Blog Action Day: People First

Here in the U.S. all we’re hearing about these days is the upcoming presidential election, and it’s a big one, sure to go down as one of the most historical elections in this nation’s history. One of the candidates has put forth the motto “Country First.”

When I first heard that motto, I felt like I’d just been time warped back to the 1930s. Country first? Come on. This is America. We can do better than that.

Especially at a time like this.

As someone who sees herself as a person first, (a citizen of the world, if you will), I’d much prefer a motto like “People First.” So I’m going to make that my motto for this year’s Blog Action Day post. Because if we all try a little harder to put people first, Read more

Email this article to a friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How to Spot a Poetry Fraud

Guest post by Jaden with introduction by Melissa Donovan

In recent weeks, there have been some heated debates in the blogosphere about writing snobs – high browed literary types that look down on folks who write for the Web, who have not been published in print, or who do not write high literature or esteemed nonfiction. James Chartrand of Men with Pen calls these folks arTEESTS.

photo credit: ooberayhay

Frauds are a slightly different breed. They pretend to be something they are not. If you poke around the blogosphere for a day or two, you’ll see countless “pro blogging” blogs where it’s obvious whoever’s running the show only just discovered blogging within the last week or so, yet they are dishing out tips on how to become a full time professional blogger.

Snobs and frauds amuse me. I know some folks are really annoyed by them, but I tend to laugh them off pretty dismissively. Clearly, they have larger issues than snobbery and fraudulence that they should be addressing. Hopefully, snobs will learn to let go of their superiority complexes and frauds will eventually become an expert in something or admit they don’t know what they’re talking about.

I know, that’s not likely to happen. So we’ll just have to let them be. Ah well, live and let live is what I always say.

So when Jaden of Screenwriting for Hollywood sent a humorous little ditty about how to spot a poetry fraud and asked if I’d like to use it as a guest post, I thought it would be a refreshing break from our serious writerly discussions and give all of us lowly web writers and hardworking poets some much-needed comic relief. Enjoy!

photo credit: zachstern

HOW TO SPOT A POETRY FRAUD
by Jaden

1. Drops the names of poets you never heard like they were pistachio shells.
2. Doesn’t have a job.
3. Says he is a poet.
4. Passes off obscure poetry as his own.
5. Never pens a single piece of original poetry himself.
6. Gets you to pay for lunch because, well, he’s a poet.
7. Sits in cafes smoking and drinking coffee while reading Mina Loy.
8. His name never appears in print, except on police reports.

Jaden blogs at Screenwriting for Hollywood. Writing fiction and nonfiction stories in all formats is Jaden’s passion.

Email this article to a friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The Education Dilemma

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend when she casually mentioned she had plans to spend an evening helping out another friend of hers with some work that needed to be done. I asked, “What kind of work?”

“She’s an English teacher. I’m going to help her grade papers.”

I experienced a moment of envy. “That sounds like fun,” I said. You see, I love trolling written documents in search of typos, misspellings, and other crimes against language.

“These papers are written by teenagers,” she responded, “not so fun.”

I considered this, then remarked, “Yes, judging by the amount of writing errors I see coming from adults, those papers will probably be more red than white by the time you’re done.”

“Oh no,” she exclaimed. “No mark-ups. She just grades them. She says there are too many errors and she doesn’t have time to mark every single mistake.”

Well, if that’s the mentality of today’s English teachers, it’s no wonder the written word is treated with such complete and total disregard. I said as much to my friend and then we moved along to other, less disturbing topics.

Since that conversation, I’ve spent ample time wondering what, exactly, the English and Language Arts teachers are teaching students, if not proper grammar. Looking back, I realized that I hadn’t had a decent grammar lesson past fourth grade. My spelling and punctuation skills were largely inherited from the massive amounts of reading I did, so I didn’t need grammar lessons necessarily, but it sure would have been nice to have graduated high school knowing the difference between farther and further.

During high school, I had a teacher who found time to teach the class dating etiquette, which was supposed to prepare us for prom. We learned things like how to step out of a car, which arm to fold your coat over, and how to eat in a fine restaurant. While I found the lessons interesting, and the teacher was one that I liked very much, I look back with much chagrin, because we really should have spent that time mastering split infinitives.

