Inventing a Writing Technology :: Invention Writing Technological Papers

When I first started thinking about this assignment, lots of different ideas ran through my head from sticks and sand to pond muck to baking, but I kept running into the fact that almost everything that I thought of utilized some sort of manufactured tool. Ultimately, since I have a soft spot for anything edible, and since fruit is a ready resource in nature, I went to the produce section of the grocery store for some berries and a surface. My problem then though was the fact that paper and traditional writing surfaces are also a technology. It was actually much more difficult for me to come up with an appropriate surface than to find a way to make letters. Letters are essentially stains or scratches or rubbings, which can be created by a wide array of different natural resources, but finding a surface that has some permanent qualities as well as allowing for the writing to be legible is tough. I ended up with a honeydew melon because the surface was smooth and pale so that the berry juice would show up clearly. Another characteristic of a successful writing surface is that it absorbs or retains the writing, and that was the problem with my melon. The surface wasn’t porous enough to receive the berry ink, and I was compelled to use a knife to make the project successful. I rationalized the knife by thinking that it is one of the simplest tools that humans use, since it is essentially a sharp wedge. Also, it is po ssible to make a knife if one wants to take the time to do so by scraping a stick with a rock or a softer rock on a harder one. With the use of a precise tool like a knife, I was able to create very clear and legible letters that became even more pronounced with the blueberry dye. Ong states that â€Å"writing is a technology, calling for the use of tools and other equipment,† (Tribble 321) and my difficulty in writing with crude rocks and sticks only made this point more resonant for me. I did try to carve the melon with a sharp stick, but it was a frustrating and painstaking process that I quickly abandoned in favor of the tried and true knife. Without this tool, I do not believe that my writing sample would have looked as â€Å"normal† as it did, and it probably would have been very difficult to read. Inventing a Writing Technology :: Invention Writing Technological Papers When I first started thinking about this assignment, lots of different ideas ran through my head from sticks and sand to pond muck to baking, but I kept running into the fact that almost everything that I thought of utilized some sort of manufactured tool. Ultimately, since I have a soft spot for anything edible, and since fruit is a ready resource in nature, I went to the produce section of the grocery store for some berries and a surface. My problem then though was the fact that paper and traditional writing surfaces are also a technology. It was actually much more difficult for me to come up with an appropriate surface than to find a way to make letters. Letters are essentially stains or scratches or rubbings, which can be created by a wide array of different natural resources, but finding a surface that has some permanent qualities as well as allowing for the writing to be legible is tough. I ended up with a honeydew melon because the surface was smooth and pale so that the berry juice would show up clearly. Another characteristic of a successful writing surface is that it absorbs or retains the writing, and that was the problem with my melon. The surface wasn’t porous enough to receive the berry ink, and I was compelled to use a knife to make the project successful. I rationalized the knife by thinking that it is one of the simplest tools that humans use, since it is essentially a sharp wedge. Also, it is po ssible to make a knife if one wants to take the time to do so by scraping a stick with a rock or a softer rock on a harder one. With the use of a precise tool like a knife, I was able to create very clear and legible letters that became even more pronounced with the blueberry dye. Ong states that â€Å"writing is a technology, calling for the use of tools and other equipment,† (Tribble 321) and my difficulty in writing with crude rocks and sticks only made this point more resonant for me. I did try to carve the melon with a sharp stick, but it was a frustrating and painstaking process that I quickly abandoned in favor of the tried and true knife. Without this tool, I do not believe that my writing sample would have looked as â€Å"normal† as it did, and it probably would have been very difficult to read.