The essay that I chose to write about is Andrew Sullivan’s “Why I Blog”. In this essay he makes a lot of very good points about blogging. I agree strongly with all the points that he covered, and he did a very good job of hitting a lot of points. One of the things that really stuck out to me was the fact that you can publish anything instantly. As soon as an event happens you can post about it, in the heat of the moment you could say. This really makes for some strong emotions that can come out in a blog, no time to cool down. There is no waiting for editors or revisions of your work; as soon as you hit post, it is out there for the whole world to read and comment on. Your readers can be your best friends who love everything you write, or your worst critic that picks out every single mistake that you make. You have to be open to this instant scrutiny, all most embracing it. This adds to the appeal of the blog I think, as this really makes it a community effort. Your readers may even know more about your topic then you do, so they can be a wealth of knowledge to help enrich your blog. Your readers may even open your eyes to a new view point that you did not take into account. As a blogger you are forced to see different views from your own, like that or not. Your options may change on certain topics, so you must post your new thoughts now, not tomorrow.
Blogging is very much a “in the now” form of writing and the deadline is now, not tomorrow. Tomorrow every other blogger may have posted about this topic, and it will be old news. You want to the first to have the story on the hot topic issue of the day. You have no time to check that your sources are legit, and must learn to get good sources of information quickly. Also in the blog world one can access other external web sites or blogs from hyperlinks. Hyperlinks have really replaced the works cited that you find in pen and paper essays or reports. They give the reader instant access to the sources that the blogger has used. This makes it very easy for the reader to check any and all sources that the blogger has used. They can then facts check a blog in real time, as they read it. This is a very powerful tool I think and it really makes all the readers editors. Blogs tend to be a very free form of writing, and have the freedom to break or bend rules.
The last point that I really liked in this essay was how Sullivan talked about how blogs are kind of like Jazz. Both are very much an improvisational act and can go whichever way the musician or blogger wants them to go. Both are very free to do whatever they want, not having to follow the set rules. They both broke the mold of what was considered “normal”, and dared to do something different. They both feed off the audience, all most needing them to progress in their craft. One could say they were the odd ducks in the group, not fitting in with the rest of their kind. Being different, they had to do something no one had ever seen or heard off. Pioneers in their fields, they changed the way people heard and saw the things around them.
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