Journal # 9

I think that being a writer in the 21^st century simply means that you are able to write what you want, and can accomplish getting what you want out of your writing. With that being said, I do not necessarily think that in order to be considered a writer, your writing has to come from you and you alone anymore.  I agree with Lessig when he mentions that citing another’s work helps to strengthen an argument or a point that you otherwise could not make on your own. Sometimes in writing, it is hard to figure out what to say and make your ideas flow in a way that you would want. From this blog for example, we take quotes from articles that we have read or ideas from our fellow classmates in order to strengthen our arguments and thoughts in our blog posts.

I definitely think that the emergence of digital technologies and Web 2.0 has allowed for new ways of composing writing. I agree when Simone mentioned in her journal entry that “everyone within a society has the means to write” and only needs to properly cite in order to do so.  Since many things that we do  in the 21^st century involves the internet and digital technology, it is very easy to find someone’s writing online and essentially “remix” their ideas in order to create new ones of our own. Digital technologies have made composing a written text much faster and able to reach a larger number of people much easier than before.