To
be a writer in the 21st century means to use the internet as a
resource. The internet has many advantages, allowing writers to collaborate
together thousands of miles away, to compile information from a wide variety of
sources, and to publish works of writing quickly and on a larger scale.
Additionally, with new digital technologies there are more and more ways to
compose each day. Digital composition is constantly developing and changing.
Programs are now widely available for anyone with internet access to create
websites, blogs, online newspapers and more. Resource websites like google
scholar, world encyclopedia online, EBSCO, and more make it possible for academic
journals and other writings to be shared with fellow scholars and students. Jenkins
focuses his article on the idea of collaboration in writing in the 21st
century. He examines the internet site, “The Daily Prophet,” a fan community of
the Harry Potter series who has student authors post articles based on the
works of J.K. Rowling. Students from all over the world collaborate to write,
edit, and run this site enabled by the internet. However, there is a fine line
between collaborating and “stealing” ideas from Rowling. It’s hard to stay
completely original in a world where we have access to countless amounts of information
and works of literature. Lessig in his article also examines this idea of
collaboration by quoting and the issue of originality in writing in the 21st
century. In particular, he looks at writing as democratic form of expression.
By democratic, he simply means that everyone has the freedom to write as well
as the freedom to quote other writers. Quoting gives credit to the writer, but
still allows you the opportunity to use their ideas to support your own. The
key with quoting is to use an others writers work to supplement your own, not
replace it. Lessig goes on to examine the art of blogging, tagging, and the
power of advertising in today’s realm of digital text. I believe that blogging
is a great way to spread information and share stories, but nonetheless the credibility
of blogs and the information they are claiming to be true can only be taken
with a grain of salt. There are more credible sources available than internet
blogs that should hold priority when composing research. To be a writer in the
21st century, one must be careful and tedious when choosing sources
and conducting research.
According to Lessing and Jenkins in the 21st century there are a lot of changes on how writing used to be. We see that in the 21st century there is access to unlimited resources for writers to expand on their writing style. For instance, Lessing mention that in the twentieth century film and record making was what was popular. Jenkins make the comment on how if a tool is useful then we will use it and gave the example of how elders are learning to use emails. We see that every day writing is evolving that have a lot to with the invention of new technology and access to social medias, text messaging, blogs and so on. The use of technology have also allow people the opportunity to be more creating with how their texts look. With Microsoft Word for example we can easily change font, size, color of words ect.
ReplyDeleteLessing also bring the issue of quoting in the 21st century. As useful as the web can be to help people collaborate and have access to information, it can also create problem with plagiarism. In the 21st century more and more people ignore what it means to quote and what it means to just steal an idea. I see a lot of student already give the Daily Prophet as example to show the difference between Stealing ideas and quoting and I agree with that. Amanda mention that “there is a fine line between collaborating and “stealing “but it’s hard to stay completely original.” I agree with that however, no matter what the case is stealing other people’s ideas is always wrong.