You blog. I blog. We all blog

Gone are the days when we relied solely upon the select few to provide us with information, entertain our thoughts or influence our actions. Then again, never has our zest for such things and the ease of its accesibility been as prevalent as it is today. Enter the blogging world, an interface where thoughts are read and expressed, treating Us with the latest by Us.

As of 2008, statistics indicate that close to 185 million people around the globe own a blog (Technorati Inc 2008), clear enough evidence that the blogging phenomenon will not lose its steam anytime soon. There are blogs for every category of interest and what's best, bloggers are neutral and interpersonal, rarely motivated by interests other than to inform and share their experiences.

In Malaysia for instance, blogs are often used politically, serving as the 'alternative voices' since mainstream media is tightly governed by laws restricting free speech. In many ways, these regulations have only allowed bloggers to eclipse the mainstream media as our primary source of information, epitomizing the whole concept of 'new media'.

Some would call this the era of citizen journalism, although blogs are still most popularly used for personal reasons (79% of total are personal bloggers according to Technorati 2008). Nevertheless, the views expressed in these entries are beneficial to us in many ways. They make us laugh, sometimes even cry, they make us go gaga over the latest celebrity gossips, and they make us brim with envy seeing the beautiful lives of others. But most importantly, blogs are knitting us together in ways never before imaginable, for better, or for worse.

Reference:

Technorati Inc 2008, State of the blogosphere 2008, viewed 13 June 2009.
URL: http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere

Document design

A good document, as suggested by Reep (2006 p. 135) is one that incorporates the four design principles which are balance, proportion, sequence, and consistency. Putnis and Petelin (1996) on the other hand recommend a few strategies in designing documents such as maintaining a recognisable flow of information and creating a balance between visuals and texts, all of which complement Reep's principles. In further illustrating what constitutes as a good document, I will draw upon the slides from my earlier group presentation and highlight the improvisations made in my individual presentation.

The image above is taken from my group presentation. Here it is apparent that the placement of words is not systematic while the name of the topic is not distinguished from the rest of the text. The frame used to outline the group members' names is very untidy while the colour combinations are absolutely horrible. Based on the compositional principles by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006 p. 177), it is agreeable that salience and framing were given to the wrong element within the text with the title of our topic deserving more emphasis.

Now here's an improvisation in my individual presentation. The colour combination of the text complements the background colour. There is also balance between visuals and texts, which Walsh (2006) describes as essential in the interpretation of multimodal texts. Also, there is a significant difference in font sizes, whereby the title has larger font sizes to give more salience.

A key difference between the two presentations is the writing style I adopted in my individual presentation. While the group discussion was rather simplified, my individual presentation incorporated a more in depth discussion, offering various perspectives. Rothman (2005) refers to this as technical writing, where the element of reasoning is involved. The inclusion of expert opinions coupled with sophisticated examples gave a more professional look, catering to a more learned audience. This adds credibility to the presentation, thus making it a better document all round.

In conclusion, it is apparent that certain features provide added "weight" to a document. From the comparison between the two presentations, I believe that I have succeeded at creating a better document.

References

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, 'Chapter 6: the meaning of composition', in Reading Images: the Grammar of Visual Design, 2nd edn, Routledge, New York , p. 175-214.

Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, 'Chapter 7: writing to communicate', in Professional Communication: Principles and Applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney, p. 223-263.

Reep, DC 2006, 'Chapter 4: principles of document design', in Technical Writing, 6th edn, Pearson Edu Inc, New York, p. 173-190.

Rothman, S 2005, What makes good scientific and technical writing?, Associated Content, viewed 12 April.

Walsh, M 2006, 'Textual shift: examining the reading process with print, visual, and multimodal texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, p. 24-37.