In ENGL 514 (Computers and Writing) I realized that “writing” is not simply an action done with a pen or pencil. “Writing” can include cave drawings, time capsules that children bury in schoolyards, formulas in Biology or Chemistry class, hieroglyphics, engineering drawings … the engineer's second "draft"/re-draws, pencils, pens, and lipstick on paper, a message in a bottle, a love note or a thesis for a Ph.D. , a composition or an equation in Chemistry class. It can be applied to loose leaf paper or card stock, drafting sheet or white board, painted on canvas, carved on metal bracelets to identify a patient with a defibrillator or latex allergy, a limestone wall to articulate the life of a great pharaoh, or a greeting card to welcome a new baby. It can be transferred via the Internet, Facebook, blogs, U.S. Mail, Pony/Federal Express, or scripted on a lllllooooonnnnnggggg sheet of toilet paper (really) and handed off in a high school classroom.
“Writing” attempts to communicate thoughts and ideas, to make meaning (or we’re just drawing symbols”), and capture them to “make ideas permanently visible, so it can be stabilized and re-examined at a later date (Winsor).
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