This weblog, if you recall, was created for the purpose of doing an assignment for a subject called Issues in Publication and Design.Writing a blog is of course not the most typical of assignments, but it does highlight the need and help hone my skill of knowing a variety of writing styles as well as knowing the design issues prevalent when writing for different forms of media.
Through the course of going through various theories and issues that have popped up, I realise that I almost always try to understand things from the point of the audience, be it document design, writing conventions or anything else really.I tend to side and favour the audience’s perspective, and am of the mind that no matter how great a document may be, if the audience does not understand it, it is ultimately a futile endeavour.
Knowledge of audience goes hand in hand with knowledge of the medium and how to write properly for the audience.With all three in mind, I hope to be able to produce documents of much higher quality in the near future.
For now though, I wish to end my contributions to Signall with this post.I promised in my first post that this will be a most interesting and meaningful ride.I hope I have fulfilled that by being both educational and at the same time entertaining.This has been the most time consuming blog I have ever written in, and has given me insight as to what I personally consider should be a standard for all bloggers.
I believe all bloggers should blog with a specified purpose and audience in mind, and write and design accordingly. Of course, other issues come to mind too, such as not getting on the bad side of the law, not letting errors pass by, maintaining online writing and designing conventions, they all play part and parcel to how good a blog can be.It is just that purpose and audience should be the frontmost concern for all bloggers, and everything should be written and designed with the two in mind.
With that said, it is time to properly wrap things up.
The act of proofreading involves looking for errors or mistakes within a document concerning the “spelling, punctuation, grammar and word choice,” (Writing Tutorial Services 2004).These are issues pertaining directly to the content of a document, and is important to ensure that a written document is cohesive and flows well. To that end, proofreading helps get rid of unwanted errors that may get in the way of a reader’s experience in reading a document (Mousseau 2006).Proofreading helps maintain a standard of quality for any piece of work.It also helps if you wish to write in a business environment; companies will expect professionalism and correctness out of any documents one might produce for a company (Putnis & Petelin 1996 p. 236).
One very interesting tidbit about spelling mistakes is that if you have made a mistake in terms of spelling words and proofreading did not catch it, this may be because your mind actually read the word properly, regardless of whether the word was actually spelled correctly or not.This is because people tend read words as a whole, so as long as the the first and last letters of a word are preserved, the rest can be jumbled up and still be readable (Sen n.d.).This is something to be aware of as it means that spelling errors can be easily overlooked.
Another issue that has to be highlighted is that the author of a document is less likely to spot mistakes within the document than other people are (Business in Berkshire n.d.).This is because the author, being familiar with the text, already has expectations and knowledge of what was meant to be written, rather than what was written.Thus, the author of a document should never proofread their own work by themselves.
There are of course numerous other kinds of errors that may appear within any document, which is why people proofread.Measures have to be taken to ensure that a document has as few errors as possible (preferably none).Martin (2005) has some tips to help the proofreading process:
- Have multiple people proofread the document.
- Do not be overly-reliant on spell-checker tools; they may miss some errors.
- Study proper grammar books to ensure proper grammar use.
- Read aloud or think of the words phonetically when reading a document.
- When proofreading, scan the document, so as not to miss out on any minor errors that may be present.
- After proofreading, set aside the document and read it again at a later time or day.Some errors might have been overlooked.
In addition to that, Martin also said that if possible, a printed, bound copy of the document should be read when proofreading, to ensure that the margins, spacing, and other design issues were also without error.Martin was talking about proofreading in the context of a book, but the point stands, that being that proofreading should ideally take place in what the end product of the document will look like.If it is a web page, use a web browser to view it.If it is a report, print it out and bind it appropriately.This is basically killing two birds with one stone, by checking both proofreading and document design at the same time.
To sum up, proofreading is a valuable tool to try ensure that a document is not jarring to the reader and meets professional standards of quality.If you wish to get started on proofreading and how to proofread, see the following link: Proofreading Symbols and Abbreviations (Webster). If you wish to see how a lack of proofreading can go horribly wrong though, please watch the video embedded below..
We had just touched on Wikipedia and why it may not be useful in any sort of academic venture or publication.However, it is not just the source of information that needs to be considered when it comes into publishing; laws come into play too.For the sake of brevity, this will focus on a few Malaysian legal factors that may affect online publication decisions.
First, the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA).It prohibits illegal interception of communications, sets rules for computer searches, establishes rules for searches of computers, mandates encryption key access, and gives law enforcement the due ability to intercept communications without a warrant if it is believed to contain information relevant to an investigation (Privacy and Human Rights 2003).This is added to the Communications and Multimedia Commission Act (CMCA) which together with CMA regulates information technology and multimedia resources (OpenNet Initiative 2007).This commission (in conjunction with CMA) maintains that content published on the internet needs to be regulated in order to protect online content from being “indecent, obscene, false, menacing, or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any person,” (OpenNet Initiative 2007).However, crimes pertaining to CMA have normally been either ignored or superseded by other laws, such as the Internal Security Act, also known as the ISA (Privacy and Human Rights 2003).
Use of the Internal Security Act can detain a person for 60 days, which can then be extended to two years, then extended again a couple more years, no trial necessary, so long as that person is seen as a detriment to the country’s security (South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre 2002).The government has already used it on four people who were said to have been instigating false reports of riots and violence against Chinese Malaysians online (Communications Law in Transition Newsletter 2000).
One other law that affects online publications is the Sedition Act.This act limits freedom of expression by making any speech judged to be seditious a crime; this includes anything that incites hatred or contempt of the government, incites hostility or ill-will to different races, questions the constitutional privileges given to Malays and Sabah/Sarawak natives (Human Rights Watch n.d.).This act has most recently been used to imprison Raja Petra, the first blogger to be charged by the Sedition Act in Malaysia (Mageswari & Kaur 2008), which shows that the act is applicable to online publications.
