How to publicly reflect on your thoughts.
That’s the phrase I continually wondered about this weekend, and without a clear answer, I’ve been a little weary of writing this post. That, and finals are coming up, so I’ve got a bit on my plate. But no excuses. I’ve given it enough consideration so if I don’t begin now this is never going to happen.
Have you ever had someone read your work over your shoulder while you type? Or edit your essay while you’re sitting right in front of them? That’s kind of what blogging feels like because everything I say is now public and under the scrutiny of whoever stumbles to my page. All eyes can access it. I mean even though (usually) no one’s actually there to critique your carefully chosen words, it feels weird, to say the least. An out of body experience where what once was only shared with few, (private journaling), can now be viewed by anyone who remotely cares about the topics I discuss here.
So i guess that’s the very first thing I noticed when blogging online versus handing in an essay to a teacher. Having an audience is so much more real now. You are no longer an abstract figment of my imagination, but physical human beings who can leave comments and suggestions, which also are viewed publicly. What I am doing as a blogger is more than sharing my thoughts. I am opening up an ongoing, facilitated conversation.
That being said, this is still a place for me to express my thoughts, but it’s just as important to think about how I word my thoughts. Instead of limiting my writing, blogging pushes me in a direction that forces me to be succinct, eloquent, calculated, open-minded, etc etc. Though it can be kind of challenging, I’m really starting to enjoy it.
My previous post, Let’s Talk Race. And Education, started off as an 8 page paper that I had originally turned in for my writing class at SCU. After being tasked with turning it into a blog post, I felt pretty stumped. Semi-intellectual, professional ranting on large, controversial topics, is a serious task.
But after doing a reverse outline, I was able to really categorize the various topics I had touched upon, and it came down to two major topics that I thought would be important to cover.
- Race: What was I going to say about race? Why did I feel the need to talk about race? How can I describe the feeling of being a minority to someone who’s never been in my situation, without sounding angry?
- Education: I’ve been lucky enough to have grown up in an area that provided top-notch education, starting from elementary school. How do I analyze it without sounding ungrateful or harsh?
And most of all, how do I take the complex connection made between these two topics in my essay, and convert them to blog form?
After a lot of trial and error, I thought it would be best to point out simply, that different people all have different privileges. Whether you’re white, Asian, Indian, disabled, straight, cisgendered, or anything else, what you go through in your daily life will never be the same as what anyone else goes through. Point is, different kinds of privileges exist, but we must be willing to acknowledge them first before talking about anything else. Instead of starting with a whole thesis, I got right to the point I was trying to make. I used everything from bolded words to short paragraphs. i also found myself taking out a lot of the explaining because my condensing my essay meant keeping only the most crucial parts.
Following that discussion, I began to make my assertions about why certain minority groups need more help than others. It all goes back to that privilege thing. People with less privileges (doesn’t only have to be based on race) should get more help when it comes to improving their social welfare via education. And that’s all fine and dandy.
What I really wanted to get at, though, was my third and final point: diversity. So, I went from talking about privilege to urging everyone to include more diversity in their own definitions of “multi-cultural.”
After getting all my points down, I proceeded to keep my audience awake via links to other interesting articles beyond my word count, and pictures that showed my point. These pictures made my ranting surprisingly clear, so after a long paragraph, I made sure to include one or two. The one [hyperlink] that I found to be the most effective would have to be making an analogy of white privilege using Mario Kart blue shells. The first time I saw the picture myself, it definitely made a big impact (hence the reason why I chose to include it). I’m hoping it wasn’t offensive but it truly makes a strong statement.
Continuing the usage of helping images, I used two pictures of “diversity” to illustrate the need for more inclusion of all races. I thought that they did a much better job of explaining the situation than I could, in a way that you all could understand. I found the value in adding in many more pictures, and the result was certainly different from the 8 page essay I turned into my professor.
Overall, both blogging and writing formal essays have their own importance- hopefully this post gave you an insight on what it’s like to convert between the writing styles. As I continue posting, I’m sure I’ll face a lot more obstacles, but without a doubt, they’ll be overcome.
See you next quarter!
Links:
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/4332722/jimmy-fallon-conversation-o.gif
http://cdn1.matadornetwork.com/blogs/1/2014/03/writer-moments13.gif
http://authorkimberlyknight.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/writing-bad.gif
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q5j3jizOL60/VV52DuTGcaI/AAAAAAAAIUQ/ZGG6FzWp0pw/s1600/tmhnks.gif
