This week’s readings and videos were pretty cool. Some of
the stuff, I have already been introduced to. Last semester I had technical
writing and we went over the usage of different fonts, and how they can help or
hinder your work. The readings helped in re-established those ideas for
me. I have to admit that one of the biggest things I was informed of is how
with computers today, you are not required to double space after a period. I
was taught to actually type with a typewriter and it was required to double
space at the end of every sentence. I know it is goofy, but being 39 now, and
looking back at how much I have been using a computer, I wonder how many extra
keystrokes I have accumulated over the years. We also went over how the use
colors and very little wording can create some of the most vibrant movie
posters. I had to laugh when I saw the picture of the ‘paper-clip’ office assistant
on the old version of Word (Multiple Media of Texts). I can’t count how many
times I noticed that little ‘tap-tap’ on the screen.
The
readings definitely show that for all the stuff I have learned about writing,
punctuation and text format, the rules are more or less obsolete. There are
general rules that still exist, but again, it really depends on the audience. I
still have a hard time writing technical reports where I am not indenting every
paragraph, or eliminate underlining titles and such. It seems that a lot of the
basic rules had a main purpose at one time, but our language and text has
changed so much that these rules are so easily seen as flexible.
I did
enjoy reading the ‘Cracked Guide to Fonts’ cartoon page on what defines each
text and what it says about the writer. I typically use Calibri, so I guess I fall
along the lines of “just too lazy to change the font.”
The Ted
talks were very interesting. (I posted my Discussion post based on one of
them). When Robinson said he met that fire fighter and was told he was throwing
his life away, I had a flash back of when I was in high school. We had a DeVry
Tech school rep come to my school. We went around and told him our plans out of
high school. When I told him was wanted to join the Air Force he just said the
same thing, “That’s fine if you want to throw your life away.”
Seth
Godin made a lot of valid points about the ‘not my job’ attitude. Some of the
stuff I had to laugh about, but when he talked about the medicine and warnings
for the dog, I did laugh but for different reasons. Do we live in such a ‘sue
happy’ society that the most ridiculous things have to be spelled out to
prevent stupid things from happening? He did talk about how charts and
visualizations are over used. Power-point is a great tool, but typically it is
over used so that the audience isn’t really paying attention to the speaker.
Just like everything we use for rhetoric, just use it in a way that it is
productive.
The
health based video wasn’t at all shocking. My wife works for the county health
department and says that medical stuff is done that way on purpose to ensure a
small handful of people will get tons of money. I did think it was cool that
Goetz stated how the medical field uses the fear of God to get people to go to
the doctor, after-all, it’s not about people feeling better, it’s all about the
almighty dollar.
Since one
of our main senses is ‘vision’ it makes sense that layout is a major component
to effective work. It will be interesting to see how much of this design stays
important or if society just gets to the point, that nobody really cares. I
personally see it being a valued tool, because people like things that look
nice.