Focus Group Discussion

Fellow Classmates,
(I was given permission to post this request here.)

My focus group discussions on "Facebook, Politics, and Hillary Clinton" are scheduled for Monday (2/4) and Tuesday (2/5) from 4:45-5:45 p.m. in Reavis Hall Lab 203. This discussion will be for my thesis and for my presentation and paper in this class.

If you are a Facebook user and are available on one of those days, please come join us! Simply post a comment here to let me know that you will attend.

Food and beverages will be provided and your name will be entered into a drawing to win a $25 TCF Bank Visa Gift Card.

Thank you!

FanFic

Our discussion in class, and the copyright article that June Cleaver posted (excellent article for this class!) got me thinking about Fan Fiction.

As literature fans, I am sure that most of us will grant that the original author of a work has the ultimate creative authority. Meaning, we can't going to place much, if any, stock in what other people create using the original author's characters or setting. For example, when I was in elementary school, I was very taken by Dahl's Matilda. So much so, in fact, that I wrote a sequel. Of course in those days I could not publish this sequel (online or elsewhere), and even at that young age, I realized that (a) my writing was no where near as good as Dahl's and (b) that even if my writing were amazing, Matilda wasn't my character.

Today, even though I love the Harry Potter books (yes, go ahead, brand me), I recognize that only Rowling truly knows how her characters would act and behave. Therefore, how could anyone possibly write anything with these exact characters? What I mean is, because Rowling created Harry, only she knows what he would do as a character; so anyone else writing about Harry (especially stories that put Harry into situations that he would never be in if Rowling were writing) is actually creating a new Harry, a character with the same name but different (much like two people in real life having the same name). Harry would be acting out of character if someone else wrote him; therefore, it's not actually Rowling's Harry Potter. It's Joe Smith's Harry Potter who looks a heck of a lot like Rowling's, may even act somewhat like Rowling's Potter, but because Rowling is the mind behind Harry, anyone's else's Harry is just that, their Harry.

So my question is, at what point is a FanFic character a completely new character? If Harry Potter takes on a sexual role in a FanFic piece, isn't that a new literary character with the same name as Rowling's? When does enough change in major characteristics result in a new character?

I think this is an important distinction, especially after reading the Open Spaces article regarding how our society's perception of copyright law is steady shifting toward one focused mainly on the monetary aspect of someone's work.

This website has some interesting notes on copyright and fan fiction along with a cease and desist database, which ties in well with the discussion in the Open Spaces article of ISPs pulling content off the web at the copyright holders discretion.

Anyone for a game of copyright monopoly?

Here's a great article that highlights the class discussion (and more) about copyright:
The Purpose of Copyright

by Lydia Pallas Loren

It's from Open Spaces Quarterly

The article takes you back to the printing press and history of the monopolization of copyright, then moves on to the birth of censorship,etc., all as proof of a change from copyright's inital inception as a creative tool to today's misuse as a financial boon. I'll let you read the rest, but it's an easy-to-digest background for those of us who aren't entirely familiar with copyright in the past or the present and brings up a few fundamental questions to chew on. In the end, this author argues against time extensions for copyright owners.

I particularly like the the link between copyright owners and their ability to act as censor for the material--this is an area I'd like to hear more opinions and facts about.

Sources and originality

I’ve been thinking about this since class last night. We believe that John Webster drew on multiple sources to write his two major plays, The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil.

Those probably include contemporary or near-contemporary sources like Barnabe Rich’s New Description of Ireland, Francois de Rosset’s Histoires tragiques de nostre temps, Thomas Marsh’s Palace of Pleasure, Lady Arbella Stuart’s life, John Florio’s Letter Lately Written from Rome, the Fugger newsletters (German – admittedly, a long shot), a French account of the visit of Virginio Orsini (also a long shot), and definitely Orsini’s contemporary residence in London.

