When I began teaching a course called “Writing for the Web” three years ago, I pictured myself scrambling to keep up with my plugged-in, tech-savvy students. I was sure I was in over my head. So I was stunned to discover that most 20-year-olds I meet know very little about the internet, and even less about what they need to do to become effective communicators online.

The media present young people as the audacious pilots of a technological juggernaut. Think Napster. Twitter. Facebook. Given that (according to the Kaiser Family Foundation) the average 18-year-old spends almost eight hours daily immersed in media, we oldsters tend to assume that every other teenager is the next Mark Zuckerberg. Aren’t kids crazy about downloading music, swapping files, sharing links, texting, and playing video games?

But video games do not create savvy users of the internet. Video games predate the internet and have little to do with online culture. When games are played online, the computer is no longer an open portal to the world. It is an insular system related only to other gaming machines, like Nintendo and X-box. The only communication that games afford is within the closed world of the game itself–who is on my team? At their worst, games divert children from other, more enriching experiences. The internet’s chief similarity to video games is that both are siphoning off audiences from television, which will soon reside exclusively on the internet. As a delivery system for TV, film, and games, the internet has proven itself a premier source of entertainment. And that’s all that most young people know about the internet.

Why wouldn’t we educate students in more sophisticated uses of the internet, which is commanding an increasing amount of the world’s time and attention? I’m not talking about a course on “How to Understand the Internet” or an introduction to searching for legitimate research-paper sources online (though this is useful, obviously). I’m talking of the need for students to understand and produce texts online–essential skills for life beyond college.

Look at the strategic plan of any American college and you will find an emphasis on helping students “meet the demands of the information age.” But walk into many college classrooms and you will see only a single computer at the front of the room. In most cases, that computer functions as an overhead projector. Where are the computers for students?Apparently, many professors believe that students’ ownership of computer notebooks and pads somehow guarantees that students will learn all they need to know about computers. But who is teaching students how to write, say, a marketing report or an historical overview for an online readership? I am surprised at the number of my colleagues who prohibit the use of computers in their classrooms because they fear that students will “surf the web” during a lecture.


The absence of computers in the classroom sends the message that computers are ancillary to learning. This misconception of the computer is due, in part, to the fact that the majority of faculty are Baby Boomers who didn’t need computer technology to succeed as professionals. That’s why most university professors have not integrated computer use into their courses.To most of them, it seems, the computer is a fancy typewriter, a means of sending memos, and, generally, a distraction. Students write papers on their computers, but those papers are handed in as hard copy. Never mind that the world outside of college does very little business with hard copy. In short, there exists a huge divide between the college classroom and the world outside, where work and life thrive on the internet.

Presumably, we want our students to have an impact on the world. But how can that happen if we don’t teach them how to use the primary tool that would make that impact possible? To be fair, there are some important developments taking place in the Digital Humanities movement, which aims to expand the notion of “legitimate” research by including nonlinear sources, such as videos, digital images, and hyperlinks: why not augment texts with digital tools? There are also a number of professors of Composition and Rhetoric who are teaching digital literacy. But such efforts remain marginal. One of my students recently wrote, “The world is moving closer and closer to being a completely technological place, and those who don’t understand it are going to be left behind.”


It seems clear to everyone that our increasingly technological world demands technologically adept citizens. Start with the simplest act of online communication: e-mail. Recent studies have shown a significant decline (59%) in e-mail usage among teenagers (Pew internet & American Life Project, Comscore Media Metrix report, Neilson report).Why? E-mail is for business, not entertainment and socializing. Young people have abandoned e-mail for text messaging. I often hear faculty members complain about the ineptness of student e-mails—whether as queries or as a means of presenting proposals—but very few professors seek to rectify the situation by teaching effective online communication in their classes. They don’t seem to understand that emails are as important as more formal correspondence, even though, ironically, the professors’ own daily use of emails underscores this fact.

