Jerz: Writing for the Internet (EL 236)


30 Aug 2006

Ex 1: Self-assessment

Google your own name. What comes up? Now consider your preferred e-mail address. What impression would a potential employer or other professional contact have of that address? Write a brief informal essay (1 or 2 pages) that presents what you learned from this exercise. (Please don't simply list answers to my questions. Construct an essay with a thesis and specific examples taken from your own experience, or quoted from reputable sources.)

Update: Diana Geleskie found references to the website she created as a teenybopper, with a cute address that's still part of her preferred e-mail address. Her comment in class today: "I've got to update it."

Paul Crossman points to one of the many MySpace-related definitions on the Urban Dictionary. I think my favorite is "MySpace Cadet," because it illustrates the fact that established users of a technology quickly internalize the conventions of that technolgoy, and in order to signal their membership in a community, they call attention to the transgressions of the less experienced. (I was making a similar point in class today about elevators and early adopters of the internet).

Karissa Kilgore notes that I called the first assignment a self-assessment, when in fact "when, actually, I'm asking Google to assess me with its logarithm". That's an excellent insight, Karissa. No medium can capture the "real" person. We can only use the medium to construct a mental image of the person. An employer who has a list of 100 applicants may be looking for a reason -- any reason -- to cut down that number. That employer won't have the time to philosophize or investigate deeply, but will instead be looking for red flags of some sort.

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I just noticed Rachel Prichard's entry, too. She compares MySpace to her generation's crack.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RachelPrichard/2006/08/myspace_the_mov.html

Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz at August 30, 2006 2:02 PM
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