{"id":155,"date":"2013-09-07T16:38:42","date_gmt":"2013-09-07T20:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/?p=155"},"modified":"2014-11-21T14:41:10","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T19:41:10","slug":"blogging-for-the-intellectual-collective-why-good-blogs-blossom-while-others-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/2013\/09\/07\/blogging-for-the-intellectual-collective-why-good-blogs-blossom-while-others-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogging for the Intellectual Collective: Why Good Blogs Blossom While Others Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

Collective Intelligence and the Blogging World<\/strong><\/p>\n

The digital age has revolutionized the transfer of information, and as such the manner in which information is conveyed has also changed.\u00a0 Sean Michael Morris explains in \u201cDigital Writing Uprising:\u00a0 Third-order Thinking in the Digital Humanities\u201d<\/a> that digital composition is non-linear, thus throwing away traditional writing styles and literary road-maps.\u00a0 Morris explains that, instead of present fully formed ideas in a printed format, blogs allow writers to present, use, and reuse partial ideas.<\/p>\n

I believe that, as a result of this sharing of ideas, a good blog should be able to contribute to and participate in the global collective intelligence community.\u00a0 By adding to the online discussion of any given topic, blogs allow writers to explore concepts with the input of a wider, more involved audience than ever before. \u00a0An example of this is Humans of New York<\/a>, a blog dedicated to sharing interviews and photographs of people in the Big Apple. \u00a0In doing to, HONY serves as a kind of oral history microcosm, documenting the lives of local people and spreading the perspectives of others.<\/p>\n

A good blog should also give readers the tools and resources necessary to discover and learn more about the concepts, ideas, topics, and perspectives covered by the site.\u00a0 This can be done in a variety of manners, including links to explanatory articles, citations leading back to original sources, and in-article definitions. \u00a0Hybrid Pedagogy<\/a>\u00a0shows how these links and definitions can be kneaded into the fabric of an article, providing greater clarity and allowing readers to delve deeper into issues of interest.<\/p>\n

Effective Blog Design in the Mobile Age<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brian Carroll<\/a>\u2019s book, \u201cWriting for Digital Media,\u201d<\/a> focuses on key aspects of any successful blog.\u00a0 Although Carroll focuses on journalism sites, many of his points are applicable for any blog or website.\u00a0 This includes using lists, linking when appropriate, and checking for broken links periodically.\u00a0 Carroll also touches on the importance of multi-modal media (a combination of text, images, and videos) within an effective blog site. 99% Invisible<\/a> shows the true power and possibilities behind multi-modal media, using podcasts, images, videos, and drawings to convey deeper meaning and draw readers from one article to the next.<\/p>\n

Adding on to that, I believe that bloggers should be aware of their audience so that their content and media remain relevant and consistent.\u00a0 A weekly blog about blockbuster movies, for example, may include a link to another site\u2019s review of that film with every post.\u00a0 Bloggers focused on sustainability might be sure to cover the latest LEED-certified<\/a> building data, writing articles about remarkable projects from time to time.\u00a0 This consistency allows bloggers to retain their audience and create a more credible web presence.<\/p>\n

Carroll also focuses on the importance of readability and scan-ability for blog articles.\u00a0 By working with current trends in mobile browsing by shortening their posts and ensuring easy reader comprehension, bloggers can increase the popularity and effectiveness of their content.\u00a0 It should be noted, however, that this does not equate with \u201cdumbing down\u201d content; a good digital writer can strike the delicate balance between \u201cwriting down\u201d to their readers and presenting their ideas in an easily understood way.\u00a0 This is best accomplished by reducing the use of unnecessary jargon and breaking up ideas into smaller portions.<\/p>\n

The Power of Good Blogging<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ultimately, the power and credibility behind any blog depends on a number of factors.\u00a0 In a digital world where partial ideas are shared and reused constantly, a good blog will contribute to the collective intelligence of the online world.\u00a0 Useful blogs will also provide background information for readers and ensure that ideas are comprehensible, and properly split by lists or smaller paragraphs.\u00a0 Consistency should also be present in any web presence to enhance credibility.\u00a0 Ultimately, any blog is only good because of the opinions of its readers.\u00a0 In the digital world, quality is judged by the entire online community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collective Intelligence and the Blogging World The digital age has revolutionized the transfer of information, and as such the manner in which information is conveyed has also changed.\u00a0 Sean Michael Morris explains in \u201cDigital Writing Uprising:\u00a0 Third-order Thinking in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[109923,89362],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-blog-archives","category-what-makes-a-good-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/wrpg211\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}