Mark Twain- & His Advice

Advice on writing. Definitely not my area of expertise, however Mark Twain came up with some pretty good stuff. Mark Twain encouraged short and meaningful language, as opposed to letting adjectives ruin the content. Twain would agree with Dr. Lay's favorite saying, "I would have written a shorter paper, had I had more time." Twain claims that useless adjectives may become a bad habit that could eventually be harder to break then starting out without the improper use of them in the first place. Too many adjectives make the important adjectives lose their meaning. It almost takes away from the UMPH that comes with an extra descriptive word. In blogging it is important to use adjectives to make your writing interesting, however if you are trying to get your point across it won't be as strong if your overusing adjectives.
Sometimes it may take me the entire page to explain what I could probably explain in one good sentence. Mark Twain advises that we don't waste an entire paper on what could be much shorter. He encourages looking for a more purposeful words so that you can use fewer. Don't waste time with meaningless sentences using meaningless words that are meaningless to your readers. I do this all the time. I definitely waste paper in my papers for school every time I am told to watch a 30 second clip and write a four page paper on it. Why do teachers do that? It completely ruins the writing, and is a complete waste of my academic time.
Reread, rework, edit, and do it again. When your paper is finished- redo it. Mark Twain says, "You need not expect to get your book right the first time." The process of editing and rewriting is invaluable to perfecting the perfect paper. Dr. Lay was just talking in class about her doctoral thesis- which she barely recognized the day she went to present it to the board. It has to be THAT good... you have to work that hard and change it that many times because no one expects perfection on a rough draft. These concepts don't always apply to blogging, at least not to mine. My blog is going to be my place to write about the topics we are given. My thoughts, and my ideas, displayed the way I want them to look.
I still want my blog to be about my thoughts, and ideas, and how I want it to look- but i lied. These concept completely apply to my entire blog. I have edited almost every single post I have posted, some more than once since I have written this. Even though this is mostly opinion and reflective writing, you can still edit and rewrite: for creativity, precision, and clarity. Clarity being the most important; without clarity, there is no point in writing to your reader.

AT&T analysis

The AT&T commercial used to commonly known fairytale of Hansel and Gretel to portray their new cell phone with GPS as a house hold item. (Using a fairytale was clever in that children are familiar with the story, when they see a commercial that features an untraditional version of the story, they will be able to relate. Targeting a younger audience is a bullet proof way to make sure adults hear all about the cool new phone. Children love to beg their parents for things, and parents may or may not give in- but the product will always stand out as a desire.) I don't really think this way anymore, but I wanted to leave it there so I could point out why it's wrong. The company isn't really targeting a younger audience- but the parents are still familiar with the child like fairytale of Hansel and Gretel. It is up to the parent to stay on top of things and this phone is showing them exactly how to do that. The GPS feature the phone is equipped with allows the user to feel as if the technology holds their way home and that appeals to a persons inner desires to feel at home in the world. Another reason why children are used is that it implies the phone is so easy, even a child can use it. For adults with difficulty applying new technology the new high tech phone seems simple enough to use, yet up to date enough to make it appear younger because younger people are generally associated with technology. New York City is also a constantly face paced city and the commercial being set in the city allows you to feel as if the phone will help you "make it" in the big apple. Buildings in the shape of service bars in the background serve as subliminal memory makers that keep the AT&T logos familiar in our minds. The commercial appeals to our inner most wants and emotions. The narrator at the end has only one job left to do and that is let us in on the name of the product that will fulfill our needs and desires.

Plagiarism

Lethem is not exactly advocating plagiarism. He is more saying that it is okay to recycle intellectual ideas. He even says that we, as writers, can use his own stories and ideas because they weren't really his ideas in the first place. This writer must me crazy, right? He just gave us permission to copy his work. Well, not really, because if you are a good writer or you are trying at all to create something new using Lethem's ideas- that is what is okay with him. Ideas are meant to be shared, elaborated, and inspiration to lead to new ideas. Lethem says that no one can really "own knowledge" it only starts with you. Once a writer starts off with a piece of knowledge, it is fair game. Fair game to rework over and over until it may look nothing like the original thought, or it might look exactly the same- as long as it is being shared. Other artists are likely to re create what you have to say, and using your ideas should be considered a good thing. Sharing ideas will keep the art, whether it is a story, an idea, or a fantasy, circulating and the ideas are made into many changing and intertwining forms of thought. He is saying that "intertextuality" exists because it has to. It has to, because ideas and stories need to be developed, for us to learn and evolve with the idea itself just as it evolves in our minds. As readers we are all relating eachothers ideas to other things and it is okay to intertwine your ideas with other ideas of previous writers because they ideas are meant to put back into the "economy" and it works together to create art. This is an economy of knowledge, and economy of writing, and it is successful when all writers and all intellectuals borrow ideas, as long as they donate imput and new creations derived from the original are put back into it.

Writing Online...

So here I am at Hofstra, and I am blogging. Writing online makes me feel like a new aged writer. Blogging online is an incredible way to let out your inner thoughts, and share them, online. It takes communication to a whole new level. I have always kept a diary, plain old paper and pencil, to write down my thoughts and feelings. Now there is a new way to share my ideas. Honestly, writing is writing and now that it is online, the only difference is privacy. When I write in my diary I know that it is for no one but myself. Online there is no privacy and whatever you put on the Internet is for everyone else to read and have opinions on. Actually, I think I change my mind. Writing changes everything because it changes your reader, that is probably the most important part of our writing. Even when the reader is only the writer- like in a diary, you are still writing only for yourself aka only the reader. So when you publish something online and your readers could be anyone from your classmates to your mom, how you write, what you write about, and what you say about that topic completely change because of the shift in audience.
At Hofstra, in this writing composition class, I feel like we are taking advantage of the new technology and advancing our communications skills. A blog is an interesting way to write online, because you can choose your own format and details. You add your own personal touch. This is similar to our focus free writes in class because there are very few rules when you are blogging. A blog allows us to continuously write whatever thoughts come into our heads. A writer can write anywhere and anytime. This personal entry is an outlet for us to put our thoughts out into cyber-space for our classmates and anyone else who is interested to read.
The differences between college and high school become more and more prevalent every day as I begin to acclimate to college level standards. In high school my assignments would never require me to blog, or write online. And that is one of the reasons college helps you to expand your knowledge and branch out. It is interesting to mix up where we write and changing the format because it changes the mindset I am in personally when writing my assignments. I look forward to more blogging assignments, and how my blog will turn out when our blogs develop and change with each assignment. At Hofstra I am interested in learning new ways to advance my education and to better my writing, this assignment of created our own blog is the perfect example of just that.