Open University course: opening screen
Welcome to Start Writing for the Internet. My name is Jane Dorner and I have written three books on different aspects of writing and the Internet.
It may surprise you that there is enough to say to fill three books. Oddly enough, there are a lot of issues, as I hope we will discover together. This first Block looks at some fundamental ways in which the Internet changes writing and reading. Indeed, it changes the whole nature of publication.
Before you start your own writing for the Internet, you need to understand that reading on a screen is quite a different experience from reading off a printed page. Few people realise that you cannot write well for a new medium without understanding its strengths and constraints.
So you will get a head-start by working through this Block and coming to appreciate:
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–how the Internet changes traditional writing and publishing
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–how to evaluate websites
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–theories of screen readability
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–the distinction between ‘freely available’ and ‘available free’