Writing In & For Digital Environments

During the first few weeks of class we have really explored the keys to writing a quality blog. What I’ve found to be true after looking at examples of successful blogs, is that not all are the same and there is room for experimentation and risk. However, there are some similarities between all great blogs. Online writing is different from the traditional academic writing that we as students have been trained to do.  As Sean Morris states in his post,  Digital Writing Uprising: Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities, “Because digital writing provides no road map. At least not yet. Where it goes, what it does, how it lives when we’re not watching is something we cannot foretell.” So with that in mind, here are some tips I plan to keep in mind while developing my own blog.

1. Make sure your blog is MULTIMODAL!

Blogs that are simply text on a page do not catch the eye of most people. Along with writing you need to incorporate photos, videos, COLOR!

2. Keep your blog neat

We learned in Lance Hosey’s article, Why We Love Beautiful Things that our brains react strongly to certain forms of design.  “It should come as no surprise that good design, often in very subtle ways, can have such dramatic effects. After all, bad design works the other way” If your blog looks cluttered or is difficult to navigate, you will most likely lose readers simply because viewing your blog is not an enjoyable experience. 

3. Post Frequently

Another easy way to lose a blog following is by not posting enough! Your readers expect regular posts from you, and they look forward to them so keep them updated!

4. Listen to your readers

Community is an important part of blogging. We learned from Pete Rorabaugh in his piece, Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs, “Growth of [ideas or composition] is determined by the encouragement and critique of the community.” Bloggers should take the critiques and suggestions their readers give them into consideration.

5. Be Transparent

Brian Carroll reminds us how important it is to “reveal your identity”  in Writing for Digital Media. Your readers will grow to know you the more you post, and they need to feel that they can trust you. In order for this to work we, as bloggers must be transparent.

Online writing has changed the way in which we consider to be a successful piece of writing. In order to make a good blog, the online writer needs to contain not only good material but has to be visually appealing to reader as well.

Design and Theme

I like my blogs to dress to impress. Lance Hosey argues in his article, “Why We Love Beautiful Things”, that in our subconscious we are drawn to beauty, as noted in his reference to the “golden ratio” (Hosey). Personally, I look for blogs that contain eye-catching design accompanied with exciting titles.  Going along with design, I enjoy blogs that stick to a theme and are not over the top. One of the blogs I read is the Art of Manliness which provides gentleman lifestyle tips about being a manly man. The overall style of this blogs is simple yet classy, which fits perfectly with the theme and title of the blog.

Setting the Tone

Though design is what visually draws you in, the tone of the blogs is what holds the reader, and thus is equally or more important. Being that I read many sports and college humor blogs, Bleacher Report or Brobible , I have noticed that I hooked by proper use of tone in blogs. If I am reading a post about how my favorite team won last week, I expect there to be CAPITAL LETTERS, expletives, and many exclamation points when discussing the big win. Like Morris stated in his article, “Not that the writing inspires action, or comes out of action, or responds to action. But that the words themselves are active,” (Morris). Blogs that can successfully understand their audience and deliver information with proper tone and clarity are the most appealing for me.

Good Title, Good Info, Good Blog

Though design and tone are essential for success in the blogosphere, when I scroll through blogs, the writing itself needs to deliver. If I am reading a sports blog that breaks news which turns out to be false, I find it hard to trust in that blog again. Similarly, if I am reading a recipe from Budgetbytes, I do not expect the instructions to be overly difficult to follow or the ingredients to expensive. Being a science minded person has a noticeable effect on the way that I read and what I expect out of a blog based on its title. In scientific papers, reading solely the title of a paper should give you a definite clue as to what paper is going to cover. I treat my blogs in the same way, in that when skimming articles, I look for interesting titles that give me a taste for what the whole article will cover.

Jeff Foxworthy slings jokes that all start with ‘You might be a redneck if..’ I’m going to co-op this simplistic and successful opener to explain what make a good blog.

Well, you might be a good blog if…you have a good design that’s easy to read and interact with. Most of the articles I read about blogs, focus on the text, not presentation. Brian Carroll in “Writing for Digital Media” mentions the importance of breaking up the text, but it is step 9 out of 10 (164). In my opinion, this is the most important aspect of a good blog. The first thing I look for when I visit a new blog is not whether the writing is engaging or creative, its if I can read it easily. If the text is poorly organized I won’t read the blog. Good design is fundamental for getting reader to stay on your blog long enough to read a post. Good design also keeps people on the blog. Lance Hosey “Why We Love Beautiful Things” in says that bad design have subtle, dramatic negative effects on the individual.(Hosey) An example of this is The busier the blogs is that I find myself less likely to finish post that have busy webpages. Finally, all post have to be tagged and/or indexed well so that they can be access. If I can’t navigate a blog easily it’s as likely I’ll leave it.