So, a mix of previous authors (including also the Greeks, whom Webster and his age read for models of tragedy in drama) and real life. With, if you like to say, his own particular genius. Genius, by the way, originally meant just one’s residing spirit. Not talent or brilliance, but particularity – so forget for a minute the history of taste, and value judgments.

The point is that Webster was unique; each of his sources was unique (should add the caveat “as far as we know,” since we really don’t know for sure). Although he drew material from them, he put it together in a unique way (he really did; he changed historical events to make them more dramatic).

Voilà the author.

If it’s not about taste or value, it is about money. The publication of a Webster tragedy would make more money than the publication of the Fugger letters (I’m assuming!) and be sold more widely than the account of Virginio Orsini’s visit to France (very rare document; I know because I had to track it down). Of course, selling better / more popularity is a value judgment added to the history of taste right there.

Others since Webster have written this story, Stendhal being probably the best-known now. I am biased because of my focus on Webster, but I’d venture that his version has been the definitive one.

A final comment. Shakespeare may or may not be regarded today as a snooty taste. In point of fact, he was the Anne Rice of his day. The public, the hoi polloi, loved his shows, and he was a major financial success. Webster, though he didn’t have similar success, wrote for the same audience. Webster was probably the Alice Borchardt of his day.

Classical Authorship - Reader Response

We see a progression of thought from Plato to his most famous student, Aristotle, to the famous rhetorician Quintillian: whether authorship is the “Bacchic transport,” imitation of real life, or imitation of good authors.

Plato, in Ion, speaks of the Muse as similar to a magnet that first inspires poets who then can inspire rhapsodes to recite their work and enthuse an audience (enthuse and inspire both etymologically implying possession by the god): a chain of emotional transference, with a strong focus on cathartic response. Poetry is a religious experience.

For Aristotle, the poet seeks to imitate real life in his work, in degrees of similarity (better than real life, worse than real life, or like real life): the focus is on the lifelikeness of the story itself, not, indeed, the affective quality.

Quintillian directs the orator to study and imitate all the best human authors; he does discuss the emotional reaction to a great oration, but prefers reading orations in order to study them most coolly and rationally.

These three thinkers approach authorship from different perspectives. Plato’s concept of divine inspiration by the Muse sidesteps the question of intellectual copyright altogether: it belongs (if to anyone) to the gods, and is shared with certain humans, who then transmit it in their turn. Aristotle’s approach deals with the mechanics of imitation: medium, manner, and objects. This is not a question of plagiarism: Aristotle points out that Sophocles and Homer are imitators of the same kind (tragedy), and on a broader scale like Aristophanes (imitation of persons). Quintillian takes it further by specifically prescribing study and imitation of the best authors.

So, for Plato, the “author” receives a divine gift; no other receives exactly the same, as Ion can speak eloquently of Homer but “dozes off” when other poets are mentioned. An author has a specialty. This suggests that plagiarism is actually not possible, although that is complicated by Plato’s chain, which is a web of sharing freely the gifts of the gods, mass possession the goal. If the entire audience is moved and affected by the recital of the rhapsode, the transference of this emotion has transmitted the gift of the gods (at least temporarily). Does this or doesn’t it complicate Plato’s concept of divine inspiration (i.e., how dangerous is the Muse that had to be cast out of the Republic – the power to sway mobs by emotion rather than reason)?

Aristotle sees authors as discrete units. They may imitate the manner of Homer in using a narrator, or imitate the genre (tragedy, drama), but that kind of imitation would hardly be considered plagiarism by anyone today. Authorship for Aristotle means the production of realistic (or more or less “realistic”) character, emotion, movement – in short, the lived human experience. Authors work differently, some depicting men as nobler than in real life, others as viler.

Imitation does not mean an exact copy, however; as Quintillian points out (like jb, I think this is one of the central points here), you should not imitate only one author, for all copies are inherently inferior to the originals (recalling the concept of ideal forms). Like Cicero, who, “after he devoted himself wholly to imitate the Greeks . . . embodied in his style the energy of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the sweetness of Isocrates,” so you can draw from many sources yet create your own utter newness, cf. Joyce’s Ulysses.

