A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.46 (748 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0195388445 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 280 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-07-17 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The book explores our use of computers as writing tools in light of the history of communication technology, a history of how we love, fear, and actually use our writing technologies--not just computers, but also typewriters, pencils, and clay tablets. With dozens of illustrations and many colorful anecdotes, the book will enthrall anyone interested in language, literacy, or writing.. Dennis Baron shows that virtually all writing implements--and even writing itself--were greeted at first with anxiety and outrage: the printing press disrupted the "almost spiritual connection" between the writer and the page; the typewriter was "impersonal and noisy" and would "destroy the art of handwriting." Both pencils and computers were created for tasks that had nothing to do with writing. Computers, now the writer's tool of choice, are still blamed by skeptics for a variety of ills, from speeding writing up to the point of recklessness, to complicating or trivializing the writing process, to destroying the English language itself. Baron also explores the new genres that the computer has launched: email, the instant message, the web page, the blog, social-networking pages like MySpace and Facebook, and communally-generated texts like Wikipedia and the Urban Dictionary, not to mention YouTube.Here then is a fascina
Dennis Baron is Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Not Much about the "Revolution" A slim book, but not an easy read. Lots of repetition of ideas and content, as if the book had been written as separate essays and then stitched together without the aid of a good editor. He goes off on tangents within chapters which often had me re-reading pages to see if I had missed a transition.Pitched as a book about how people have reacted to and adopted new communication technologies, it is really more a light historical overview of the topic. Disappointing. If you like technology and history you've already read most of this book els. "Confessions of a Recovering Neo-Luddite" according to K. McIntosh. Have you ever felt yourself longing for the "good old days" when you could just sit down at a typewriter and clack away to your heart's content? Or better yet, take out a freshly sharpened pencil and practically feel your thoughts pouring out onto the page? If so, then you're not alone. According to Dennis Baron's A Better Pencil, people from all walks of life have been publicly mourning the loss of older (and therefore somehow purer?) writing technologies, while at the same time expressing those opinions through word processors and website. Evolution not Revolution M. Taber A Better Pencil by Dennis Baron puts forth the argument that so many in the field of Composition have over-reacted to the role of technology and writing, and that in fact writing has always been technology. Using the metaphor (and analogy) of the pencil, Baron demonstrates that most of the resistance to how computers and other "new media" devices are affecting composition is no different than the age-old arguments against all new forms of communication mediums. While this is a good argument and a useful swing of the pendulum from reactionar
Some may smile with recognition as they recall WordStar and the evolution of word processing applications." --CHOICE"His fast-paced, chatty, engaging history of reading and writing implicitly leads toward some sort of insight about the future."--Frederick E. Allen, Technology and Culture. Today's reader will appreciate the conversational style and the reminders that many of the supposed consequences of the digital revolution were ever thus. "A splendid history Baron's retelling of the history of techno-skepticism is edifying."--City Journal"Baron offers a breezy overview of the ways that technology is shaping reading and writing practices. This book will be valued in future as a well-contextualized survey of issues that surface among writers in the current online landscape