You might be a good blog if…you have an singular voice. That voice can be from one writer or many, it just has to have a continuous point of view that the blog post are written from. Having a singular voice is crucial for two reason. The first being that Carrol describes a part of ‘ethical blogging’ is to be transparent as possible and revealing bias.(158) The reader knows who you are and the frame of reference that the post is coming from. It creates trust and connection between the reader and the blogger. Also, writing with a singular voice will make the writing more creative and original. XKCD is an incredibly popular web comic that states in its banner that it is about romance, sarcasm, math, and language.(xkcd.com) XKCD is popular because its audience knows and enjoys the particular voice its being written from.

You might be a good blog if…collaborative. There must be communication between the reader and the blogger. The very least having collaboration and communication allows the reader to fact check the work. Pete Rorabaugh in “Organic Writing and Digital Media: Seeds and Organs” said that collaboration in a digital environment lends the reader to the best version of the idea and entry the were trying to create.(Rorabaugh) Maybe this collaboration may not change existing post but through this communication the blogger can take steps in the right direction to improve their work.

These are my opinions based on person experience and articles I’ve read. Feel free to have your own ideas of what on a good blog.

The proliferation of blogs has transformed the way we read, write, and even think. Nowadays, nearly anyone can log onto a computer and create a blog on subjects as diverse as cooking recipes to pop song sonnets. But not all blogs are equal. While navigating the seas of the blogosphere can be an uncertain endeavor, there are some best practices to abide by in order to make your blog stand out from the crowd.

Post frequently

As Brian Carroll notes in Writing For Digital Media, blogs should remain relevant by being regularly updated (154). In today’s age of rapid information, aspiring bloggers can’t afford to become stale. (Humans of New York is one of my favorite blogs that posts frequently and has a large presence on social media sites like Facebook.)

Have design in mind

When I’m surfing the web, I hate nothing more than a poorly designed website; I immediately lose interest if the layout is visually unappealing or hard to read. Digital writing in particular raises issues of aesthetics and function. Color, layout, and structure all affect how readers view content. (Take the simple, clean, attractive layout of the popular food blog With Peanut Butter On Top, for example, and look at how it complements the blog’s content.) What’s more, Lance Hosey writes compellingly in his New York Times article “Why We Love Beautiful Things” about the psychology of good design. With this in mind, I encourage aspiring bloggers to use design consciously to elicit desired responses from their readers. Draw readers in by using lists, short paragraphs, and an organized layout.

“No [blog] is an island”

 (…to paraphrase John Donne.) I consider the communal nature of blogging to be one of its most unique attributes. Excellent blogs engage in “community-building” by inviting comments and creating interactive posts (Carroll 154). As Carroll notes, multimodal posts including videos, pictures, and links to other websites help break up large chunks of text and keep readers interested (164). As Peter Rorabaugh puts it, digital writing has the potential to “rebuild ‘audience’.” Sean Michael Morris expresses this idea even more provocatively, asserting that “digital writing is action.” Morris contends that digital words transform themselves in ways we can’t predict “because digital writing is communal writing.” As public spaces, blogs are the perfect forum for expression and conversation.

Find your voice

I believe that above everything else, the key to a successful blog is a strong voice and a clear purpose. (The Bloggess and Libba Bray are two bloggers whose writing is brutally honest and endlessly entertaining.) You don’t have to be a stand-up comedian, but writing in a humorous and conversational tone will keep readers coming back for more. Carve out your niche, be conscious of your audience, and write from a fresh perspective.

Writing in a digital space may seem daunting, but keeping these elements of excellent blogs in mind can help make your blog truly exceptional.

A lot of time, energy, and thought go into blog pages and posts. I, for one, am amazed at the number of techniques and approaches that are taken into consideration when writing and making a blog. According to the book Writing for Digital Media, “A weblog or blog is simply a Web page or site for frequently updated posts, or entries, that typically are arranged or presented in reverse chronological order, so that new entries always appear on top” (137-138). I have found that every blog, unique to the writers interests, has similar themes they make them so successful. The following is a list of what I find contributes to successful blogging.

A blog should be:

1. Easily navigable & clean

Let’s face it—nobody can focus when a blog site is cluttered with ads and flashing videos. I most certainly enjoy when I can easily find different blog posts on a site and see when they were written. It is also easier to read the post when there are not too many video ads pulling my eyes away. Sometimes, less is more when it comes to layout, structure, and design.

