Thursday, January 13, 2011

Metablog: the Sequel

To be honest, I don't think my blogging has changed during second quarter as much as it did first.  I was a new blogger, completely lost, and experimented with many different techniques during first quarter.  After the first few blogs, I kind of settled down into a style that I see in the majority of my posts.  I feel that my style consists of a short, but to-the-point body about a singular current issue coupled with a question or opinion at the end.  This has remained consistent throughout second quarter, but there are three small details that I have changed, or am at least trying to.  First off, I have been putting more links and sources in recent blogs.  Next, the ending sentences to my blogs have changed as well.  The final variation in my blogging experience has to do with my attitude towards blogging.

I am inserting more links into my recent blogs because this website said so: Blogging Tips.  Sarcasm aside, I am really doing this because it is mutually beneficial for my readers and I.  Out of my first quarter blogs (excluding the first Metablog), 4 of them came without a link, and none of them had more than one link.  In my second quarter blogs, however, only two have no links, and one blog has a whopping THREE LINKS!  That blog is from 12-11-10, and is titled "Julian Assange: The International Manhunt".  I provide a link to a video that I talk about, and also give links for two articles related to the topic I am talking about.  When I bring up a topic, such as Julian Assange, that some people may not know a lot about, it helps for me to include a link to a page that talks solely about Assange.  This way the reader can have a better understanding of the context, and in turn will lead to me having a more successful blog.

The next topic I'll talk about that has changed in my second quarter blogs is the nature of my ending sentences.  First quarter, all I did was pose a question at the end of each post.  Even though some of these questions were insightful (of course there were those that weren't), they were one-dimensional.  They only asked one question, and nothing else.  Now, I am ending my blogs more openly.  Rather than narrowing down the ending idea to one issue, I leave them more open ended.  This way, the comments on my blogs (if I ever get any!) can be on a variety of topics.  For example,  my blog from 1-8-11 titled "The Game of Life" ands more broadly.  I provide one real life example to support my opinion, and rather than asking a question at the end, I asked my readers if they had any examples.  This way there could be a variety of topics broached in the comments, and perhaps promote more comments.  All in all, leaving the end of my blog in a more open ended way could lead to having my readers be more inclined to comment.

One last detail that has, unlike the others, been a undesired change, is my attitude towards blogging.  During the first quarter, I never missed a single deadline: all nine of my weekly blogs were completed punctually.  However, I skipped two weeks during second quarter, and had to make up for that by doing two extra posts.  Hopefully this isn't a trend, and I will be back on track third quarter.  At least I got the Metablog in on time.  But to sum it all up, my second quarter experience with blogging has gone through less change than first quarter, but has still been an enlightening one.


p.s. the blog i want looked at is "Julian Assange: The International Manhunt", from 12-11-10

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