manny piña
How do I get started on writing project 3?
writing project 3 process:
Remember: writing project three is about architecting an immersive and engaging experience for users of your digital text. With that in mind, here is a process that should be helpful in transforming a print text for a digital environment:
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select a text:
The first thing you need to do is select a text to remediate for the digital.
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A few things to remember:
A print text will typically be linear; it will have a chronological narrative that progresses from introduction to conclusion. A print text will also be fully contained within the limits of the page. That is, there won't be any links to external content.
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The best types of print text for this assignment will be a researched text that you have written for a previous course. This must be a text that you own. The text you choose should also be expository or persuasive in nature, not poetry or fiction writing.
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The text you choose should also be substantial enough to develop into a multi-page web -text; likely 1500+ words.
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To the right is an example of one of my own texts that would be appropriate to remediate for writing project two.
develop a user persona:
Remember when we developed personas during the first writing project? Well, it's time to do so again! User experience should be used strategically in the development of web-content; meaning that the user needs to be front-loaded in the content development process. The user should drive content and design.
break the text down:
Read your original paper closely and carefully. Do what I've previously called a "function" reading of your text. Understand what the constituent parts of your text are and how they are working collectively to develop your argument.
Print the document out and use old-fashioned writing technologies like pens and highlighters to outline and analyze your original content. What are the major parts of the original argument? What smaller parts are large sections made up of?
You could even get out scissors and literally cut it up into different sections.
The project requirements section provides some minimal requirements for parts you’ll include, but your web-text will need to be broken down beyond what that list suggests.
remediate the text:
You've chosen an appropriate text; you've front-loaded user experience; you've broken down that text into granular parts.
Now comes the real creative work of architecting a digital experience. All that theory that we've been reading about—rhetoric, experience architecture, landscape narratives—should be meeting the practical application of web writing.
Its Rhetoric & Experience Architecture meets Letting Go of the Words.
Theory in action.
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There are a variety of architectural designs that you could employ (see the image below taken from Lynch & Horton's Web Style Guide); none is inherently "better" than the other. What gives your site construction value and meaning is the experience that it creates for users.
Remember that you are moving from a linear, print environment into a not-necessarily-sequential, digital environment. Your text will not—should not—look and feel the same.
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Above all, whatever you do, do it with purpose.
Possible page architectures. Lynch & Horton (2009). Web Style Guide, 3rd. Ed.
publish:
There is literally a plethora of options for where to publish your web-text.
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Your options include but are not limited to:​
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Wix
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Google Sites
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Wordpress
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Squarespace
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Weebly
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Github
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Each of these web publishing sites offers something different. Again, none is inherently better than the next. It's a matter of architecting an immersive and engaging space. Each site will allow you to do that in nuanced ways.
