Additional Proto-Portfolio Items

For fall semester this year (2008-09), I'd like you to add two additional items to your proto-portfolio listings:

1. Original audio (line 14), and
   
2. Original video (line 15).
   

After you add those two new rows, below "posts with media" (line 13), please extend the calculated totals column from line 13 to line 15 (column H).

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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

Favorite Place(s): Brainstorm 02a

Quiet
Few or no other people
Sky
Stars
Clouds
Grass
Flowers
Comfortable chair
Cool (not hot) or cold
Fresh, crisp, cool or cold air
Cold beer or mulled wine
Music
Bluegrass
animals: birds, humming birds, insects, worms, cockroaches, spiders

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Favorite place(s): Brainstorm 01

These words and phrases are the outcomes of approximately 90 seconds of brainstorming, thinking out loud, while typing a list in a word-processing document.

Quiet
Few or no people
Sky
Stars
Grass
Fresh air
Comfortable
Cool (not hot)
Music
Outdoors

[41 words]

WSB 2-01 (2008): More Blogging Advice

Ladies and gentlemen: Welcome to Writing IV!

This Writing Studio Bulletin, WSB 2-01 (2008), is the first for fall semester, 2008-09. Please read it carefully and completely, then take timely actions necessary on your part to follow the advice I'm offering to everyone. Doing so can enhance your participation in on- and off-line activities in Writing IV, §§ 1a and 1c.

Class blog lists

Please read and follow instructions in the notices at the head of these wiki pages:

• Section a1

(http://winkhome.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=lists:2008writing34a1)

• Section c1

(http://winkhome.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=lists:2008writing34c1)

• Note: If you re-activate your blog, or change your blog handle, please let me know right away. If you fail to notify me, in person or in writing, you may miss out on credit for posts or comments.

Catchy blog post titles

As I pointed out in a separate venue earlier today, "Please remember to use accurate, attractive, and informative titles on every post" (pab, 2008.09.24, 10:26). Post titles become parts of the URLs for each post, and will continue to reflect typing mistakes even if you correct them later. Attractive and informative post titles appearing in archives, feeds, and other lists may catch visitors' attention, and interest them enough to read and even comment on your posts.


Spelling and grammar checking (before posting)

Blogger provides a spell-check button in Create Post windows (ABC√). You should use it when drafting, editing, and revising quick posts.

In comment creation windows, Blogger underlines mis-spelled words with red dots. You should correct those before posting, because it is impossible to edit comments in Blogger after you publish them.

For more thorough checking of both grammar and spelling of major posts, such as book reviews or essays, I urge you to draft and edit your posts in a word processor, and use all grammar and spell-check tools available before posting on your blogs.

Comments

Short comments such as "hello" (one I rediscovered today on a reactivated blog) are hardly helpful or informative, so neither the author nor the recipient should include comments like that in tallies for their proto-portfolios.

Please count only substantial (helpful, informative, inquisitive, sympathetic, supportive, ...) comments as in-coming and out-going comments for your proto-portfolios and portfolios. For previous advice on comments, please click on the label "comments" in the sidebar.

Labels (a.k.a. tags): Extending our list

For your upcoming website review essays, please use three or more labels: 1) essays, 2) reviews, and 3) websites, plus any other words or phrases (comma separated) that you are likely to use again to label other posts--past or future! You can add tags to previous posts if you reopen them for editing, and it is easy to reuse previous labels if you toggle the "Show all" link at the foot of post editing windows.

Another label that I now suggest you use on posts that you make in preparation for essays is "essay prep." (without the quotation marks). Posting essay preparation lists or notes, as well as draft essays, can help demonstrate deliberateness and originality in your work. Linking from essays back to drafts or other preparatory posts also may frame or highlight development of your writing skills. The Blogger labeling system allows you to use phrases (two or more words) as labels, as long as you separate them from other labels with commas. To review previous advice on labels, please click on the label "labels" in the sidebar.

Feedback welcome

If you have concerns or questions about any of this advice, or how to implement it, please write them up and share them in comments on this post.

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