Here's an off-the-wall musing I turned in for a project in a class I am taking online. I told you some of my stuff would be like this!
Twenty-five years ago I attended college at the University of Missouri – Columbia. My intent was to obtain a degree in Journalism. I had spent several years on the newspaper and yearbook staffs of my High School and had won several student awards for both sports and feature articles I had written. On the strength of these awards and articles, I was offered a student correspondent position on the campus newspaper The Maneater.
In late 1980 and early 1981, I wrote many articles for The Maneater. I wrote articles ranging from coverage of Missouri Tiger football games to the proper way to wash a beer glass. All of these stories were written on an old Royal manual typewriter. My father had given me the old typewriter as a gift the year I was accepted as a writer for the High School newspaper. As a firefighter for a small town outside of St. Louis, he could not afford an electric typewriter. I appreciated the gift, none-the-less.
My journalism degree never came to fruition, but I still have that old typewriter. It is packed away in a box in my attic. Someday I will bring it down from the attic and show my children how homework was done in the past. No delete key, no cut and paste, no spell checker.
As a professional whose job includes the creation of written materials, I am grateful for the advent of desktop computers and word processing software. Gone are the days of starting an entire page over because of a typo. Gone are annoying misspellings, misplaced punctuation and fragment sentences. Gone are the dizzying fumes of White Out. Good riddance!
The world of communications is better for the advent of electronic document production. Editing time is greatly reduced thereby allowing for greater productivity. Students are able to focus more on their topic and less on mechanics.
Does this make for more correct, mediocre work? I don’t think so. I think that it opens students and professionals alike up to more creativity. It encourages them to use vocabulary they may have shied away from without the help of a spell checker. It builds confidence and clarity in word usage, thus enabling better communication.
Word processors also allow the addition of non-textual elements into documents. Using modern word processing technology, editors can layout an entire newspaper, articles, graphics, and advertisements by making use of cut, paste, and insertion tools. Articles can also be updated seconds before being sent to print, increasing the immediacy of the information. Business professionals can insert charts, graphs, and spreadsheet information to better communicate business goals and performance. Students can add illustrations to significantly enhance papers with just a few clicks of a mouse.
My father knew the importance of the written word; before he passed away 25 years ago he wrote many of his thoughts on stenographer pads. His handwriting is barely legible in some of these notebooks, his spelling often wrong. He dropped out of High School in the 10th grade. He would have loved computers and word processing software. They would have allowed him to write more prolifically and with greater clarity. He had a lot to say, the tools we now have may have allowed him to say more of it. I wish they had.
Twenty-five years ago I attended college at the University of Missouri – Columbia. My intent was to obtain a degree in Journalism. I had spent several years on the newspaper and yearbook staffs of my High School and had won several student awards for both sports and feature articles I had written. On the strength of these awards and articles, I was offered a student correspondent position on the campus newspaper The Maneater.
In late 1980 and early 1981, I wrote many articles for The Maneater. I wrote articles ranging from coverage of Missouri Tiger football games to the proper way to wash a beer glass. All of these stories were written on an old Royal manual typewriter. My father had given me the old typewriter as a gift the year I was accepted as a writer for the High School newspaper. As a firefighter for a small town outside of St. Louis, he could not afford an electric typewriter. I appreciated the gift, none-the-less.
My journalism degree never came to fruition, but I still have that old typewriter. It is packed away in a box in my attic. Someday I will bring it down from the attic and show my children how homework was done in the past. No delete key, no cut and paste, no spell checker.
As a professional whose job includes the creation of written materials, I am grateful for the advent of desktop computers and word processing software. Gone are the days of starting an entire page over because of a typo. Gone are annoying misspellings, misplaced punctuation and fragment sentences. Gone are the dizzying fumes of White Out. Good riddance!
The world of communications is better for the advent of electronic document production. Editing time is greatly reduced thereby allowing for greater productivity. Students are able to focus more on their topic and less on mechanics.
Does this make for more correct, mediocre work? I don’t think so. I think that it opens students and professionals alike up to more creativity. It encourages them to use vocabulary they may have shied away from without the help of a spell checker. It builds confidence and clarity in word usage, thus enabling better communication.
Word processors also allow the addition of non-textual elements into documents. Using modern word processing technology, editors can layout an entire newspaper, articles, graphics, and advertisements by making use of cut, paste, and insertion tools. Articles can also be updated seconds before being sent to print, increasing the immediacy of the information. Business professionals can insert charts, graphs, and spreadsheet information to better communicate business goals and performance. Students can add illustrations to significantly enhance papers with just a few clicks of a mouse.
My father knew the importance of the written word; before he passed away 25 years ago he wrote many of his thoughts on stenographer pads. His handwriting is barely legible in some of these notebooks, his spelling often wrong. He dropped out of High School in the 10th grade. He would have loved computers and word processing software. They would have allowed him to write more prolifically and with greater clarity. He had a lot to say, the tools we now have may have allowed him to say more of it. I wish they had.
Comments