This site is about online identity and is itself an online identity for the group of rhetoricians who create, contribute to, and maintain it. In fitting with our site's mission, I will keep a running log of my work as webmistress and site contributer. For this first column entry, let's talk about some web writing and contextualize the forthcoming content:

Web writing hasn't been clearly defined and just as our understanding of texts is shifting, our understanding of web writing is malleable. Web writing is in its infancy and as we write, we define. So, what do I mean when I say "web writing"?

The act(s) of web writing as well as the texts that constitute that writing are complex and varied. So, to begin with, I'll discuss web design and creation as one type of web writing.

Designing and creating a website is more than the assemblage of assets and images, it is an act of composing; it is writing. Thinking about the creation of websites in these terms draws attention to the rhetorical significance of design and the writer/audience dynamic.. New media theory asks us to expand our definitions of writing and texts, to read "generously," giving possible texts due consideration. I maintain that the creation of a website--design decisions, functionality, configuration--is an act of writing, even when the composition is outside of the tradition of print text. For the most part, printed text has been extended to include text on a computer screen and this is where writing on the web stops. In other words, web writing is merely a new medium for a familiar mode. Few people make distinctions between the two or even question whether they should. Through this weblog I hope to draw attention to the materiality of texts and the necessary evolution of the way that we define the act of writing.

The articles that you will find in "Writing the Web" will address practical concerns regarding site design and maintenance while positioning those concerns within current theories of new media. Given that this site uses the CMS (content management system) Drupal, the majority of the practical concerns will be centered on the development of a Drupal site. However, many of these concerns, such as information architecture and usability, are easily transferred to other types of sites. I not only want to encourage readers to think about web texts in new ways; I want to provide guidance in learning this kind of writing. In some ways I am writing a theoretically situated how-to guide to Drupal site development and maintenance.

Now, Drupal has quite an extensive user guide and community forums where seasoned Drupal folks can answer questions posed by newbies. I don't need to document how to use Drupal; the Drupal organization has already done that. What I intend to do is supplement that information by providing theoretical and analytical perspectives on the site procedures and the There is also the more personal aspect of conveying the processes that I've gone through while acting as webmistress, which is a different way of learning how to do something. This means exposing my errors, trying to identify the underlying cause of the error (which can sometimes just be missing something in a set of instructions), and then explaining how I "solved" the problem. This is a journal of my web writing process informed by my roles as teacher, writer and rhetorician/scholar. Imitation is not suicide; it is the sincerest form of flattery; and it is one of the best ways to learn forms of writing. However, you can only imitate my writing process if you can see that process, and if you aren't sure what web writing is, you can't identify those processes. This is where I come in. I want to render visible the transparency of web writing. I want to look at the materiality of the text as much as its content.

As I've said, web writing is in its infancy (especially in comparison to printed text), and so there are likely to be terms that will be unfamiliar to someone new to the genre. And again, if someone doesn't understand the process, they can't learn how to write in a reflective and conscious way. For this reason, I will also be creating a glossary of new media terms, including a large number of terms that I will use regularly in my column. There will be links within the column to guide readers to the definitions. In addition, I will likely solicit defintions for terms used by other columnists and do my best to apply this to all site content. This is forthcoming and a process, so bear with me (and Googling is always a good standby).   I hope that readers will post their needs for further explanation, clarification, etc. as comments to my column. These are encouraged and appreciated; and I speak for the other columnists as well. Adding to the glossary is also encouraged and there will be submission
forms available for submitting additional definitions/clarifications.

Thank you for visiting our site and for reading this far.