Focus!

Blogging requires focus!   Before we begin each blog post, we need to have a clear and focused idea of what we want to say.  For instance, let’s imagine for a moment, that we are starting a blog about buttons.  Let’s say, we have decided that our intended audience members are button collectors, and that they are interested in antique handmade buttons as well as buttons made from natural materials.

Developing our imaginary scenario a little further, let’s imagine that we have recently taken a trip to Indonesia, where we visited antique stores, second hand stores, and village markets, and we have arrived home with a new-to-us collection of a little over a thousand buttons.  Before we start writing, we will have to decide where to begin the story and how to focus our blog post. 

When writing as activists, we have much the same task.  We have already discussed the ideas of defining and imagining our audience, coming to terms with that they need to know first, and arranging our essays in a way that puts what needs to be first, first. We further have looked at developing credibility, making introductions, and using hypertext to help educate our readers.

To further improve our blog posts, we need to check our focus.  If we were writing about buttons, perhaps we would be focusing on wood buttons from Jakarta.  It might be easy to get distracted, in our enthusiasm, and include information on wood buttons from other areas.  And once we had ventured into a new area, we might find ourselves writing about some of the fabulous carved and polished bone buttons we found there.  Then, as one thought lead to another, our essay might wander across a broad range of topics and places.  Our readers might be entertained; however, they would not be much wiser on wood buttons from Jakarta.

As blogging activists, in our first drafts, there may be ideas, words, phrases, whole sentences, and even entire paragraphs that veer away from our focus.  Sometimes those distracting elements are actually the best writing in the draft.  Even when they are brilliant, however, they need to be cut.  Don’t despair, they can be pasted into a new .doc for use in an essay all their own. 

In my own writing, I ask myself repeatedly, “What are you trying to say?” This helps me keep some focus as I compose.  Then as I start the self-editing process, I repeat to myself over and over again, focus, focus, focus.  Sometimes that means, cut, cut, cut; rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. 

Further, focus is also something that we need to keep in mind when we seek feedback from friends and collaborators.  If they aren’t experienced writers themselves, they often won’t understand the need to focus.  They may come to the process with an agenda of their own, and in trying to promote their own agenda they may seek to direct your essay in a whole new direction.  This can be awkward, but it can be managed.  Let them know ahead of time what the focus is and what you are trying to accomplish.

If someone should persist in their desire to steer you off your focus, one possible response is to tell them they have a brilliant idea, and that the two of you ought to get together and collaborate on it in the near future.Then remind them that for this blog post the focus is on wood buttons from Jakarta, or whatever the case may actually be.  The end result, hopefully, is a blog post that is informative and educational, and leaves the reader feeling that they learned something interesting and useful. 

In our case, in the case of activists who use blogging effectively, the end result may be an understanding of what is necessary to create a better world.  And that, of course, is our ultimate goal.

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Our steps continue to develop: 

1.   Imagine your audience.

2.   Ask what they need to know first.

3.   Draft your post, putting first things first, remembering your focus, and checking facts and collecting sources as you go.

4.    Make certain that you have adequately introduced the people you are quoting, paraphrasing, or discussing, and that you are prepared to make necessary hyperlinks.

5.    Read and reread your draft, cutting, revising, and rewriting as necessary; with an eye and ear out to maintain your focus.

6.    Seek constructive criticism from someone who is either a member of your audience or who understands them. Be clear with them about your focus.

7.    Rewrite as necessary.

8.    Repeat steps six and seven until you have it dialed in.

9.    Gather any additional needed documentation for establishing or maintaining your credibility.

10.  Stay tuned.  More tips are forthcoming.

 

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Questions and constructive criticism welcome!

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Developing Credibility

Blogs are often suspect, when it comes to evaluations of credibility, simply because they are blogs.  This, of course, is unfair.  The reason activists so often turn to blogging, is because of the total lack of fair and unbiased reporting in the mainstream media.  However, the way the masses tend to think, biased corporate media is intrinsically credible, and blogs are not. This means, as bloggers, that we must work harder at establishing credibility than the dishonest mainstream media does.   

Rigorous fact checking is essential.  Repeating false statistics, misattributed or misquoted statements, or totally biased and potentially falsified news and historical accounts will ruin our credibility before we have written our second blog post.  If we want to be believed we must make sure we are believable.

With the Internet at our fingertips, we can fact check almost anything.  (And that means that our readers can as well, and they probably will.)  We can look up the meaning of words, the dates of certain events, statistics of every type, news stories, firsthand accounts, and more.  Quotes can be copied and plugged into search engines, YouTube can be searched for videos posted by citizen journalists.  There is absolutely no reason to include any information that would destroy credibility in our blog posts.

Proving our credibility is also an easy matter.  We can hyperlink words in our blog post to our sources and our documentation.  Or we can use asterisks or numbers to refer readers to a list of sources and documentation at the end of the essay.  There are many different styles and formats for citing sources.   Any that you have been trained to use are certainly acceptable for use on a blog.  However, if you haven’t been trained in a particular style, don’t worry.  Blog writing is a fairly informal art.  Just make sure you include enough information for people to find your sources and do some fact checking of their own.

