Entry #11 Blogs.

Writing has been around for hundreds of years. It is the way we communicate and learn. Without writing we wouldn't have many of the things we take for granted today.The language of today has changed dramatically compared to that of years ago. People have become less personal about their experiences and opinions. Gone are they years of getting into detail and trying to prove your point with the proper information needed to support individual thoughts or ideas. People are so fast to share what they have to say, yet give no proper information to support their ideas or explain to their audience why those idea/thoughts are important to them.

An example to put this into prospective is blogging. What is a blog you ask?

Blogs are a website containing a writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites.

While attending college, you learn the writing process. But for some, this is scary and hard to understand, especially as a new student.

In learning the writing process and applying it to assignments for school, you must introduce your subject, support it, and conclude what it is that your are expressing and writing about.  But why is this the only appropriate time where the formal writing rules apply?

Well, not anymore.
In English 101 with Professor Murphy, you will learn to blog, or formally blog I should say. What I mean when I say "formal blogs" is that you can't just ramble a bunch of thoughts and then be done with no support. This is an assignment! The blogs needed to include the three main parts (into, body/support, and conclusion) just like in your English writing assignments. At first, this can seem like hard work and irrelevant to your blogs. Aren't these our own personal thoughts? Yes, but we are learning in this class right. Clearly blogging must have a purpose.

Initially, I had no intention of actually liking to blog. "More wasted time on unnecessary writing assignments." I thought. But I was wrong! As I continued to blog through my English 101 course I was hooked. For the first time I was able to apply the writing process at a much smaller scale. Allowing the breakdown for writing to come at an easier pace and a completely different point of view. Blogging  made it easier to understand how to write correctly. Blogging was also a great way to be able to read and comment on classmates own opinions and thoughts and see subjects in a different point of view. This allowed me to learn a lot about different topics I had no clue about. I also learned a lot of new ideas on subjects I wrote about, classmates wrote about. The writing process became easier because I was writing about things that interested me or that the whole class wrote about in their perspective even if I did or did not agree on it. Commenting on blogs was a great way to let a classmates know what I thought about their opinions on certain subjects or allowed me to let them know my point of view on something they wrote about.

With technology changing the world today, blogging is a great way to teach students (including myself) that we need to be formal, not only in our assignments but the way we think and talk. Blogging has become the modern day "casual conversation" of our thoughts and opinions. College is preparing us for "real-life" experiences after all. You can't just say whatever you want and then not even know why you agree with the matter. This is why you need your support/evidence on that subject. "I heard this from someone or somewhere" is NOT enough to get me to agree or even know what someone is talking about. Support your writing even when it's a thought or opinion. We are learning and teaching at the same time when we communicating with others in our blogs. We are building a sense of community through technology.