Writers on Writing

            Alice Walker’s thoughts on meditation and how it forms her as a writer speaks to one of two popular schools of thought on writing – to be a writer you have to either experience an interesting life out in the world or have great introspection and isolation.  Walker discusses the latter in this writing, but it seems she stumbled upon this method of finding her voice as a result of a failure in at the former. Walker began meditating while nursing her heart from a split with her husband, yet the beginning of her meditative practice led to her finding and defining her voice as a writer. As Walker puts it:

“Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books. I could not have written, ‘Possessing the Secret of Joy’ (about a woman who is genitally mutilated) without it; writing ‘The Temple of My Familiar’ (my ‘great vision’ novel of how the world got to be the way it is) would have been impossible. ‘The Color Purple’ owes much of its humor and playfulness to the equanimity of my mind as I committed myself to a routine, daily practice.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/23/arts/23WALK.html

I don’t pretend to be a writer on the level of a great like Alice Walker – I often don’t even consider myself a writer at all. However, as I have written more over the past few years for work, and the past few months for school, I have found that I am leading a much more quiet life.

I live and sleep by the buzz of the television, the vastness that is the Internet and the blare of constant background music, if for no other reason but companionship.  I have always needed background sound and light for comfort. Though I haven’t taken up a serious meditation routine like Alice Walker, I have pledged more time to silence, particularly when I write and when I am asleep. I think committing to more time in silence, has equated to more time with myself. This has resulted in more inclusion of anecdotes in my writing. I made the observation about mid-term that I had been beginning most of my writing with a personalized narrative to illustrate what I was attempting to prove in my overall writing. I would go on to present fact or research but the introduction and the tone of my writing tends to be set my personal experience with the subject. I attribute finding this comfort in sharing personal experience and background partially to the time that I have been spending with myself. Walker describes meditation taking her back to a favorite childhood place. I would describe silence as a place to allow memories to resurface and find new life in whatever I’m writing. I have found that silence has allowed me to discover and evaluate who I already am as a communicator while I learn new methods and applications.

It took me a long time to find what is I am good at, what I want to be and by what means I want to apply myself. As I commit more time to myself I have learned that a portion of who I am as a writer already, is someone who shares some things about myself to express my thoughts. In the social media environment, sharing often starts a conversation, and a conversation is exactly what I interpret social media to be.

Multimedia Tools

The Internet is where we go to find information, entertainment, to build and sustain relationships and to experience new things. The best online formats for websites, blogs, and social media, feed our desire to accomplish several of these things in one place. Spaces that are social yet also teach us new things or are entertaining, are beneficial to meeting our needs with both less time, and less exertion. Sites that serve several purposes and also play at our different senses are adding one more layer that keeps viewers interested. Video, sound, graphics and games all are all additions that either increases the functionality or the appeal of a particular site or message.

http://gph.is/1gDIqY9

See, a Phylicia Rashad GIF makes readying this post much more pleasant!

I admittedly am not particularly a fan of websites that begin to play music when I arrive. I understand that the music sets a particular mood for the visitor, but I usually find that I am not in an appropriate place for unsolicited music to begin playing. When the music does not place me in an embarrassing position however, I do find that it is a nice touch. Have a click here and take a guess at what type of food the restaurant serves – the sounds will give it away before the visuals.

Video has the ability to stimulate two of our senses at the same time, and it has never been easier to video to share. Here’s a video I created on iMovie a few years ago from Afghanistan to send to colleagues back in Georgia.

Google probably is one of my favorites for incorporating multimedia into their main page in a minimalist way with a big impact. Google Doodle’s are a nice nod to memorable date on the calendar, but it’s even more special when the Google Doodle is interactive. This Google Doodle is from the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

https://www.google.com/doodles/slalom-canoe-2012

Blog: Best Practices

For me blogs hang on to the peripheral of my free time. For me, the role they play is similar to magazines – there are so many that I enjoy and want to keep up to date with, but life gets in the way and I fall off as a faithful reader. However, there are some that I always finding myself coming back to over the years and I know the same quality blog will be there when I return. These include hair care blogs, beauty blogs, style, natural living, lifestyle, political, social commentary and humorous social commentary.

Recently I’ve been in search of great food blogs and when I came across 15-year-old Kelly’s Foodie Fiasco I was instantly hooked. I find it very telling of the times that one my newest favorites is written by a teenager, and for that reason I will use her blog to outline some blogging best practices.

Have personality

Though it might be acceptable for Kelly to just share recipes and photos of food that she makes, what makes hers unique from other blogs doing the same thing is that you get a true sense of who she is from her posts. She shares stories of high school exams, her backstory of being over weight anddepriving herself of food, and little vignettes explaining how she came across certain recipes. This style makes her relatable to different readers and opens her up to be someone that readers can feel like they know on a personal level.

Update often

This might be obvious, but it is also the thing that sets bloggers up for long-term success. Kelly’s blog has lasted three years which means that she has carved out time to make updating a priority. For me personally I know that once I get attached to a particular blog it’s disappointing when the frequency of post drops off, yet I have also attempted to blog a few times and I know how difficult it can be in the beginning to remain vigilant about updating frequently when you aren’t even sure who is reading. I admire anyone who can make it through the uncertain beginning and continue a timely posting schedule – a necessity to any successful blog.

