Portal:Writing

Welcome to the writing portal

Introduction

Writing is the act of creating a persistent, usually visual representation of language on a surface. As a structured system of communication, writing is also known as written language. Historically, written languages have emerged as a way to record corresponding spoken languages. While the use of language is universal across human societies, most spoken languages are not written. A particular set of symbols, called a script, as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language, is known as a writing system. In some rare cases, writing may be tactile rather than visual.

The cognitive and social activity of writing involves neuropsychological and physical processes whose physical output is also called writing (or a text): a series of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Reading is the process of looking at writing and accurately comprehending the symbols of a written text.

In general, writing systems do not constitute languages in and of themselves, but rather a durable means of representing language such that it can be understood by people at a later time. While not all languages use a writing system, those that do can complement and extend the capacities of spoken language, transmitting it across space (e.g. written correspondence) and storing it for future reading (e.g. libraries). Writing can also change people's relationships with the knowledge they acquire, since it allows humans to externalize their thinking in forms that are easier to reflect on, process more slowly, elaborate on, reconsider, and revise. (Full article...)

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Modernist poetry is a mode of writing that is characterized by two main features. The first is technical innovation in the writing through the extensive use of free verse. The second is a move away from the Romantic idea of an unproblematic poetic 'self' directly addressing an equally unproblematic ideal reader or audience.

Modernist poetry in English is generally considered to have emerged in the early years of the 20th century with the appearance of the Imagist poets. In common with many other modernists, these poets were writing in reaction to what they saw as the excesses of Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional formalism and overly flowery poetic diction. In many respects, their criticism of contemporary poetry echoes what William Wordsworth wrote in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads to instigate the Romantic movement in British poetry over a century earlier.

In general, the modernists saw themselves as looking back to the best practices of poets in earlier periods and other cultures. Their models included ancient Greek literature, Chinese and Japanese poetry, the troubadours, Dante and the medieval Italian philosophical poets (such as Guido Cavalcanti), and the English Metaphysical poets.

Much of the early poetry produced by these writers took the form of short, compact lyrics. However, as modernist poetry in English developed, longer poems came to the fore. These long poems represent the main contribution of the modernist movement to the 20th century English poetic canon. (Full article...)

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Credit: Original uploader was User:Nickshanks

Writing systems of the World

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W. Andrew Robinson (born 1957) is a British author^[1]^[2] and former newspaper editor.^[3]

Andrew Robinson was educated at the Dragon School, Eton College where he was a King's Scholar, University College, Oxford where he read Chemistry and finally the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is the son of Neville Robinson, an Oxford physicist. He is based in London and is currently a full-time writer.

Robinson has written several books about the history of writing, including:

The Story of Writing: Alphabets, Hieroglyphs and Pictograms. Thames and Hudson (2000). ISBN 0-500-28156-4.^[4]
Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Great Undeciphered Scripts. McGraw-Hill (2002). ISBN 0-07-135743-2.^[5]^[6]
Writing and Script. Oxford University Press (2009). ISBN 9780199567782.^[3]^[7]^[8] (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that screenwriter Richard Baer's writing credits for television included twenty-three episodes of Bewitched and five episodes of The Munsters?

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Major topics

• Calligraphy •
Western calligraphy • Islamic calligraphy • Indian calligraphy • Chinese calligraphy • Korean calligraphy • Japanese calligraphy • Persian calligraphy • Manuscript
• Writing instruments •
Pen • Ink brushes • Inks • Ink stone • Qalam • Quill • Dip pen • Nib • Paper • Writing slate • Pencil • Typewriter • Word processor • Dry erase marker • Touchscreen

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