Writing for Digital Media

EMC 3060, Middle Tennessee State University

01/14/2017
by Todd O'Neill
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Use Portfolios to Present Your Work

The Portfolio content type in WordPress is an excellent way to display class assignments and projects, and eventually finished projects for your personal website.

Portfolio is a built-in content type like Pages and Posts. A Portfolio allows you to organize similar projects, like video or writing projects, and then display Portfolios in your main menu or sidebar. You are also able to display a set of Portfolios in a Page or a Post using a WordPress shortcode.

WordPress.com has some excellent resources and tutorials about creating Portfolios and Projects.

If you have a personal domain your theme may also have the Portfolio content type built-in. If it doesn’t there are many good portfolio plugins and portfolio themes that have more functionality than WordPress’ built in Portfolio.

04/06/2015
by Todd O'Neill
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Using Legal Images Online

Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons

  1. When you’re on a Wikipedia page and you see an image, click it to open the image viewer.
  2. Below the image in the viewer, on the right side, you’ll see a button:
    Screen Shot 2015-04-04 at 4.14.27 PM.png
  3. Click that button and you’ll likely go to http://commons.wikimedia.org/
  4. On the right of of the Wikimedia Commons page, find this button (if the button is not there, the image is NOT free to use!):
    Screen Shot 2015-04-04 at 4.24.11 PM.png
  5. Click that, and you’ll get a handy option to download the image in different screen sizes (look at the bottom of the pop-up):
    Screen Shot 2015-04-04 at 4.25.15 PM.png
  6. The sizes (at the bottom edge) refer to the WIDTH of the image file, in pixels. Everything on the Web is measured in pixels. Please select a size that is LESS THAN 1024px (1,024 pixels). This ensures that the file size is not too large for your homework assignment!

In your Downloads folder, find the newly downloaded image file, copy it, and paste it into the same folder as your HTML file.

Filenames: The image file might have a really long filename, such as:

1024px-Colosseum_in_Rome,_Italy_-_April_2007.jpg

You can change the filename to something simple like colosseum.jpg instead.

DO NOT BREAK the rules for filenames for Web files! Robbins explains these rules on page 53.

File formats

You don’t know the difference between .jpg and .gif and .png?  Robbins explains on pages 510–511.

File extensions

You can’t see any file extensions on your computer? (File extensions include .jpg and .gif and .png and .html and .css, etc., etc.) Google “show file extensions”

  • Copyright Law Does Apply to the Web

It is a common mistake to think everything on the Web is free to use. However, as soon as anyone posts something on the Web, it counts as “publication.” And anything that has been published is protected automatically by U.S. copyright law.

Here is a scary true story about the consequences if you ignore the law:

Blogger Beware: You CAN Get Sued for Using Photos You Don’t Own on Your Blog

Blogger Roni Loren learned the hard way that: “It doesn’t matter …

  • “if you link back to the source and list the photographer’s name
  • “if the picture is not full-sized
  • “if your site is non-commercial and you made no money from the use of the photo”

Giving attribution (“Photo by so-and-so”)  is NOT a legal protection for copied images. Read more here:

Websites: Five Ways to Stay Out of Trouble

Stanford University: Copyright and Fair Use

NOTE THAT Wikimedia Commons has rules for: Reusing content outside Wikimedia

The Surest Way to Avoid Legal Trouble for Using Images Online

Create your own images. Take photos. Make your own stuff.

(Thank you Mindy McAdams)

Bitlink for this document: http://bit.ly/mmcopyright

This document can be freely copied and shared under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

02/27/2015
by Todd O'Neill
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You’re Not Writing for You

Woman_with_hazel_eyes_and_labret_piercing_gazes_at_the_cameraIt’s easy to fall into the trap of listening to your inner voice and thinking you’re the only person who will read your writing. It’s like you drop into an echo chamber. But their is an escape hatch: personas.

Personas are a way to identify EXACTLY who your audience is. Their name, their age, their hobbies. And while you’re writing you look at their picture and say “Would Kathy like this?”

Usability.gov is the Federal government’s website for all things web and online (your tax dollars at work.) The site has an excellent page about personas that is worth reading.

The next time you’re writing maybe you should think more about who you’re writing for by having a persona sitting across from. Ask them what it’s all about.

10/26/2014
by Todd O'Neill
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Seth Godin is a thinker worth listening to. Please read and pay attention to this post from his blog.

“All the nuance disappears. When talking to someone in a languge that’s not easy for them, you discover that idioms and other forms of communication disappear. You need to be extremely direct and specific in order to make yourself understood.

The thing is, just about everyone speaks some form of broken English. It’s “broken” because it doesn’t match our version. Their language and our language isn’t the same one—the other person may think your English is broken too.

Our ability to communicate with one another isn’t nearly as sophisticated or error free as we think it is.

You will be misunderstood. If it’s critical that we understand you, say it more clearly. Say it twice. Better yet, act it out, live it, make it an action, not merely a concept.”

Seth Godin