Note
If you want to look a little further, here’s a blog on the subject of authorship in antiquity which I found thought-provoking:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/kenne329/antiquity/cat_greek.html

"CyberLaw and You: What New-Media Professionals Must Know"

Last semester, I attended an STC Chicago (The Chicago Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication) meeting held in Oak Park, Illinois. The guest speaker was Christopher Julliet, an attorney in Ann Arbor, MI: "Chris focuses his law practice on business, Internet, electronic commerce and estate planning." (stc-chicago.org)

He defined copyright, trademarks, etc. in plain language and gave a very interesting presentation. I remember thinking: How does Walt Disney get away with keeping the rights to Mickey Mouse when they allegedly copied the character in the first place?

He also shared a story about a woman who was at a party taking pictures and apparently shot a great photo of some famous coach (name and sport escapes me now). The woman wanted to put that photo onto postcards and send them out as Christmas cards (or something of that nature), but Chris, the attorney, advised her not to go down that road. The battle would be uphill!

Read Chris' article, "CyberLaw and You: What New-Media Professionals Must Know." It's from 2002, but I think it's still relevant, and I hope you find it interesting.

Having done the readings for this coming week and being exposed to some classical ideas about authorship and the impact of authorial production on society, I was interested in seeing what the legal definition of author might be. From a quick google search the first set of results dealt with Foucault's concepts of what an author is and some large databases of famous authors. After following a few links and perusing a few poorly made pages, I found this link to the U.S. Copyright Office.

That page obviously has a lot of information on it and a lot of legal jargon that might not be pertinent at this stage in the semester. However, I do think its interesting to look at all the amendments that have been added as time has passed, and to skim over some of the more recent additions to see that ways that concepts of who owns what has changed.

Here's a link to the form to fill out to copyright a sound recording. Interesting to see the level of detail that precedes the actual form itself and to think about the lengths people have to go to to protect their own work.

Reading Response: Aristotle, Plato, and Quintilian

I had a difficult time with these readings, so please leave a comment if you think I'm off base or missed an important point. It was tough to conflate them all . . .


In both Ion and The Republic, Plato presents poetry as a danger. In the latter, it is said to have the power to corrupt, leading people to sympathize with feelings and actions of others that they would find undesirable in themselves. The poet is spellbinding, and Ion further illustrates the power of language: Ion is spellbound by Homer, who is in turn transfixed by his muse, who draws the ability to inspire from the gods. Plato compares this process of creation to a chain where each link is inspired by and held to something that came before.

Similarly, in his Institutes of Oratory, Quintilian instructs aspiring orators to study the masters that came before, prescribing a specific brand of imitation as a basis for creating something new. His approach is less like the philosophical approach of Plato and more like the pragmatic observations of Aristotle in his Poetics. Both recognize what we now call genres—that “Every species of writing has its own prescribed law, each its own appropriate dress.” Though recognizing similarities, Aristotle also notes three major ways in which forms of writing differ: the medium, the objects, and the manner of imitation.

Taken together, these readings present two ideas about authorship that seem at odds with each other. Aristotle and Quintilian see oratory more like a science that can be studied and observed at a critical distance, so perusing the masters would help aspiring rhetoricians and poets. Plato, on the other hand, focuses more on the power of speech—something you must be on guard against—and traces the sources of inspiration back to the gods.

Yet these authors agree about the nature of ideas—at least as humans use them. Whether from the gods or other orators, creation is presented primarily as a form of interpretation. Thus, the concept of authorship seems to rest in the expression of an idea rather than the idea itself.

