Writing for the Web

Webwriting from the Editors' Point of View

I don't see editorsweblog.org very often, but it's always worth a look. The blog supplies a wealth of information from (and for) editors around the world. It's a good site for different perspectives on journalism, especially journalism on the Web.

Go Visit Typeface

Its author Joel Schettler bills Typeface as dealing with "all things readerly for fellow bibliophiles." Whatever their genre, writers who aren't bibliophiles aren't really writers either. This is a good resource.

Alberta Premier Not a Web Plagiarist

Ralph Klein has been exonerated. A university review indicates he didn't plagiarize his essay on Chile under Pinochet. You can read about it in The Globe and Mail.

But when he says he's relieved "like any student would be," he puts himself in deep trouble with the English Inquisition; he should have been relieved as any student would be.

In Vancouver? Want to Write for a Living?

Maybe we need to talk. I have the pleasure of teaching in the Communications department of Capilano College in North Vancouver. We've always offered some evening courses in various kinds of applied writing, and now we have a full-fledged Professional Communications Certificate program. If you're interested in making workplace writing a part of your career, it might be for you.

The purpose of the certificate program is to train people in a range of writing skills—business writing, corporate communications, visual communications, tech writing, Web content development, presentation skills, and freelance article writing.

As much as possible, the coursework should apply to a real-world need. You try to publish your articles in paying markets. You work on the content of your own company's website, or write the manual for its product. After five courses (almost all in the evenings), you have a certificate and a formidable range of applied-writing skills.

From Blogs to Books

The New Yorker has a short item on a new phenomenon: bloggers writing books. Real books, print on paper. You can read A Book in You at the magazine's site.

We can draw a conclusion or two from this trend: print is still the medium of prestige as well as record, and some bloggers are actually pretty good writers regardless of medium.

The agent who scouts promising bloggers also observes that some of her most promising talents are still hesitant to go to book length. That's like many of the journalists I've known—they're great sprinters who can knock out 500 or 1200 words with blinding speed. But give them a cross-country run, and they hesitate.

And maybe with good reason. Believe me, a book is a lot more work than a blog, and for a much more doubtful reward. The "bookworthy" bloggers like Instapundit can count their visitors instantly; royalty statements come just a couple of times a year, and they don't include reader comments.

The Webby Awards

Pay a visit to The Webby Awards: 2004 Nominees & Winners. I found some familiar sites here (if I spend any more time with BBS News Online, they'll have to give me my own desk), but also some interesting surprises.

More About Web Plagiarism

If you're an instructor fighting plagiarism, you should probably visit Plagiarized.com.

If you're a crooked, lazy, no good, rotten student plagiarist, you should also visit the site. As the creators themselves point out, they can't control the Google ads that appear on their site, so you'll get a good choice of sites offering essays at bargain prices...as well as advice on how teachers can spot such essays.

I have no idea why the creators of Plagiarism.com are putting up with such ads. If this is a cheap way to get a site up, then it's still too expensive.

By the way: We teachers have other ways of spotting plagiarism besides those mentioned here. If you're dumb enough, and crooked enough, to try plagiarizing...we'll nail you like a two by four.

Kurt Vonnegut, Webwriter

Those short words, those bite-size paragraphs, those two-page chapters: Kurt Vonnegut was a Webwriter before his time. Now, at 81, he's in his natural medium. His article "Cold Turkey" is a superb example. According to BlogPulse (see previous post), it's the third most-linked-to site in the blogosphere.

Even if you don't agree with his views, you should study the way he expresses them.

Then decide that today is the day you start doing something about your logorrhea problem.

Check Out BlogPulse

So what are bloggers talking about? This week a new service came online: Intelliseek's BlogPulse reports on what links are getting the most traffic, and you can also check on whatever topics or people interest you. Very clever, and very useful. Thanks to Anne at Dragon Bear Cave, who passed the link along to me from Steve Outing at Poynter.org.

Alberta Premier a Web Plagiarist!

Ralph Klein has been premier of Alberta for two or three geological epochs, and his entertainment value has always been high. He's the guy who one night rolled in, drunk, to a homeless shelter to tell the folks to find a job.

Last year, when an Alberta cow came down with BSE and nearly wrecked the Canadian beef industry, Klein publicly wished someone had solved the problem with a gun and a shovel. Then he responded to a critical New York Times story by asking: "Is this the same newspaper where one reporter was found to have plagiarized and a number of editors resigned?"

Now he himself has been nailed as a Web plagiarist. Having enrolled in an Athabasca University course, Klein wrote an essay on the overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973. He got a grade of 77, which would be a C+ in my classes, but the essay itself turns out to be a patchwork of texts copied and pasted off various websites.

Klein is trying to make light of the incident, according to the Edmonton Journal, but it's going to give me a great story when I warn my students next fall about the perils of Web plagiarism.