Reading my blog as a whole, from a critical standpoint, I have begun to notice many things that I have not noticed before. Certain aspects my blog posts have not changed, which in some cases hurt me, but in some cases I think these similarities help make my blog stronger.
For example, since the beginning, all of my blogposts have had a picture, a link, or/and a video embedded into them and I will continue embedding these elements into my blog for the remainder of the year because I truly believe they make a blogpost much more interesting for the reader. Another similarity between my blog is the amount of time I put into the titles. I try to brainstorm witty and inciting titles such as "Extreme Couponing: Extremely Crazy" and "The Fun Theory". I think titles are one of the most important parts of a blog because many readers decide whether or not to read a blog based on solely their attraction to the title.
Yet, I think that some of the similarities in my blogposts are not beneficial and weaken my blog overall. One thing that really struck me while reading my blog was how similar all of my opening sentences were. What I do is I start my opening sentence with a recent day of the week where the topic of the blogpost was introduced to me. And I do this in order to set the scene. But I do it all too often, in fact I've done it 7 times this semester. I counted. The earliest example I can find of myself doing this is from Sept. 21 in my blogpost entitled: "Music and Our Fellow Man". I open my blogpost by saying, "Yesterday, while scrolling down my tumblr dashboard, I saw an interesting post about a new website". And unfortunately the most recent example of myself doing is only from last month, on December 11th, in my blogpost entitled: "The 51st State: Chicago". I said, "Today, a shocking idea was introduced to me". I think these two opening sentences are much too similar and now that I've had a chance to step back and look at all of this opening sentences, I feel like I've turned into a broken record. Therefore, that will be something that I will make sure to work on when blogging next semester.
While there are many similarities between my blogposts, there are also many differences, and changes that I have made over the course of this year. A big difference between my early blogs and my latter blogs is using quotes in my blogposts. I think that this was a necessary change because there is no question that for a stronger blogpost, I need more than to just simply provide a link, I need to ground my claims in textual evidence.
Another difference that I have noticed is the topic of my blogposts. At first the topics were quite random, and were not really full of mass appeal or relatability. But, lately, I have been posting about current events and my take on them. I even wrote a blog post about the peoples' awareness of current events entitled: "An Ignorant Genoration". I'm not quite sure if this change has been valuable or not yet. It's just something that I have noticed. Though, on the subject of blog topics, I think I need to write more blogs about themes and ideas we discuss in class because right now I feel like my blog is more like a general blog rather than a New Trier AmStuds. blog.
I think I have grown into a much stronger blogger throughout this semester so far, but I still have a LONG way to go.
Thanks for reading,
Chrisanthy S.
For example, since the beginning, all of my blogposts have had a picture, a link, or/and a video embedded into them and I will continue embedding these elements into my blog for the remainder of the year because I truly believe they make a blogpost much more interesting for the reader. Another similarity between my blog is the amount of time I put into the titles. I try to brainstorm witty and inciting titles such as "Extreme Couponing: Extremely Crazy" and "The Fun Theory". I think titles are one of the most important parts of a blog because many readers decide whether or not to read a blog based on solely their attraction to the title.
Yet, I think that some of the similarities in my blogposts are not beneficial and weaken my blog overall. One thing that really struck me while reading my blog was how similar all of my opening sentences were. What I do is I start my opening sentence with a recent day of the week where the topic of the blogpost was introduced to me. And I do this in order to set the scene. But I do it all too often, in fact I've done it 7 times this semester. I counted. The earliest example I can find of myself doing this is from Sept. 21 in my blogpost entitled: "Music and Our Fellow Man". I open my blogpost by saying, "Yesterday, while scrolling down my tumblr dashboard, I saw an interesting post about a new website". And unfortunately the most recent example of myself doing is only from last month, on December 11th, in my blogpost entitled: "The 51st State: Chicago". I said, "Today, a shocking idea was introduced to me". I think these two opening sentences are much too similar and now that I've had a chance to step back and look at all of this opening sentences, I feel like I've turned into a broken record. Therefore, that will be something that I will make sure to work on when blogging next semester. While there are many similarities between my blogposts, there are also many differences, and changes that I have made over the course of this year. A big difference between my early blogs and my latter blogs is using quotes in my blogposts. I think that this was a necessary change because there is no question that for a stronger blogpost, I need more than to just simply provide a link, I need to ground my claims in textual evidence.
Another difference that I have noticed is the topic of my blogposts. At first the topics were quite random, and were not really full of mass appeal or relatability. But, lately, I have been posting about current events and my take on them. I even wrote a blog post about the peoples' awareness of current events entitled: "An Ignorant Genoration". I'm not quite sure if this change has been valuable or not yet. It's just something that I have noticed. Though, on the subject of blog topics, I think I need to write more blogs about themes and ideas we discuss in class because right now I feel like my blog is more like a general blog rather than a New Trier AmStuds. blog.
I think I have grown into a much stronger blogger throughout this semester so far, but I still have a LONG way to go.
Thanks for reading,
Chrisanthy S.
Thanks for writing!
ReplyDeleteVery charming, Chrisanthy, and I enjoyed your exploration of the elements many of your posts have in common.
A link to a former post or a quote from a reader might make this stronger.