These laws all deal with the idea that information that needs to be regulated on the internet.Please take these laws into consideration when you publish something on the internet, if you’re Malaysian.If you’re not, please take your respective country’s laws on communications and online media publications into account.
Ever been in this situation, at the beginning of the semesters, where lecturers take great pains to explain plagiarism and why Wikipedia is not really eligible to be quoted as a reference?I have.
The issues mainly stem from the nature of Wikipedia; it is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.This has caused issues of legibiltiy, since even anonymous users of Wikipedia are able to freely edit a page, though the edits will only be approved after it has been moderated by volunteers (What-is-what.com 2006).This brings up the issue of legibility, and content accuracy, which may not be reliable depending on what was submitted and what was moderated.This also brings up the issue of design, where articles have seemingly different standards of quality.Some are very in-depth (see: Thoroughbread) while others are very vague and almost devoid of information (see: Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam).
Surprisingly though, Wikipedia has proven to be a good resource for scientific articles.BBC News (2005) reported that a peer review of Wikipedia’s scientific articles have been conducted, which results in four major errors and a 162 other errors in Wikipedia, which is not too different from Britannica’s 4 major errors and 123 other errors.
It should be noted that Wikipedia seeks to archive and collect articles and research that have been released elsewhere.What this means is that as far as legibility goes, Wikipedia aims to provide information concerning what other people have done, be it research, news or whatnot, that can be linked to, cited and in thus, verified (Willinsky 2007).Note that the truth may not necessarily be what’s cited in a Wikipedia page, only that it has been published elsewhere, and thus the actual claim to correct information has to be vetted and dealt with by that publication instead.Wikipedia only compiles them.
What does this mean?Well, since what Wikipedia does is mainly show other people’s published work, it’s hardly a befitting resource for an academic area of study.It is sure fun to surf through though, to keep up to date with the latest news.As far as academic research goes though, it is best to seek elsewhere.
Wikipedia is thus an editable online encyclopedia, but is not considered to be a credible or valid source of information, and the creator of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, agrees.He has been quoted to say, “For God’s sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia,” (Orlowski 2006).
Wise words indeed.If you do want to quote something from Wikipedia though, it might help if you’re using it for legal purposes.More than 100 judicial rulings have used information from Wikipedia in a court ruling since 2004 (Cohen 2007). Though not reliable for critical issues or academic ventures (since most do not recognise it as a legitimate resource), Wikipedia might help in gathering basic information.Otherwise, it might be in your best interests not to use it, except perhaps for checking out an article’s outgoing hyperlinks.
VanFossen (2007) states that the best blog design, the ideal one, downloads within 10 seconds, does not require horizontal scrolling, limits vertical scrolling, features easy navigation, does not deviate from common placing of design elements, and prints beautifully.
While most of those good design elements are self-explanatory, what does it mean by not deviating from common placing of design elements?To put it simply, if your site design it too unique, it it might hamper a web user’s experience of your website. Nielsen (1999) agrees, stating that web users are always on other websites.Web users learn to navigate websites from other websites, so if a more or less standard template is used, then the more comfortable the web user is in navigating them. This agrees with the concept of schemata, whereby readers of a text interact and get meaning from a text through their past experience, beliefs, values, opinions as well as the context of situation when they are interacting with the text (Putnis & Petelin 1996 p. 238). Stray too far from the schemata that a web user and you may risk alienating your audience.
Blogs are pretty standardised in design.Most blogs look like other blogs…if you use the preset templates.This blog itself uses one of the pre-set Blogger templates.Simple top banner, blog content on the left, navigation on the right.I did not change it from the preset template that I had chosen.This suits me and what I’m using this blog for.
However, others have been very adventurous with their blog design.Have a gander at Blogskins.com, where numerous fancy blog designs thrive there.While many are pretty and beautiful, they do not necessarily conform to the standards outlined by VanFossen earlier.One example from that site is that’s her ; upside down by topsy turvy.
The screen-cap I’ve chosen for the blog design is the main page that is on the preview for the blog skin.Note that it basically has no information, there is a “Her” placeholder text in the middle to show where the title of the blog goes.This means only the title of the blog is available at the beginning of going to a blog using this design.The navigation buttons are along the top.This is a common element of design, however, there is no explanatory text of where the links go, just pictures with no text.This is one of the big mistakes that Nielsen (2005) highlights, that the links are not descriptive of where they go.This design deviates heavily from standard blog design, where the contents are not immediately available, only the title is seen on the homepage, you have to click on the vague links to get around, and who knows where the archives have gone.Yes, it is pretty, but this design sacrifices a lot of usability for it.
However, at the time of posting, the design has a pretty high score, 4.60 out of 5.00.This means that a number of the site visitors liked the design enough to rate it highly, which is also reflected by the 482 people that listed it as a favourite design.Does this mean that the blog design rules listed earlier are useless, as people like the design?Not necessarily.We do not know what factors are being considered when web users are rating the blog design, so we do not know whether they are taking usability into account when rating.Even if they were basing it on usability, this does not make the design problems found in the blog design disappear or are irrelevant, it just means that the users that think the design is usable found no problems with it, which is not the same thing. I am all for fancy and pretty.However, I also advocate functionality.That is why the right side of this blog features many easy to understand text links.Of course, that’s my own prerogative.Whether you choose to follow what has been outlined is up to your own discretion, and you should choose a blog template that fits your purposes.Particularly if your blog is being marked.
References
Putnis, P & Petelin, R 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydeney
