Class Blog Post - "Death of the Author"

What connections do you make between Barthes' "Death of the Author" and your thinking thus far about hypertextual writing?

In Barthes' "Death of the Author", I thought it was very interesting how once writing occurs, the author loses his voice and henceforth dies. Barthes' claims that in more primitive societies, the oral storyteller was revered for his art of speech, but now with writing, the author loses his face, and the story is simply text on a page.

This can relate to hypertextual writing because this hypertext and idea of internet links can bring the reader to something new that he has never witnessed before. The reader knows not of the author of the page that a link might bring him to because this link was made at the discretion of the author of the first text the reader was glancing at. I believe that hypertext can bury the dead author even further into the ground due to the randomness of links.

Also, when I was thinking about this topic for this blog response, I thought of trying to cite websites for research. I always have the hardest time finding the author of a page. This problem makes me have a funny feeling in the back of my mind. Was there actually an author at all? Well, of course there was, but it seems as if the author is nonexistent.

There is just an odd thing about hypertext. It is so easy to create and have it accessible to people around the world, but nobody really pays attention to who the person is behind the site.

Class Blog - Linking Experiment

This morning, I had a lot of trouble waking up. I pressed the snooze button about 50 times on my alarm. Even though I had a horrible time getting up, I was glad I did because I had a quiz in Ecology. After my 9 am class, I got some breakfast at the JC. Once I got my coffee, I went back to my dorm room in Blue Ridge. I sat down at my desk and typed up my blog. Once I finished that, I packed up all my books in my backpack and headed off to the Lecture Hall. This is where I have Microbiology. Just like in Ecology, I had trouble staying awake. After that class, I picked up my exam. Then, I came to this class where I am sitting writing this blog.

For this experiment, I tried to use words at the end of sentences that could be visually expressed, or had a specific site that I could link it to. I enjoyed using my classes as the last words so I could link them to the class sites.

Link Test

Link

Response to Links, 20 Min, Electronic Millennium, and New Dialogue

“Links”

In “Links”, I was pleased to read about slang and how these terms squeeze into our vernacular. It was funny because at dinner last night, I was eating and talking with Liz’s dad about Ebonics. The term is understood as its own dialect and people know exactly how this dialect sounds and the slang used in Ebonics. It even shows up as a properly spelled word on Microsoft Word.

Even though slang was created because it seems easier to say or it makes more literal sense, slang can be quite confusing, as we have learned from this excerpt. It seems to be that some slang words can be used in different ways, meaning very different things. The word “surfing” was used as one of these examples, but I believe that “surfing” simply means “browsing” whether it be surfing the web or surfing channels. The media that one may be “surfing” is quite different, but the meaning remains the same. I am trying to think of a better example to come up with, but all that comes to mind at the moment is “shorty”. I believe that it could be spelled differently when this word is used to describe a cute girl, but I am not quite sure of the proper spelling.

Back to talking about links…. These links alter our organizational practices. No longer are we simply categorizing books or articles in a very flat manner, things are now in this web that can be accessed from many different routes. I suppose that is how one’s slang can travel to another group of people who are able to use the same word to convey a completely different meaning, or use a completely different word to describe the same idea.

“Twenty Minutes into the Future, or How Are We Moving Beyond the Book?”

In this excerpt, the reader learns about how society is moving beyond the age of books and how society might already be there in some aspects. I believe that there are numerous ways that we have passed this book age and we have moved on to that of the digital one. I might be mistaken with this, but I believe that there is such a thing as a “Smart Class” where everything is done electronically. Does this mean textbooks are on a laptop? I know that each student must have one in order to properly learn from the class. I also know that barely anybody goes to the library anymore to do research, unless the professor tells the class that they need so many BOOK sources for their research paper. I also know that when I start my research paper for Ecology, I will not be going to the library, but simply searching scientific journal articles from my desk in my room.

However, we have not completely left the age of book behind. This is obvious due to the fact that we still have circulating libraries full of books, students still have to purchase textbooks for their classes, and some people simply cannot read off of a computer screen.

“Into the Electronic Millennium”

I thought this piece was quite interesting. I believe we have talked about the notion that kids today cannot read or grammatically write as well due to the fact that there are so many resources that can do that work for them. The youth of today is not used to writing letters to communicate. Now we have an electronic instant messaging system with its own rules of spelling and grammar. Also, nobody of this generation is used to writing out papers by hand and having to revise it themselves because now there are such things as spelling and grammar check. Also, I believe that our vocabulary has gone down because of electronic dictionaries and thesauruses. These resources are at our fingertips, so what is the point of memorizing anything? It only takes a second to look it up again.

“The New Dialogue”

I thought this piece had some interesting points about reading words versus listening to them. In the piece, it said that a listener can just let the words come to them without much of an effort, but readers have to do a little bit more work and have to make the words move for them. It made me think about study habits and how reading something yourself makes it easier for the information to sink in better than listening to it. However, reading the information after listening to it first reminds the reader of what he/she heard before. Because reading takes more effort, I suppose that is the reason why one remembers it better. Just like if you write something down (not typing!!!!), you will remember it better than reading it. In writing, not only do you have to think of the information or read it from somewhere, you have to make the physical effort to put a pen to paper.