A year later, I had a teacher who proceeded to read the entire novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest out loud, in class, for several weeks, when the class should have been writing about, and discussing the novel — you know, a little literary analysis.

I have a friend who teaches high school science, so I’m not completely without insight as to many of the obstacles that teachers must overcome: delinquent students, inadequate parents, over-sized classes, and ridiculous requirements handed down by the school board. Don’t even get me started on the bureaucracy in the public school system.

Is there a solution? Are we failing the kids? What’s wrong with a system in which a teacher cannot mark up her students’ papers in an effort to teach them where improvement is needed? How will those kids ever learn how to communicate effectively? In a world where written communication is becoming more and more critical, where will these kids obtain the skills they need to succeed? Or is grammar a skill that is no longer needed?

Email this article to a friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The Ethics of Writing and Citing

There’s an interesting conversation over at Problogger about an incident in which a news reporter filched information from a blog for a front page article without citing the blog as a source. Donald, who authors the blog Kamloops Inside Out (and whose last name I was unable to locate) explains:

I was excited to see the front page of the Kamloops Daily News this morning. The headline regarding shaky b-ball goals caught my attention. I read the article, like many of you. I looked through it…I couldn’t see it…maybe I missed it…puruse [sic] it again…where is it… For sure, it’s not there. That’s right, no props for the source. No head nod to the impetus of the story. No…nothing - I was hoping for just something that said kamloopsinsideout.ca

You can read Donald’s whole post here, and make sure you pay special attention to the first comment, which was a response from Michele Young, the journalist who wrote the offending article. After a diatribe in which she attempts to defend her actions, she states that “News media do not name someone for raising a question. They do raise sources who provide answers.”

This story raises many interesting issues about the ethics of writing, and particularly about the ethics of news reporting, which is indeed a function of many blogs. When it comes to citing sources, there are many considerations:

Ideas Cannot Be Copyrighted

I get ideas from other blogs all the time. If I’m using a blog post as a spring board, I cite it and link back. Even if my post is just loosely related to another post, I’ll try to include a link and let readers know where I got my notion. I make an equal effort to cite print resources as well. That’s not just good blogging, it’s ethical writing, and polite human behavior. However, often we will read an article, post, or whole book, and some small portion of it will trigger a bigger idea. It would be impossible to cite every single bit of material from which we have received inspiration.

Journalists Only Cite Concrete and Credible Sources

It would be rather unusual for a news reporter to kick off an article with, “I was reading this blog today, and they were discussing…” Usually, one news source gets the scoop on a story, and within hours, every other news source on the planet is regurgitating it. Whether they’re pinching the details off one another or each doing their own legwork, I have no idea, but they certainly don’t sit there reporting on where every bit of information came from. Such stories will have a few citations in order to establish credibility, but every single origin is not, and could not, possibly be named. Otherwise, every newspaper would need an entire bibliography.

Refusing to Cite Sources is Unethical and Just Bad Journalism

When major players pilfer off the wee folk and reap the credit and rewards, it’s a disgrace, and they should be ashamed. If a print news reporter gets a scoop off a blog, then it is her duty to attribute the blog. Failing to do so is a missed opportunity to establish a relationship with a potential ongoing source. Besides, pissing off bloggers is never a good idea. With the exception of a few of the most major newspapers in the world, blogs have a much broader potential reach than most print newspapers, which are localized while blogs are global in nature. Most reporters would jump at the chance to cite a top dog, like the president, or a five star celebrity, but bloggers are expendable and rarely warrant a mention.

Newspapers Are Not Blogs

This we know, but let’s look at some of the cultural differences. Bloggers strive to build community, and bloggers actively cite, link to, and otherwise promote their stiffest competition, something that I’d wager most newspapers refrain from doing whenever possible. In addition, bloggers tend to propagate ideas, and if you watch closely, you’ll see that many blog posts reappear with countless twists and variations throughout the blogosphere. That is the nature of the community, and is one of its strengths. We share information, we share ideas, and we share cyberspace. Print journalism still operates in a highly competitive and old-fashioned business model. Think of it this way: a blog is like a high speed personal computer while a print newspaper is more like an abacus.