If creation involves interpretation, then the idea of authorship takes on a collaborative aspect. Plato may have given primary credit to the gods, but Ion’s knowledge of and appreciation for poetry was channeled through Homer and his muse. At this point in time the chain is relatively short, moving from a god to a muse to a major poet. But what about modern incarnations of, say, The Odyssey? We give credit for O Brother, Where Art Thou? to the Coen brothers, but still recognize that said work is an adaptation and would not exist if not for the prior work of others. Yet it is original, mixing old and new like Quintilian suggests.

In the digital age, it seems that there are more genres, more sources of inspiration, and a more complicated history of rhetoric and art that makes forming connections between authors difficult. Text is divorced of context with a simple cut and paste, while the practice of moving conversations in and out of different forums and through different media make it difficult to tell where conversations are happening, let alone who started—er, created—it. Perhaps like conversations, ideas are simply “out there” and under constant development, thought up and placed here by someone who came before. Thus, one’s individual expression of an idea—one’s unique blend of whichever sources they choose to draw on—seems to be more important now than being the one who originally thought something up.


PS - my formatting didn't carry over, so sorry if I missed some italics here and there.

Quintilian and Milton in Purgatory

Quintilian: I never spoke of imitation as imitation of an act or method, but of an elegance whose execution must always be merited by its matter.

Milton: And I chose the eloquent elocution of Cicero.

Quintilian: But the matter?

Milton: The highest possible service to justice.

Quintilian: Indeed, John, but I spoke of matter as execution in delivery.

Milton: And I delivered admirably. I did not choose that my opponent would deign to refrain from personal attacks on my blindness.

Quintilian: Did Sophocles impugn the gods for Oedipus’s calamity?

Milton: As my blindness was not the result of God’s disfavor.

Quintilian: In defense of one’s country, or in defense of regicide, the invective tone has no elegant home.

Milton: Different times required different methods. As you yourself instructed, mere imitation would merely produce a crippled copy.

Quintilian: Genres have laws and genres have order.

Milton: Yes, and purgatory has rules. Why are you here?

Quintilian: To save your soul.

Creative Commons

If you've been keeping up with the first link on our blogroll, you might wonder what's up with Lawrence Lessig, considering most of his recent posts have been about politics more than authorship and copyright law. I guess he's starting to focus more on political corruption, but I think [at least at this juncture] he is best known for starting Creative Commons.

CC makes a number of licenses available to artists and authors as an alternative to the "All Rights Reserved" method we see with traditional copyright law. I'm still learning about it, but it seems the the idea is to let others know in what ways you are OK with your work being shared, remixed, or otherwise altered.

So I might go home tonight, take a beautiful picture of the sunset, and decide that I wouldn't mind it being used by other people. I could upload this to my flickr page, slap a CC license on it, and bloggers around the world would be free to repost it in anyway they wish, provided they follow whatever stipulations I have--that my image is not used commercially, that you give me credit for the photo, et cetera. There's a giant pool of CC content available to work from already, and it seems like it will only get bigger.

The main question I have is this: how can I verify that the person who put the license on an object is the original author? How do I know that someone didn't just rip an image off somebody else's website, upload it to their flickr account, and slap a license on it that gives me the right to do as I list. Would I be held accountable if I used that image and the original, true author tracked me down and demanded compensation? I have no idea. I wonder if efforts like CC are making things easier or more complicated, but that's something that might lead to more specific questions that could be answered in a paper. Hmmmm...

Authorship of Evolving Documents

Certain tech writers (e.g., me) work in an environment where documents, once published, are not static. They can be changed, through a process, to be whatever is required. Basically, my documents fall into 2 main categories.

1. Often: I am presented with a document which I did not write and, often, have never seen before. Then I am expected to make necessary changes, print out a copy, sign my name to it, then pass it on for approval by higher-ups. I have kind of a personal qualm with claiming authorship over these documents.
2. More rarely: I am asked to generate a document from scratch, sometimes with a previous example, sometimes not. I pass revisions back and forth with others and eventually we hammer out the final version. This kind of document I have no problem claiming authorship over.

Obviously, this is a business setting, and so plagerism doesn't always 100% apply (or does it?). But who wrote these documents? Specifically, number 1.

