Blog settings: Basic to Other

To get to your settings, click on Settings in the sidebar on your blog Overview page. You can also get to your settings from your Dashboard, by opening the drop-down menu next to your blog. 

Below are screenshots of settings that I recommend for blogs you use for Writing III-IV.

Basic Settings: Privacy 

Remember to save your settings, whenever you change them.

Posts and Comments: Comments

Please turn comment moderation ON, and change the default moderation-free time limit to about ... [30] days. That will enable your classmates, your peers, you, and I to see each other's comments and responses online, soon after we post them.

Mobile and Email

If you wish to post via email, I recommend saving mailed posts as drafts, so you can review them and add suitable labels before you publish them. SMS posts are another option.

Language and Formatting

For the sake of learning the English language, yourselves and with classmates and peers, I recommend using English as the display language on your blogs. In any case, please: 

1. Set your blogs to our current time zone; 
2. Use complete date headers with day and year; and
3. Include time stamps on both posts and comments.

Other: Site Feed

Last for now, please make certain that you have enabled full feeds for both posts and comments. That will make it possible for your classmates, peers, and teachers to read your posts quickly and easily in RSS readers such as Google Reader (Getting Started Guide).

[255 words]

Comments Awaiting Moderation

Two people left comments on the Writing Studio Blog towards the end of last month (April), comments that Blogger caught and flagged for moderation. They were on a post on which I had called for comments in February, March, and early April (post and comments).I found their comments Awaiting Moderation under the Comments tab in the Writing Studio Blog dashboard, shown in the picture below.

As you can see in the list above, each comment included no more than one word, "Hello." Yet I wonder why the authors of those comments wrote nothing more, such as "questions about any part of the Writing Studio Blog" (Welcome from Voki), or "what ... [they'd] found [most surprising] as [they'd] looked around the Writing Studio Blog" (follow up comment by pab, April 13, 2011).

If the authors of those as yet unpublished comments are around, I'd like to hear back from them here, on this post (Comments Awaiting Moderation; May 8, 2011). I'd like to get follow-up comments from them, explaining what they were thinking when they made such minimal comments, so long after their classmates and peers had looked around the Writing Studio Blog, and chimed in with interesting and thoughtful comments of their own.

[203 words]

Peer-to-peer comments survey

Thank you again for your responses to my questionnaire about peer-to-peer comments on essays. By the time you read this, I will have invited you to view the underlying spreadsheet and data collection, but as of this morning (Tuesday, November 16, 2010), I stopped accepting responses.


Now I would like to encourage everyone to browse all of the responses, especially those to free response items 8-10 (currently in columns I-K). There you should look, in particular, for common qualities and types of comments that you, your classmates, and your peers appreciate, and ways that you all like to respond to each another.


While you are browsing the entire data collection, there are a number of points of interest and concern to which I would like to direct your attention. I have flagged a few of those points with colors that I've explained in the Color key (currently column M). I'll also explain some of them here.


First of all, you need not be concerned about responses in column B or F that look like dates (B2-B10, F2-F10). Those early responses came in before I realized the spreadsheet automatically changed responses like 1-5 and 6-10 into to a date format that displays 1/5/2010 and 6/10/2010, respectively. Anyone who plans to create surveys with Google Forms should remember to reset formatting on columns for responses like that from "Normal" to "Plain text."


Second, URLs are critical for internet research and formal written references. Even for less formal computer-mediated communication, it is essential to provide URLs pointing exactly where readers of your writing expect to go when they follow links that you give them.


However, in columns C and H there are a few URLs that reflect searches within blogs (for labels) rather than pointing directly to essay posts, for example:

• ....blogspot.com/search/label/essays

There also are a number of URLs that lead directly to comments, bypassing essays proper, for example,

• .....blogspot.com/2010/10/my-language-learning-experience_24.html#comments

There even are a couple URLs more detailed than that, for example:

• ...blogspot.com/2010/10/essay-2-02a.html?showComment=1289352477130#c7270187716401701175

Next you may notice a number of text clippings in columns D and G that include Japanese characters. I believe that the owners of blogs they use for an English writing course are doing themselves, their classmates, and their peers a disservice by leaving their blogs set to display Japanese. So I urge you all to set your blogs to display English most if not all of the time (except perhaps when you are tweaking blog settings), in order to provide yourselves and each other with ample opportunities for English reading as well as writing in this course.