In all cases, it is a good idea to evaluate how credible your source material is.  When it comes to Internet sources, look over some of their citations as well.  Fair or not, your credibility will be judged, in part, by the quality of your sources and your documentation. This will have a direct bearing on how effective your writing is towards educating people about your cause, so be careful!

Using a variety of source materials can be a  good strategy, depending on the focus of the blog post.  Information from books, news sources, and citizen journalists can all be effectively combined, when appropriate.  In addition, using news stories from a variety of outlets is a good idea.  If all the news outlets and other sources you cite have a similar and consistent bias on the issues, your writing will likely be judged as biased as well.  Source from a good mix of outlets whenever possible.

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Our steps are getting a little more complicated: 

1.  Imagine your audience.

2.  Ask yourself what they need to know first.

3.  Draft your post, putting first things first, and checking facts and collecting sources as you go.

4.  Make certain that you have adequately introduced the people you are quoting, paraphrasing, or discussing, and that you are prepared to make necessary hyperlinks.

5.  Seek constructive criticism, from someone who either is a member of your audience, or who understands them. 

6.  Rewrite as necessary.

7.  Repeat steps five and six until you have it dialed in.

8.  Gather any additional documentation in anticipation of setting up your blog post.

9.  Stay tuned.  More tips are forthcoming.

 

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Questions and constructive criticism welcome!

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Introductions May Be Needed

When we write about a person, or even when we simply need to mention someone in our writing, we always need to keep our 'audience’ in mind.  As mentioned in the post, First Things First, it is useful to imagine a particular person as part of the audience. A real person can be thought of or a completely made up person.  They just need to represent the actual people we hope to educated or inform.  Once you have your audience in mind, ask yourself, honestly, if they are familiar with the person you are going to mention, quote or write about.

Some iconic personalities need little or no introduction.  Think of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela, for instance.  They are well known in many parts of the world.  If you can safely assume that your readers are well acquainted with the person in question, you can certainly skip an introduction, just as you would skip introductions at a small meeting or social occasion where everyone knew each other.  However, in certain circles or for certain audiences, there may be some people who might not be familiar with, say, Martin Luther King, for instance.

For a commonly known person, where only a few readers may need  an introduction, simply hyperlinking a web site or a previous blog post to their name is sufficient, i.e.:  Martin Luther King Jr..  On the other hand, if the person is less well known, a more proper introduction may be in order.  For example, Rashid Kahlidi, editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, and past President of the Middle East StudiesAssociation, is the author of numerous books on Palestine and the Middle East.    In his controversial title, The Iron Cage, he states that  . . .   

Having amply introduced Rashid Kahlidi, including hyperlinks to information that will help readers  place him in context to the issues, and having identified where the information that is to be quoted or paraphrased originated, we are ready to move ahead with our essay.

Using and fact checking quotes, and developing credibility will be covered in up-coming posts!

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Our steps are getting a little more complicated: 

1.  Imagine your audience.

2.  Ask yourself what they need to know first.

3.  Draft your post, putting first things first.

4.  Make certain that you have adequately introduced the people you are quoting, paraphrasing, or discussing, and that you have included appropriate hyperlinks.

5.  Seek constructive criticism, from someone who either is a member of your audience, or who understands them. 

6.  Rewrite as necessary.

7.  Repeat steps five and six until you get it dialed in. 

8.  Stay tuned.  More tips are forthcoming.

 

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Questions  and constructive criticism welcome!

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Hyperlinking!

A hyperlink is simply a clickable link that takes you to more information, exactly like the word 'hyperlink' in this sentence.  When words are used as hyperlinks they are often called hypertext.  Hyperlinking words or phrases in your blog post is a great way to provide your readers with more information, to share your sources, and to provide you and your writing with the credibility you need.

In Google Blogger, hyperlinking the text in your blog is fairly simple and straightforward.  Let’s get started!  Looking at your draft blog post in edit mode, decide which word or words you want to turn into a link.  It may be a person’s or organizations name, a historical event, or even possibly a quote.  You can also use text to form a link to your facebook page, website, or another post on your own blog.

Next, in another tab, find the website or previous blog post that you want the link to connect to.  Once you are on that page, at the top, right under the tabs for all the websites you have open, you will see a long narrow white space that has text in it.  Typically that text begins with ‘http://www.’  That space is called the address bar, and the text is called a URL.  Using your mouse, highlight the entire URL in the address bar, right click it, and select and click on the word ‘copy’ from the popup menu.

Now click back to the tab where your draft blog post is.  Using your mouse, highlight the text you want to hyperlink to the copied URL.  Once it is highlighted, look up at the blog tools, which are right above your blog text box and right below where your blog subject line goes.  Click on ‘Link,’ paste your copied URL into the space where it says ‘Web Address,’ which is right below where it says, ‘To what URL should this link go?’   Next click the box that says ‘Open this link in a new window,’ then click ‘OK,’ and you’re done! 

Hyperlinks are easy and fun!

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Questions and constructive criticism welcome!

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