After reading Andrei's last two posts on Design by Fire, something just struck me as being odd.
The bulk of content found on most personal sites, including Airbag, is written. I've shown a few pictures here and there and sooner than latter photos will be brought back, but on this website (as others) it's mostly English being served in written form.
Of the fifty personal sites (blogs) I have bookmarked, eight are hybrid (copy and photos), and one is all photos with only a bit of text for captions.
On these sites there are many, many articles about writing better code but I have yet to come across any posts for writing English mo'-betta.
It struck me as odd that more discussion and writing is on the framework, rather than the content it holds in place.
Then again it's Monday morning, so I suppose just about anything will appear odd. Like the 7 ounce orange juice that is waving at me, yelling something about getting a daily dose of vitamin C while tap dancing across my desk.
Monday mornings suck.
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Hey Greg,
I found this oldie but goodie from ALA just last week. Good article on writing better for weblogs.
"It struck me as odd that more discussion and writing is on the framework, rather than the content it holds in place"
Maybe this is because there are set rules as to what is 'good code' but there is no set rules as to what is 'good writing'. Writing semantically correct (if that's the working definition of 'good') code is definable via W3 and others, but 'good' writing is subjective.
I suspect, given your links page, that most of the personal sites you read are the personal sites of designers. There are a lot of "designer blogs" with content that appeals only to designers. Some are written like crap but hey, they validate (that's a joke, folks, back off).
For designer blogs, I do think that the visual presentation of the site does constitute a large part of the site's content, given the audience. To put it another way, when a designer visits a designer's website, perhaps especially for the first time, the written content is just a part (perhaps a small part) of a much larger content offering.
The list of blogs I read is expanding slightly these days--I was down to three or four for a few months. I'd say 7 or 8 of the dozen or so I've added in the last few weeks are using default templates. Clearly, my taste in blogs (and perhaps websites in general) has moved more towards good, well-articulated content than unique presentation. It's a matter of audience, I suppose.
Handsome sites are nice, but quite frankly, I'll take a good, scrolling page of eloquent prose on an out-of-the-can design over a tired discussion of browser shortcomings presented on an out-of-this-world layout any day.
Hey Greg. I've actually written about writing, content and editing a few times. Here is a post about my conversational style.
The thing is, with me anyway, I'm still learning about writing. I've only been doing it for a year and a half or so (on my blog) and I feel that I'm in no position to advise anyone! ;) I know a bit about content and editing from a high level, but I don't consider myself a great writer by any stretch.
You've got to write about what you know. You know?
I have talked about it a few times on my blog, though it has been some time. I have however several times talked about the need to turn down the amount of 'web-code-talk' and turn up the amount of actual content! :)
Like many tech professionals, you happen to frequent "shop talk" weblogs. So it's no surprise that the content matter focuses on the design and production of online content.
But the more important factor is that someone's writing is a far more personal subject than his site design, or even (believe it or not!) whether his site validates. If all of these chummy ALA-school designers were to critique each other's personal content and, by extension, their personal lives, feelings would get hurt pretty quickly.
Content is one of the main reasons for visiting a website. Most of the time, it is the only reason. It is the data. It is the information. It energizes your brain! Web talk is necessary as well, but the web talk is focused around the content. It is focused around showing and organizing the content in a better way. What good is it organizing poor, uninteresting content?
It's the ol' way of falling into the same scenario over and over when in fact the options are endless. Blogging is simply a form of expression of one's personal life and feelings on a daily level. Does this has to take the form of words? No. It can take the form of anything. Pictures, for example. Once Everomp is 100% completed I'm hoping I'll have a nice balance of pictures and worded content.
And yes, Monday mornings suck. Ahem.
Greg you write teh good english, how's about a lesson in the art eh?
Writers are lonely, heartless men and don't have time to give programmers English lessons.
Or is it, programmers are lonely and don't have time for th...
I think it's more common to find writing about code on the Internet because programmers spend so much time on it. Writers have to be interested in the Internet before writing on it. The content is a reflection of the medium.
Ahhh, OJ.... liquid sunshine for the body. It just makes me smile when I see its brilliant color. Drink up.
What about http://andybudd.com/? He throws in some photographs every so often so spice things up. :D
It's an interesting topic you bring up - I find that there's a lot of room for improvement in many of the blogs I visit, not so much in terms of the quality of the actual content material (though that can certainly vary), but in the structural quality of the language. Of course, when I stumble across an article about adhering to the standards when coding for the web, and the author consciously chooses to disregard grammatical standards, I consider it my daily dose of iron(y).
I'm amazed at the number of misspellings, typographical errors, and wholesale abandonment of grammatical rules that plague the average website. And even more amazing, the fact that there are those out there that are proud of their disregard for the language. I was recently involved in something of a pissing match with a blogger who posted a defense of bad punctuation by stating that it was intentional (at which point my knee came firmly in contact with the underside of my desk...). The gist of the blogger's argument came down to "I'll punctuate as I choose. Language is always evolving." The shame is that this particular individual otherwise writes very well...I just get hung up on the consistent structural inconsistencies and it takes away from the content.
