Storify

Here is my work-in-progress Storify about jellyfish.

This brief experiment made me realize that Storify might be better for stories developing in real-time, stories that are being discussed on Facebook and Twitter. Science, not so much.

From printed page to computer screen

I think The New York Times has done a wonderful job adapting to new interactive media, and a great example of this is Amy Harmon's piece on Justin Canha that we just read. In this digital platform, there is infinite space for images, space that doesn't exist on the printed page. And what's also nice about the platform is that the images don't have to crowd the webpage; rather, there are separate links to them.

Another feature I like about The New York Times website is the boxes for the most e-mailed and most viewed articles. There is some sense of interactivity here because it lets me see what other people are interested in, what they're reading and possibly sharing with other people.

The only thing I don't like, and this goes for just about every news site out there today, is the comments section. I almost never read them, even though the ones on the Times are probably more intelligible than comments on other sites. I think it's supposed to be interactive, but it very rarely seems that way to me. It seems reactionary and self-indulgent. More people are driven by the desire to just say something, not to engage with other readers.

Street Art Sources

Yarn Bombing is a blog that covers the art of knitted graffiti from around the world. The authors of the blog have also published a book on the topic called Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti.

Time Magazine published a beautiful photo essay on yarn bombing around the world, from the U.S. to France and from Mexico to Indonesia. There are some elaborate creations that cover buses and military tanks, as well as simple, colorful pothole covers. (Pittsburgh could probably use a few of those.)

To narrow the focus to street art/yarn bombing in Pittsburgh, I will look into Pittsburgh's Yarn Over Society, a group dedicated to knitted street art. The LEDFlower Project is a Pittsburgh-based but global knitted art movement that also combines the interactivity of social media and Google maps.

Finally, I would also like to talk to employees and shoppers of Knit One, a very popular yarn and knitting supply store in Pittsburgh that offers classes and has an active online community as well. I think this sense of community will be an important part of the discussion of yarn bombing. 

Credibility in Cyber Space

The most obvious example of a nonfiction site that may or may not be credible is Wikipedia. I've always questioned the accuracy of the information on the site since anyone with access to the Internet can write about any topic and modify an article as they see fit. It's especially disconcerting when reference sources are lacking. (I'm glad that Wikipedia notes this by saying that a citation is needed so that I at least know to be a little more skeptical about its reliability.) A similar, and perhaps more reliable, site would be something like Britannica Online. I would say I trust this site more because it's an actual encyclopedia, written by professional writers and thoroughly edited. Or maybe I just trust it more because it's also available in book form, a format that seems a lot more "official."

Another website whose credibility I don't always trust is Yahoo! Answers. Like Wikipedia, anyone can post on the website, but Yahoo! Answers users often don't include citations in the their posts. The only method of review is a user rating of responses. I'll admit that I've turned to this site when I had questions about material from my science classes, and I was usually disappointed with what I found. A lot of the answers were just plain wrong! There doesn't seem to be as much monitoring as there is on Wikipedia. When I want more trustworthy information, I turn to a site affiliated with a school or university, and I trust these sites more because of the authority of the writers.

Help Wanted

Ken and I are seeking two additional group members.  If you don't belong to a group yet, let me know if you'd like to join. :)

Why I'm here

I'm taking this class because I'm pretty much social media illiterate. I have a Facebook, but I only use it for keeping in touch with old friends and stalking new ones.  I've never understood Twitter as a means of communication between friends because the tweets never seem to be anything worth communicating; there's just too much chatter, too much noise.  But as journalism and business begin using these kinds of media, it might be prudent for me to become familiar with them, especially if I want to write for a living (which I still haven't decided).

I hope to sharpen my reporting skills and become versed in the language of Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger. I think this will be a great opportunity for me to push myself to use concise and precise language, something that I sometimes have trouble with.  I would also like to push myself to write about things that I don't know.  In the past, I feel like I've taken shortcuts in writing about myself or my family, and, while there may be some good stories there, I need to get away from that. I would like to try some creative science writing if possible, because, for someone who loves science, I rarely write about it.

It's hard for me to say who my favorite nonfiction writers are because, as a writer, I know that I don't read nearly enough.  But I really like Michael Paterniti, especially his essay and book Driving Mr. Albert.  I love how easily he can find a narrative in scientific research, how effortlessly he can pull together information about Albert Einstein and turn it into a story.  This is something I would love to be able to do. To me, science is a story, but I haven't figured out how to tell it the way that Paterniti does.  While I'm not familiar with a lot of his work, David Grann's "Trial By Fire" is one of the best articles I've ever read, so I'll include him as one of my favorite writers.  One of the most remarkable things he does is that he tells the reader how the story will end (Cameron Todd Willingham will be executed), and yet he is somehow able to build tension and a part of me still wondered how it would end; I felt sure that the truth would come out and Willingham's life would be spared.  I hung on to Grann's every word, and this is something I really admire.