As with URLs, research and written references depend upon accurate and complete data collection from various resources. Yet also in columns D and G are a number of clippings that omit the comment authors' names (blog handles), date stamps for those comments, or both.


Although those omissions are not a major problem for a simple survey such as this one about peer-to-peer comments on essays, the data collection and referencing habits that you start or develop in the Writing Studio will make a difference for future writing assignments and business tasks. It is quicker and easier to get the information readers need or want, and to record and share it accurately once and for all, than it is for you or anyone else to retrieve that information over and over again.


Last but not least is the matter of communicating your ideas in free response items not only clearly and completely yet economically, but also accurately. Machine translations, by and large, fail to produce accurate reflections of anything longer than words or phrases, or other than short simple sentences. So by all means, avoid dependence on machine translations; write short simple sentences that you can check yourselves.


Anything else that you are planning to post (that is, other than brainstorms, quick comments, or quickposts), you should check for grammar and spelling faults in a word-processing program – before you post it. Examples without explanations, or before brief explanations, also may fall flat. For a counter-example, please see: "Second, …" (above). If you approach surveys like this one for coursework as you might approach an online job application for a full-time position in a prestigious company or an important organization, I think you'll have the right mindset for online writing.

[722 words]

Where had all my comments gone?

As I was updating my Proto-Portfolios the other day, I got a strange feeling that the numbers of comments I'd sent out were much lower than they should be (row five). Indeed they were. Although I expected to have missed counting a few odd comments here and there, the total displayed in cell 5K turned out to be off by over a hundred!

What was the problem? I'd been doing my best to remember to toggle the follow-up comment option ON, whenever I started to write a comment on someone else's blog. When that option is ON, before you preview or post, it looks like this if the page display is in Japanese.

Comment window: "Follow-up comments ..." ON

Not only do I get a copy of my out-going comments sent to me by mail, to collect and count monthly for entries on row five [of] Proto-Portfolios spreadsheets, I also receive mail notification of answers to questions or responses to suggestions that I post in comments on other people's blogs. Mail notifications include links that make it easy to follow-up on follow-ups. Forgetting to select that option a few times a semester wasn't the problem.

The problem was searches that I'd used to retrieve mail messages to remind me of comments on other people's blogs were missing a large proportion, more than 80%, of previous comments from first semester. A typical monthly search started like this:

Search terms from English notification message

Today it finally dawned on me why that kind of search had missed so many recent comments. Such searches failed to retrieve mail reminding me of comments that I'd left on blogs whose owners set them to display in Japanese. Sifting through All Mail archives by hand, I discovered numerous automated mail messages with Japanese lead-ins that had been slipping through my searches.

The following search, using the Japanese message lead-in, turned up over a hundred more comments to add to Proto-Portfolio tallies for first semester.

Search terms from Japanese notification message

Granted, it may be possible to refine each of those two searches with additional words or characters, for example, "... new comment [on]" (blogs set to display in English). Nevertheless, I'm satisfied that combined search results reflect the bulk of comments of which I've elected to get follow-up mail notifications.

The key to gathering info. automatically for entries on row five of Proto-Portfolios is still the same: Remember to switch follow-up comment notification ON before posting comments on classmates' and peers' blogs. The same is true for following up easily on written exchanges started or continuing in comments on blog posts: Switch follow-up comment notification ON before posting!

[442 words]

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!

[256 words]

Writing Studio Bulletin: WSB 2-01 (Fall 2009)

This bulletin, the first for fall semester, represents a selection of comments that I've posted on various students blogs. As I suggested in one of the selected comments, I expect anyone who gets such comments directly to share the gist of them with classmates and peers.

This batch of comments includes suggestions touching on six categories of continuing concern:

1. Action Plans for Fall Semester (due September 30, 2009),
2. Book Reviews (12-18+ this semester),
3. Display Language for blogs,
4. Essays,
5. Labels, and
6. Wording.

Please read through them all, and determine what action you should take with regard to your own blog posts. Within those six categories, I've listed comments in reverse chronological order.

Action plans for Fall Semester (due September 30th), including:

• links,
• quotations,
• short references

You [still] need to include references and links to five classmates blogs from which you gathered advice.

