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New Media Writing Project
Assignment Made: February 13
Text due: February 27
Web Version due: March 11
Sample Ideas | Paper Guidelines
| Web Site Guidelines | Step by Step
| Resources
Description and Rationale
This project will ask you to begin a new media project by first working
in an old medium--writing. You will write an argument, narrative or explanation
about a topic you know and care about in a three-to-five page "paper."
Then you'll repurpose and "remediate" that material to create
a Web site that fulfills the same purposes except in a digital environment.
Rationale: Print-based writing and New Media writing operate by
entirely different rules. Both have their strengths. Often in work on
New Media projects, the development of the content and the depth of thought
become a lower-tier priority, partly because we're distracted by the many
choices and challenges of working in the electronic medium, and partly
because the piecemeal nature of writing (see Nielsen's Chapter 3, "Content
Design") for the screen doesn't allow us occasions as creators of
a text for sustained, uninterrupted elaboration of emergent ideas and
lines of thought in a voice. Basically, when "designing content"
for the screen we don't have a chance really to cook our ideas-to combine,
meld and synthesize them, to put them into an ongoing discussion or narrative,
as we do in verbal writing-before we present them. This assignment, therefore,
will allow you to develop and realize an idea in both forms of writing,
ideally combining and integrating the strengths of both. It will also
help you begin consciously to chart and learn to navigate the line between
print and digital ways of thinking and being-a line that you'll be crossing
and recrossing in work throughout your careers and lives.
Some Sample Paper Ideas
- Write an autobiographical piece about an experience which has a point
(a trip to California/a realization about life in Minnesota)
- Tell the story of a local place or landmark (the Lakewalk, the Congdon
mansion)
- Take a side in a public issue or controversy and make an argument
for your side, taking care to consider, respect and speak to the other
position (public funding for a baseball stadium to save the Twins)
- Describe in detail how to do something that requires some thought/taste/judgment--avoiding
purely mechanical step-by-step directions (painting a picture, or taking
a really good photograph, of the ship William Irvin)
- Make a recommendation of a particular decision or course of action-addressed
to the person or group who would make that decision (choosing the best
laptop with the right features for students on a budget to buy)
- Make up your own: as long as you follow these general guidelines that
apply to any of the "New Media" Papers:
Guidelines for the Paper
- has a point (a thesis that you're proving, a position that you're
arguing for, an insight achieved),
- uses lots of supporting, concrete detail that support and illustrate
your ideas,
- written in a strong but appropriate voice that speaks to an audience,
- written with some sustained reflection or analysis that considers
ideas
Top | Sample Ideas | Paper
Guidelines | Web Site Guidelines | Step
by Step | Resources
Guidelines for the Web-based Project
- realizes the purpose and effects of the paper project but in the discourse
of the Web
- presents multiple Web pages with a clear links among them
- includes some kind of menu system on all pages which is easy to find
and understand (this is key since you'll be turning over responsibility
for sequencing and coverage of the topic to the user)
- combines and coordinates graphics and text
- includes content on every page
- makes wise use of screen real estate and minimizes scrolling
- includes links to external resources
- follows Nielsen's guidelines for "content design"
Step by Step
1. Decide on a topic to write your "paper" about. Don't think
right now about how you'll repurpose this in a Web-based project. In fact,
the more difficult the content is to repurpose, the more credit you'll
get. The more obvious and easy the job of repurposing, the less you'll
have to do. The main consideration is to chose a topic that you are engaged
with and already know some things about (and want to find out more)
2. Write your formal 3-5 page paper, following the guidelines above and
turn it in on Wednesday, February 27. In
class that evening, I'll have you compose and send me an e-mail message
with the subject line "5230 New Media concerns" in which you
can informally consult with me about your concerns with the paper and
its content, and looking ahead to the task of recreating the purpose and
effects of the paper in an appropriately Web-based project
3. I will read your paper and respond to it as well as to your "5230
New Media concerns" e-mail message. We can e-mail back and forth
if you have further questions or issues.
4. Between February 27 and Monday, March 11,
you'll develop a Web site following the guidelines above
5. Bring to class on Wednesday, March 13
a self commentary on the entire experience of the project: writing the
original paper, repurposing the paper into a Web site including finding
additional resources (e.g., graphics, external Web sites). The self commentary
should also reflect on the larger issues/problems/conflict, raised in
some of our readings in the Trend book (Landow's piece, for instance)
involved in the process of "remediating" (to recast in a new
medium) a written, print-based work for an electronic, screen-based medium.
Resources
Top | Sample Ideas | Paper
Guidelines | Web Site Guidelines | Step
by Step | Resources
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