Here’s My Take

I wish I’d had an opportunity to read the print article that kicked off this whole debate. It would be interesting to study that article’s content against Donald’s original blog post. I wonder just how much of his post made its way into her piece. He says that when he confronted her in person, she remarked, “I guess I stole it.” She claims that she can’t recall uttering those implicative words, but also notes that she was “focused on other things” and that he caught her off guard. As far as I’m concerned, she’s openly admitted that the bulk of her article came from his blog and that she could have sourced him, but chose not to, a choice which could have dire repercussions if the blogger decides to go to her editor, or a competing newspaper.

Writers should know better than anyone to watch their words, and journalists in particular. As for me, I lost faith in print journalism a long time ago. In the recent years since the Internet and its embedded blogosphere have made news far more objective, I increasingly find that traditional news (TV, print, whatever) tend to leave much out, and almost every story has a slant, which I find political, unethical, and a disgrace to the profession that is journalism.

I would guess that plenty of fine journalists are incensed over the way their peers behave. Personally, I’m glad that deviant reporters are often exposed through new media, and my suggestion to those reporters who prefer to retain a moral standard is this: get yourself a blog.

Email this article to a friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Writing: Skill vs. Talent

There has always been much debate about whether artistically inclined trades are a matter of learned skill or inherent talent.

On the one hand, there is the belief that some are born with an active and imaginative right brain and are therefore better able to manifest creativity. On the other hand, some argue that creative pursuits can be learned.

When it comes to writing, skill and talent work together. In particular, there are several factors which determine the level of skill vs. talent required to achieve a decent ability in the craft. In fact, I would argue that almost every writer whose work is worth reading has some combination of both acquired skill and natural talent.

Writing: Skill Development

We are taught basic grammar and comprehensive writing in school, and each of us learns how to form a coherent sentence or paragraph by applying these teachings. We must learn our letters, and there is no artistic talent required to memorize a set of symbols that represent sounds. Throughout our formative years, we are educated in language, including reading, writing, and comprehension.

Some of us loved those classes. We were drawn to the written word, to novels and short stories, poetry and thought-provoking articles and essays. We trudged over to the school library during recess and experienced glee when the Scholastic newsletters arrived. Books! Stories! We absorbed them and they etched into our psyche until we too yearned to spin tales and started dreaming of the day when our own name would appear under a feature story headline, or on the spine of a best selling — or dare I say — Pulitzer Prize winning novel.

Yet there were those who guffawed at the thought of opening, let alone reading, an entire book. They preferred math or science, or perhaps art, or maybe they’d rather park in front of a TV or video game console. Their reports and essays came back with low marks and someone said they lacked talent, something we aspiring writers had in droves. But what is talent if not love of one’s craft?

Developing Writing Talent

When I graduated high school and was faced with the dilemma of what to study in college, I shunned the idea of majoring in English, because I was already a voracious reader and several teachers had called me a gifted writer as well. Why study something I already have a knack for?

But a few years later, when no other major felt quite right, I finally checked off the box for English with a concentration in creative writing. Skill and talent combined drove this choice. I finally realized that the very reason I should study writing was because I was already good at it. By majoring in English, maybe I could become great.

It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. In the semesters that followed, I studied the classics and learned writing nuances from both my instructors and my peers, subtleties that never would have come to my attention otherwise. I learned the value of editing and revising, and I learned the merits of voice and style. Thankfully, I was given opportunities to explore areas of writing I never would have touched on my own: proposals, screenplays, and chapbooks.

Writing: Skill Plus Talent Equals Passion

I suppose artists, musicians, and other creative persons follow a similar path — a passion honed through years of learning and practice. When people suggest that writing cannot be learned, that grammar is unimportant, and storytelling or character development is the end-all-be-all of great writing, or that a writer’s creativity is magically manifested at birth, I am given great pause. For it is pride in one’s craft and true dedication that will result in truly wonderful writing: a seamless integration of love and passion, talent, and yes, all those mechanical skills that must be learned.

So what’s more important? Writing skill or talent? I say we need a healthy balance of both. What do you think?

Email this article to a friend

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Next Page »