Most important concepts of the course

Although we have discussed many important aspects of everyday writing, the most important concepts are exigency, discourse, constraints, audience, and purpose.
Exigence is something that can't be modified. It is an imperfection marked by urgency. We read that Bitzer said that people can't make exigencies, you just have to find them and latch on to them. However, we discussed in class that rhetorical exigencies can be changed through words. It is sometimes easier to figure out what an exigency is by asking "Why did these people write what they did?" In doing this, the most important thing to consider is the audience. Almost all pieces of everyday writing are audience specific and the purpose is directly related to the intended audience. The audience acts as the mediator of change. The audience typically can change the message of the message of a piece based on what discourse community they are from.
Discourse communities are hard to define, but the way I would describe them is a group of people that have a common setting or have similar backgrounds that allow them to be categorized together for a particular reason. Discourse communities are a specific type of audience, but once you understand how to identify them, it is much easier to identify the purpose of the piece of everyday writing.
Another concept that has the ability to change a piece of writing is constraints. Constraints place limits on the way someone writes, how much they write, or when they write. They could be in terms of a physical boundary such as space, or a requirement of certain topics that have to be included.
The concepts of exigency, discourse, constraints, audience, and purpose are imperative to understanding why everyday writing is how it is, and how to understand the pieces of writing.

RW, Revived--Lawrence Lessig

http://emargin.bcu.ac.uk/emargin/textspecial?c=BcK7yZVALbgTvp0nCgd3IAcziUsJdkFf

Group 3

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10k_9Koq_MxBIlCtr7EEi3PHCHXZobxICQTmKh-nBFcg/edit?usp=sharing

Print vs digital

Print and digital texts are similar in the sense that they both have audiences and they both have a purpose. However, there are more differences than just the obvious technological versus handwritten aspect. Digital text is becoming so much more prevalent in society, and thus it is sort of replacing print text. However, I don't think that it will ever completely replace print text, as there are some forms of print text that I think will always be print, for example, post cards and grocery lists. Although digital text has already replaced so many forms of print text, for example, e-mails have replaced sending letters for the most part. In a sense, digital text is kind of putting a modern twist on writing. Back in the day, people would communicate via letters, but now people have quicker forms of communication such as text messages, e-mails, Facebook messages, etc. While digital text is becoming more and more common, I do think that print text often times has more meaning, as it takes thought, time, and effort to hand write something compared to quickly typing something on a computer. Print text is tangible, and can be kept forever, whereas text messages, e-mails, and Facebook messages eventually disappear. Since digital media has become so common, it seems to be a more common form of everyday writing. Whether the piece of everyday writing is print or digital, it will still have an audience and a purpose, as well as an important meaning behind it.

Digital vs Print

Print and digital media share similar and dissimilar qualities. Both are obvious forms of writing but the way humans interpret them are different. For example I use print when I am in need of writing something down quickly such as notes, reminders, a list and more. Digital media looks more professional and organized than print, so most of the time people will compile their print writing and make it more focused into a digital media. Also digital media is easier to find or navigate through because you can easily type in something and get a million different medias you were looking for. The relationship is that the prints are usually uploaded into digital to make it easier for people to see and choose from. I believe that some digital forms of things will replace or have already replaced print texts. Books have become digital, letters are now not written as often and are sent via digital/email, news articles are online now and slowly but surely newspapers, letters, and books will most likely be used 100% in the digital form in the near future. This means that everyday writing will occur mostly in a digital form, making it less personal and not something someone can tangibly hold and appreciate.  But it is said that everyday writing is used  to  fulfill a certain purpose for a certain audience.. So if  one  is in the situation of needing something personal or handwritten, print is the medium of choice.

Digital media is progressing and transforming the media industry. Convergence is everywhere. Books are not only in print form anymore, there are e-readers and e-books everywhere. Technology and print have come together to form new mediums of media. Personally, I don't think one form will ever replace another. Everyone has different opinions of which form they like better, print or digital. I am one of those who has a preference of print media over digital. I like to hold what I am reading in my hands. A lot of the time, I like to make markings in what I am reading which is something you can't do in a digital form. I also like to see physically where I am in a book when I am reading and a progress bar at the bottom of a Kindle doesn't do it for me. On the other hand, there are many people who prefer the digital form of media. They can have everything in one place and digital books and other forms of media are typically more inexpensive than the print form. As far as a relationship between print and digital media goes, I think they really go hand in hand. They compete with each other but at the same time, provide the same thing: media. Having these two different mediums expands the writing industry and expands everyday writing. There are more places for people to be writing and engaging in everyday writing whether it be online on a blog, or in a print form like a journal.

Olivia Caputo

Digital media vs. Print

Digital media and print go hand in hand with each other. Print is the start of the evolution of digital media. Over the years we have used print for pretty much everything we could think of. It has helped us in so many ways. Recently it has changed to everything being on the computer. With this I don’t think that digital media will completely replace print, I still think we need some forms of print. Every once in a while it is nice to get a letter over an email. Or it is nice to read a newspaper over seeing CNN online. In an article written by Malcolm Gladwell he says, “If its usefulness lies in the promotion of ongoing creative thinking, then, once that thinking is finished, the paper becomes superfluous. The solution to our paper problem, they write, is not to use less paper but to keepless paper” (Gladwell 96). This quote by Gladwell sums up why I think the use of the digital age is better in certain situations. Saying this they go hand in hand with each other. Gladwell does a good job explaining the pros and cons of paper and digital media. He talks about how paper is good and it is the basis of everything we write. Yet the digital age is for forever, and it is permanent. Paper makes you think differently then digital media. It invokes different thoughts and feelings; It holds different ideas.