A Social Network

Maybe because I recently re-read his theory about people's social networks, but I keep on coming back to Dunbar's theory that people only have roughly five really close friends. It made me evaluate who in my life I would consider to be my very best friends, and I've realized that I am extremely #blessed to have more than the average. And while I have a lot more than 150 friends on Facebook (over 1,000), so many of them I don't talk to on a regular basis, and couldn't tell you anything about their current lives. I guess I can trace that back to when Facebook was super popular and the number of friends you had indicated how popular you were. There were people in my high school class that had over 4,000, but they always complained that they would get random messages from guys that creeped them out and who they absolutely did not know. My mom was always pretty protective of what I put online, but even then I still got (and get) random friend requests and messages from weird guys.

All of this makes me extremely thankful for the close number of friends I do have. I like my little social network.

New Romantics

Hey, thanks Taylor Swift for that great post title. Doin' great work over there.

So I think I'm a romantic. Not a romantic with, like, a ton of feelings, or whatever. Definitely not that. Not an old-school, traditional romantic. A new romantic (hence the title). Except it's definitely not a new concept.

Basically, I am extremely nostalgic for a life I never lived. I wish I could walk into a coffeeshop or restaurant and be surrounded by people who know what they are talking about when it comes to the arts. Basically the 20s. I want to live in the 20s. I want to be able to go somewhere and have a legitimate conversation about an artist or a specific painting, or a musician that recently put out an album, or, to tie this whole rant to our class, the books people have been reading and talk with them about why they read them. To go somewhere and just read a book, and have a stranger come up to you and tell you that they just read it and oh my goodness that ending! Not that anyone in the 1920s would actually talk like that, but y'all get my drift.

If you can't tell from my posts, I'm really not a fan of all the changing technology and what it's doing to our culture. People just don't read or appreciate books anymore. No one sits down and talks about why Anna Karenina was actually so futuristic for its time and how relevant it is today about a woman being free to live her life the way she pleases. Or what actually happened in War and Peace. Or the brilliance of The Beautiful and the Damned. It's pretty rare to find someone in the world who can discuss these things, but not everyone in the world is an English/Writing major, obviously. There are a lot of idiots out there who don't know that Sherlock Holmes is actually a critically acclaimed series or even that The Shining is a book (yes, that is a real anecdote-I met someone in New York who did not know that the movie was based off the book and when I found that out my jaw dropped and I just walked away). I think it's incredibly sad that no one wants to read Dickens or that reading Steinbeck is a pain in the ass (again, true New York story).

I hate that books are becoming collectors' items and that people who read the classics/books in general are a dying breed.

Author Interview & Synopsis

Hello again, loveys. For our author interview, we chose to talk to Dr. Paul Witt, who is a Comm Studies professor, and per his last name, does actually have wit (very clear pun intended). We thought it would be interesting to see what inspires those who have to write pieces that are not traditionally exciting, i.e. academic articles. Sure, it's interesting to them, but it doesn't play to a widespread audience, per say. I personally thought it interesting that he didn't think the technological revolution necessarily affected him in any negative way, because it makes it easier for graduate students and other researchers/teachers to find his work, whereas before the digital age people would have to go to the library and search through the shelves to find the journal.
I also loved how he would write for specific publications so there wouldn't be much of an editing process. He learned how each publication likes their articles formatted and in a certain style, so he just writes the one article for that publication that he picked out beforehand and then it basically done. If I ever had to write scholarly articles, that's definitely the way I would go-mostly because I'm lazy but luckily that's not the field I want to go into! Anyways here's the transcript of the interview! Enjoy!

Author Interview: Dr. Paul Witt –– TCU Communication Studies Department

By Hanna Arstein, Catie Callaway, and Mary Clare Walsh

I: Hi, Okay, I think it is working. So who or what inspires you as an author?

Dr. Witt: Who or what inspires me? Um… What I go to…What I write, by the way, is scholarly research articles, okay?

I: Mmmhmm

Dr. Witt: That’s the kind of writing that I do. And so who inspires me are my colleagues when I go to a conference and I hear them present their research. It is very inspiring to me to go back and do research on my own.

I: That's cool. Who or what motivates you as an author?

Dr. Witt: What motivates me? Well, the university requires us to do that kind of work, okay? So to keep my job, I am supposed to write, and so that's what I do. *laughter* It is very motivating!

I: *laughter* What authors and/or books have influenced you as an author the most?

Dr. Witt: Well my mentor in graduate school was a nationally known researcher and he taught me how to write in this style. After I got my degree, Dr. Schrodt is one of the best writers of this kind of work, and he helped me and taught me what he knows as well.

I: Um… Most often were and when and how do you write?

Dr. Witt: Right here. This is it. My little reary end is attached to this chair right here*laughter*  and it stays here for hours on end *laughter*

I: How has tech… er… how has technology changing print culture, specifically regarding authors and readers?

Dr. Witt: Well, we are having more and more scholarly journals go online now, whereas they have always been print journals before. We are still doing print and print journals carry more prestige, but there are more and more of them going online.

I: When you write, who is your intended audience?

Dr. Witt: Other eggheads like me. Other professors and researchers that read. We will read each others' work.

I: How has the current technological revolution changed your audience?

