Conversation on conversation

The next chapter in our quest towards the snapshot essay is writing from conversation. Today we'll discuss traditional conversation writing and how current technology might expand on our understanding of what it means to write about conversations.

Here is an example of a student practicing writing from observation. What do you see as its strengths and weaknesses?

The above example is a fairly traditional approach to writing from conversation. But what about mediated conversations? How do we think about, or write about conversations on YouTube, Blogs, email, IM, or the myriad of other ways people converse in the digital age?

Thus far print authors have either summarized the dialog, or reverted to a traditional quotation style of writing. Can we do better?

Here is a tip sheet on the use of quotation marks, they do get tricky.

By Sunday 10pm, write/record a conversation in your blog using the tools the technology makes available to you. This means you can use images, video, text, other? in posting your conversation. IM conversations, phone conversations, interpersonal, Second Life, video... the source of the conversation matters not.

What I/we will be looking for is clear communication of the conversation in a manner that is not only engaging, but one that allows us to understand more than the gist, but also the nuances of the conversation you are posting.