“Composing for Recomposition”
One of the topics that I found interesting in this week’s discussion was the concept of writing for rewriting. Essentially, anything a person writes on the Internet is bound to be rewritten or repurposed in some way. In Jim Ridolfo and Danielle DeVoss’s “Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery,” it’s said that “Remixing – or the process of taking old pieces of text, images, sounds, and video and stitching them together to form a new product – is how individual writers and communities build common values; it is how composers achieve persuasive, creative, and parodic effects.”
The idea that anything I write or publish on the Internet can be remixed in this way is super interesting and has changed the way I think about writing. Namely, I am more conscious of the way that my writing could be manipulated and remade into something new, something better. It’s also made me think about the way that not only my work but the remixing of that work will serve as a sort of human connection with others across the web.
Markdown
Taking this concept into consideration has been really interesting, especially while writing and designing my Markdown project. Markdown is a language wherein you type a specific syntax into a text editor to program a desired result. Markdown Guide, a helpful online resource, explains that “In an application like Microsoft Word, you click buttons to format words and phrases, and the changes are visible immediately. Markdown isn’t like that. When you create a Markdown-formatted file, you add Markdown syntax to the text to indicate which words and phrases should look different.” I used HTML briefly for an Interactive Media class last semester, but not enough to really grasp an understanding of the markup language. I’ve found that Markdown is a lot easier to use and more beginner-friendly in terms of learning how to write in a markup language. Dillinger is great because of the preview it provides in real time as I’m working, but I think that Visual Studio Code is a better resource because of my ability to save it onto my laptop and access it whenever I need.
In terms of writing for rewriting, I think it’s definitely influenced what I write and how I write it. Thinking about how someone could take my project and remix it and use it for something else has driven me to write it a way that invites recreation and remixing.