The validity of blogs as an information resource
=== posted at 6:43 PM

My entire topic is based on opinion. This is perfectly fine. In order to get a wide variety of opinions, I needed to subscribe to more than two blogs, and I ended up following about half a dozen. The wide field of talent and expertise out there is incredible, even if by, say, academic degree standards somebody might not be a “certified” expert. But who, really, is more expert than a professional writer (“One-Minute Book Reviews”) a group of librarians (“Read it or Weep”) or a young woman whose goal is to read scores of classics by the end of the decade? (“Between the Covers”)
Hunter S. Thompson, the inventor of gonzo journalism, probably couldn’t have predicted just how close and personal information acquisition and dissemination would have gotten. Let no publisher put asunder – information is just as peer-to-peer as a pirated copy of a Carrie Underwood single.
This is not to say that all blogs are totally useful. A good blog has a good following, and that is something to look out for when assessing a site for credibility. “Often, weblog authors are assisted by their readers – as readers become more familiar with the content a blog covers, and as their relationship with the writer develops, they begin to send along links and pointers to stories of interest.” (“Blogs in Action” 30) It’s a whole community of information.

Hit the ground running: the blog search
=== posted at 7:15 PM

My blog’s server, WordPress.com, relies on tags and categories in the search for a few good blogs. A tag lets the reader know, in a single word, a topic the blog relates to. The blog may have one or dozens of tags. “The Web has been, in effect, pre-surfed.” (Blood 9) For example, a reposted news article about a kitten stuck in a tree might be tagged “kittens,” “firefighter,” “news,” and possibly “video” – if the blogger links to a video, an increasingly common action. As an Internet meme states, “Pics or it didn’t happen.”
Search for a tag, and the search engine will lead you to any post from every blog on the server whose user labeled the post as such. Categories are like tags within a single blog. Go into somebody’s site, click a category, and you only get that person’s posts from that label. If Bob likes to post about cats, thermodynamics, Zoroastrianism, and his Aunt Beatrice, you can choose to view only the posts about one thing or the other.

A writer at the publisher’s
=== posted at 10:02 PM

Part of the appeal of blogging is that you are guaranteed to be published – because you do it yourself, obviously. (However, this does not guarantee a following – that’s a whole other blog beast.) The other appealing aspect is that you can write whatever you want, whenever you want, whether you’re at your mother’s PC, your own laptop, or in class which happens to be in a computer lab, or on a fancy Internet-capable phone.
The natural tones that often dominate a blog appeal to readers because it’s real speech. You can curse like a sailor or bleat like a lamb. “Weblogs frequently offer a refreshing, personal, non-commercial tone absent from much of the typical content found on the Web.” (“Blogs in Action” 5) Someone will be attracted to your post, if not your whole blog, because they like the way you speak. No stilted feature article starts with a genuinely friendly, “Hey, guys.” Since they are content-driven, blogs and bloggers keep on creating to keep everyone in the game, keep interest, and keep relevant.

Blog maintenance
=== posted at 10:46 PM

Blogs take diligence. It’s like keeping a diary – it’s easy to neglect. However, neglecting your very public blog is bad if you have any kind of following.
Unfortunately, I could not post as much as I wanted to on my literary blog, though I plan on continuing it. Real life interferes with my blog life. “Sex and the City” reruns take precedence over book reviews when I catch a few minutes’ breath between school or Army or Army school.
Blogs should be updated with consistency in mind. If a reader accesses it via their favorites list on their Web browser as a part of the daily Internet surfing routine, and the blog hasn’t been updated for days, then each click is a waste of time and the reader will probably lose interest. Conversely, if the reader accesses it through an RSS feed and your flooding inboxes with a litany of posts, you risk getting blocked or removed. Moderation is key.
But all this extra writing does have a plus – according to “Blogs in Action,” bloggers find that their writing improves. (35)

For all you pink unicorn loving Hemingway enthusiasts out there…
=== posted at 11:55 PM

Blogs can be a highly specialized source of information, if you choose to search for the correct ones. In one example, “if you are lucky, there is a weblog specific to your profession, providing you with one stop to keep abreast of industry news.” (Powazek x) Like Bob’s thermodynamic cats and Zoroastrian aunt, a blog is as unique as you are. Someone might not want to read my book choices, even when we’re both Kurt Vonnegut fans, because I might have dissed L. Ron Hubbard. After that, my otherwise favorable opinion of Vonnegut no longer matters and my blog is useless. I didn’t want to here his Scientology crap anyway, therefore, his blog is useless to me. This can have a negative side effect though: we can choose what to ignore entirely, and focus all our energy on preaching or listening to the choir, pretending another point of view is less significant than it really is. I can ignore all the poetry sites I want because I don’t particularly like most poetry, and instead pretend that prose is a much more highly valued written form.
Nevermind acknowledging that millions of Republicans would still rather vote for Mike Huckabee!

Um… APA citation for a blog??
=== posted at 12:02 AM

I have a blog, you have a blog, Bill Maher has a blog. Where does a blog end and an opinion piece start, or a news article without commentary from John Q. Blogger? Everyone is entitled to their opinion these days… and get flamed for it.
Blogs or no blogs, information labyrinths as they may be, still hold no sway over Wikipedia as an obstacle to academic research. Blogging is more likely to influence writing style, giving a sense that an informal tone is okay and welcome. If several dozen people can easily digest my witticisms on Topic X, why can’t I publish something similar for a class where there is only one reader (and grade)? All these people think it’s fine and dandy.
The truth is, blogging is not typically academic writing. It can be a jumping off point, sure. It can plant the seeds of ideas and spawn suggestions on where to look for more information. But in the realm of academia, opinion just can’t be a rule of thumb.