Thursday, April 17, 2008

What is a blog?

What is a blog? A blog can be considered many different things to different people and it also depends on the situation at which the blog is being used. Some people may use a blog to comment about news, current events or even just about movies or book reviews. There are also personal blogs, corporate blogs and some blogs focus on a certain subject.

When a person writes a personal blog it is often an ongoing diary about their life. Some people will also create blogs if they are on vacation or living in another country for a period of time. Writing on the blog will allow that person to communicate with friends and family on their daily adventures. Though personal blogs are not often read by many, it gives the author their own personal satisfaction.

Corporate blogs can be used for internal use to create a greater communication between its workers. An internal blog can help a business or corporation update their employees on new developments and it also allows employees to communicate with each other and discuss new developments. It may also be used for external use such as marketing or PR purposes.

Blogs may also be created to focus on certain subjects such as political blogs, travel blogs, fashion blogs, music blogs and the list can go on forever. Blogs such as theses bring people with the same interest together. It gives them a chance to express their feelings without being judged. It also allows a person to argue their point with someone who shares different ideas.

Before this class I had never blogged before and was really not fully aware of what blogging entailed. After almost a whole semester of blogging for our class, I gained a greater understanding of what blogging means to me and learned that blogging can be used for a variety of different reasons. We did over twenty different blogs throughout the semester and all displayed a new form of how a blog can be used.

We blogged about short stories, other classmates blogs, other websites and a variety of other forms of blogs. Each blog gave me the chance to broaden my perspective on a certain subject. For example, when we were asked to blog on a website using the CRAPP test it gave me a chance to look deeper into what the content is being placed on a website and how to tell whether the content is factual or not.

Blogging with the class allowed me to get an insight how my other classmates viewed the readings and often broadened my view of thinking. Reading others blogs brought different ideas that I would normally not think about. I also enjoyed commenting on other peoples blogs and I also liked receiving blog responses from my other classmates as well as the instructor. Receiving blog responses pointed out to me my strengths in my writing as well as areas I could work on. Receiving the instructor’s comments often gave me confirmation that I am writing on the right tract or maybe how I may have missed the idea of the assignment.

I enjoyed blogging for the most part, though there were times when we were required to write a certain amount and I had to think real hard about how to accomplish the required writing amount. I also enjoyed blogging much more than having to turn in homework assignments. Not only for the reason that many have mentioned, that it saves paper but also because it felt less like homework and more of me expressing my views and opinions for others to share. After this class I highly doubt I will continue to blog on my own page but if there is ever a time in my life where blogging skills are needed I will now I will be able to fulfill those skills due to the practice I have had in this class.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

"Discrimination is a Virtue" and the Democratic Election

The current Democratic presidential nomination race includes two nominees that are often considered a "minority" in today's political system. Senator Hilary Clinton an Senator Barack Obama are the two candidates. Clinton is a white female while Obama is an African American male. I feel that just because both of these candidates are of a minority in the political world, people are cautious not to show "discrimination" towards them. According to Robert Keith Miller in his essay, "Discrimination is a Virtue" he writes that discrimination does not always have to relate to racism but is also means the "ability to tell differences." This is important to remember during the election. Just because the candidates are a female and African American does not mean we should not discriminate their political views. As Miller says, "The ability to make intelligent judgments is essential both for the functioning of society and as a whole."

Global Warming Visual

For my extended argument, I am writing about the debate of global warming. The above graph shows the changes in global temperature, sea level and Northern Hemisphere snow cover. The graph shows that from the years 1850-2000, global temperature and the sea level have increased while the Northern Hemisphere snow cover has decreased. Such information would be useful in my paper in that it shows that there has been a change in our climate which helps support the idea that global warming does exist

Negatives About Prospectus

  1. What are some ways the students plagiarized?
  2. Give more detail about the topics that will be discussed in the paper.
  3. Not a very strong thesis in introduction paragraph.