I have been thinking a lot about the project idea for the Writing for New Media class. It constantly kept changing. But finally I came out with the topic called "The Face of Baltimore".
Last weekened, when I paid a visit to the sushi bar I used to go frequently, the very nice Taiwanese restaurant owner had a very nice chat with me. I asked him why there are so many sushi restaurants on York Road and he answered, "Don't you know? When something is selling like hot cakes, people follow the trend." And he also explained it to me that because common Americans do not really know what good sushis are, so it doesn't matter if they are good and if they are originally Japanese enough."
Interestingly, again, the next day, I visited an Asian grocery owned by a Shanghainese couple near Towson here. That's the place I was so amazed that the store sold so many different kinds of Asian food. They are Chinese, Hongkie, Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, Burmese and etc. Asians from different countries came here to do grocery shopping, or rather, they were forced to come here, because probably that was the one and only Asian market near the neighborhood. Amazingly, there were some Latinos as well.
So, I am thinking, stereotypes happen everywhere. People cannot tell the feature differences between Africans and African Americans. Some thought Koreans eat sushis . When we are not sure with things, we tend to categorize all of them together.
I remember a Neewsweek magazine cover story "The new face of Japan" in which there are these three guys - orignally American, African and Indian - holding a Japanese passport. The main theme is talking about how globalization changes the face of every country. You might think he is an Indian but he turns out to be of Japan.
Combining all these, the idea of checking out the immigrants' society in Baltimore struck me out of sudden. I have been hearing a lot about the significant amount of Latinos in downtown but I do not want to focus on one society only. Because a lot of people have done so before. Then why not swift the telescope onto a place instead?
In my project, I want to write on the three largest minority immigrants groups - the Asians, Africans and Latinos. There will be statistics, culture, lifestyle, political and future aspects of each group in the project. What do they think about the country? Do they still want to go back home if given the chance? I hope I can make the story complete enough by researching different faces of them, not those quintessentially traditional culture and stuff.
So I hit up the streets. In downtown Baltimore, a lot of the Latino teenagers were wandering around on the street. They immersed themselves, in soccer, singing, any kind. It seemed to me that they knew how to enjoy their life.
I do not deny that people would mistakenly think they are lazy and do not work but just wander around on streets. I did not know until I talked to a middle-age lady. It was no such official interview but we did have some nice chatting. She talked with a strong accent that I could hardly understand. So she talked slow and soft. She looked depressed when talking about her son. She was worried about her son. And maybe she thought that staying with a cleaner job forever was not a long road for them in the future.
As suggested by Dr. Spaulding, I looked it up the census.gov. The data told me that a lot of Latinos in Baltimore are not certain of what race they are of. Some might not know from where they came from, either they are Mexican or Cuban. They are Baltimore people. Some belong to here. Others think they are stuck here. But where is their road ahead?
Due to time constraints, these are so far what I have done. Certainly, there are more stories to tell in this project. Be prepared.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Chapter 2, Sept. 9
As discussed earlier, writing is an art while some (including me) regard it as a kind of science as well. I did not mean that it is purely science. Because by only taking it as a scientific approach, great writing is hardly produced. And why?
There is something called magic.
Hard work can be guaranteed to propel any writer to higher level of quality. It is like a craft, leading to good writing, but it needs some magical seasoning for it. Together, craft and magic unite into a synergistic method for progressing toward writing excellence.
No people would deny that writing is hard. Craft is the conscious part, requiring diligence and discipline. Meanwhile, magic is the intuitive part. "A human brain can independently engage itself, assaying and sorting and splicing the impulses and project them back to consciousness in great reconfiguration". Just imagine like a magician knowing all the methods to perform an act but lacks the magically X-factor charm to guide the audience into magical world beyond the imagination, how sad? People would rather watch Martha Stewart's cooking instead.
It is a system. A craft-magic system called WRITE approach:
Work - Step-by-step of the writing process
Release - Release intermittently back and forth, let the mind play with it.
Inspiration - Striking of magic
Technique - Back to hard work
Energy - Stamina
The liner aspect writing is craft. It is hard work. Systemically improving the writing skill can be divided into different steps of the writing process.
