About Me

Hey everyone, my name is Gavin Oliver. I thought I’d use the first portion of this post to briefly introduce myself: I am a senior English major (Writing and Publication Studies), and… wait for it… have a passion for reading and writing. Shocking, I know. I’m a fan of a wide array of novels and genres, and as for writing, I find the journalistic style to be particularly interesting, engaging and effective. There are a lot of professions an English major can occupy, and following graduation this May, I can see myself pursuing a career as a writer for a print or online media outlet. Prior to enrolling at Clemson, I was born and raised a few miles away in Seneca, S.C., and attended Seneca High School. I have one sister, who graduated from Clemson in 2013 with a degree in Early Childhood Education and currently teaches in Georgia.

Books - Flickr2

What’s Important to Me

Before further exploring the questions about encoding, I’ll conclude my introduction with a fairly trite and run-of-the-mill list sharing a few things and entities which are important to me, have been prevalent in shaping my life or I just simply enjoy.

  • God
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Academics/Jobs
  • Sports
  • Travelling
  • Video Games
  • Camping
  • Recreational Shooting

Summary

Name Gavin Oliver
Age 22
Major English (WPS)
Expected Graduation Date May 2016

 

Text Encoding

I’ll preface my piece on text encoding by saying my knowledge of it is currently best described as limited and elementary. Of course, I expect that a better understanding will come with the time devoted to this class, during which I will learn to develop the more advanced skills necessary to properly and sufficiently execute different methods of encoding with varying degrees of difficulty. But for the time being, I will give my surface-level thoughts and takeaways on my initial experience working with this tool and the perceived differences and respective advantages of using the plain text editor as opposed to the WYSIWYG editor.

The WYSIWYG editor is aptly named, as the content one inputs is essentially if not exactly what will be seen following publication. To me, the WYSIWYG editor is helpful for viewing certain elements of a post–such as spacing–that can become murky when using the plain text editor and seeing text that is surrounded by descriptors and tags. Personally, the WYSIWYG helps me organize the post and ensure everything is laid out in the desired format.

Obviously, the plain text editor is much more complex but has an important function. The foremost advantage of using the plain text editor, it seems, is the ability to transmit exact, concise instructions to a receiver of the content that may be using a different program and processing technology. By providing that receiver with logical descriptors, tags and definitional statements, it produces a sort of standard that allows the receiver to flexibly handle that content no matter the platform or his or her purpose.

WP