A Better Pencil

A Better Pencil by Dennis Baron reminds of a lot of what Ong discussed in his readings. Reading the first few chapters of Baron's A Better Pencil, I noticed many similarities such as chapter one is titled "Writing it Down". Baron discusses how Plato was one of the best-known critique of writing. The new technology of writing was thought as weaker and not as "real" as speech. Writing was also a one way type of communication and it was not as interactive. As time progresses we learn that writing can be reliable. We also discussed in class how only 5% of the population during the dark ages and medieval times were literate while 95% of the people were not. The number of literate people grew as time went on and was found to be a form of reliable information that was useful. To be literate during the middle ages meant that you had power and made the rules. Today we now see literacy as a requirement. We do learn that things change over time and mostly for the better when it comes to writing technologies. There are sacred texts, laws, tickets, everything important gets written. Chapter three goes into detail about the pencil. The pencil first appeared in the sixteenth century Europe and Baron compares the use of a pencil back then to a computer and a telegraph now. The use of a pencil was for communication purposes. This chapter also includes the computer and the eraser. What I got from reading chapter three was that people discovered and made use of this new technology but that meant adapting. The new technology allowed room for editing and erasing words that were written. Chapter five was mainly about old writings and the clay writings then the type writer. What was most interesting was that in the past writing was an art form and was used for rules and entertainment. In the modern world we use computers to play with effects such as colors and fonts.

The big take away from these chapters is seeing how much humans have adapted to writing. In class we discussed that today we write the most that history has ever written. Rejecting change has been a social pattern in history but then in the end, acceptance of the new technology eventually happens. Baron uses the example of an eraser as a technological advance. He also uses spell check. I remember learning how to write and more importantly we learned how to edit. Modern writing has become more and more efficient.