Use multimedia tools

When you arrive on the Foodie Fiasco Blog you are greeted with a slide show of photos from featured recipes. This gives you a glimpse of what you can find on Kelly’s blog right away. This particular blog does not use a wide variety of multimedia tools such as video and other types of presentations, but the one tool she does use is the first thing you see when you arrive at her blog. I admit I enjoy blogs that incorporate a lot of video, and this is something she may venture into in the future but for now she uses mostly still photography to tell the stories of the process of creating her food.

Encourage participation

Of course encouraging commenting is one way to keep readers involved, but my particular favorite is giveaways! Everyone love free things especially as it relates to a subject they are interested in – people who are reading food blogs love winning food items. On Foodie Fiasco, Kelly has giveaways on a regular basis. These giveaways become an opportunity for her to increase her followership across different social media networks, since following and commenting is apart of the process of entering the particular giveaway. Another way Kelly encourages participation on her blog is by hosting forums where readers can share their own stories and recipes and have conversation with other readers. This is not something always found on blogs but a great way to get readers not only interacting with the author of the blog but also amongst themselves. Readers can come to the blog not only to read content, but also to catch up on relationships created through the blog.

Be organize and searchable

I hate when I read a post on a blog, only to go back and never be able o find it again. Foodie Fiasco offers a recipe index broken down by category and a simple search box. These are simple yet important additions for any blog. If great content is present on the blog, then readers will want to revisit past posts. Making this an easy task for the reader is key. The blog also has an easy to navigation menu at the top of the page, which allows you to move through the different sections of the blog with ease.

Market yourself and your brand

Being a blogger today means having a presence in many more locations than just your own URL. Kelly can be found on all of the major media outlets making her assessable to her audience wherever they may be on the web at any given moment. She maintains a Facebook fan page, a Pinterest board, a Twitter account, an Instagram account, a StumbleUpon page and a tumblr page. All of these places are different platforms to build her brand and maintain and build her audience. She also has available links to get in contact with her for opportunities for collaboration, advertisement and for press.

Of course this list could be altered for different types of blogs. There might be other things a news related blog or a blog tied to a corporate entity may need to ensure they are doing to be successful, but I consider this list a start to creating and maintaining a successful blog.

Former Penn State Coach Dies at age 85

For Immediate Release

Jacqueline Wren

216-386-XXXX

Jackiewren720@gmail.com

Former Penn State Coach Dies at age 85

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Jan. 22, 2012 – Former Penn State head football coach, Joe Paterno, lost his battle with cancer here today, dying at age 85.

Source

Despite earlier false reports of his death Saturday, Paterno’s family responded to reports via Twitter to confirm that he was still clinging to life until Sunday. He died in State College where he had been hospitalized since January 13th due to complications with his lung cancer.

First reports of Paterno’s lung cancer surfaced in November 2011, when son, Scott released a statement to the Associated Press declaring his father had been diagnosed with a treatable form of the disease.  The news of his illness came just two weeks following his firing from Penn State based on his possible knowledge of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.

Though controversy riddled Paterno’s final months, the beloved College Football Hall of Famer will likely be most remembered for his 60 year coaching career at Penn State, where he was known as JoePa.

Joe Paterno is survived by his wife, the former Suzanne Pohland, their five children Diana, Joseph Jr. "Jay", Mary Kay, David, and Scott, and 17 grandchildren.

Facebook Post: I life lived on Penn State’s football field – 85 year old Joe Paterno loses lung cancer battle today.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/01/media-outlets-dead-wrong-to-jump-the-gun-on-paternos-death-joe-paterno-poynter-cbssportscom/1#.UwwAV3k1dg0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Paterno

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-paterno-has-lung-cancer-son-says/

Social Media Tools

I am a person who enjoys learning new information. I am also lucky enough to be alive in an age where information is virtually unlimited and at my fingertips through a wide variety of social media tools. I can learn about different places, social issues, my friends and national influencers all by unlocking my phone or opening up my laptop.

In my role as a communicator for Army organizations, I have established and maintained several social media sites for the purpose of a professional presence for groups I have served that role in. However, I have only recently begun to cultivate my own online professional identity online.  Though I have had membership on sites like Facebook and Instagram almost since their inception, I have up until now only used my online presence for for social purposes. To change this I have looked to the micro blog site, Twitter.

In the past, I have enjoyed Twitter’s very simple privacy settings; it allows me to speak my mind freely amongst friends without the need to censor for potential employers, clients or colleagues. It’s not that I have things to hide, but some conversations should be had on safe spaces – my private twitter feed is one of my safe spaces. I now have, what I am marketing as my “professional” twitter feed. I am using it to share things that I post from my organization’s account and to follow groups and people I am connected to or a fan of in industries of interest. 

