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Leave it to the webcomic XKCD to have something that so perfectly sums up what I was thinking while reading Maps of the Imagination for class. As creators of online content, we are often charged with the task of organizing information. Isn't that the greatest reason why sites such as Digg, Reddit, and Fark pile on the page views? Humans long for something to sift through the noise and guide them to what is important.
Writing for the web adds interactivity to content. Looking …

On time.com, Richard Coriliss gave his advice on how to fix the Oscars, involve the public in the process.  With all the community and social-based tools at their disposal this year, the Oscars used a scaled back and classy production design.  The overall look and sound of the show harkened back to the 30's, with the orchestra on the stage and big musical numbers, unfortunately the way the event was marketed also had more in common with the 30's than today.
Looking at the Oscar's website, it has message boards, text …

We can easily see by the drawings of the Election Day maps how much the decisions of the cartographer effect how the information is perceived.   When these maps are presented, it is done with the assumption that the reader knows the relevant contextual information which in this case is that approximate population of the states and number of electoral college votes determine the election not the size of the state. (Or perhaps in some cases they capitalize on the lack of knowledge and attempt to mislead the reader)   Either way, …

Introduction
I began using Twitter during July of 2008. At first, I was put off by what appeared to be a congregation of the egotistical. It was not until my Information Architecture professor required our class to use Twitter actively that I became engrossed and engaged with the Twitter phenomenon. In order to experience the maximum potential of Twitter, my professor encouraged my classmates and me to install and explore the many Twitterapplications available. Through my exploration, I found an application called Twitty Tunes.
Twitty Tunes is a companion application that works …

I have to agree with my classmate Zach Caruso's opinion, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer, is by far my favorite book we have read in our class.  The author, Mr. Peter Turchi, chose one of the simplest metaphors for writing, map making.
It is so simple one wonders why no one has thought of using map making as a metaphor before Turchi.  He unfolds the metaphor further explaining that writing is comprised of two acts: exploration and presentation.  As writers, we are the reader's guide.  First we explore …

Maps of the Imagination; The Writer as Cartographer is an interesting book for anyone who would like to think about images and writing in a new way.  The first thing I noticed about the book was how the author included pieces from many other works; from maps, to art work, to book, and even poems.  I felt that this added a great deal of interest to this already interesting subject.  The book compares writing to forms of graphic representation, mainly maps.  It fully explores the concept that writers are cartographers …

In Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer, Peter Turchi uses maps as a metaphor to explain the act of writing. In the chapter “A Wide Landscape of Snows,” Turchi discusses that maps often include blank spaces or excluded information because by exclusion a more comprehensive map that meets its intended purpose is created; likewise, in writing there are often blank spaces because by exclusion of certain elements or facts the text is able to fulfill its intended purpose. It is then that a writer not only has to …

     Maps of the Imagination by Peter Turchi demonstrates how maps, which at face value seem to be merely pictorial representations of the real-world, are in reality documents that need to be read as critically as any text one will find.  It is important to remember, Turchi shows, that the very existence of an item on a map is really an argument. Turchi says, “We must recognize, too, how the unavoidable act of selectivity affects the map.  Raven's map of the United States is in fact a map of the …

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