You'll do some writing for this class in your individual weblog space on the course website. You can access your weblog by clicking on the "Blogs" link in the sidebar, then by clicking on the "My Blog" link.

One way to think of a weblog or blog is as a journal. However, unlike a journal that you might keep at home (as well as most if not all of the writing you have done in school before), your blog space is public. Your fellow class members will be invited to read your blog. Classmates may respond to your posts with comments and replies. Group members may review notes you take when doing research. And, of course, since it's on the Internet, other Web readers may encounter your writing and take a look at what you have to say.

There are many uses for weblogs, but we'll only use them for a few things here. During this class, you may be asked to use your course weblog to

  • share drafts of your work-in-progress for peer review
  • keep a project log
  • post research notes

    Good Blogging Practices

  • Titles for blog posts should reflect the context of what you have written, not merely restate the name of the title of the assignment or reading. Interesting and informative titles draw more interesting responses from others.
  • Blogs should demonstrate the principles of writing for the Web as they are covered in this course.
  • Good bloggers always keep in mind that they are writing for a public audience.
  • Bloggers link. Use hyperlinks when referring to another post on the public Internet and follow good attribution practices. Hyperlinks mean converting text to a link, not merely cutting and pasting in an URL. To do so, you'll have to know a little HTML for creating hyperlinks. I'll show you some basic HTML in class.

    I will post blog prompts on the course calendar for you to respond to. These will be a part of your Blog points. I will usually post them on Thursday, and your entry will be due on Mondays by 2pm. Pay close attention to the prompts, and make sure you fully address them.

    I will expect your postings to become more sophisticated as we discuss online writing and blogging.

    Each blog post is worth 10 points, and there will be a 70 blog points possible (that's 7 blog posts).

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