Blog 17: “What is Style?” Part 2

I think if someone asked me what style is after taking this course, I’d probably have to answer that style is a combination of things.  First, it’s the method and mechanics used when creating writing, beginning with the creation process and continuing through the final revisions.  It is also the writer’s voice, which plays a large role in how a work is drafted and finalized.  As I said in the beginning, in order to refine your style, a writer has to be intimately familiar with the mechanics and nuances of grammar and stylistic writing, or at the very least be able to easily access that information and make use of it.

This course did have a numb er of useful elements – learning the history of writing and what exactly technology is when it comes to writing was useful.  The idea of comics as a combination of writing and art was eye opening, it was a genre that I hadn’t given a lot of consideration to previously, and was as guilty as most of discounting the significance of.  I had good experiences with the collaborative video essay, and the amount of effort that I feel peers put into the group process improved as the course progressed.

Blog 14: YouTube/Low-bridge videos: Are they good? Are they bad? Are they writing?

The writing process and the video making process did share some similarities.  We had to draft an outline of the script, then a tentative script, and a final draft.  The video was shot in several different takes, and finally revised in an editing process before we had a final version worth submitting.  I definitely see the point of using low bridge technology – as I posted on the forum I think that video production allows for the creative process to take form in a format different than what people are used to, which requires thinking a little differently about a project and approaching it in a different angle.

As I said earlier, the opportunities for education using formats like this are tremendous.  Uncomplicated technology like YouTube (uncomplicated for those generations who have grown up with computers and the internet) makes the audience for works that much greater, and with the prevalence of  computers and the internet, virtually anyone in the world can access what you or I create.

Blog 15: Looking back at past readings, looking forward to the essay about the movie-making process

The readings that I consider most useful for writing the essay on the movie making process were obviously the Strunk and White and Williams style books, as those are what we drew our material for the film from.  While making the movie I hadn’t really considered any of the other works from the semester, but I suppose I can see how they would play a role, especially that of Ong’s writing technology essay.  Obviously a large part of the film dealt with writing – the script, the premise of commonly misused words, our dialogue, ect.  And the film format itself is an example of technology, one that has only been available in the last fifty years or so.

McCloud’s work also contains elements that were covered in the film – the use of pacing and time, interaction between acting and dialogue, ect.  While the elements are used differently in the comic format, they apply as importantly in film as in print.

Blog 13: Peer Review Recap, Part 3

For the third peer review, I’ve tried to do a few things differently.   First, I’ve tried to be as prompt as possible in providing feedback on other essays.  I did this to allow classmates as much time as possible for review, hopefully allowing them to consider my comments before revising their essay.

Second, the feedback that I have given this time around has been more critical, and therefore hopefully more useful.  Rather than an exchange of pleasantries, I have attempted to give out critical observations that I think can directly translate into opportunity for revision.  Due to the structure of the feedback process for this assignment, and the limited amount of feedback that everyone recieves, I think it’s important to give the best quality critique possible.

I would have liked to have recieved more feedback, but will work with what I have during revision. 

Reading and Writing about Comics Part 2

A review of Jessica Allio’s post – http://jessicaallio.wordpress.com/

Jessica’s review seems pretty thorough, she uses four examples of elements discussed in McCloud’s Understanding Comics – transitions, motion, time, and dialogue through balloons.  She dedicates a section to each element discussed and does a great job of citing McCloud’s approach on each.

The sheer number of elements discussed in McCloud’s book make it impossible to cover many of them while maintaining brevity, so obviously a sampling must be taken – and Jessica has done a good job here in selecting some of the important elements.  I will take two more, those of the actual frame and the relationship of pictures to words.

McCloud discusses the use of framing on page 99 of his book.  The purpose of a frame, according to McCloud, is to separate one point of time from another.   By dividing the frame, even without any other clues, we know that the events of the first frame (the missed serve) takes place at a different point of time than the events of the second frame (the conversation over the net).3

The relationship of pictures to word in this strip also bear mentioning.    There is quite a bit of text for the four frames, the reason behind this is that there is not much action.  Because the actual pictures do so little of the work in describing what is happening, the majority of the responsibility to explain lies with the actual words.  This is the focus of McCloud’s chapter 6, titled Show and Tell.

Reading and Writing about Comics ala McCloud, Part 1

The comic I am reviewing can be sourced from – http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/30/

Penny Arcade is a website that publishes a webcomic, usually themed around video games and that general lifestyle, with a target audience of adolescent males and females who themselves play video games.