To grow my online professional identity, I also rely on channels both internal and external to the Department of Defense. The military has a great online collection of all photos, video, audio and articles produced by service members called DVIDS. I have a profile of my professional Army work there that is assessable to the public, media and Service members. Additionally I use my presence on LinkedIn to highlight my professional background and capabilities. This site is great for connecting to former colleagues and perspective employers, providing and receiving references, and for sharing profession products and findings.  Having a complete profile on this site allows for so many professional opportunities.

Lastly, since I’ve been spending so much time on my personal computer lately with classwork, I find the online distractions are endless! A short break between writing or reading is a necessity, but it is easy to get sucked in to the endless possibilities, and loose track of time. I have been looking for a good social bookmarking tool to use so that I can place all of the interesting articles I come across on hold for later consumption. I created a Stumbleupon account and a Reddit but found that it was difficult for me to just perform the simple function I was looking seeking – a place where I could bookmark an article to come back to it. While digging through “this site versus that site” articles on Mashable, I came across a simple App to solve my problem - Pocket. This application allows me to save articles from all of my devices in one place and then go back and read it when I have time – a great way to not waste hours on the Internet trying to read everything at once.

A Credibility Evaluation of the Article "Slow Progress On Long-Term Unemployment Benefits As 1.6 Million Miss Out"

Sited sources from the article, Slow Progress On Long-Term Unemployment Benefits As 1.6 Million Miss Out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/unemployment-benefits_n_4661010.html#slide=3014761

Sources

• Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.)
• Moderate Senate Republicans
• This article from their own site http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/unemployment-insurance-senate_n_4597918.html
• This article from their site http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/house-democrats-unemployment_n_4612641.html
• The Labor Department http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
• Shannon Gaiser of Butler, Pa., an unemployed substance abuse counselor
• A response letter from Rep. Michael Kelly (R-Pa.)

An Evaluation of this article’s credibility

Arthur Delaney is the author of the article along with being coauthor on both of the articles he sited in this piece.

1. Is there any evidence that the author of the Web information has some authority in the field about which she or he is providing information? What are the author's qualifications, credentials and connections to the subject? 

• Delaney is a Huffington Post contributor that focuses on unemployment and other economic issues according to his profile on the site. He has been with the Huffingotn Post since 2009.
•  He has written for the Washington City Paper, The Hill newspaper, Slate Magazine, and ABCNews.com
•  He has also written an EBook titled A People's History of the Great Recession.

2. With what organization or institution is the author associated? Is there a link to the sponsoring organization, a contact number and/or address or e-mail contact? A link to an association does not necessarily mean that the organization approved the content. 

•  It is only listed that he is affiliated with the news organizations he works for as a reporter.

3. Does the author have publications in peer reviewed (scholarly and professional) publications, on the Web or in hard copy? (If an author does not have peer reviewed articles published, this does not mean that she or he does not have credible information, only that there has been no professional "test" of the author's authority on that subject.) 

• The author has received awards for his journalism including the Street Sense David A. Pike Excellence in Journalism award and a Sidney Award from the Hillman Foundation

4. Are there clues that the author/s are biased? For example, is he/she selling or promoting a product? Is the author taking a personal stand on a social/political issue or is the author being objective? Bias is not necessarily "bad," but the connections should be clear. 

• Though he does not seem to be promoting a particular bias in this article it should be noted that the Huffington Post tends to be a left leaning organization.

5. Is the Web information current? If there are a number of out-of-date links that do not work or old news, what does this say about the credibility of the information?

•  Web information is up-to-date.

6. Does the information have a complete list of works cited, which reference credible, authoritative sources? If the information is not backed up with sources, what is the author's relationship to the subject to be able to give an "expert" opinion? 

•  There is a link to most of the sources and quotes from the personal interview.

7. Can the subject you are researching be fully covered with WWW sources or should print sources provide balance? Much scholarly research is still only available in traditional print form. It is safe to assume that if you have limited background in a topic and have a limited amount of time to do your research, you may not be able to get the most representative material on the subject. So be wary of making unsupportable conclusions based on a narrow range of sources. 

• In this article there is a mix. The links are to other articles but also to a press release by the Labor Department. He also used quotes from a press conference and quotes from a person experiencing the effects of the subject and a letter in her position from a Congressman’s Office.

8. On what kind of Web site does the information appear? The site can give you clues about the credibility of the source.

•  Huffington Post is a national News/Journalists site

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This Article reports on the activities of Congress this week surrounding unemployment and the effects these actions (or lack there of) are having on those who are unemployed. It is important that the article uses both direct quotes from member of Congress in the article and sites reports released by the organization that is responsible for releasing data on just this subject.

In an age where any opinion has a forum on the web, it is important to seek reporting that gives information that is rooted in fact and reliable sources. Delaney himself presents a level of credibility because his reporting on this particular subject has been ongoing. Through all of his reporting he shows that he is committed to telling a complete story.

To increase his ability to appear as impartial he could have, in addition to personal account from an unemployed woman, included the opinion of someone who is against the extending of unemployment.  Overall, however I believe the article serves as a fairly complete snapshot of information on the subject at the time. The article somewhat serves as a small piece of a larger whole of information surrounding the unemployment benefits subject.