Getting Started
What is a blog?
A blog is a shortened form of the word weblog. It is either a stand-alone website or part of a larger website where new content is posted frequently by an individual or group of individuals. These entries can be opinion pieces, tutorials, affiliated with a company and the selling of its product(s) or service(s), commentaries, online diaries, and more. Entries are typically posted in reverse chronological order, with the most recent post being first. Blogs typically focus on a particular topic and combine different kinds of content, i.e. text, music, video, audio, and photo, that relate to this topic. They also include links to other blogs and websites that focus on similar if not the same topic. Blogs, therefore, have a focus, which is developed over entries posted. They also do not require much technical skill.
Blogs allow the author, otherwise known as the blogger, to communicate his or her ideas with a wide audience via the internet. The blogger is able to build an online community of those with similar or shared interests by writing about what matters to him or her. Physical location, consequently, becomes unimportant in the creation of a virtual community through shared interests.
Blogs typically have a comment feature that allows readers to post feedback on the post.
Why blogging is different from academic writing
With blogging the blogger has to think about audience even before he or she starts the blog. Unlike writing for class where only the teacher or a couple other students will read his or her writing, blogs are public writing and usually written in a conversational tone. This means that once the blogger hits the publish button, the content of the blog post is available to any one on the internet to read and its tone is far more informal than in-class writing.
Questions to consider in responding to this post for homework:
What is the value of blogs? Why are blogs so popular? Have they changed writing? How have they changed writing? What kind of writing practices are best for blogging? Have blogs changed reading practices? How do you read a blog similarly or differently from a novel, article in a newspaper or journal?
Comments should be 150 words.
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ReplyDeleteI think blogs are something of an online discourse; they allow for discussion and analysis across long distances. They are very personal and often take the same tone as conversation, the informality of which is probably what draws readers in. Because of their informal nature, they differ almost completely from academic writing. They have certainly changed the nature in which information is displayed in writing. In this day and age, where everything has become streamlined, blogs are more and more important. Reading has become much more simplistic; with everything outlined simply in a blog, one may not even have to read the whole thing to comprehend the opinions being presented. People are perhaps far more receptive to the ideas conveyed in a blog than those conveyed in a formal essay, whose esoteric nature tends to confuse less informed readers. Blogging has no specific audience, and so finds a wider one.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are regularly updated pages on the internet which center around a specific subject. This subject can be anything from current news to a niche of interest (such as cult movies or black and white photography).
ReplyDeleteI think that blogs are useful for quickly distributing information. They are a reflection of our fast-paced technological society, when reading a blog you do not expect to find prose which have been carefully planned out, they are usually a train of consciousness which may be mildly edited by the author. This type of writing creates a vulnerability and a more personal author-reader relationship which has not been achieved before. Blogging values and publicizes the opinion of the individual.
Blogs have changed writing. Aside from the obvious increase of informality in a blog post, and other contextual differences, the biggest, most revolutionary difference is the way information is shared. Before blogs became a big deal, sure, there was email, and I know of some groups or bands who had an email mailing list that they used in the mid 90s, but besides that, there really was no way to share what you thought about something, and get a response potentially within minutes. This, alongside the informality (like Sam said) is most likely what makes blogs so popular. The fact that the blogger can take a picture on their phone, upload it to their blog seconds later, and have people comment and respond to comments is an exciting idea to people, because they have a constantly updating source of news, for literally anything they’re interested in.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are a way to stay up to date on topics that are ever changing or require a infinite amount of discussion. Being able to access this online information allows people to learn about what they love or are interested in at any moment as apposed to when the newspaper comes or the tv show is on. Also the anonymous nature of blogs allows people to spill there feelings, ideas and much more without the threat of personal judgment or retribution. Blogs have in a way changed writing. They are a stark contrast to essays and formal pieces of writing, with their more casual tones, and less focused arguments and fine-tuned sentence structure. This contrast leaves a lot of room for exploration. Because the writing in blogs can be more casual, it can also be more personal. There is a lot of room to identify with blogs relevant to you, while formalities in other pieces of writing often put space between the author and reader. It is possible for a person reading a blog to do more skimming and searching for points of interests than they would do if reading a novel. Overall Blogs are another tool for the technolization of our personalities. Like Anastatia said, we are in a fast paced society, and while our friends and relationships and pictures are online for everyone to view, so too should our ideas and interests.
ReplyDeleteA blog, unlike a formal essay is similar to a conversation in the sense of formality and format. Blogs are very affective ways of posting thoughts or information about a topic of interest and is a way for the general public to stay informed with what a blogger decides to write about. Blogs have changed writing in the sense that anyone can have input on a topic, not only “professionals” or “experts.” Based on your style of writing, blogs can describe personalities of a blogger and bloggers in a way, can form a separate identity. Living in a digital world where anything someone is looking for can be found online, a blog allows for people to have a way to convey their thoughts to the public and build a community of readers that all share a common interest in the topic. With having Internet on smartphones, blogs can be read from anywhere in a short period of time due to a blogs concise and generally terse format. On a personal note, I blogged this summer to document my experience of a trip I was on. This was a way for my family and friends to feel connected with me, even though I was across the world.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are popular today because they are a simple, easy-to-read format for information to spread. They are generally more entertaining than the new, and in the new age of technology, people can read and follow their favorite blogs on their tablets and smart phones.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are valuable because anyone can write them! Creating a blog is a lot more simple than publishing a book, and it gives each and every person who knows how to use a computer a chance to express their opinion on the internet. For blogging, I think it is best to be entertaining, witty, and appeal to an audience in order to gain followers. Formal language and dense sentence structure may deter some readers; the new term “tl;dr” standing for “too long; didn’t read” is often left on post comments by readers when they encounter a wall of text. I know that my favorite blogs are those in which I can receive a lot of information while the post retains my attention while I multitask on the internet. Blivy's comment
Human beings are living in the modern society which affluent with a lot of technology. That being said, people easily affect each other through internet, blog, facebook, and etc. The value of blogs can be people can easily access such as sharing hobbies to each other through searching for each other’s blogs and get a lot of information in short time. The reason why blogs are so popular in modern society is that many people who do not know each other can share info. I agree that blogging or utilizing internet changed writing style. People tend to abbreviate long words into short words. For instance, ‘Talk to you later’ became ‘ttyl.’ Many people would be confused due to these new created words, but the using of informal or grammatically wrong words or information would be used more and more as time goes by. People need to good at organizing contents for blogging. Since many people would see what you posted, organization is required for both readers and writers. Also, only substantiate contents would be required because most of blogs contain massive amount of contents. Writing style of blog and novel, article, or journal is different. For blog, it does not require writing in formal ways; on the contrary, newspaper or novels do.
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