That's not to say that there aren't also plenty of examples of exemplary writing (even on those sites focused on the technical), just that the good to bad ratio is heavily tilted in the bad direction.
As for the root cause, I think there's a great deal of apathy out there, not to mention a dearth of good teachers providing the foundations. The UC system has a system-wide basic English requirement, called Subject A (or did when I attended more than a decade ago--I assume it's still in place). Every incoming freshman is required to take the Subject A exam, which is a basic expository essay. Those who don't pass, can either take Subject A English (aka Bonehead English), or see an advisor, and take the test a second time. A second failure puts you in Bonehead English. Through a fluke, I skipped the Subject A exam until the end of my junior year, when I did a degree check. Despite having nearly completed a minor in English at that point, I had to take the test. And because I was taking it off-schedule, I was taking it with roughly 75 people who'd failed the first time (along with a few transfer students). When the results were posted (anonymously, by student ID), I was one of 3 people who passed. Apparently the passing rate for incoming freshmen at that time was less than 50%. Not a good sign for the future of the language.
Jeremy,you (and the rest of North America) should read the section on education from Robert A. Heinlein's "The Happy Days Ahead", which you can find in _Expanded_Universe_. In 1980, he pointed out that the US is in at least the second generation of illiteracy. It is no longer safe to assume that English teachers can use English correctly and fluently. He then proved his point with the following logic (paraphrasing from memory):
- USC is a typical statewide campus in the most lavishly educated state in the union.
- entrance requirements include 3 years of highschool English.
- USC will accept those substandard in English if their performance is otherwise acceptable, but they are forced to take Subject A (Bonehead English).
- only the top 8% are accepted into USC.
- of that 8%, half of them must take Bonehead English.
This isn't just terrible for the language. It's terrible for the people using the language. A lot of my thinking is done in English, so if I can't use English properly, then I can't think clearly, let alone express myself clearly. But beyond that, it is imperative that students receive a grounding in logical argument as well as grammar, spelling, and literature. I say this because the most useful thing I ever learned in school was how to write an essay. It taught me so many important skills, not just the nuts and bolts of writing. Essay writing taught me that you have to make an argument, to take a position on the subject and defend it, not just ramble on about the topic. That writing an outline isn't just a silly exercise; the outline is the skeleton for the essay. It taught me how to take a mess of ideas, and make them into a solid argument, by organizing the mess into a hierarchy (superpoint, point, and subpoint, usually) and then arranging those points so that the argument flows naturally and logically. It forced me to learn how to explain matters clearly, point by point, yet do so in clear, graceful language. It taught me to focus on the meat of the argument and trim off the fat.
For decades, America (and now Canada, I think) has been turning out young adults who cannot fully understand or express themselves in their own language, and in all likelihood, to clearly and convincingly argue their case. This leaves them at a severe disadvantage compared to young adults who have been taught these essential skills, especially now that we are in the information age, not the industrial revolution. It is like sliding down a hill: easy to slip, difficult to climb. To make these skills commonplace and then to increase America's competitive edge, education will have to not only be universal, but be much tougher much earlier than it is now.
If, in fact, the Heinlein piece used USC as an example, then I think that it was flawed. I can't say that I think USC (known to some UC alum as University of Spoiled Children due to their legacy admissions practices and high tuition rates that made it something of an exclusive school, without the benefits of the academic rigor of Stanford...but I could just be suffering from biased memory.) That being said, I looked at the stats for the UC Subject A Exam over the past couple of years, and it was equally telling. In 2003, 68% of incoming freshmen fulfilled the Subject A requirement. That statistic is somewhat unsettling - one would hope that more than 68% of college-bound students would have a solid grasp of the language.
Digging further into that stats, one finds that the requirement can be satisfied in one of three ways: a minimum score of 3 on the AP English Exam, a certain score on the English Composition component of the SAT II, or by passing the Subject A Exam. Note that the first two are optional exams that cost money to take, and typically require taking some sort of advanced English courses in high school. 43% of the incoming freshman fulfilled the requirement in this way. Of the 57% that took the Subject A Exam in 2003, only 42% passed. Draw your own conclusions. UC Subject A Exam Results.
But the issue isn't just in the high schools. I was talking to my wife about this topic last night; she works as a Development and Communications Director for a local non-profit. She's had a series of interns, most of them Communications majors in their 3rd and 4th years, and she's been apalled at the quality of the writing coming from these students. It's not a scientific sampling, to be sure, but if they're representative of the caliber of graduate being turned out of a 4-year institution, what's that say about the state of language instruction in higher education?