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What I Took Away From ENG 1313 Writing in a Digital World

During my second semester I took ENG 1313, Writing in a Digital World. During
this time I developed and used various writing skills. These skills allowed me to
improve the way I write essays as they challenged me and forced me to look at the
task through a different perspective. In this essay I will discuss only 5 out of these
many skills and their impact on my ability to think critically, properly put
information in order, and how to express my ideas. These five will be:
1. What it takes to write a good 6 word memoir and how effective they
can be
2. The effectiveness of a great dialogue
3. Informal papers and why they are sometimes better than Formal
papers
4. How to be descriptive when writing essays
5. Quotations

6 Word Memoirs
6 word memoirs are 6 words used by any individual to tell a story. When this is
properly done an individual will have had a greater impact than what he thought
and touched people in many, many, MANY different ways! An effective 6 word
memoir should include:
Line Breaks line breaks add emphasis
Legibility - contrast of size, shape, color, value
Room at the margins the edges shouldnt be crowded
Font - pairing fonts putting two fonts together to add more interest. Adding a
contrast of size, weight, and design. Color on specific words will allow focus to be
drawn to areas and add emphasis on the importance of the word.
Critically Thinking critically thinking and
attempting to target different audiences from
different angles
Following these basics will allow for any individual
to produce an effective 6 word memoir. However, I
believe the most important rules are critically
thinking, and adding color. The ability to think
critically and wisely chose 6 words will allow the
author to continuous attract the attention of
viewers constantly. The choice of adding color to
specific words and adding different styles of font
add emphasis to words. The choice of font size on
specific words also creates the same effect. This
can be extremely effective. To the right is an example of an effective 6 word
memoir.

Dialogue
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Dictionary.com defines dialogue as a conversation between characters in a

novel, drama, etc. This is extremely significant because it tells the readers/viewers
what is going on while attempting to keep them engaged. This is VERY important
because if an individual is not engaged than that individual may be left clueless
from what exactly is going on. A dialogue is the opportunity for an author to either
hit or miss. An author who is GREAT at writing a dialogue and because of this has
always caught the attention of children and who adults remember even as they
grow older is Dr. Seuss! A good dialogue allows and consist of the following:

Characters speaking out loud

Inside the characters head and hear their thoughts (Interior monologue
includes no quotation marks)
Reveals character personality or advances the plot/storyline

Informal essays versus Formal essays

Informal essays/papers give authors the chance to step outside the basic APA
and MLA styled papers and really showcase their work. Authors can now add a spice
to areas. On the contrary, this doesnt mean the author can just completely forget
how to write a formal paper as he/she will need to use some of the rules still. An
author is given the ability to use contractions and first person but, it is still required
to be grammatically correct and use proper mechanics. Informal papers give
authors the ability to make them more attractive. An author can now use multiple
fonts BUT, it is HIGHLY recommended that only TWO be used. During this course I
believe many students enjoyed this more. It gave the ability to really showcase my
work and make it more personal.

Being descriptive when writing essays

Being descriptive allows individuals to travel the journey the essay takes them.
This is extremely important because it gives chances to impact individuals directly.
No one wants to hear a boring story about how a boy swam across a 50 feet pool,
people want to read a story about how the boy swam across the 50 feet pool while
the temperature was 98 degrees Fahrenheit and this was the boys first encounter
with this temperature and he could only compare it to being trapped in the desert
bare skinned. How it was the middle of the summer and pool was so clean he could
see the bottom which were filled with over 200 snakes, how the sun rays hit the
water and made it reflects blinding people, the sides of the pool were scorching hot
and he could see the steam rise off them and couldnt stay still because he felt a
whole would be burned in his feet. Thats what people want to hear! Being
descriptive can make a paper 100 times more attractive. Some rules to remember
when writing descriptive papers are:
Using Imagery
Using the 5 senses
Comparing and contrasting
Placing specific naming
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Using strong verbs

Two rules of quotations

Throughout the course my use of quotations and citations within papers increased
and enhanced. My knowledge about what they were, when they should be used,
and there purpose also increased. These two rules mentioned below indicated when
a change has been mad or information that the author may not found to be
significant is left out.
Square Brackets, [], should be used when the author wants to leave out
information or change something. For example earlier I mentioned This is
extremely important because it gives chances to impact individuals directly. Using
square brackets I would say This is extremely important because it gives chances
to impact [others] directly. When using square brackets pronouns should be
changed for clarity and the tense should be changed for consistency.
Ellipsis, , are 3 spaced dots which indicated that something has been left out. For
example if I say It was so hot outside I thought I stopped breathing so I couldnt
sleep. I would implement this by saying It was so hot outside I thought I stopped
breathing
As you can note these 5 skills/rules I developed and enhanced throughout the
course allowed me to construct good papers. They not only were effective during
this course but, I was given the opportunity to implement them in others as well.
These skills impacted me positively and I hope after reading this you can use them
also. They were only a few out of many and I know these will stick with me forever.
These skills are what I did, watched, read, thought about, talked about, loved, and
repeatedly practiced throughout ENG 1313, Writing in a Digital World.