Comment Chops for All [+ A Scavenger Hunt]

This post consolidates comments that I've attached recently to individual blogs, comments which apply, in general, to many more of your posts. I hope you will consider all of the suggestions in these three comments, reflect on them carefully in light of your own writing habits, and take them to heart in all of your blogging endeavors.

You may note that I am quoting liberally from my own writing (with permission;-), and making it clear in context (this explanation) and through layout (ellipses, block indentations, italics, and references; below) that I am using long quotations in this post, yet avoiding self-plagiarism. If you would like to see the passages that I'm quoting in their original contexts, you are welcome to take part in a blogging scavenger hunt (A Scavenger Hunt, below)

Book review content and organization, and word counts

Would you please review Mr. T's Book Review Recipe for advice regarding the content and organization of book reviews? Rather than retelling the stories you read, your writing should reflect your choices of books, your thinking about the books you choose (before and after reading them), whether you recommend them to your classmates and peers, and why. You also need word counts on every post.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

Titles, introductions, keywords, and vocabulary references

When you write several hundred words about any topic, it's really important to be clear about what it is going to be in the title, and in the introduction, too. There [in yours] you suggest, ....

It also is important to incorporate white space in your texts, between the paragraphs, to help readers find your main points quickly and easily. Even with a computerized search, I didn't find ... [a keyword from your title] in your post. Perhaps you can find ... [that keyword] in the Visual Thesaurus... [, which] I've listed on the Writing Studio Wiki (Vocabulary References), and displayed at the foot of the Writing Studio Blog.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

Grammar, spelling, and links

I wonder whether you have grammar and spell-checked this rewrite in a word processing program (OpenOffice, NeoOffice, or Word), and whether you know how to make URLs into active links in blog posts and comments. If something you've written gets flagged during a thorough grammar/spelling check, and you're not sure how to revise it, please ask in class.

(pab, 2008.10.28)

A Scavenger Hunt

If you would like to review the comments that I've quoted (above) in their original contexts on classmates' and peers' blogs, you are welcome to take part in a blogging scavenger hunt to find them. There will be a small prize for the first student in each class who informs me in class precisely whose blogs and which posts (blog handles, titles, dates, and times) display those comments on them.

[459 words, excluding title]