Meanwhile, the writing process has the following:
Launching - The starting point
Reporting - The research phase, including interviewing
Focusing - The conceptual key
Limbering - The warmup
Rewriting - The second wind, the reinvigorated surge
Copyediting - The final polish
Well, for the magic part, I am not going to list all of them out as what I did for the "craft". To sum it up, it is this word - be creative. Do anything you can do to make yourself so. I mean, some books may tell you what you can do and whatsoever. Probably, writing, playing or sleeping or anything. But, still do not limit yourself.
All ways lead to Rome.
Explore yourself to anything that might help. "Attend to magical impulses both directly and indirectly, using every available means to focus the prodigious powers of the human brain". The most fundamental key to improvement is to harness in unison, not opposition, the dual forces of craft and magic.
They are not accidental, they are nourished. Yeah, it is true that some people are born to be gifted in writing but remember, no one knows how to hold a pen when he or she was born. Still, it is a process of learning.
-- -- --
Entering the digital and internet age, all the information are just clicks away. Journalists do not need to visit every courthouse, police department, hospital, apartment, or school, one by one. The database is set up online for their convenience. The free air space, meanwhile, allows them to go beyond the limit of time and space. Stuff can be updated anytime, anywhere, constantly. They can write as much as they can because expensive printing papers are no longer the obstactles.
When less restrictions apply to online story telling, they are not limited to a constructed form like that of newspapers and magazines. They can be at any length, with any sentence structure (as long as they are gramatically correct).
Being connected with the outside world more freely, a great advantage of the technology is that if the writers are not good enough to tell stories in words, they can always turn to posting pictures and videos. And also, the storytelling method is not only mastered by the writer, but also the readers. What the writers do can also be done by the readers. Readers are allowed to post comments, pictures and videos too when they find any outside elements which are connected to the stories they have read.
Good things can turn ugly too.
The harms coming along with the web are just the opposites of the advantages. True that you have a bunch of information for you but it makes journalists take more time to prove, proofread, update and edit the online information. When people finally know that they can tell something more easily, most of the time these information are not filtered yet, thus they are often not accurate and objective.
Same things happen to the readers' comment where the writers need to be able to handle any criticism to their writing. Some are for good means but some may not be. Take them as respect, embrace them, even though these criticisms are not intented to so.
Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them. It helps the writers win respects.
There is something called magic.
Hard work can be guaranteed to propel any writer to higher level of quality. It is like a craft, leading to good writing, but it needs some magical seasoning for it. Together, craft and magic unite into a synergistic method for progressing toward writing excellence.
No people would deny that writing is hard. Craft is the conscious part, requiring diligence and discipline. Meanwhile, magic is the intuitive part. "A human brain can independently engage itself, assaying and sorting and splicing the impulses and project them back to consciousness in great reconfiguration". Just imagine like a magician knowing all the methods to perform an act but lacks the magically X-factor charm to guide the audience into magical world beyond the imagination, how sad? People would rather watch Martha Stewart's cooking instead.
It is a system. A craft-magic system called WRITE approach:
Work - Step-by-step of the writing process
Release - Release intermittently back and forth, let the mind play with it.
Inspiration - Striking of magic
Technique - Back to hard work
Energy - Stamina
The liner aspect writing is craft. It is hard work. Systemically improving the writing skill can be divided into different steps of the writing process.
Meanwhile, the writing process has the following:
Launching - The starting point
Reporting - The research phase, including interviewing
Focusing - The conceptual key
Limbering - The warmup
Rewriting - The second wind, the reinvigorated surge
Copyediting - The final polish
Well, for the magic part, I am not going to list all of them out as what I did for the "craft". To sum it up, it is this word - be creative. Do anything you can do to make yourself so. I mean, some books may tell you what you can do and whatsoever. Probably, writing, playing or sleeping or anything. But, still do not limit yourself.
All ways lead to Rome.
Explore yourself to anything that might help. "Attend to magical impulses both directly and indirectly, using every available means to focus the prodigious powers of the human brain". The most fundamental key to improvement is to harness in unison, not opposition, the dual forces of craft and magic.
