Writing on the Web

“Yet in its functions and developing culture, the Web is considered by many to be an oral medium.” (Pixie Ferris, Writing in Cyberspace, CMC Magazine 1997)

Have you ever wondered if there is a difference between online writing and traditional print writing? The 1997 article written by Pixie Ferris reviews the differences. Writing in general should consider the following five factors: purpose, content, organization, style and audience. Each general guideline laid out by English teachers.

Writings must have a purpose for its existence. The purpose of it can be to report news, entertain, and be informational and so on. Without a purpose, it may just be a bunch a text that simply does not appeal to the reader. The article gives a good example of homepages that have just a bunch favorite links that only appeal to the creator. This would be unappealing to the reader as it would only reflect one topic and be relevant only tot the creator.

Is content king? Generally good writing has well developed content, but in Cyberspace there is a different consensus. Cyberspace is filled with loads of information that is published and it can be hard for a reader to screen out text to get to the information they are looking for or have appeal to. This brings up the question of what is content. The author references Webster dictionary and defines content as being anything would good value to the reader.

“A good cyber writer must not only consider content that is of value, but must organize material in a manner that incorporates unique interactive features of the web.” Organization of writings makes it easy for the reader to follow through the text in a sequential manner. This reminds me of a novel in comparison. It’s a story that leads up to the plot and gives pieces of information that equate to the final conclusion. However the hypertext language of the web allows the creator to interact with the reader. The nature of hyper links to other websites and the overall design and style in nature is part of web writing. Design and navigability cannot be separated from the audience and this alone essentially blurs the lines between traditional writing and Cyberspace writing.

At the heart of Cyberspace writing lays the importance of its connection to societies and to others. This is different from traditional published writings as cyberspace is a product of technology equating to a connection of devices that connect to the human life-world. The article explains that the web is more “oral than literate” in nature.

Reference:Ferris, Pixie (1997). "Writing in Cyberspace", Special Focus: Writing on the Web, CMC Magazine.