Publishing Advice for Grad Students

I image that many of you may have already stumbled upon this, as it was on SIVACRACY.net. Reading over the essay though, I found it to be very helpful, not to mention just plain interesting.

Thom Brooks of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) - Newcastle Law School, has written a 31-page essay on how grad students can easily rack up some publications for their CVs. The essay is free and can be downloaded from here. Many of the aspects of the publishing field the Brooks mentions I saw firsthand (especially the notes about how long publication can take) in my work as a copy editor for scientific journals, so it seems as if he is handing out some advice that we would be wise to heed.

Readings for Monday

Just a quick note regarding a correction to the readings assigned for Monday: I just realized that I meant to assign Book X, not Book II, from Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory. I sent the correct reading over email, and will post it to our class website soon.

Donny the Downloader

This article is a few months old, but I was pleased to see the recording industry and ASCAP, along with Microsoft, Verizon and the US Dept. of Justice, are going to use some of their vast resources to help fund education.

http://news.findlaw.com/wash/s/20070815/20070815111121.html

Those funds, however, will not be used to update computers, classrooms, text books, or to otherwise better our public schools with lower student-teacher ratios and broader offerings of extracurricular activities. This campaign is about Donny the Downloader and his piracy exploits.

It is interesting to note that this article alludes to the idea that teens illegally download because they think that everything on the Internet is free. I'm not sure that assumption of ignorance isn't naive. I would think that most people who illegally download don't care if it's legal or not: for them it's more a matter of convenience and accessibility.

I Am Not Paranoid

I know privacy is not a subject of this class. It seems to me, though, that arguing copyright issues would be rendered moot without privacy. As the rampant misuse of copyrighted material on the web clearly illustrates - though for different reasons than those I will address - there is room for some regulation. The question, of course, is who regulates and then how is that regulation implemented.

Since I do not intend to necessarily publish on the Internet, I see no reason for personal concern. As for what constitutes digital authorship, I hope to gain some understanding of what than means from this class. What does concern me is eavesdropping, and particularly the kind of eavesdropping reminiscent of Big Brother. The kind of eavesdropping in fact that has led to these kinds of measures [see http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955

I have no idea what the authoritarians in Congress mean by "facilitating" radical ideology. Hell, in America, radical ideology might mean something such as universal health care or finding homes for those trying to survive -3 temperatures. Nevertheless, if Congress has passed measures to catch anyone "facilitating" terrorism, the first target will be the Internet. If our own government agencies are willing to broadcast invading our privacy in some ways, can we even imagine the ways they will do so without telling us?

I would also advise looking into one's Internet Service Provider. Some of them lean over without even being asked - Google, I believe, is one of them, even if it is not an ISP.

Beware the Ides of March . . .

Copyright issues

Here's a Slate story of a brouhaha over the J. K. Rowling empire. Rowling vs. her fans -- probably not the best PR move for her: the fans want to publish (as a physical book) an online lexicon, and she's upset they're shoehorning in on her profits (like J. K. Rowling really can't spare a few pennies, but I suppose it's a matter of principle for her).

Other tangentially literary issues include unauthorized fanfic (and admittably some of Rowling's fanfic is Sadeian), or fiction written by fans furthering the adventures of favorite characters. Laurell K. Hamilton has spoken about her distaste for this: "Fan fic [sic] is illegal. Writers who give permission for their characters to be used by others can lose those characters. So no, I do not read fan fic. I don't surf the Internet so it has not been a problem for me. If I don't know about it, then I don't have to do something about it" (in this RBL Presents! interview). Is it illegal, though? She's clearly biased.

This seems to be an issue of when a traditional Luddite medium gets translated into a medium (or media) that are far freer and more open by nature (book to Internet, for example). It's a question of profits (most online stuff is free, like fanfic and the Harry Potter lexicon in question above, whereas a book published enters the realm of economical advantage and power).

