Thursday, February 21, 2008

Better Posts...

My purpose with this post is to give you some hints on how to approach the posts on your blog so that the writing improves and the focus improves. Here's what i want you to think and do for the next assignment.
  • Don't write your post as if the only audience is the rest of the class. These are live and people outside the college can read them. When you reference me or something in class, a read has no idea of the context.
  • Think of yourself as a mass media producer. Your message is going out to (potentially) a lot of people, and your topic needs to focus on something they find important.
  • Use frequent paragraph breaks with double spaces between paragraphs. It makes for easier reading if you do this.
  • Link to information outside on other sites. If you reference information from an online source, link to it. If you mention an actor or musical artist you could link to their site or profile on Internet Movie Database.
  • An image or two proper sized makes the post seem more professional.
  • Make sure you have a point you are trying to make, a thesis that drives your post.
  • If it's helpful assume that your post in addition to showing up on your blog will also be carried on a site like TVSquad or TVGuide. You'll know immediately by reading your post if it has the proper tone if you think about this.
  • Read this review of the movie Crash that was assigned to last year's Mass Comm class taught by Mr. Weaver. It gives you the sense of how this review could appear online at a movie review site for example.
Please keep these ideas in mind as you work on the next blogging assignment for class.

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