Writing For Social Media: WRIT/350 -Discussion Week 4

Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:

• Is the advice you find on wikis and Internet forums credible, helpful, and safe? Provide some examples to support your discussion.
• What changes do authors need to make to their typical writing styles when part of a wiki or an Internet forum?

The credibility of advice and information coming from a wiki depends on the topic. For example, if someone searches for information relating to social or political policies, then the information would be more susceptible to subjective opinions not substantiated by actual evidence or reason. Since anyone can add ideas and opinions disguised as information and then create other web pages to support the questionable information, such vague social topics are less reliable than more concrete information. An example of more concrete information would be questions regarding coding problems. Stackoverflow.com is a forum that helps computer programmers solve problems. So, if someone has a question about why their code is not working, they can ask for help on forums such as stackoverflow.com. Computer code is more concrete. It will either work or not. If your code is not working, and someone on the forum corrects your code, then you will be able to check whether is works or not.

I recently had a question about whether a rhetorical question should end with a question mark. I went to a similar forum, stackexchange.com and found this information: “it is really up to the writer to use whatever punctuation matches best the intent of the rhetorical question” (link below). Although this information might get me a bad grade if I don’t use a question mark after a rhetorical question, I decided to stop using question marks if I use an explanation mark after the rhetorical question. Accordingly, sometimes questions arise to which there are no absolutely right or wrong answers. We need to use our better judgement whenever we rely on information coming from the internet.

Since forums and wikis are designed to provide answers to people’s questions, I think we should always try to write as grammatically correct as possible so that those who read our questions and answers are more likely to understand the message. Also, fancy, creative writing should not be used on internet forums and wikis because many people don’t have the time to try to figure out what you are trying to say. In essence, when we write creatively, we want to show, but when we want to ask and answer questions on forums and wikis, we want to tell.