10 Ways To Instantly Make Your Blog Better! (Morris, 2018.11.12)

Medieval Writing by Hans Splinter, 2013.06.02
Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
(CC BY-ND 2.0)

Edublogger Kathleen Morris presented:

10 Ways To Instantly Make Your Blog Better! Want to build a more active and engaged audience for your blog? Here are 10 simple tips that you can start implementing today to make your blog instantly better!

(https://www.theedublogger.com/make-your-blog-better/)

Making Memorable Presentations

Want To Be Memorable? It Starts With Your Content

In that [Official SlideShare Blog] post, Scott Schwertly provided "a few simple tips to make your [presentation] content more memorable" (2013.08.26).

via Blog this

Photo courtesy of the

Cornell University Library

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Design 101 for Educators: 5 Simple Typography Tips (CranfordTeague, 2013)

It's high time to return to blogging after an extended summer recess. To get rolling on this blog again, I'd like to point out an Edutopia post in which Jason CranfordTeague (2013.08.13) provided page design tips that may serve students as well as educators:

• Design 101 for Educators: 5 Simple Typography Tips

CranfordTeague focused on font styles as a typographical equivalent to voice, as well as on simplicity, contrast, column width, and my overall favorite–space. As I often tell students, and as a reminder to all who read this blog, "White space is golden!"

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Two gadgets for sidebars

For our writing course, two of the most important gadgets to have in your sidebars are a Recent Comments gadget and a Labels gadget.

Labels gadget

Labels gadgets help visitors find posts of interest on your blogs. If you haven't added a Labels gadget to your blog yet, ask a classmate or peer who has to help you do so. Here's a breadcrumb trail you can follow:

• Dashboard (yours): Design: Page Elements: Add a Gadget (sidebar): Basics: Labels: "+"

Please remember to Save your Labels gadget after you make sure the title is in English ("Labels"), and after you configure it as shown in the first screenshot below. 

You also should note that Labels gadgets will be invisible on your blogs unless they have at least one post that has labels on it (see: Critical Step for Startup Labels posts, April 21, 2011).

Recent Comments gadget

The Recent Comments gadget, as you can see in the next screenshot (below), should be at – or very near – the top of (one of) your sidebar(s). (Some blog templates have more than one.) That will enable all blog visitors to see at a glance what's new (your most recent blog post) and what's hot (most recent comments) whenever they open your blog.

That is, as long as the graphic in your banner (and other elements in your header) aren't so big they force posts and sidebar elements out of sight. If they do, you probably need to rethink your blog layout (;-{))!

The breadcrumb trail leading to Recent Comments gadgets is as follows:

• Dashboard (yours): Design: Page Elements: Add a Gadget (sidebar): More Gadgets ...

From there, however, finding the right gadget gets tricky, unless you know some tricks, yourself. At present, there are over 1000 More Gadgets to choose from. The trick to remember here is to use the search function:

Though we'll be getting more gadgets where those came from, those two should be enough to get your through today!

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Add Startup Labels to Your Blogs

The purpose of this activity is to enable you easily and quickly to label other posts on your blogs with appropriate labels. Labels, in addition to the reverse timelines on your blogs' home pages and archives, give blog visitors quick and easy access to posts of interest. The set of labels below includes those your classmates, peers, and I want you to use help us find and review your writing assignments.

Here's what I'd like you to do first:

1. 
   
   Create a new post entitled Startup Labels;
2. 
   
   Copy and paste the labels below into the body of your post;
3. 
   
   Copy and paste the labels below into the Labels field at the foot of the editing window, with commas between them;
4. 
   
   Preview your post, to make sure you have included all of the startup labels (15); and
5. 
   
   Publish your post with a word count in square brackets at the lower left corner.

Startup labels:

• books, brainstorms, drafts, essay prep., essays, free-writing, graphics, links, media, movies, outlines, quickposts, reviews, [revisions,] typing, websites

Next, you need to go to the blog Dashboard > Settings > Layout > Page Elements view (direct from Customize link in the top right side of the page frame on your blog's home page). In the sidebar area, click Add a Gadget, and select the gadget for Labels. The Configure Labels pop-up window offers several options; if you show All Labels, Alphabetically, they will be easy to find and use. 