They are not accidental, they are nourished. Yeah, it is true that some people are born to be gifted in writing but remember, no one knows how to hold a pen when he or she was born. Still, it is a process of learning.
-- -- --
Entering the digital and internet age, all the information are just clicks away. Journalists do not need to visit every courthouse, police department, hospital, apartment, or school, one by one. The database is set up online for their convenience. The free air space, meanwhile, allows them to go beyond the limit of time and space. Stuff can be updated anytime, anywhere, constantly. They can write as much as they can because expensive printing papers are no longer the obstactles.
When less restrictions apply to online story telling, they are not limited to a constructed form like that of newspapers and magazines. They can be at any length, with any sentence structure (as long as they are gramatically correct).
Being connected with the outside world more freely, a great advantage of the technology is that if the writers are not good enough to tell stories in words, they can always turn to posting pictures and videos. And also, the storytelling method is not only mastered by the writer, but also the readers. What the writers do can also be done by the readers. Readers are allowed to post comments, pictures and videos too when they find any outside elements which are connected to the stories they have read.
Good things can turn ugly too.
The harms coming along with the web are just the opposites of the advantages. True that you have a bunch of information for you but it makes journalists take more time to prove, proofread, update and edit the online information. When people finally know that they can tell something more easily, most of the time these information are not filtered yet, thus they are often not accurate and objective.
Same things happen to the readers' comment where the writers need to be able to handle any criticism to their writing. Some are for good means but some may not be. Take them as respect, embrace them, even though these criticisms are not intented to so.
Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them. It helps the writers win respects.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Chapter 1, Sept. 4
Browsing through the list of outstanding portfolios again and again, the first portfolio by Poh Si Teng still allures the most of my attention.
No doubt, the website's home page has done the best job. The author does not use thousands of redundant words to describe herself. Rather, different videos of hers tell more than about her. The videos are the stories she has been working on. As a multimedia journalist, she uses a video camera to observe, report and tell stories around her. The "Suicide at the Sunshine Skyway" tells about a man ending his life at Florida's landmark bridge. Meanwhile, "60 seconds, see them, know them" illustrates the hardship of life in Little Havana of Florida. From all of these, readers know not only about her job, her work, but also her talent in capturing the picture and angle in the stories as a multimedia journalist.
The graphics are nicely done. The background page is clean and clear but still able to fill out the space very well. After getting stunned by the excellent home page, readers can search for her resume, biography and other stuff on the bar below. From the biography, we know that she comes from Malaysia but has settled in the United States for five years. And also, her work experience tells us that she has worked for Associated Press in Florida and the Miami Herald before. But before knowing these, we can already expect this since most of her video stories are located in Miami.
How amazing is that.
This is why videos do a better job because they leave more impressions than merely words in readers. And because of the videos, we know about Poh faster and more thoroughly even before her plain resume. This is why her portfolio stands out. If a picture speaks thousands of words, then definitely, a video speaks more than thousands of them.
Definitely, we are not just talking about the cover but the book itself.
A good video does not constitute a good story. The best of a story still traces back to the most original question - the story. Answering the question "Where do good ideas come from?", there are some ways writers and editors can generate better ideas.
First, "seek the best possible ideas", not the first acceptable one. It means putting the greatest effort in selecting the top one among many, rather than being lazy by only "picking the first idea that meets the minimum standard". Then, "turn good ideas into great ones". If it is not good enough, make it better. Things like pushing the ideas by asking questions like 'What is the best story that could come from this?" and "Is there a twist or angles that could make this truly unforgettable?" can become some of the criterias.
A good story idea has to be creative. It must be able to answer people's "why" in hearts. It must also be impactful, shaping the future in readers' life. Getting readers involved in the stories mean that it would better be interactive, "expanding reader participation". Media nowadays are not defined as in telling the stories to readers but "changing the ideas between writers and readers", especially in new forms like emails, weblogs and news groups nowadays.
So, how to be creative?
A writer can schedule weekly brainstorming sessions with the editor, broaden the sources like reading and visiting a new place and even hold a "creative conversation" for every story. The main idea is still "Get outside and Think out of the box." And lastly, we definitely must kill dull ideas. Dump them into a garbage bin if they do not belong to the world!
