http://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/reid–why-blog.pdf

Key Terms and Main Ideas

-‘…becoming good at anything worth becoming good at takes time.’ (why blog)

-Blogging is a good way for students to develop as writers

-Writing blog posts encourages students to work outside of the typical school curricula and apply their learning to their own personal lives.

-Blogging gives students motivation to write, which enriches their academic careers.

-Blogging began as a way for technologically inclined individuals to share information about the internet.

-Blogging became more popular after 9/11/2001, when some created political blogs to express their opinions.

-Some blogs are formal, some informal.

-Blogs are diverse in content; some blogs are by large companies, some blogs are by individual people. Some blogs are about travel, some blogs are about technology. There are blogs from all around the world.

-To write a good blog, one must know their audience, know their purpose, and know their genre.

-One way to keep a blog is to keep motivation by autonomy, to ‘be engaged with a desire to improve’ (why blog), and to have a larger purpose for your blog.

-Once one has decided upon a subject for their blog, it is a good idea to look at blogs with similar subjects and purposes.

-To write a good blog post, one must have an ‘urgency to the subject matter’, an ‘important and reasonable purpose’, a ‘sense of authority… to write about a subject’, a ‘strong personal interest’, and an ‘audience that will give you positive feedback.’ (why blog)

-Bloggers can write ‘whenever and whatever they like’. (why blog)

-Term: URL- web adress

-Term: Sidebar- a narrow column with a variety of information

-Term: RSS Feed- RSS stands for “real simple syndication”; creates a database of posts.

Making Connections

Blogging, in one form or another, is everywhere. In my own life, I follow ‘vloggers’ on Youtube. I run five separate blogs on Tumblr, a social media platform centered around blogging. One is a general blog, one is about Steven Universe, one is about Witchcraft, one is about Buzzfeed Unsolved, and one is about activism. In regards to traditional blogs, I’m no stranger to the Mother Earth News blog. They cover everything from building a composting toilet system to making a beeswax and chickpea salve. Similarly, what liberal doesn’t spend some time on The Huffington Post or The Young Turks once and a while? My Grandfather is obsessed with a blog called Common Dreams, which is the most depressing and liberally biased blog in existence. When I checked the website for writing this, the top article was titled: Welcome to ‘The New Abnormal’: Apocalypse Still Looms as Doomsday Clock Stays at 2 Minutes to Midnight. It’s about how nuclear weapons and climate change are going to kill us all. I mean, it’s not wrong, but dang, that title! Now, a large portion of my schoolwork is going to be dedicated to keeping up this blog. The rapid sharing of ideas that modern blogging technology and culture allows us is nothing short of a spectacle. When we use this media right, it can enrich our own lives, by giving us new information and ways of looking at the world. When blogging goes bad, it is because the best of other lives is put at the front of our attention, becoming an addictive tool to fuel self hatred and insecurity.s

Summary

In the essay Why Blog? Searching for Writing on the Web, author Alex Reid discusses his own experiences with creating and maintaining a blog, encouraging and helping others, especially students, to do the same. Reid claims that blogging is a way for students to write at a more personal level than typical schoolwork allows them to, thus helping them to develop a deeper appreciation for writing, and to apply their writing skills to the rest of their lives. Reid goes on to summarize the history of blogging, emphasizing the rise of opinion blogs after the tragedy of 9/11. He illustrates the diversity of content that the blogging platform provides, and gives instruction and advice as to how the reader may create their own quality blog.