Don't forget to save the changes you've made to your sidebar!

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New Course Link: Letter Writing

There is a new resource listing in the Writing Studio Blog sidebar (Course Links), a new section of the LTD Project Wiki focusing on letter writing, and friendly letters:

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Reminders of classwork and homework

In classes today, I gave tours of this Writing Studio Blog, pointing out elements at the head, foot, and side of the blog display. At the head of the blog, I pointed out the over-large image behind the title and description, and a smaller image (top right) that is a button to use whenever you want to return to the home page. I've removed that large image already.

I also showed where the Search field was, in the navigation bar (navbar, for short) at the top of the page. You can use that to find specific words or phrases that writers have used in their blog posts. You should note, however, that if you or the authors of the blogs you are searching fail to spell key words accurately, you may not find what you are looking for. For example, when students misspell the word "essay" as "essey," or "home stay" as "fome stay," those keywards are difficult if not impossible to find.

At the foot of the Writing Studio Blog, I pointed out the Creative Commons license, which grants visitors limited permission to reuse what they find on this blog, and two reference tools, in particular:

• a graphic thesaurus, free for use on the KGU campus, and
  
• an online dictionary, providing English definitions of English words.

(For more online references tools, please see the Writing Studio Wiki, Vocabulary References page.)

Key elements in the Writing Studio Blog sidebar that I encouraged all students to add to their own sidebars ASAP include:

1. a monthly archive, hierarchy style, showing post titles (Dashboard: Layout: Configure Blog Archive, above); and
   
2. a labels display (Dashboard: Layout: Configure Label, below).

Archives and labels displayed in your sidebars offer visitors two more ways (in addition to keyword searches and reverse chronology scans) to find interesting posts on your blogs, such as your essays and book reviews.

So much for the anatomy of a blog! Now let me remind you of the homework.

1. Use catchy, descriptive titles on all posts!

2. Add two or more labels to every one of your posts.

• essays (for completed essays)
• revisions (for rewritten essays)
• ...

The list goes on. For a full range of suggestions, please see those in the spreadsheet at the foot of this blog (Labels in Action).

3. Post a rewritten essay: a revised letter of introduction to a host family, in new post on your blog, including:

• extra information (info.) requested or suggested in comments from classmates or peers on your draft essay.
• extra info. that you thought was interesting and informative in your classmates' essays - personalized, of course, for the purpose of introducting yourself to a host family.
  

4. Complete another book review (BR 1-02: Short Title); keep posting one or more reviews per week during the semester (12 or more, total)

5. Make at least one other blog post this week, for a total of three to five (or more) blog posts every week.

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New Sidebar Gadget: Followers

A new Blogger gadget that I've just added to the sidebar opens another avenue of access to Writing Studio Blog updates. It's down to the right, between Local Favorites and Subscribe via gmail (now Get mailed!) gadgets. It's the green starred item in the sidebar Layout screenshot (right).

The first avenue for notification of updates was subscription via mail functionality provided by Feedburner, which I blogged up last January (Subscribe via Gmail Today!, 2008.01.10). You may have missed that, if you failed to read up on previous posts as I suggested at the beginning of Writing III. Some folks prefer mail notifications; others depend upon handy lists of links to favorite sites in their own sidebars, or feed readers there or elsewhere (for example: Google Reader).

Now signing up to follow a blog generates an RSS feed in your own Dashboard, and there are at least two ways to get started. One works for any Blogger blog (though it doesn't seem to work on Edublogs, at least not right away); you just grab the URL of a blog you want to follow, and "ADD" it to your Dashboard Reading List. Here's a snapshot of the list I've started:

The "ADD" button is at the foot of your list.

The other way to follow a Blogger blog is to find one you want to follow that displays a Followers gadget. You can subscribe through the gadget, and updates from that blog will automatically appear in your Dashboard Reading List. For more info. about following, including private or public following options, I recommend these Blogger Help Center posts:

• What is following?
• How do I use the Blogger Reading List?
• How do I add the Following gadget to my blog?