How can discipline-specific computer teaching begin? Let’s start with the fact that every academic discipline makes use of databases. Do your students know how to access these databases? Do they know how to write articles of their own that might appear in these databases? Are they aware of the ethical dimensions of placing information online? Those studying social work, for example, should know that all client records and reports can be subpoenaed. Social-work students, therefore, need to be aware of confidentiality laws. These students also need to know that any report submitted online will remain online forever. There is no such thing as expunging a record from the internet. This is just one of countless examples of internet protocol and online constraintsthat impinge upon a student’s understanding of a particular field of study.


Nearly every discipline now has an online journal and may also have blogs and special-interest web sites. Until quite recently, online literary journals were considered inferior to their print counterparts. That’s no longer the case. My students should be reading online journals, but they should also understand how an online journal differs from a traditional print journal. Online journals make use of multimedia—video, audio, photos, chat rooms—that are not available to print journals. The rhetorical package online is very different than in print. My students hope to write for online journals—in addition to or in lieu of print journals. They may also have an opportunity one day to manage or edit an online journal of their own. If they have not studied the medium, if they have not written in the style of online journals, if they have not analyzed how online journals are keyed to rhetorical aims that are specific to the internet, then they will be unprepared for the field they hope to enter after graduation.


American colleges and universities send 1.7 million graduates with bachelor degrees into the world each year (National Center for Education Statistics).Why would we not give them every advantage? As we help students strengthen their knowledge and ability to write, read, and communicate effectively, we must prepare them for the online cultures that will be central to their private and professional lives. Undergraduate writing majors at my university end up in a variety of fields, but they share at least one thing: much of their work finds and defines itself on the internet – that’s where the readers go; that’s where the markets reside. If using the computer to write, read, and produce texts is not yet central to their identity as professionals, it will be soon. It should be central to their education, too.

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It would be no surprise to you to hear me say that the internet has changed everything. Sure, all of us know this. But what most of us don’t know is exactly how the internet has changed everything, especially everything about selling books. So let me share what I’ve learned: the internet has turned all markets into a buyer’s market. This means that the buyer has the advantage over the seller, and so the seller is compelled to go to extreme measures to get the buyer’s attention. It used to be that we had to go to a store to get what we wanted and, then, once inside the store, we were subject to the store’s authority and its many means of beguiling us into buying its stuff — and there were lots of restrictions, such as, we could choose only from the store’s own stock. But now the store — or the seller — comes to us via the internet. The problem and great challenge for the seller is not only the intense online competition for the shopper’s time and attention but also the painful fact (to the seller) that everybody on the internet is giving stuff away for free: free information, free instruction, free software, free videos, free music, etc. In other words, the internet has created a new business model: you can’t sell stuff these days without first giving stuff away. Lots of stuff

This is why, when you’re shopping, say, for a cool mp3 player for your computer, you’ll find that every maker of player software will give you the player program for free — in the hope that you’ll like the player and want to upgrade to a “premium” version. Following that example, my publisher (Ig Publishing) gave away the e-version of my book — yes, the entire book for free — on Amazon this past weekend. The result was that it put the book into many readers’ hands (or Kindles, actually) and I got many more positive reader reviews on my Amazon page. This promotional effort could have backfired, for a number of reasons but, fortunately, it did not.

Next week, I am hosting a “multi-media extravaganza” at Cyclops Books here in Baltimore. It will feature a performance by composer David Smooke and ensemble, among other things. There will be free refreshments, including wine (while it lasts). There will be give-aways of posters and candy. It’s all free. It’s all to promote Kiss Me Stranger, even though I myself am not reading. Why aren’t I reading? Because there’s only so much you can ask of your readers (or your prospective readers). You can’t keep giving them the same stuff and you’ve got to give them more than yourself (unless, I suppose, you’re a brilliant extravaganza unto yourself). So I’m giving a party to my Baltimore readers in the hope that they will spread the word. And perhaps I’ll win a few new readers in the process. This is the new (internet-driven) model of doing business: giving it away in the hope that some of it comes back. It’s dangerously analogous to feeding a slot machine. You could go bankrupt doing this.