The romance writer mentioned in an earlier post here was employing plagiarism, which didn't in her case cross media -- although it took new media, in this case, the blog, to expose it. I remember the Janet Dailey-Nora Roberts case, in which Dailey, Romance Writer #1, plagiarized egregiously from Roberts, Romance Writer #2 (and a much bigger-selling writer, too). That was a while ago. Roberts sued Dailey in the end. Copyright = corporate economics.

One final note (don't want this to be interminable!): last night I took a class on the history of the English language. Plagiarism must be a (very) recent concept! It also seems to be a cultural (Western) issue. I've had foreign students who didn't understand about citation, etc., in my 103, 104, and 110 classes taught at NIU. Media, genre, history, culture: all factors in our understanding of copyright/ownership concepts.

P.S. Here's a blog by the Senior Copyright Counsel to Google (formerly copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives) -- obviously biased heavily and slightly technical but full of info, discussion, and useful terms. Looks like it's frequently updated.

Wal-Mart and Digital Authorship

On Monday night, as I drove home from class, I passed my hometown Wal-Mart. As a former Wal-Mart cashier (first job), I have often wondered, and did again on Monday night, what Sam Walton would think of the course Wal-Mart has taken today. Has Wal-Mart stuck to his vision or has it grown at the hands of its employees (or all of society) to something that he would never have imagined or approved of?

As we discussed in the class, one of the main differences between traditional authorship and digital authorship is control. When an author writes a digital text, which is often filled with links to other texts and allows readers a space in which to comment, that author essentially hands over the keys without locking the glove box. Content of linked pages can change and readers can manipulate writing in nearly endless ways, often writing comments that are longer and more intricate than the original text. At what point, we have to wonder, does the original author merely become a contributor? When do readers become co-authors?

Digital authorship has much in common with Wal-Mart (and other corporations). Is Sam Walton the founder of the Wal-Mart we know today, or was he something more like the digital author, a surrogate mother of sorts? -- Someone to bring forth the creation for others to shape and continue to define. Here creation is not a one-time act, but an ongoing process.

Pirate's Dilemma

The following is from a little site about The Pirate's Dilemma.

The Pirate’s Dilemma tells the story of how youth culture drives innovation and is changing the way the world works. It offers understanding and insight for a time when piracy is just another business model, the remix is our most powerful marketing tool and anyone with a computer is capable of reaching more people than a multi-national corporation.

| View | Upload your own

I'm persuaded by this argument, mostly because I'm easily persuaded by flashy videos that paint the big companies as villains and pirate anti-heroes as hip, awesome people with tech savvy--I think I've seen that movie.

But there is more there, the companies aren't villains, they're just stupid. There's nothing bad, they just don't know what to do. Companies appear to be not helping themselves, either, especially when you have buffoonery such as Ford saying it owns pictures you took of their cars. (Resolved: CafePress' error).

As the slideshow points out (I haven't read the book), sometimes lawsuits are the way to go. But there are a lot of pirates in the world. Can they sue everyone?

What happens when the third world starts computing? When they start using this technology through the lens of their culture?

There are companies that offer stop-gap fixes to the piracy problem (see: MediaDefender, and then Hacking into MediaDefender via Digg), but they are not winning.

Industries that insist on suing and harming their customers will fall, as others have before, now they just make a louder noise.

How does this relate, then, back to authorship? Do I own my remixes & mashups? Even the use of the word "my" there is kind of suspect.

I assembled this Christmas card last year. I used photos from all over the Internet. The one of Vlad there is an old painting. The tree is from some fake Christmas tree dealer (don't even remember). The guy? I think that's something I cropped out of a video game. I'm not even sure any more. The font is something default in Windows, I think.

So, who made that thing? Is it piracy?

More effective blogrollin'

Hello, world!