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Paragraphs for Review in Google Spreadsheet

In this post I'm going to reflect upon and amplify work done online and in class in recent weeks. While I hope that you check your gmail regularly for course-related announcements, a recent reply to a two-week old message shook my confidence that all of you do so. For that reason, I'm posting these notes here, rather than relying completely upon another Google spreadsheet mail notification (forthcoming).

Those of you who reviewed paragraphs in the Google spreadsheet to which you posted them in November may have been unaware of general comments that I had added to row two before class last week (December 3rd, cells 2A-2I). In order to view lengthy comments there, when text wrapping was off, you would have had to double-click in each cell. For example, about titles, I wrote:

Please use accurate and catchy titles! There are confusing, inaccurate, and unnecessary alphanumeric code prefixes in this Title column [column E], for example: MR2-01 and Essay2-02 (no spaces before numbers). There also are titles that reflect assignments, but not the content of particular essays. However, please don't change titles here, unless you already have changed the title of your essays on your blogs, and are copying and pasting the revised titles in here. Titles should reflect content, theme, and focus. Accurate labels, for example, "essays" (... [three] Ss and one A), "movies," and "reviews," should suffice to convey other information instead of code (the exception to this rule is post titles for book reviews, for example: BR 2-01, ... -02, ... -03, ..., BR-12: [+ short book titles]).

(BestEssays_Self-Assessments..., cell 2E)

Since the focus of that data collection was weakest paragraphs in best essays as of November 19 (BestEssays_Self-Assessments form, item 3.e.), I am going to reiterate and amplify the follow-up questions from the spreadsheet that I announced in class on December 3rd, here, where there are layout options unavailable in Google spreadsheets (automated numbering and bullet points added, below):

1. Is what you've posted a paragraph?
   
• If not, why not;
  
• If so, how so?
  
• [In other words, what constitutes a paragraph?]
  
2. What is the topic of the paragraph [that you felt was your weakest]?
   
3. Is the topic [of that paragraph] defined in the first sentence (topic sentence)?
   
4. Does all other information or opinion in the paragraph develop and support the topic?
   
5. Is there any information or expression of opinion in the paragraph unrelated to, or ... [which does not directly support], the paragraph topic?
   
6. Does the paragraph end with a sentence that reflects the topic and content of the whole paragraph?

(BestEssays_Self-Assessments..., cell 2I)

The purpose of question one (above) was to explore your definitions of paragraphs, in particular, to discover what you had learned about paragraphs from other courses. If you can remember or retrieve a definition of paragraphs from Writing I or II, please share it in a comment on this post.

Question two (above), as we found in one class on December 3rd, also can apply to single sentences that some students posted for the weakest paragraph item (spreadsheet, column I). Once you identify the topics of sentences in question, they can serve as foci for paragraph development. In the first example below, the pronoun "It" reflects the topic from the initial sentence, "home page" (spreadsheet, cell 26I). In both examples below, the phrasing suggestions in square brackets introduce supporting reasons the authors could use to develop their sentences into paragraphs:

• ¶6 Let's go to this home page! [It is very interesting, because….] (26I)
• ¶6 I think French is more difficult than English [for three main reasons. First, French....] (32I)

Questions three through six (above) indicate weaknesses common in novice writers' paragraphs, and can serve as general guidelines for paragraph development. I say guidelines, rather than rules, because even experienced writers occasionally diverge from them. For example, in short paragraphs, concluding sentences may be unnecessary to maintain readers' attention, especially if following paragraphs start with topic sentences, and comprise topics that are closely related to preceding ones.

I'd like to close this post with thanks and an invitation. That is, first, with thanks to the students who explained their weakest paragraphs in class last week. I appreciate your efforts to share thoughts about your writing in a language other than your vernacular. Next, to students whose writing did not come to the fore as examples in class last week, I extend this invitation to identify what you see as major weaknesses of the paragraphs that you posted to the Goggle spreadsheet in November. A good place to spell out those weaknesses would be in the new column K on the spreadsheet, where we can all read and compare them. Finally, thank you all for your cooperation in our writing studio, both in class and in various online venues.

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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.

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Beating Blogger's Block and Citing Sources

An email newsletter I received recently suggests various ways to overcome writer's block. These may help you achieve or surpass blogging requirements for this semester. One of them is free-writing, which we did in class last Wednesday:

There are a lot of things you can do to get over writer's block: take a walk, freewrite, listen to music, take your laptop to the backyard, or read other people's blogs.