You may be thinking, Wait, haven’t sellers always given stuff away as “promotional” items? You’re right. This is an old strategy that long predates the internet. Most recently, fast food restaurants have used it, giving children little toys with their hamburgers. Before that, cereal makers put trinkets inside of their cereal boxes. During my mother’s era, you could get a free plate or bowl inside of a big box of dish-washing detergent. (Some women collected the entire 20-piece dinner set this way.) In the early days of mass advertising (1880s-1910s), sellers gave away elaborate gifts, even entire dining-room suites of furniture. Since the early twentieth century, grocery stores have given away certain products as “loss leaders” to attract customers into their stores. So, the customer would come in to get a great deal on eggs or bread and then decide to do the rest of her shopping at that store. It’s a simple, well-tested strategy. But never has it applied to the selling of books.

It used to be that the appearance of the author was sufficient inducement for readers to turn out. This still works for the really famous names. And, in the past, it worked better for someone like Charles Dickens than someone like Nathaniel Hawthorne, his American contemporary. The problem for writers is that, if they’re going to use the give-away strategy, they don’t have a lot to give. Writers aren’t corporations with big overhead and generous tax deductions. The book trailer is a kind of give-away — if it’s well done and entertaining. So is the book mark. A writer who visits book clubs or college classrooms is giving something in return for that group having bought the book. But what else? I met a writer recently who was giving out match books to promote his novel, which has something to do with fire. And I’d tell you more about it if only I could find that match book somewhere amid or near the clutter of my desk. You see how this goes?

Social networking goes to the heart of the internet’s give-away ethos. You are NOT supposed to promote yourself on social networks. You are supposed to give things away — stories about your life, jokes, recipes, music, video clips, photos of interesting things, compliments to your friends — and, in return, your “friends” are supposed to take an interest in you and then — then perhaps — seek out information about your professional endeavors. The social network events page is (supposedly) more or less a party invitation, not an advertisement. But social networking gets fuzzy really fast and not everybody can keep the lines sharply drawn between socializing and self-promotion. Here’s a rule of thumb: the more posts you put up about your professional accomplishments, the farther you move away from socializing — and the more you risk alienating your many friends until they block your posts because do you really want to hear me go on and on about a) how many pages I wrote today or b) how fast my latest piece was accepted for publication or (heaven forbid) c) how many books I sold last week?

We should think of social networking as we would a cocktail party. I don’t know about you but, when I gather with my writer friends for dinner or drinks, we talk some about the writing scene and our successes and failures, but that’s not the main thing and certainly never the only thing we talk about. It would be too boring. Mostly we talk about politics and movies and television and books we’re reading and how silly our parents are and how crazy our kids are and our latest home repair fiascos or triumphs, and so on. If I want to find out all about my friends’ many accomplishments, I go to their websites. I certainly don’t look for it on the pages of social networking.

So where does that leave us writers in this give-away culture? I’m still trying to figure it out. Throw a party or sponsor an event that ties into your book but does not oppress the event with your self-aggrandizement. Collaborate with another writer or other writers to create an event or a website that promotes something that you all care about (beside your books). If you can give something away that is associated with your story and is not a burden to the recipient (e.g., nobody wants to receive, say, a decorative sock just because you’ve written an expose on the garment industry), then give something away.  What else? You tell me. The irony of the internet revolution is that a great number of people haven’t gotten the message that you have to give something to get something. They think, instead, that the internet is first and foremost about and for them. We have only to survey the vast tracts of internet real estate that are populated with useless blogs, meaningless websites, and dead end sales pitches to see that this is not so and that most, if not all, of these destinations are seldom visited and easily forgotten.

