Progress)

I often see students trying to cite university or corporate press releases in their research papers, instead of peer-reviewed academic articles. Julie's blog essay is a reminder that a press release is a persuasive document designed to cast the best possible light on the issuing organization.

And the made-up quotes in press releases are almost always laughable -- no good journalist wants to put long paragraphs of administrative mumbo-jumbo into an article.

;-) Neterature: all the quirky, jerky kinds of writing that is/are on the World Wide Web -- blogs, fan fiction, role-playing game sagas, news filterese, spam poetry, prose parodies, etc.

Neterature: Usually energetic passionate innovative and irreverently funny. Not always great or even good. But the best of it is young and sassy and undeniably full of life, in ways that on-the-page writing is not so much anymore.

And it's blooming everywhere -- in e-mail and instant messages and, more and more, spilling off the screen into our daily parlance. It's changing the way we express ourselves. --Linton Weeks --iT was a dark+stormy Nite (Washington Post (will expire soon))

A good survey. Ultimately, it sides with the wistful "because we are no longer crafting our stories and poems on paper with pens or typewriters, gone are the days when we were forced to think through everything before we wrote it down," which is 1) an overstatement and 2) missing the point. We come into contact with lots of bad online writing, but those of us with weblogs can make it easier for everyone else to find the good writing. Bloggers are editors -- not in the sense that we fix other people's mistakes, but because a weblog archive is the table of contents of an anthology; a single richly-linked blog entry functions as a separate codex.

Weeks gives a good survey of writing culture online, but still applies old media criteria to it -- which is rather like admitting that a horseless carriage does a lot of things horses do, and a lot of things that horses can't do, but questioning them because you can't breed horseless carriages. Of course you can't -- because horseless carriages aren't horses.

A neuropsychiatrist is quoted as saying that, when you read online, "Your critical faculties are in abeyance." They needn't be. People can be trained to appreciate modern art, fine wines, and just about anything else that follows discernible principles of aesthetic and meaning.

I do find it very amusing that Jakob Nielsen is introduced as someone who teaches people how to write online. His specialty is usability in human-computer interfaces, and of course he's great in that realm. But only by trial and error have he and other usability specialists determined what kind of writing permits people to use technical documents most efficiently. Nielsen has no expertise in the use of writing to persuade, inspire, entertain, etc. He has never claimed that he has, of course -- it's this article that presents him as a writing expert.

True or false? Technical writers?

A. Write about technology.
B. Translate specialized knowledge in a manner that is adapted to readers? needs, level of understanding, and background.
C. Present information that helps readers to solve a particular problem.
D. Persuade readers to see things, ideas, and events as the writers see them.
E. ?Set the agenda? and shape day-to-day reality by choosing what gets written and for whom. --Leah A. Zuidema --Technical Writing: An Overview (Michigan State University)

I've blogged a link to Google's HTML conversion of the original PDF version.

I found this document extremely interesting becuase it was produced by an educator for an audience of secondary school teachers. (Adding to the "fun" factor is the fact that I and a former colleague of mine at UWEC are cited.)