Even though this was my first time experimenting with an academic work online and including media, I enjoyed it and think it has proved to be beneficial. As I said in the introduction, writing papers online using other media is becoming more popular; so much so that websites such as “Computer and Composition Digital Press” are being created. However, experimenting with videos in different contexts has proved that they can indeed be useful, but not always necessary, depending on the argument.
In the blog about “Crucify,” the video offered further understanding of the song by showing things that the lyrics did not necessarily say. Because of this, it is important to see the video as well as interpret the lyrics. A very interesting paper could be written about Tori Amos videos; interpreting them, comparing them to the meaning relayed just by the lyrics, how they change the meaning of the song, etc. For such a paper, if would be extremely useful to write it in this form so the readers to could see the videos for themselves.
In the blog about “Me and a Gun,” the videos were useful because it is so important to hear that song, rather than just read the lyrics. Actually seeing Amos sing the song offers the complete effect. It was also interesting to see how she performed the songs so differently in the two different videos. It would be worthwhile to write a paper just on the performance aspect of Tori Amos; how she performs her songs, how she performs the same song differently, body language, etc. For that type of paper, videos would be crucial and would fully engage the reader.
The blog about my Advanced Project, however, proved that videos are not always necessary. Although they were a nice touch to my paper, they did not really add anything or help my argument. They may actually have been a distraction and taken the reader away from the argument. This is because my paper is solely focused on Amos’s lyrics. It is not even necessary for the reader to hear the song, reading the lyrics is all that is necessary.
It is clear that in some cases it will be very beneficial to write papers online and have the ability to incorporate different forms of media. These works should be treated with the same respect and be given the same value as academic and/or scholarly print papers. When writing about a movie, videos, ect., a paper online that could show videos/clips would most likely be better than a “traditional” paper about these topics. However, I do not want to imply that it is impossible to write a “good” paper on something such as a music video, in print form. Up until recently, that has been the only option for writing a paper and there have been great papers about different forms of media. But, since we do have the option to include media into papers now, why not use it? Especially since it makes the work even better and more effective. As we saw in the last blog post, however, it is not always necessary to include the video if the paper is not specifically about it. Since that blog post was just discussing Amos’s lyrics, the videos did not further the argument. Hopefully, writing scholarly papers online will become more common and will be given the attention they deserve.