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Lately I’ve been receiving — unsolicited–amorous emails from Russian women. Three so far. It’s the kind of thing I’ve come to expect from the internet, like letters that invite me to invest in a stranger’s good fortune by sending $10,000 to a Nigerian bank account in exchange for the promise of a return that is ten times that amount. But these emails aren’t asking for money, they’re asking for a reply. The first email says this,

Hello!!! I’am Katya,
I became interested to know more about your
personality, I’am 31, I will tell you a little bit about myself.
I try to look with optimism at things, it helps me to overcome
difficulties in a life. I try to keep myself in good mood!
I sociable woman, and I have many friends. I work as dentist
in hospital in Kazan, this is my city. If you want to know me
better i would be glad to see your replay. Have a nice day
from russia. My E-mail is: ********@gmail.com
Katya.

I don’t know how Katya and the others got my address. I do not visit questionable sites on the internet nor do I freely give out my email address. However, I do buy a lot of products on the internet and I have signed up for a lot memberships and subscriptions that demand my email. Apparently somebody at some organization is selling its database to vendors.

Sadly, I assumed that Katya is a prostitute and her letter a scam. She attached a photo. I debated for a full week before I opened it, figuring it could be a virus bomb. But I’ve never heard of a photo carrying a computer virus — usually those traps ask you to open a document. When I opened the photo at last, I found this picture. Sure enough, Katya is wearing the clinical garb of a dentist or a dentist’s assistant. And she looks like decent person searching for a mate.

In the pre-internet days, I heard of older men sending for mail-order brides from the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. When I was a child, one of my parents’ widower friends married a much younger woman from Korea and created a stir. But she proved to be a faithful, loving companion to the end of his days. The tacit understanding among these men and their foreign brides was that it was mutually beneficial, the men getting a pretty, dutiful wife and the women getting American citizenship and a middle-class life.

We could consider the unbidden solicitations from women in Russia just another element of the global marketplace. There are websites dedicated to this proposition. Enter “Russian brides” in your search engine and see what comes up. Apparently there are numerous “agencies” that broker deals between Russian women and their foreign paramours. One blog makes this complaint:

The first statement “None of the ladies are paid to use our service” Is a flat out lie ! Most of the ladies in chat at Russian Love Match and Hot Russian Brides are paid. It’s a job for girls. It’s their job to keep you spending your money on nothing but lies. The girls are sitting and waiting for a chat window to open the second you log on to the web site. The second statement “They come to the agencies out of their own determination” Is true. The girls go to the agencies because it’s a job for them and they like making anywhere from two hundred US Dollars a night and more. Be sure they thank you for the money from all the gifts too. Most of the time, money you send for gifts is split between the girls and the agency.

Katya looks like a free agent, but she must have paid to have obtained my email address. And it’s possible that she is in somebody’s employ in an effort to extract gifts and cash from America. She may even be married. But, unlike the glossy websites and their photos of Russian bedroom bunnies, Katya appears to be the real deal. Her photo is unassuming in the extreme. She could be a divorced mother of two children looking for a chance at getting out of Russia. She is from Kazan, a few hundred miles east of Moscow. Situated on the Volga River, it’s the third largest city in Russia, a cultured city with medieval roots and a multi-cultural population that spans the Muslim/Christian divide. It has a successful pro soccer team, a ballet company, many colleges and universities (see http://www.gotokazan.com/).

If Katya does get out, will she end up, say, in a Tulsa, Oklahoma, McMansion, reveling as she barefoots across her new wall-to-wall off-white carpet? Will she take English classes at the community college and study diligently for her citizenship exam while waiting for her kids to get home from Christian private school? Will she make cabbage rolls — her specialty — for her husband, a manager at the local oil refinery? Will he allow her to send for her mother? Will he rave to his friends about her borscht, as well as her beauty, and call her “my little matruska doll”? And some days, when she gazing down at her competent hands and daydreaming of returning to dentistry, will she picture the snowy Volga River and the minarets of the Kazan mosques and the clamorous crowd of the Kazan footbol club when it wins its division title and ask herself, “Why did I ever send those emails?”

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