Guidelines for your SPC 260 Blog

As explained in your syllabus, you are expected to write at least 350 words a week in your course related blog. Below are some guidelines you should bear in mind as your write.

1. Titles matter. Make sure you pick a title for each post that is clear, descriptive and eye-catching.
2. Keep it short. The average blog reader stays with a single blog an average of 96 seconds! Thus, you need to get to the point right away and keep your arguments and observations relatively concise. Long posts are occasionally warranted, especially when you are in the midst of an online debate. But in general, shorter is better.
3. One topic per post. Try not to ramble or flit from topic to topic in a single post. Better to confine yourself to writing about one and only one topic or issue per post, even if it means you end up producing multiple posts in a single day.
4. Standard, no frills journalistic writing is the best. Journalists are trained to write in short, lucid sentences and to cut out excess adjectives and adverbs. While this style was developed for newspaper copy, it is suited to the web as well. Strive for an economy of words and straightforward syntax in all your posts.
5. Use typography and color for emphasis. Placing key terms, phases and sentences in Large, small, bold, underlined or Italic type, or in a different colored text, will help you drive home your point quickly. Studies have shown that people “scan” online content rather than reading every word. Creative use of typography and colored text can assure that your readers scan your page the way you intended.
6. Use lists, headings, subheadings and boxes around quotes. Like colored text and different fonts, headings, list and boxed “pull quotes” render your content more “scan friendly”.
7. Learn how to embed links. You need to learn how to embed links in your blog posts. Entries that can refer to the sources of your facts (or the objects of your criticisms) create a “surf trail” that your readers can follow as the thread of your reasoning.
8. Post often. If you get in the habit of sitting down at the computer every day or every other day to write for just 15 minutes—even if only on a draft of an entry—you’ll be amazed at how much you can write.