2. Concise

It is important to analyze and avoid summary when writing a blog post—rather, “Focus your attention from the global (general) to the local” (Writing Analytically p. 23). Bloggers want to draw their readers’ attention in and to do this I think bloggers, just like analyzers, should keep in mind the question of “So What?” when writing a post. Stay on topic.

3. Form conscious

While content is important, as a blogger one needs to remember not to sacrifice form for content. In Hosey’s article why we love beautiful things, he discusses that the human mind is hardwired to love beautiful things and those beautiful things come from more than just content. They come from format, layout, etc. So, I think not only does successful blogging come from the posts but it comes from the big picture and everything else on the page that can be related and connected to the blog.

4. Know your audience

As a blogger I think it is necessary to know the type of audience you want to reach as well as to understand what they find interesting. While every person’s blog is unique to his or her own liking, by catering to a specific audience, whether it be reading the comments and basing the next post off a topic they want to see or just simply responding to a comment they made, bloggers can keep readers coming back.

5. Personable

Create a voice for oneself. A blogger should be comfortable using first person. Like Writing for Digital Media says, a blog is not a diary, however, “blogging is an exercise of expression, making one’s views public” (140). A blog is a combonoation of personal opinion and fact and therefore the blogger should lean towards using the first person when writing. Choose your pick—serious, witty, grim, etc.

6. Interactive

I think it is important to add in relevant links to posts. Social media can be very beneficial when it comes to interacting and communicating. In today’s world, people are constantly checking instagram, twitter, facebook, or watching youtube videos, etc. I think it is important for a blogger to use this to his or her advantage. Hashtages, links in posts, whatever it might be—get readers involved on another level aside from just reading a post.

7. Be Proud

Once a post is up, it’s up for good—a curse and a blessing. Writing lives online. According to Morris, “words themselves are active. They move, slither, creep, sprint, and outpace us. Digital words have lives of their own” (2). So, I say, be proud of your blog posts and be proud of your work because once it is up, it is up for good. If you are not proud do not post it. Allow your writing to fly about the Internet and inspire other writers.

8. Published on frequently

Give people something to come back to. Be consistent. Keep writing.

As is evident, blogs are so much more than a simple post. They are an individual’s way of sharing themselves with the world and communicating their unique thoughts with one another. A great blog keeps readers coming back and begging for more.

            A good blog has many important characteristics that mirror all types of writing; both analog and digital. A good blog is aesthetically pleasing and intellectually stimulating. Design and style are equally as important as content. In Lance Hosey’s article “Why We Love Beautiful Things,” he stresses the significance of good design, “it should come as no surprise that good design, often in very subtle ways, can have such dramatic effects,” (Hosey, 2). In class we discussed the interior design in Chipotle and how each restaurant is designed specifically to appear less welcoming in order to maintain a steady flow of customers. People reading digital content will not bother looking at a blog if it is cluttered, crowded with advertisements or poorly laid out.

An example of a terribly designed blog is http://badhairday.typepad.com/bad_hair_day/. First of all, the topic is pointless, is that really worth making an entire blog about? No. Initially, the tacky banner photo is tasteless at best while the endless stream of ads on the right banner distract from the actual blog posts (not that anyone would want to read them). The small information section on the left banner has grammatical errors and many unnecessary capitalizations. The color scheme is not visually pleasing and the content is poorly written.

My example of a bad blog meets little to none of the Top Ten Steps to Better Blogging, highlighted in Writing for Digital Environments by Brian Carroll. The writer hasn’t posted anything new since 2007. Although it could be considered ‘authentic,’ it just comes off as tacky.

            A good example of an aesthetically pleasing and intellectually stimulating blog is http://www.viviannadoesmakeup.com. Although she currently has a large banner ad for Herbal Essences surrounding the content, the blog itself has a very crisp, simple appearance. At the top there is an easy to navigate banner with links to social media, as well as a search engine and popular posts on the right banner. Instead of having to scroll through each post, she provides a title and picture preview to link you to the actual post. The photos are very high quality and there are no distracting ads on the posts themselves.    My example of a good blog meets all of the steps. The author writes every day and always produces high quality writing. She is clear in voicing her opinions and makes a strong effort to reply to comments or questions on her posts.

            A high quality blog is an amalgamation of good writing and smart design. It takes a stand, voices an opinion and draws readers in. It prompts discussion and debate, as well as praise and criticism. Digital writing is a great way to write what you want to write in a very personal and creative platform,