This strip employs quite a few of the techniques described by McCloud in his book.  Obviously it qualifies as a comic given its progression of images in a sequential series, defined as “juxtaposed pictoral and other images in a deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in a viewer.”  This particular strip relies on three images in sequence.

Time is represented by both the division of frames and detail within the frame.  In the first frame, action is shown with the click of a mouse, after which there is a brief pause due to the frame break.  In the next frame the character is in the same position, with an open eye which was previously closed.  Due to the limits of the human body to maintain the exact same position for an extended period of time, we can assume that the second frame takes place moments after the first.  Finally, the last frame transitions to a box of Windows 7, taking a viewer out of the action of the previous two panels.  This last panel could have taken place at any point in time, as there is no action involved in it.

The length of the strip seems appropriate.  As McCloud states, “…finding the balance between too much and too little is crucial to comics the world over.”  Given the amount of action in the three panels, the addition of any panels seems unnecessary, while subtraction would result in confusion or a lost message.

Picturing texts on the web

The website I chose to take a look at was Square Enix’s, at http://www.square-enix.com/na/

Balance – The links at the top of the page are balanced out by a corresponding set of links that scroll across the bottom of the screen on mouseover.  This balance helps to organize a page that really has a lot going on, without it I think the page would be a little too chaotic.

Pattern – the dark background of the website is starkly contrasted by the white text and white flash designs in the center of the page.  The activity in the bustling center draws your attention and is framed by the dark, simple black background.  Using this pattern directs a viewer to see the page in the fashion that the designer intended, drawing your attention immediately to the center.

One thing you notice about this page immediately is the sheer volume of things that are going on.  This is a great example of the ability to read confusion and find meaningful information that is discussed in the Relationships between images and words article.  As she says, simple images and designs are boring to consumers, and audiences need some pizzazz to keep us engaged.  This site advertises video games, so I think that the target audience of teenagers who spend a lot of their lives playing fast paced video games are acclimated to this style of presentation.

Blog Post 9: Peer Review Recap Part 2

The process of revision for the second peer review was a very similar experience to the first.  This time around, it seemed that people were more forthcoming in their editing suggestions, possibly as a result of the lack of feedback they themselves received on the first essay.   The advice that I received was much as expected, I was asked to narrow down my focus to avoid being ambiguous.  Given that the rule I started with the essay was intentionally general as to allow a broad range of interpretation and therefore material to write on, I expected this.

The feedback I gave was fairly insubstantial.  As I said earlier I found that this time around people had quite a bit more to say than last edit, as such most of what needed to be say had already been said.  What I did correct were small grammatical errors and issues of continuity and flow.  I assume that these were simply errors in a first draft, and I didn’t find any substantial writing errors in the three essays that I worked on.

My only complaints about the process have been stated before, but I’ll make them known again – first that the peer review process requires cooperation between groups of people with entirely different schedules, so you find yourself waiting on complete feedback before you can start the process of revision.  Also, the lack of a physical copy bothers me, it’s a nuance I suppose but I enjoy editing by hand rather than electronically.  I suppose I could have printed a copy and done revisions by hand, but I would have had to go through the process online anyway.

Blog Post 8: What are others saying?

From Ashley Stinson’s blog – http://astinso.wordpress.com/

“I think that Williams’ advice is not more useful than Strunk and White’s but useful in a different context. Williams’ advice has a sense of maturity that S&W lacks. Instead of giving a list of dos & don’ts Williams’ spends his time explaining, in excruciating detail, why and how his advice is applicable.”

I totally agree with this point, and it’s something I’ve said before.  Both Strunk and White and Williams’ ideas are great in their own respects.  I think Ashley is right, both books have merit in their own contexts.  For me it’s a question of audience, it seems as though the Strunk and White book is written for writers with less experience who need guidence while they are writing.  The Williams book, on the other hand, is written for experienced writers who need guidence on revising their style of writing to make it more appealing. 

From Jessica Allio – http://jessicaallio.wordpress.com/

“As far as approach,  I did find some aspects of Strunk and White’s approach more effective, particularly the format of the text.  The rules were given in a type of list that made for a quick and easy read.  Williams was more difficult to read and often required re-reading of the text in order to get a firm grasp on the main points.”

This.  I found that a lot of the time the graphs and charts in the Williams text were very difficult to interpret, much more difficult than the text it accompanied.  I also found myself forced to re-read sections of the Williams text in order to fully grasp the meaning of what he was trying to say, something I did not have to do with Strunk and White.  This is not a bad thing, simply a part of the process of reading for a college-level course which I don’t feel is the audience of the Strunk and White version.