(Vox Talks, How to Beat Blogger's Block, ¶2, 2008.10.10).

That same newsletter also proposes a variety of topics that may provide you with interesting stimuli for quick-and-dirty, or more thoughtful and thorough blog posts:

• Culture,
  
• Entertainment,
  
• Life,
  
• Music,
  
• News,
  
• Politics, and
  
• Technology

(Vox Talks, ... Blogger's Block, ¶3).

Notes:

• In this post, I have included direct quotations from that newsletter to show you how you should make ideas that you borrow from other sources stand out from your own writing, in order to avoid plagiarism, and how you can help your readers find those (or related) sources to get more information.

• The longer quotation (see: "¶2," above) comes from the second paragraph of the October 10, 2008, Vox Talks newsletter. It stands out from the surrounding text because it is in italics (i), [and] formatted as a block quotation (") with the Compose toolbar:
  

• The other ideas that I've borrowed, the list of subject areas suggested in paragraph three of the newsletter (see: "¶3," above), I've reformatted as a list, and emphasized with bullets, again citing the source in parentheses.
  

• For more examples of quotations and source citations, please browse previous posts that I've labeled "quotations" (sidebar: Labels).

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Blogged with the Flock Browser
Revised, annotated, and illustrated in Blogger

Third presentation display [+ design, + ...]

Here's version three of a brief personal history, with a design for the slides, additional graphics, links, and photos. It's ready for a sound track to make the slideshow into an oral presentation.

| View | Upload your own

Best Reviews 1.0 (2008)

Today you will have an opportunity to nominate five reviews written to fulfill fourth essay requirements this semester. You may nominate one review for each of five categories ( below), and you may nominate your own review for no more than one of them. The categories open for nominations are:

1. Best Title [of post, rather than blog],
2. Easiest to Read [and understand],
3. Most Informative or Opinionated,
4. Most Interesting or Unusual, and
   
5. Most Visually Appealing [best layout].

To find blogs to nominate:

a) browse each of the blogs in the list for your class,
b) locate the fourth essay on each blog, and
c) make sure it is a review that meets all of the following ... [requirements]:

• The review has a short, catchy title;
• It is at least 400 words in length;
• It includes no copied or machine translated content;
• It consists of at least five paragraphs five sentences in length; AND
• It has at least two labels, one of which is "essays" (the plural form, spelled accurately [emphases added]).

To nominate blogs for each category, post comments on the corresponding Writing Studio Blog posts [1.1 - 1.5: see links, below]. In your comments, include:

1. The author's blog handle (typed accurately, or copied and pasted),
2. The title of the essay (copied and pasted from the blog itself, for accuracy), and
   
3. Your own reasons (two or more) for nominating it, for:

If you have questions about the nominating process, please post your questions in comments on this post. Nominations themselves must be on the corresponding post for each category.

• Best Reviews 1.1 (2008): Best Title [of post, rather than blog]
  
• Best Reviews 1.2 (2008): Easiest to Read [& Understand]
  
• Best Reviews 1.3 (2008): Most Informative [or Opinionated]
• Best Reviews 1.4 (2008): Most Interesting [or Unusual]
• Best Reviews 1.5 (2008): Most Visually Appealing [best layout]
  

Comments on the essay posts are optional, but nice. [Please feel free to comment directly on classmates posts after class.]

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{including additions in
square brackets ("[...]"), above}]

WSB 1-02: Points to Remember While Blogging

The purpose of this post is to highlight a number of suggestions that I've made in the course of recent visits to students' blogs. I would like you all to pay attention to each of these points as you write on your own blogs, and as you comment on those of classmates and peers.

The list below covers seven plus items. These are examples, explanations, and illustrations that you ought to take on board as lessons for yourselves.

0. Language Setting

To learn English yourself, and to accommodate blog visitors who want to learn and to use English, too; I urge you to switch your blog settings to English. If you are in the A class, you should consider this a requirement for an A.

The remaining points are organized very loosely from fundamental to fine-tuning, or general to specific if you prefer.

