Electronic Writing, Traditional Writing, and Their Future
This Comparative Literature class and this Writing Difference Project are both exceptionally fun and extremely different from the English classes I had experienced before. Before being in this class, I had always thought of literature as a boring subject. However, through this class and the Writing Difference Project, I found that literature can actually be quite fun and engaging in a more personal level.
So, how is writing about literature on an electronic stage significant than writing in a traditional method (i.e. using pen and paper)? Writing about literature on the Internet is significant in several ways. First, people from all around the world can look at my entries. One significant example is the comment left by Dr. Dudley de Souza on my entry titled “Antony and Cleopatra”. According to his weblog profile, Dr. de Souza is an English professor from Singapore. Here, we have a practical example of how opinions and comments on literature are shared across the Internet. I had posted my opinions on Antony and Cleopatra, and Dr. de Souza left his response to my entry and thus shared his view on Antony and Cleopatra. Dr. de Souza and I are total strangers. However, the entry on Antony and Cleopatra brought the opinions from the two of us together and put them into the same space. Without a weblog (meaning, writing my opinions down onto a paper), my opinions and comments will not get far. My opinions will probably be shared within the class and they will be restrained by the physical boundary of the classroom. However, posting my comment onto a weblog extends such boundary. It is not only shared among other students, it is virtually accessible to anyone who has Internet access. The limit of the classroom is eliminated and the boundary is extended to a much wider scope. Moreover, people with Internet access can read my entries and comments any time anywhere they want. Thus, literature can be shared with a faster pace and easier accessibility through the Internet.
In addition, the availability of other handy resources on the Internet also contributes to the fast-spreading of literary works and ideas across the Web. With the advancement of technology, not only texts are shared in the Internet. We have pictures and video and audio clips available on the Internet. Significant examples can be seen in my entry titled “Antony and Cleopatra” and the pictures on Sappho and her fragments. Without the Internet, we will have to go to various different places to see these pictures and drawings. With available resources on the Internet, we can simply click onto a link and we will immediately see the different pictures of Cleopatra, and even the fragmented papyrus pieces on which Sappho’s poems are written.
Nonetheless, some problems still exist within the scope of electracy. The problem of plagiarism becomes more serious due to the presence of more easily accessible resources. Also, information can be easily lost without hard copies (significant examples can be drawn from Tyson and Erika’s comments on their loss of entries due to technical problems). Writing on a weblog of course gives us freedom and allows literature to spread more easily, but stuff is more easily lost during the writing process due to various high-level technical problems. Comparing to the materials written in the traditional mode that involves pen and paper, materials written within the Internet have a higher tendency of being lost.
So is electronic writing beneficial? Yes, I will say. Electronic writing has definitely improved our ways in approaching and looking at literature. Although there are still issues and problems concerning electronic writing, I will say the overall effect of electronic writing lies in the positive side. Let me try to draw an analogy between writing through the Internet and talking through telephones. Communicating through telephones is very similar to writing literature through the Internet. Telephones have improved our lives by providing a new and convenient mode of communication. People from different locales can now talk to each other in a more direct and immediate fashion. However, have we abandoned the old mode of communication, namely letter-writing? No. Letters and telephones coexist in the modern society. Neither one has replaced the other, and neither one has been abandoned. Writing electronically is just the same. We have not abandoned our old way of writing (i.e. writing using paper and pen). Electronic writing is only a new invention such that we can communicate, spread, and share literature in a more direct and widespread fashion.
Then, what is the future of writing like? I imaging the future of writing will be somewhat like what we have today: electronic writing and traditional writing coexist together. Unless the advancement of technology has brought us some tools like Tyson has mentioned in his weblog, people will stay in the neutral pathway between writing electronically and traditionally. Drawing the telephone-analogy again, the presence of different tools enables us to communicate in different ways; the principle of communication is still the same. Writing has the same idea: technology allows us to spread ideas and “write” them in different ways, but literature is still the same old literature. It’s just that we are approaching literature from different directions and with different means.
So, how is writing about literature on an electronic stage significant than writing in a traditional method (i.e. using pen and paper)? Writing about literature on the Internet is significant in several ways. First, people from all around the world can look at my entries. One significant example is the comment left by Dr. Dudley de Souza on my entry titled “Antony and Cleopatra”. According to his weblog profile, Dr. de Souza is an English professor from Singapore. Here, we have a practical example of how opinions and comments on literature are shared across the Internet. I had posted my opinions on Antony and Cleopatra, and Dr. de Souza left his response to my entry and thus shared his view on Antony and Cleopatra. Dr. de Souza and I are total strangers. However, the entry on Antony and Cleopatra brought the opinions from the two of us together and put them into the same space. Without a weblog (meaning, writing my opinions down onto a paper), my opinions and comments will not get far. My opinions will probably be shared within the class and they will be restrained by the physical boundary of the classroom. However, posting my comment onto a weblog extends such boundary. It is not only shared among other students, it is virtually accessible to anyone who has Internet access. The limit of the classroom is eliminated and the boundary is extended to a much wider scope. Moreover, people with Internet access can read my entries and comments any time anywhere they want. Thus, literature can be shared with a faster pace and easier accessibility through the Internet.
In addition, the availability of other handy resources on the Internet also contributes to the fast-spreading of literary works and ideas across the Web. With the advancement of technology, not only texts are shared in the Internet. We have pictures and video and audio clips available on the Internet. Significant examples can be seen in my entry titled “Antony and Cleopatra” and the pictures on Sappho and her fragments. Without the Internet, we will have to go to various different places to see these pictures and drawings. With available resources on the Internet, we can simply click onto a link and we will immediately see the different pictures of Cleopatra, and even the fragmented papyrus pieces on which Sappho’s poems are written.
Nonetheless, some problems still exist within the scope of electracy. The problem of plagiarism becomes more serious due to the presence of more easily accessible resources. Also, information can be easily lost without hard copies (significant examples can be drawn from Tyson and Erika’s comments on their loss of entries due to technical problems). Writing on a weblog of course gives us freedom and allows literature to spread more easily, but stuff is more easily lost during the writing process due to various high-level technical problems. Comparing to the materials written in the traditional mode that involves pen and paper, materials written within the Internet have a higher tendency of being lost.
So is electronic writing beneficial? Yes, I will say. Electronic writing has definitely improved our ways in approaching and looking at literature. Although there are still issues and problems concerning electronic writing, I will say the overall effect of electronic writing lies in the positive side. Let me try to draw an analogy between writing through the Internet and talking through telephones. Communicating through telephones is very similar to writing literature through the Internet. Telephones have improved our lives by providing a new and convenient mode of communication. People from different locales can now talk to each other in a more direct and immediate fashion. However, have we abandoned the old mode of communication, namely letter-writing? No. Letters and telephones coexist in the modern society. Neither one has replaced the other, and neither one has been abandoned. Writing electronically is just the same. We have not abandoned our old way of writing (i.e. writing using paper and pen). Electronic writing is only a new invention such that we can communicate, spread, and share literature in a more direct and widespread fashion.
Then, what is the future of writing like? I imaging the future of writing will be somewhat like what we have today: electronic writing and traditional writing coexist together. Unless the advancement of technology has brought us some tools like Tyson has mentioned in his weblog, people will stay in the neutral pathway between writing electronically and traditionally. Drawing the telephone-analogy again, the presence of different tools enables us to communicate in different ways; the principle of communication is still the same. Writing has the same idea: technology allows us to spread ideas and “write” them in different ways, but literature is still the same old literature. It’s just that we are approaching literature from different directions and with different means.
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10:47 PM
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