Some say, writing is an art, but I would rather call it as a science. Instead, it is "the result of a number of rational steps, practiced and perfected over time, of constant writing, rewriting, editing and reading". The science of writing exists because there is a process of it, not necessarily chronological though.
First, "generating story ideas". The best writers do not write an assignment as what they are told but make the story their own from any parts of the world. After a writer gets the idea, he starts collecting information. He or she has to hunt and gather more information, but not forgetting the accuracy and credibility with sources at the same time. Extracting from stacks of information, a writer then has to find a focus with the lead, and create a plan around it for a story. Selecting the best material of all the information, a draft should be "created, then revised and clarified" again and again until reaching the best result.
Maybe, the beauty of an art lies beneath the art of a beautifying science.
No doubt, the website's home page has done the best job. The author does not use thousands of redundant words to describe herself. Rather, different videos of hers tell more than about her. The videos are the stories she has been working on. As a multimedia journalist, she uses a video camera to observe, report and tell stories around her. The "Suicide at the Sunshine Skyway" tells about a man ending his life at Florida's landmark bridge. Meanwhile, "60 seconds, see them, know them" illustrates the hardship of life in Little Havana of Florida. From all of these, readers know not only about her job, her work, but also her talent in capturing the picture and angle in the stories as a multimedia journalist.
The graphics are nicely done. The background page is clean and clear but still able to fill out the space very well. After getting stunned by the excellent home page, readers can search for her resume, biography and other stuff on the bar below. From the biography, we know that she comes from Malaysia but has settled in the United States for five years. And also, her work experience tells us that she has worked for Associated Press in Florida and the Miami Herald before. But before knowing these, we can already expect this since most of her video stories are located in Miami.
How amazing is that.
This is why videos do a better job because they leave more impressions than merely words in readers. And because of the videos, we know about Poh faster and more thoroughly even before her plain resume. This is why her portfolio stands out. If a picture speaks thousands of words, then definitely, a video speaks more than thousands of them.
Definitely, we are not just talking about the cover but the book itself.
A good video does not constitute a good story. The best of a story still traces back to the most original question - the story. Answering the question "Where do good ideas come from?", there are some ways writers and editors can generate better ideas.
First, "seek the best possible ideas", not the first acceptable one. It means putting the greatest effort in selecting the top one among many, rather than being lazy by only "picking the first idea that meets the minimum standard". Then, "turn good ideas into great ones". If it is not good enough, make it better. Things like pushing the ideas by asking questions like 'What is the best story that could come from this?" and "Is there a twist or angles that could make this truly unforgettable?" can become some of the criterias.
A good story idea has to be creative. It must be able to answer people's "why" in hearts. It must also be impactful, shaping the future in readers' life. Getting readers involved in the stories mean that it would better be interactive, "expanding reader participation". Media nowadays are not defined as in telling the stories to readers but "changing the ideas between writers and readers", especially in new forms like emails, weblogs and news groups nowadays.
So, how to be creative?
A writer can schedule weekly brainstorming sessions with the editor, broaden the sources like reading and visiting a new place and even hold a "creative conversation" for every story. The main idea is still "Get outside and Think out of the box." And lastly, we definitely must kill dull ideas. Dump them into a garbage bin if they do not belong to the world!
Some say, writing is an art, but I would rather call it as a science. Instead, it is "the result of a number of rational steps, practiced and perfected over time, of constant writing, rewriting, editing and reading". The science of writing exists because there is a process of it, not necessarily chronological though.
First, "generating story ideas". The best writers do not write an assignment as what they are told but make the story their own from any parts of the world. After a writer gets the idea, he starts collecting information. He or she has to hunt and gather more information, but not forgetting the accuracy and credibility with sources at the same time. Extracting from stacks of information, a writer then has to find a focus with the lead, and create a plan around it for a story. Selecting the best material of all the information, a draft should be "created, then revised and clarified" again and again until reaching the best result.
Maybe, the beauty of an art lies beneath the art of a beautifying science.
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