1. Pointers regarding blog designs,
2. Suggestions for creating more posts,
   
3. Notes about word counts put on every post,
4. Suggestions, nay requirements for titles and labels,
5. Ways to respond to multiple comments on posts,
   
6. Inquiries leading to citation of sources, and
   
7. Strategies for correcting comments.

• Blog designs and readability issues

As I dropped by to see how you're coming on your book reviews, I noticed that the text color you chose for your review of Another World is almost impossible to make out against the dark background from the blog template that you've chosen. If you are keen on using dark colors for text, you should choose a template with a light background to make what you write easier to see and read.

While most ready-made blog templates respect these general design principles with automatic text colors, some of you obviously like to play with the colors yourselves. If you do, please remember that the opposite is also true. That is, if you have chosen a blog design with a light or white background, you should choose black or dark text colors if you are going to change them.

• Creating more posts

If you are shy of posts (Isn't everyone?), or you desire to push your skills, extend your writing, catch the interest and satify the curiosity of blog visitors, below is an example of a few steps you can take to do so. In this case, I'm talking about spring-boarding from a list of ideas in one quick post or typing speed trial post, to get a handful (or more) separate posts started.

... Which places did you enjoy visiting the most?

Why don't you write separate blog post[s] about at least one place in each prefecture. That would get you started towards the 60+ posts you need for Writing III this semester.

While you're at it, why don't you add a few pictures to give all of your readers a sense of what they're missing when they sit in front of a computer instead of heading out on the road again?

• Word counts on every post for Writing III and IV!

This point, in particular, gets the good news, bad news treatment - first the good news scenario:

Thanks for excluding the lyrics from your word count.

If you include in any post more than a few words of which you are not the author, please exclude them from your blog post word counts. Do remember that we require word counts (in square brackets, at the lower corner next to the sidebar) on every post for Writing III and IV.

Now for a not-so-good news scenario:

I hope you enjoy the holidays, too, and even get some blogging done during them. One thing you really need to do is add word counts to all of your posts for Writing III. Please don't wait any longer to start counting! [emphases added]

• Requirements for titles and labels on all book reviews
• (and sharing the wealth!)

Hi ...,

I'd like to ask you to do me three favors:

1) Would you please use the key string + number prefix that I've explained in class, and spelled out in WSB 1-01 in the title of all of your book reviews: past, present, and future? That will make them easy to find in your archive.

2) Would you please label all of your book reviews with at least these two labels: "books" and "reviews"? Then they will show up in various searches.

3) Last, but not least important, would you please ask [cajole/remind/tell] all of your classmates and peers in courses that I teach to do the same?

Cheers.

• Ways to respond to similar comments on different posts

Here I suggest creating a new post to respond to comments on two different posts, by three different people.

I've been wondering the same thing, as has Rick, who commented on your April 16, 2008, reading habits post.

Why don't you make a new blog post that explains to everyone how to do it, and then point out the new post in responses to comments here and there?

I'll be waiting to read your follow-ups.

Easy follow-up comments such as, "Please see my new post (Short Title..., date [+ link])," will inform return visitors, as well as those who have chosen to get mail notification, where to look for answers to questions or responses to ideas that they've posted in comments on your blogs.

• Queries about sources leading to citations

Where did you get the definitions of the words [that] you listed at the end of BR 1-07: Snow Games?

If you are using any content at all from other sources, you must mark it clearly, and spell out where you got it. For example, I've formatted all of the comment clippings in this post as block quotations, and italicized them so they stand out from the original text of this post. Now I'll spell out, in general, where they're from.

All of the comment citations in this post are from the same type of source, namely comments that I've posted on individual students' blogs recently. I wrote them myself, and I grant myself permission to collect and reuse them here for teaching purposes (:-).


Correcting comments after you've posted them

If you notice glaring errors after you hit the orange publish button, either on purpose or by mistake, it is possible to correct them. However, in Blogger, the only way you can do it yourselves makes a mess of the blog spaces in which you have left comments, at least until blog owners tidy up behind you.

So it is always better to preview your comments, editing them repeatedly if necessary, before you publish them. Here, unfortunately, are two examples of what I did after I failed to follow my own advice.