(October 7, 2009 16:31:33 JST)

Where are your [quotations and] references with links to suggestions [that] you gleaned from classmates' [1st semester] portfolios (§6.0, July 2009)? Those are a necessary part of this week's blogging assignment.

Please make sure that your buddies' posts include references and cross-links to classmates portfolios, too.

(September 30, 2009 14:19:07 JST)

Book Reviews
Though these two comments date back to last year, the suggestions still apply to many newer book review posts on your blogs this year. So I'm re-posting them here.

After rereading this review, I'm still wondering:

• why you chose to read ... [short title in italics was here],
• whether you'd recommend it to your classmates or peers, and
• why or why not.

Would you mind making your book review(s) a bit more communicative in those regards?

(June 25, 2008 17:18:00 JST)

I'm glad to see you got the book review numbering system going right for first semester. However, in order to encourage the readership of, and comments from classmates and peers with similar interests, it would be better to shorten the prefix (or key string) for all of your book review post titles to "BR", and add part of the actual title, for example:

• BR 1-05: Barney Bear...

Then, if someone sees the word bear in your blog archive, they might want to read (and comment on) what you've written. For example, I love bears, but don't want to have any more close encounters with bears in the wild. How about you?

(May 28, 2008 15:47:53 JST)

Display Language

... Your blog is still set to display a Japanese interface. I suggest that you set it for English right away!

(July 21, 2009 17:41:18 JST)

Essays

... Perhaps a catchier and more descriptive title than the one you've given it would attract readers' interest, and give them some idea what you've written about.

You seem to have left out all of the paragraph divisions ... marked on the paper copy of your initial draft. In electronic documents, such as blog posts, you should insert two line returns between paragraphs. Those create horizontal white spaces to mark topic changes, and lead readers' eyes to topic sentences.

You also have forgotten to include a word count, in square brackets, at the lower left corner of your post (for examples, see posts on the Writing Studio Blog). You need to include a word count on every post for class this year. The sooner you get in the habit, the better!

Please advise your classmates and peers to do the same, always:

• Use catchy, descriptive titles;
• Define paragraph boundaries; and
• Include word counts.

(April 9, 2009 10:19:28 JST)

Labels

This post isn't one of your essays, or mainly about essays, is it?
Would you please reserve the label "essays" for essays proper (2-01a, 2-01b, 2-02a, ...)?

(October 20, 2009 17:15:52 JST)

... I'd like you to reserve the label, "essays," for actual essays (complete drafts and major revisions).

(July 21, 2009 17:41:18 JST)

 This quick post isn't about "health," is it? Why have you used that label on it?

(June 2, 2009 21:20:21 JST)

Wording

Would you please give additional examples of what you mean by "and so on," and "and so on" (2009/07/09 11:56)? It usually takes at least three examples to sketch a category or group.

(July 9, 2009 12:29:51 JST)

[698 words]

Dreadfully Slow Blog-Loading Syndrome

In case you experience dreadfully slow blog-loading syndrome: DreSloBloLoSyn, for short (try saying that three times quickly;-); there are things you can do other than buy a new computer, or find an ISP that offers greater bandwidth. This Blogger Help page explains several steps you can take:

• How can I make my blog load faster?

With all the bells and whistles that some of you have added to your blogs this year (me, too!), that help page may be a timely read.

[83 words]

How to Post via Mail [from your cell phone]

Use a Mail-to-Blogger Address!

///// [end of photo + text message from cell phone: 6 words (not including title)]

A number of students have reported having difficulty making many blog posts each week, partly because they haven't had access to their blogs from computers at home (no computers, or no internet connections). However, this shouldn't be a problem for anyone who has a cell phone (I believe I was the last person in the class to get one;-).

It is a simple matter to set your blog to receive posts via mail. You can find directions here:

• Blogger Help... How do I post via email?

First, at a computer with internet access, you create a mail-in address in your blog Dashboard Settings: Email section from your username and a word you keep secret. While you are in the Mail-to-Blogger Address settings, you should decide whether you want your blog to save posts you send via mail as drafts posts, or to publish them immediately. I chose drafts, because I usually expect to get back on a computer again within a day or two (at most).

