However, it does seem that there needs to be some courses on Live Tweeting 101 in order for us all to get the best out of it. Academics have spent years learning how to put in all the necessary apparatus to make a paper have respectable street cred, but they have often not practised the art of extreme summary. It's a good thing to do. Makes you think about what the point is rather than just how much corroborative evidence needs to be piled on to justify an opinion.
Twitterer from BL Royal 12 C XIX, f.52v
So, some tips from someone who likes to read these things - sometimes.
1. Limit tweets to one every 10, 15 or 20 minutes. That gives the tweeter the chance to work out what the main point is, and doesn't completely overwhelm the tweetee's inbox with a rolling cascade, preventing them from reading the rest of their day's tweets.
2. Use minimal hashtags so as to leave some space to say something.
3. Please don't use excessive acronyms and abbreviations. Keep it to short plain English sentences. If you try to cram in too much by abbreviating, it is too much trouble to the reader to try and unscramble what you are talking about.
4. Remember you are talking to people who are not listening to the paper. In group allusions are a turn off.
5. The final result should be a four sentence summary of the main point and purpose of the paper, not an on-the-fly scrambled analysis or attempted dialectic.
I blushingly confess I have unfollowed a couple of people who had interesting things to say on subjects that fascinate me because the jumbled cascade of live tweeted commentary made me feel under siege. Hey, I like the concept of live tweeting, it just has to be done really well.
Many years ago, before Twitter was invented, the family medievalist tried the, then new and scarey, concept of bulletin board tutorials in which participants had to put down very brief thoughts on the weekly topic. After the initial panic subsided (At that time some students had never used a bulletin board.), the students discovered that being forced into brevity made them clarify their thoughts marvellously. They actually began to enjoy the exercise. Maybe those conference papers should be tweeted in the first place.
Now live historical tweeting - that is good fun. But I guess that involves planning and you can have it all typed out ready to cut and paste it into tweets at the appropriate moment. Listening analytically and typing simultaneously, while keeping within the bounds of Twitter, is a new skill for all of us.
1. Limit tweets to one every 10, 15 or 20 minutes. That gives the tweeter the chance to work out what the main point is, and doesn't completely overwhelm the tweetee's inbox with a rolling cascade, preventing them from reading the rest of their day's tweets.
2. Use minimal hashtags so as to leave some space to say something.
3. Please don't use excessive acronyms and abbreviations. Keep it to short plain English sentences. If you try to cram in too much by abbreviating, it is too much trouble to the reader to try and unscramble what you are talking about.
4. Remember you are talking to people who are not listening to the paper. In group allusions are a turn off.
5. The final result should be a four sentence summary of the main point and purpose of the paper, not an on-the-fly scrambled analysis or attempted dialectic.
I blushingly confess I have unfollowed a couple of people who had interesting things to say on subjects that fascinate me because the jumbled cascade of live tweeted commentary made me feel under siege. Hey, I like the concept of live tweeting, it just has to be done really well.
Many years ago, before Twitter was invented, the family medievalist tried the, then new and scarey, concept of bulletin board tutorials in which participants had to put down very brief thoughts on the weekly topic. After the initial panic subsided (At that time some students had never used a bulletin board.), the students discovered that being forced into brevity made them clarify their thoughts marvellously. They actually began to enjoy the exercise. Maybe those conference papers should be tweeted in the first place.
Now live historical tweeting - that is good fun. But I guess that involves planning and you can have it all typed out ready to cut and paste it into tweets at the appropriate moment. Listening analytically and typing simultaneously, while keeping within the bounds of Twitter, is a new skill for all of us.
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