Thursday, July 27, 2006
The difference between writing and word processing
The folks at 37 Signals have posted an interesting blog entry on what they perceive to be the differences between writing and word processing. As you can guess, the comments about this entry have spanned both extremes.
Like the folks at 37 Signals, I see writing and word processing as two different task. Writing is, obviously, getting words down on paper or on screen. You don't worry about formatting or pagination or anything like that. Writing is about the words and how they fit together. And I want to be able to do that with as few distractions as possible. Which is why I do a lot of my writing in text editors.
Word processing, on the other hand, encompasses formatting. Ensuring that the pagination is correct, applying styles to headings, inserting headers and footers, adding bullets or numbers, inserting graphics, setting words in bold or italics. Word processing to me is a mechanical process that is best done after I'm finished writing.
Agree? Disagree? Think I'm nuts? Leave a comment.
Like the folks at 37 Signals, I see writing and word processing as two different task. Writing is, obviously, getting words down on paper or on screen. You don't worry about formatting or pagination or anything like that. Writing is about the words and how they fit together. And I want to be able to do that with as few distractions as possible. Which is why I do a lot of my writing in text editors.
Word processing, on the other hand, encompasses formatting. Ensuring that the pagination is correct, applying styles to headings, inserting headers and footers, adding bullets or numbers, inserting graphics, setting words in bold or italics. Word processing to me is a mechanical process that is best done after I'm finished writing.
Agree? Disagree? Think I'm nuts? Leave a comment.