Response to Writing Machines

When I first saw my Writing Machines book, I was slightly upset. I knew I had gotten the book used, but I did not appreciate that somebody had written all over the sides of the paper. Then, I noticed that it was not somebody trying to mark up a book with a Sharpie, but it was actually printed on the book! I knew from there that this would be a very different book than I was used to reading.

I opened the book to begin reading and I saw that the font was getting larger throughout the page and then decreasing in size. It was as if an invisible magnifying glass was on the page highlighting the important parts the author wanted to emphasize. This sort of use of materials and presentation of the text ties right in with the author’s discussion of how images strengthen the written word. I know that the increase in font size is not really an image, it does strengthen the words and the points the author is trying to make because it attracts the reader’s eyes. In regards to images strengthening the written word, it reminded me of the old phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Another point in the reading that I found interesting was about literary critics. In the book it stated something about how literary critics think that verbal expression is more real than printed text. This is surprising to me because in earlier classes we discussed that written word is considered more permanent and professional than verbal expression. However, I believe that verbal communication has more of an impromptu air about it, so I guess there is no time to review what one is saying allowing it to be more “real”.

Something that I was confused about when I read it was about how some printed text or written word can bring the machinery that created it. Does this mean that if you read a newspaper, one can picture the huge printing apparatus that spits out thousands of newspapers? I suppose that when reading something like a newspaper, one can picture that the reading material is mass produced as opposed to a personal letter that only one person might read. This can put into view the purpose of the text that one is reading.

Another point mentioned by the author that I found interesting was about “hypertext”. It was said in the book that hypertext is printed text, or virtual text, that can be accessed through many different pathways. Links on the internet, Google searches, a website with the text are all different ways that one piece of text can be accessed. This made me think how easily people can access text. My mind immediately went to accessing newspaper articles from around the world from websites from the comfort of your home computer. The New York Times are no longer just for the people of New York. Hypertext allows the easy transfer of information that can span thousands of miles.

In the section about House of Leaves, I was surprised to find that it was advertised as a typical “haunted house story” so people would buy the book, even though there was much more to the book. It reminded me of movie trailers that you watch and then when you finally see the movie, it is completely different than the tone of the trailer. I suppose even books sometimes have to be sold short in order to get the public to recognize it.

Layout - John Ashbery Poem

I chose the poem "Some Trees" by John Ashbery. When I was deciding what to do with the poem, we were discussing as a class why poems are formatted the way that they are. For example, why the lines are broken up and what effect does this have. This influenced my spacing of the poem. At first, I had each stanza kept the same way, but chaotically arranged on the paper. I also wanted to accent certain words of the poem; words that I thought were important or words that I thought could be personified by the use of different fonts. Many of these words were verbs and adjectives. I went through changing the fonts of these words that I wanted to bring special attention to. Then, I started reading over the poem to try and find the full meaning of it. I found it somewhat difficult to read because of the awkward (it seemed awkward to me) divides in the lines. I decided that I would try and separate the lines by punctuation. Whenever there was a punctuation, I started a new line. The margins of these lines varied, as well. I tried to be artistic with it. I found that even though I broke up the lines much more than Ashbery did, it was easier to read for me and flowed better in my mind. In the readings, I read that the way a piece is formatted can really change the way it is read. I was tired of seeing the typical poetry layout so I created a different one to suit the way I needed to read poetry in order to understand it.

Response to Thinking With Type

In Thinking With Type, there was a quote that stated, “Text can be solid, liquid, body or blood.” Why blood? I understand the solid, liquid, and body. The “blood” part, however, took a little longer to understand. For some reason, I paired the solid and body form of text together. I do believe that they are different. In the reading, it said that text in body form is so much more that just text. It includes pictures, page numbers, headers, footers, etc. Instead of looking just at the text, the reader must look at all the details that surround the text. This is the entire body of text.

When looking at text in the solid form, I see the typical page in a book that has all the same margins and spacing. Text in solid form is very uniform. I believe it is looked at as a solid because when in a uniform format with margins and the same spacing, it looks like a solid being. The text becomes somewhat of a block of letters.

Text in liquid form is more abstract. The spacing is customized and the margins perhaps have a wave to it. By utilizing these formatting abilities, the text can actually gain phenotypic properties of liquid. Perhaps text in liquid form does not even fill up a full page. Maybe it just trickles down the page in a small wavy line. I like the liquid form of text because it allows a little bit more freedom than solid and body. I know that one could be abstract with solid or body forms, but I think that it would be a little bit harder. Maybe in order to be artistic with text in solid and body forms, the artist will create something like the picture on page 62. It is an actually body formed by words that are overlapping creating an actual solid body form.

Now on to blood… What does this mean? I interpreted it as something that is truly a part of you. This is a creation that came from the artist’s deepest darkest places of creative ability that when it is placed on paper, it is like a part of you is taken from your body and set free.

I thought that the point of typography is to “help readers avoid reading” was quite humorous. The point is true. When looking at my textbooks and books for school, the bolded words and italicized words are always what I jump to first. It helps outline the entire subject that the reader is trying to learn without having to spend time going through all of the fluff.

Another interesting tidbit that I came across was the Kerning effect. It was interesting to me that when the typed text tries to be too uniform, the spacing between some letters actually cause spacing that looks awkward and takes away from the uniform effect that it is trying to achieve. Even with the Kerning scaling applied, to me some of the letters still did not seem in line. Maybe by modernizing text, we are still unable to make it look completely proper.