Writing Digitally vs Digital Writing

I have been reading a fair amount lately about "digital writing," and what it is supposed to be. From what I understand, it is supposed to be writing for a digital medium- not just using technology to create writing. Digital writing must take into account all the facets of technology- audience, medium on which it will be viewed/read, download speed, etc.

Here is an article which professes to be about digital writing. The author proposes that "good writing is a lost art, but doesn't have to be if you use the tools that come with your processing software." I take a lot of exception with this article. The author is implying that simply using the tools that come with Word (or whatever you use)- spell checker, grammar checker, the thesaurus- will make a person a better writer. Although it is, of course, important to pay attention to mechanics when you are writing, it is impossible for these tool to make you a better writer. To me, that phrase is all about the content, the meaning, the skilled turn of a phrase. No matter how important the author thinks these tools are, they will never be able to help an author hone natural or learned writing talent.

Digital Writing

I was recently doing some digging on the Internet on the subject of digital writing. I started thinking about this subject after doing some research for a project on effective blogging techniques. During my search, I found some interesting articles on instructors' reluctance to teach digital writing, which led me to kairos.rhetoric.net. I had discovered this site while taking a Rhetorical Theory class. The purpose of kairos is to "push boundaries in academic publishing at the same time (striving) to bridge the gap between print and digital publishing cultures."

They have an interesting article posted about why it is important for writing instructors to teaching digital writing (not writing using a computer, but writing which will be published on a digital medium) along with traditional print writing. There is a great section in which the authors have posted some typical reasons instructors give in resistance to teaching digital writing, and their responses to those reasons.