Example One

Oops, I made a mistake in my previous comment, but there was no way to edit it. So I've copied, pasted, and corrected it here:...

Do you know how to make word counts align with the... [right] margin, to make them easy to spot at a glance? If not, please ask in class, and I'll show you.

Please note that the two italicized and indented passages in Example One show that I'm making a quotation of a previous quotation. The series of periods (...) show where I've trimmed away unnecessary or incorrect wordings, and the square brackets ([...]) show where I've added or corrected wording. I suggest that you try to avoid this at home, folks, unless you really have to, to make a point.

I'm a paid professional, but I still make mistakes! Below is another example, with more of my self-corrections.


Example Two

I guess I am too anxious to get out; I typed two mistakes [three, actually (I've just found one more)] in the first paragraph of my previous comment, and then hit the publish button instead of the preview button....

Anyway, here is what I posted earlier, cut, pasted, and corrected in this new comment (I hope I get it right this time):

Hey ...,

It sound[-s] like you had a nice road-trip this spring. How many friend[-s] went with you[?]...

Although I went back to my original comments on each of those posts and trashed them, only the blog owners can trash them completely. So what I've left in my tracks on a couple of students' blogs looks like this:

Comment deleted

This post has been removed by the author.

May 3, 2008 2:00 PM

and this:

コメントが削除されました

この投稿は投稿者によって削除されました。

2008/05/03 15:28

Sadly, those left-overs break the flow, and take up space on lists of comments attached to blog posts. If the blog owners themselves wish, they can remove those left-overs completely and finally from their blogs. If you find comments removed by their authors on your own blog, please do all future visitors a favor and trash the comments completely. Cheers.

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Another Setting to Try: Float Alignment

Though the explanation Blogger offers (below) borders on highly technical HTML formatting, the "enable float alignment" setting is easy to try by selecting "Yes."

Enable float alignment [Yes/No toggle, + Save Settings]

Allows image and text alignment options using the "div[-ision]" tag. (Choose "No" if you are having post layout problems.)

(Blogger Dashboard: Settings: Formatting)

When you review your blog, after refreshing or reloading the page, look for obvious layout problems in various posts (misaligned graphics, photos, or text). If see any problems that weren't there before, just toggle the float alignment setting back to "No," and save it like that.

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Fine-Tuning Formatting: Show 14 Days

To make it easier for visitors to your blog to see all of your recent posts at a glance, please revise the formatting settings found through your Dashboard:
For the rest of fall semester, I would like you to set your main page to show all posts that you've made during the last fortnight (14 days).

[56 words]

Archives, Feeds, Labels, Settings and Such

In this post, I focus on blog settings; I provide a freshly extended list of blog features, functions, and requirements for on-going participation in the Writing Studio (Writing IVc).

0. A blog!

This is pretty obvious, but everyone has to have one, and to use it regularly for posting the various writing assignments listed here, including:

• free-writing (quickposts, photos, media, links),
  
• typing speed trials (quickposts, typing),
• book reviews (books, links, photos, reviews),
  
• intensive writing assignments (essays, graphics, media, movies, photos, reviews), and
• collective/reflective works (assignments, essays, reviews, portfolios).

Suitable labels for those kinds of posts are in parentheses (above).

Beyond the obvious, that is, by now routine, extensive writing on you blogs (above); there are several other points on which I would like you to focus your attention this week. In class, computer lab. assistants or I will help you make certain that your blogs adhere to the following requirements.

1. Archives

Blog archives must appear near the top of blog sidebars for Writing IVc. This is a requirement continuing from Writing IIIc, last semester. Especially if you didn't take part in the Writing Studio last semester, you should make certain that your archive is at or near the top of your sidebar.

However, there is a change from last semester. That is, to save space in your blog sidebars for the next item (Comment Feeds) if you haven't done so already; you need to switch your blog archives from weekly to monthly display mode.

2. Comment Feeds

Comment feeds are a new feature that also will be required at or near the top of your sidebar in the immediate future. Adding comment feeds provides extra degrees of access to your blogs. That is, in addition to archives (above), and labels and reverse chronological page displays (below). Displaying recent comments from posts on your blog, in your sidebar, is a community-building measure that enables both regular readers and occasional visitors to find active discussions on your blog quickly and to join them easily.

