Notes from class on Wednesday, Sept. 4

Nice class! And full attendance, which is great. We're off to a good start.

Below is a round-up of what we're working on and when it's due. Let me know any questions.

First, let me say I hope the stuff involving the orange and its various by-products made sense. I kind of like referring to weak or ineffective writing as "Orange Crush" and really good writing as "Naked."

It's a good way of looking at it because Orange Crush is cheap and not good for you and represents really very little connection to the original orange.

But Naked represents writing at its best, at least in juice form: it concentrates the best part of the orange, and also adds other things to it. The best writing not only captures the essence of the real thing, but also makes use of your own knowledge, perspective, or experience to make the drink—er, the writing—worthwhile.

Also, on the postcard exercise, the point of that was to show how useful it can be to start thinking before you start writing. Consider:

• Does your recipe follow the standard format for recipes? This means listing all the ingredients first and then writing what to do with them.

• Is your recipe short enough to fit on the postcard legibly? Is your message likely to be garbled or scrambled along the way? Remember how the post office printed crap over some key words?

• In a multi-platform world, is the postcard really the best place for a recipe? Or would it be more useful to draw attention to a website with a lot more detailed information?

Short is beautiful: Try to remember what Einstein and Winston Churchill had to say about writing.

• Einstein apologized for writing a three-page letter about atomic energy. If he had more time, he would have written a one-page letter. In other words, being concise takes more work. Einstein was serving Orange Crush, but he wanted to serve Naked.

• And Churchill asked the head of the British admiralty this: "Pray tell on one sheet of paper the state of Her Majesty's Navy." In other words, he didn't want to swill down a whole two-liter bottle of Orange Crush. He wanted to sip Naked.

Okay, here's what's due:

1. Press release writing assignment: Please follow the handout in class and get this to me via e-mail no later than the end of day on Monday, Sept. 9. (Earlier is always better!) The goal here is to try coming up with an informative press release that is formatted in a way that will make sense to decision-makers at news organizations. We'll look at a few in class on Wednesday and see how you did.

I was asked to post the location of the Amtrak press release online, so here's a link:

Amtrak Press Release Page

But the website of pretty much every large company will have a place where press releases are posted. Check out a few and see how they differ.

2. Reading assignment: Please read the Ben & Jerry's book up to the end of Chapter 7, which is Page 89 in my edition. Be ready to discuss what's in the book. We'll be having a quiz with a few questions on this material, and our next writing assignment will draw from it as well.

3. Blogs: This week, I'd like you to set up your blog online and try making a first post. As we discussed in class, you have several options for setting up a free blog. The most common places to do this are www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com. I'd prefer you use blogger.com because it's the one I use and I'm most familiar with it, so I might be able to help you more.

To use these services, they do require you to set up an account with an e-mail. Blogger is part of Google, so they need you to set up a gmail account if you haven't already. But again, it shouldn't cost you anything. Ignore any options that suggest you pay for extra features. They're not needed for the class. :)

Working through the menu options, you should be able to set up an account without any specialized technical knowledge. Have fun and experiment. You really can't break anything, so try different settings out and see what they look like. You can always change again later.

Once you set up your blog, you should have a blog address. For anyone using Blogger, it will look like this:

http://thisismyaddress.blogspot.com

Send this address to me via e-mail so I can put it into the director of student blogs that's one of the standing pages (at right) on our class blog. Thanks!

I'll look to see what you've done by Monday, Sept. 9. Please block out a few hours to sit down and do this. Take time to play with the interface and explore how it all works. Knowing your way around will save you a lot of time later, and will allow you to better concentrate on your writing rather than on the process of posting, etc.

I think that's all. I'll be adding the syllabus and some other content to this blog in the next few days, and I look forward to receiving your assignments. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions. Thanks!

Jeff Rapsis