I learned how to do this in under five minutes, and had sent a picture to my blog from my phone within 10 more minutes--including time to add the mail-in address to my cell phone book, and to key in a short message, "Use a Mail-to-Blogger Address!" (above). It appeared among my blog posts as a draft:


Sending a cover photo and place-holder title (mail subject), for example: BR 2-10: Common Errors, would be a great way to get book reviews started, especially when you are away from computers, because you can always draft the text of your book reviews on paper to type in as soon as you get back to a computer. So blog on via mail!

[309 words]

Recommended Settings: Formatting

The screenshot on the right shows settings that I recommend for Blogger blog formatting. If you click on the graphic, it will open into a window where you can read the recommended settings easily. You can open and check these settings through your Dashboard (Manage: Settings), on the Settings and Formatting tabs.

• Showing no more than 14 days will help your blogs load faster, for both you and visitors, especially if you have embedded lots of media in your posts.
  
• A full date header is easy to spot, and easy to read.
  
• Months spelled out in the archive index also are easy to read.
• A twenty-four hour timestamp leaves little doubt about the times of day that you usually post on your blogs.
• Along with timestamps (and frequency of posting patterns evident from archives and recent posts on your blogs), a local time zone (JST: GMT+09:00) indicates to blog visitors when you might return and respond to comments that they leave on your blogs.
• Finally, setting your blog language to English will enable visitors unfamiliar with your vernacular (Japanese) to read and respond easily to your posts.

For more recommendations with regard to blogger blog settings, please click on the "settings" label in the sidebar. If you have questions about your blog settings, please ask either in class, or in comments on this post.

[230 words]

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.

[1489 words]

Comment Heads-Ups for You and Blog Visitors

With Recent Comments feed widgets added to your blogs last week (classwork, 2008.04.23, based on the recipe here), you should be almost set to:

1. Keep abreast of what comments you're getting on your blog, and
   
2. Enable your classmates, friends, teachers, peers, and other visitors to do so, too.

The points and settings you should check appear in red in the outlines (lists) below:

• For your posts
  • With visitors' comments

    • Comment Notification: Set in your Dashboard (Settings: Comments)

      • Informs you via gmail.
      
      

      Recent Comments feed that you've built and placed near the top of your sidebar

      • Informs visitors on site.
      
      

      Follow-up comment notification: Visitors select this option before publishing their first comment on one of your posts.

      • Informs previous commentators via gmail.
      
      
      • NOTE: With Comment Notification already ON, you don't need to select this option when you add follow-up comments on your own blog posts.
      
      
      
  • With your follow-ups
    • Recent Comments feed
      • Informs subsequent visitors on site.
      
      
      
    • Follow-up comment notification
      • Informs previous commentators via gmail.

Please make sure to double-check your blog comment settings [Blogger Dashboard: Settings: Comments] to make sure that:

• Comment Moderation is OFF -
  
• Unless you've had problems with comment spam.
• If you have had spam problems, please inform a teacher ASAP.
  

• Word Verification is ON -
  
• To minimize chances of getting machine-generated comment spam.
  

• Comment Notification is ON -
• So you'll be among the first to know when you get new comments!
• If you believe that you've received comment spam, please forward the comment notification message(s) to your teacher's gmail address immediately.

[260 words]

Blog Comment Security & Follow-up Settings

As I was browsing a student's blog today, I noticed that she had not enabled the Word Verification technology for comments on her blog (Dashboard, Settings, Comments).

I urge you all to make sure that you've turned Word Verification ON to avoid getting spammed. When that security technology is on, part of the comment window looks like this, with a string of twisted characters that visitors must type before submitting a comment, for example, "xhhzqtlm" (WordVerification screenshot).


I also recommend restricting who can comment on your blogs to registered users only (CommentsSettings screenshot). This should not trouble you, classmates, or community members who already have Google/Blogger identities (including gmail). If you are logged in already, your username will appear as a ready-made choice in the comment window (LoggedIn, "Choose an identity").



As you may see at the bottom edge of the LoggedIn screenshot, after commenting, logged-in users get an easy to use option to receive comment notification messages whenever blog owners or visitors reply. Just check the box next to "Email follow-up comments" (Follow-upComments screenshot), and you'll get messages with links leading quickly back to the original post where you can continue discussion.

[195 words]

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.

[102 words]

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.

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