Oh, and hello to you too, classmates. This post is primarily designed for your benefit. Anyway:

On your right, we currently have eight blogs listed on the blogroll that all of us are more or less supposed to keep up on. As Dr. Reyman mentioned in class yesterday, some are updated more often than others. And while you can certainly click on each link individually and check to see if any new content exists, there is an easier, more efficient way to keep up with the blogs.

Consider using Google Reader or one of the many other feed readers (aka aggregators) avaliable--for free--on the Internet. The reason I mention Google Reader is because you all automatically have the initial step of getting a Google account taken care of (it's the same one you use to login to Blogger). When you're logged in, just click the above link. Or this one.

Essentially, an aggregator allows you to read multiple blogs from one location. What you do is set up "subscriptions" to your favorite sites and content is delivered to you. Think of it like a Tivo for your Internet. Here's what mine looks like (click the photo for a bigger/clearer image):


You'll notice there's a list of blogs on the left (divided into folders by subject) and the content of said blog posts on the right. It will also harness the scarily infinite power of Google Search to make everything you have delivered to you completely searchable. So later this semester when it's time to nail down an object for rhetorical analysis but can't remember what blog you read X thing on nor when you read it, just type it in.

Sorry this was so long. I'd be happy to help anyone set this up in case I haven't been clear about something.

- John

ps - The Future of Ideas is now free. It's written by Lawrence Lessig, whose Free Culture we will be reading in this course. That is also available free of charge here (for those of you who like saving a few bucks and/or enjoy reading on computers). It's completely legal, too. I promise.

dipping my toe into the pool

we began a discussion yesterday about digital authorship and blogging. in the new york times "books" section this morning was the headline "A Romance Novelist Is Accused of Copying". this author plagiarized large sections of her novels and is the subject of a blog which, i believe, exposed her. the blog is smartbitchestrashybooks.com. i think this article ties in nicely with our discussion last night regarding authorship, copyright laws, and the influence of the internet on the author and text. - anna

Welcome!

Welcome to our class blog. It is my hope that you will visit here often and post regularly. Your participation is key to the success of this online space.

Why a class blog?
The main objective of our keeping a class blog is to extend our classroom conversations to the larger, ongoing conversations among those interested in issues related to authorship, copyright, and digital media. Sharing your writing with a more public audience, a group of readers who will actually read what you write, respond, and give you feedback, will help you to become a more responsible, and responsive, writer and researcher. Writing in a public space - with readers that include your classmates and beyond - will help you to think more carefully about your writing and the views that you espouse. You’ll see that blogs allow a high level of interactivity – through linking to other web content such as websites, blogs, and online articles to responding to your others’ posts.

Tips for blogging success.
The first requirement for your grade in the class is to write on the blog at least once per week. Your participation can be in the form of either a post or a comment. Your contributions should appear by Saturday of each week, so your classmates have a chance to read and respond before Monday evening’s class. Your posts may be related to any aspect of the course, though on some weeks topics for postings may be suggested. Feel free to post more frequently if you have something to say that extends beyond this minimum requirement.

The second requirement is that you link to someone else's blog at least twice this semester. This can be any blog (not an article or static website) that exists online. Your blog posting should respond to a discussion there and should relate to or be informed by readings, discussion, and activities for class.

Here are some tips for blogging success:

1. Feed the blog. Remember that the success of our class blog depends on its content. The number of people who will read, link to, and contribute to the blog depends on how frequently its authors are adding useful content.
2. Make connections with other web content. Connect your thoughts to and build on what is already being said and explored online. You can make these connections by linking within your posts, or by adding comments on others' blogs.
   
3. Add value to existing content. It’s not enough to just link to other websites and/or summarize materials you’ve been reading. You need to add value to this content by expressing a well-grounded opinion or approaching it from a unique perspective.
4. Respond to comments. In order to establish a true conversation on the blog, you should read and respond to all comments directed at your posts. If readers ask a question or offer either positive feedback or a critique, it is important that you respond thoughtfully on the blog.
   

Now let’s get started with our first week of blogging!