Dear ETS Students:
Some of you are writing blogs for your courses this semester. We thought you might be interested in some tips for writing a really good blog post. Athena Kolbe compiled these suggestions from journalists and academics who blog, as well as from University of Michigan professors who use blogs in their courses. We hope they are helpful to you!
How to Write a Really Good Blog Post for a Class Assignment
1) If you are writing a blog entry that is a
reaction to an article or in response to course content, make sure you read the
article first and fully understand it, or that you were listening in class and
understand what the course content is that you are responding to.
2) Start with a title that both describes the
content and is fairly interesting.
3) There’s no reason not to jot down an outline of
your post on scratch paper before you write it. You’ll be more organized and
your writing will sound more coherent.
4) Use paragraphs that have a thesis statement and
then examples or evidence of the thesis statement. Don’t write one line
paragraphs. Go for paragraphs that have some semblance of organization to them.
5) Think about why someone would want to read your
post. What are you adding to the existing body of knowledge or the public
debate on a subject? If you are responding to content or an article that you
don’t find particularly interesting, try to at least identify some way that the
concepts are related to something you do find interesting.
6) Try to find at least one way for your post to be
useful. Many writers include a ‘call to action’ or similar type of paragraph
that motivates the reader to do something (Respond? Think about something? Read
the book?)
7) Don’t just repeat or summarize someone else’s
ideas. Think about who would be interested in these ideas. Where else can they be applied? What would
happen if they were applied in that situation?
8) Copying content from someone else's blog without identifying the author is plagiarism. Do not copy content from
others’ blogs or websites and do not use passages from books or articles
without properly identifying the author.
9) Don’t forget to make a point. A blog entry has
to matter to people in order for them to want to read it.
10) Before you go any further, think about how you
could add depth to your blog post. Including statistics, links to current news
articles as they are relevant, or other research can round out your post, just
make sure you cite everything you use.
11) Quality counts. Be sure to proofread. Try
reading your post aloud to yourself (or your roommate) to make sure that it
sounds okay and to catch any copy editing errors you might miss along the way.
12) Sometimes you might want to mix up the ‘genre’
of your post just for fun; for example, you may want to try writing a satirical
post (though this requires you to really know the material in order to make fun
of something in a way that is humorous to others).
13) Don’t forget to write in a plain, normal style
without interjecting a lot of vocabulary people don’t understand (and being
sure to explain vocabulary that the public does not know yet or won’t understand
in context). You might be writing this
for a class assignment, but real people may also want to take a shot at reading
your post. You don’t want to alienate them by using words they don’t know
without explaining them.
14) Lists are great to add to a blog post, even if
they don’t fulfill the terms of your assignment in and of themselves. Blog readers
love lists.
15) Images are great to add, if possible. Websites
like Flickr that allow reposting of images if credit is given are a good
source. Good images convey a feeling related to the post, illustrate a concept contained in the post,
and/or complement the title used for the post.
16) If your blogging platform supports keywords,
make them specific and try to include at least four but not more than ten per
post. A keyword like “Butter Pecan” is more useful than “ice cream” or “food”.
17) For longer content be sure to use subheadings.
You can also do a “pull quote” if you say something particularly interesting or
profound in the post that you can use to illustrate your piece.
18) Use inline links to lead your reader to other
related sites.
19) Promote your post by linking to Facebook and
other social media sites.
20) When you get comments, respond to them! A blog
is a conversation.