Dr. Witt: Uh… I don't think it is changing my audience. It does make our work more accessible because graduate students or undergraduate students can go online and click click click and have an article. In the old days, you had to go to the library and search the shelves and find and pull out the journal and read it.

I: Yeah! What do you think reading and authorship will look like fifty years from now?

Dr. Witt: Yeah, I saw that question. Fifty years from now, I don’t k now! I'm not…I'm not going to be here. It is going to be your problem, not mine! *laughter* Fifty years from now, I don't know,  I suppose there is a possibility that there will be very few print publications. I hope that's not the case, but it is possible

I: Yeah, how did you find a publisher and how long did the process take?

Dr. Witt: When I write an article I have the publishing…the publication outlet in mind. I already know where I want to send it so I write in a style that they approve of. So usually, I select the publication before I do the article and then I write to suit their standards and there is not very much editing that takes place after that. There are some things, but not much.

I: So how much did your manuscript change after your publishers editorial process? Not much?

Dr. Witt: Just polishing details usually, mmhmm.

I: Do you have a definite or specific organization structure in mind as you begin writing? Oh, I guess you already answered that, so I guess you do.

Dr. Witt: Yeah, there is kind of a format. If you send it to one journal they want it this way. If you send it to another journal, they want it that way. You just kind of learn how to meet their requirements.

I: How would you describe your writing process?

Dr. Witt: Well, it has changed a little over the years. I am a perfectionist, I want every word in every sentence to be perfect. So in the beginning, it took me a long long time to write. I would spend a half of day on a page or two. Well, you can't really do that, so someone told me along the way, "Just put your thoughts down. Just type as fast as you can and don't worry if it is correct or not." So you put all your thoughts down on paper and THEN you can go back and edit. When I started doing that, it went faster and it was much more enjoyable.

I: Do you have any writing habits or rituals that help your writing process?

Dr. Witt: It is my habit to work on Saturdays or Sundays when there is no one around.

I: Yeah, then there is no rush.

Dr. Witt: mmhmm, yeah. There are no interruptions, no noise. You know, I just…I just get in the zone and just do it.

I: Do you write in multiple genres?

Dr. Witt: Well, yeah, surprisingly I do.

I: Oh, really?

Dr. Witt: I have written a textbook for one of my courses, well for the Character course.

I: Oh cool!

Dr. Witt: And it is very different. It is not scholarly writing and it is not in that formulaic style at all. And it was refreshing to do that. It was kind of in a conversational, self help kind of style.

I: What was your first publication? And what do you think of  this publication now?

Dr. Witt: *laughter* The first one was in 1999, and it was an article for a journal and I co authored it with my mentor who was teaching me how to do this. And at the time, I thought it was mostly hot air; I did not think it was substantial, but as I learned what research really is like, I go back to it and see that, yeah, it was good work. It was a good first step.

I: So, besides teaching and authorship, have you had any other jobs in the writing field?

Dr. Witt: Yes, uh, currently I am editing a six hundred  page reference logium.

I: Oh, wow!

Dr. Witt: So it is huge! It is the biggest work I have ever been involved in. It involves recruiting 30 authors from around the world, each one contributing a chapter to this logium. They send their manuscripts to me, and I correct them and edit them and send them back for revisions.

I: That’s a lot!

Dr. Witt: Ultimately, the logium will be published with my name on it, so, its huge!

I: That's a big deal, that’s exciting! Okay, that's the last question.

Dr. Witt: Okay! Did you get what you needed?

I: Yup! But I don't think I will be the next Katie Couric. Thank you for your time!

How Social Media is Ruining Our Lives

All throughout the semester we have talked about the growing influence of technology in our lives. It affects our language, our thoughts, our concentration, our classes, everything. It's become an epidemic. While I'm not claiming that I always go technology-free and don't spend hours on social media every week, I do try to take time out of my day to unplug and, to sound completely and utterly cheesy, just live. I like to take breaks from social media so I can be in the world around me, I guess that's been ingrained in me because of my art classes-my art teacher used to drill into us that we have to notice the world around us or we won't be able to create anything. I guess seven years of her telling me that almost everyday of the week really stuck with me.

I was at dinner with my friends the other night when I noticed something that really saddened me-everyone was on their phones. Someone was texting another person, another person was on Facebook, and a couple were on Instagram. It made me feel awkward that I was the only person NOT looking at a phone screen, and I was about to reach for my phone when I decided to do something about it. I put both my elbows on the table (rather hard, so it made a noise to get people's attention) and signed loudly and dramatically. "WOW glad everyone's phone is soooooo much more interesting that hanging out with each other, I think I'm just going to head out now y'all can pick up my check!" Everyone looked up, completely startled because they were so drawn into their phones. Thankfully, my dramatic flair worked and everyone put their phones down for the rest of the night, for the most part. The occasional text was checked, but it wasn't obvious and annoying. It made me really happy that my friends could operate without having to use their phones every 2 seconds, but also really sad that it was an issue in the first place.

Earlier in the semester, we talked about how this was a transition period for technology, but if everyone is so addicted already to their phones, won't it just get worse? Is it bad that I'm so negative about the future and people's personal interactions without the distraction of technology? Ugh, take me back to the 90s where people actually paid attention to each other and technology hadn't taken over yet.