I posted a recipe for sidebar comment feeds earlier on the Writing Studio Blog (Comment Feed Recipe...; October 24, 2007). Please review that post, and then follow the steps to add a comment feed at or near the top of your sidebar. If you need help using that recipe to create a comment feed widget for your sidebar, ask a student who has one already, a lab. assistant, or me.

3. Labels

You must have a widget in your blog sidebar that displays the labels for posts on your blog. This is a continuing requirement from Writing IIIc.

The list of labels below shows minimum requirements for Writing IVc; the number is up from first semester to automatically collect information that you'll need for your portfolio. I've listed new requirements in bold italics:

• books, essays, links, media, movies, portfolios, photos, quickposts, reviews

• Reminders:
  
• Any number of suitable labels can be used together (separated by commas); &
• Every post must have at least one label attached.
  

The easiest way I can think of to make certain that you have all of the currently required labels is to:

1. Select all of the labels above at once;
2. Copy them into the computer clipboard (Ctrl+C);
   
3. Create a temporary new post on your blog entitled "Required Labels";
4. Before you publish that temporary new post, click in the "Labels for this post" field;
5. Paste all of the labels above into the labels field of your temporary post (Ctrl+V); &
6. Save the post, temporarily.

After you have saved that temporary post with all the required labels attached, please check the list of labels in your blog sidebar to make certain that all of the required labels appear. If the required labels do not appear, you may need to publish your required labels post.

Then correct any similar but inaccurate labels visible in the sidebar - on individual posts. The lab. assistants or I can show you how to do this, but we'll expect you to complete the process yourself. When you have finished checking and correcting all of your labels as necessary, you can open and save that temporary post as a draft (keep it; you may need it again).

Settings

A laboratory assistant or I will help you find and confirm the following settings:

• Backlinks (enabled);
  
• Comment Moderation (OFF!);
• Page Displays (last two weeks); &
  
• Security Measures:
  
• Unlisted blogs,
  
• Comments from registered Bloggers only, &
  
• Word verification (ON!).

There may be a few other settings that you need to check. I may remember them after breakfast, or before class. So please review this post later.

[783 words]

Comment Feed Recipe for Sidebars

• [YourBlogURL]/feeds/comments/default/?alt=rss

Above is a quick and easy recipe that can use to add a comment feed to your sidebar. You can use a feed like that in your sidebar to display recent community activity on your blog.

Note: I added the "?alt=rss" bit to the end of the default feed, because the add a feed tool in the Blogger layout preview didn't recognize the default feed address.

All you need to do to add a recent comments feed to your sidebar is:

1. Replace "[YourBlogURL]" in the recipe above with your complete blog URL, starting with the "http://..." part;
2. Open your Blogger Dashboard;
3. Click on the "Manage: ... Layout" link in your Dashboard;
4. Click on "Add a Page Element" link in the sidebar preview;
5. Click on the "Add To Blog" button for the Feed tool;
   
6. Paste in your comment feed URL; then
   
7. Click "Continue" to fine-tune the feed settings!

I decided to display short previews of the five most recent comments, with links, dates and authors included.

[174 words]

Book review headings, numbering & labels

Hello, everyone! I'd like to reiterate and expand upon notes about subject headings and labels for book review posts:

You should check the sample [subject] headings for book reviews in this April 25 post, and then revise all of yours accordingly.

You also should label each book review that you do with the label "books" plus another label for the genre. For more about labeling other kinds of posts, please review my "Quick tip on labels for blog posts", and Blogger's "How do I label my posts?"

Then make certain that your blog Layout is set to display in the sidebar the labels that you have used (Dashboard: Manage: Layout: Add element: Labels).

(pab's comment on Masaru's Book report 1, 2007.05.16)

Please pay particular attention to the numbering system. Here's the breakdown:

• Book review 1-nn: ... [+ short title] - first semester book reviews from 01 to 99;
• Book review 2-nn: ... [+ short title] - second semester book reviews from 01 to 99

Further, please include short book titles at the end of book review subject headings, for example:

• Book review 1-05: Vampire Killer

If you include short titles, visitors may recognize books that they've read, too, and want to read and comment on your reviews.

Blog on!