{"id":49,"date":"2017-03-16T05:28:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T05:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/?p=49"},"modified":"2017-04-30T05:01:43","modified_gmt":"2017-04-30T05:01:43","slug":"reflection-post-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/2017\/03\/16\/reflection-post-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"From Essay to Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Did I Do?<\/strong> My\u00a0most recent blog post,\u00a0The Best of Technology<\/em>, is a condensed version of a synthesis paper I wrote for my Santa Clara University Critical Thinking and Writing course. My basic approach can be summarized by 4 challenges<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

1) What Medium Are\u00a0You Reading Through?\u00a0<\/strong>This question I just posed was the first thought running through my head. I had to know which medium I was writing in to know which type of audience would be reading it.<\/p>\n

\"\"

It’s Challenging to Choose: Source<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

By asking what medium\u00a0I was writing I was able to tweak my writing tone and gear it towards you: someone who would stubble across my blog. Blogs are looked at by one who has access to the internet. So then, my language had to change. Using formal\u00a0words such as “critical” or “affirm” would make my blog sound boring or possibly lecture-like. I decided to use casual statements like “game-changing” to make my opinions relatable and easily readable.<\/p>\n

In other words, I had to think of addressing a general audience as opposed to a university professor. I was not trying to obtain a grade and instead, I was shooting to get your attention.<\/p>\n

2) Changing The\u00a0Format\u00a0<\/strong>Who reads a blog with paragraphs spanning pages, full of quotations and complex words, and contains no pictures?<\/p>\n

When I examined blogs, I found the ones with large bodies of text less appealing. I did not even try to read them, I\u00a0just turned them down. Now, take a look at the picture below:<\/p>\n

\"\"

I’d Pass on Reading This: Source<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Here, I chose to use a\u00a0Wikipedia<\/a>\u00a0article of World War II just to prove my point. I would\u00a0not (and hopefully you too) want to read all this text about WWII despite my interest in the subject. So then, I took this idea and made sure my blog would not be seen, in regards to formatting, like Wikipedia. Not to throw shade at them, but this how I see the process of going on Wikipedia and even I have done this.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Most people search what they need<\/li>\n
  2. Read the first sentence<\/li>\n
  3. Copy the text<\/li>\n
  4. The End<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In Wikipedia there are just too many unnecessary symbols and paragraphs to explain concepts, so people end up grazing the surface of the information and take the first few sentences. My own essay was much like Wikipedia. In order to not repeat my essay, I cut down on mass texts and incorporated smaller chunks of text.\u00a0Each smaller chunk of text kept my article moving and hopefully did not appear to be as wordy as an eight page paper.<\/p>\n

    3) So What?\u00a0<\/strong>While writing my blog, I found myself struggling\u00a0to identify the\u00a0“So What.” I tried different variations but a thought hit me: Why keep the audience confused? I then employed the one trick I knew would work for my audience which was to say directly what my “So What” is. I wish this worked for essays because now, my audience knows exactly what’s coming.<\/p>\n

    4) The Personal Challenge<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>The most difficult challenge for my first blog post came while trying to condense 2902<\/strong> words into a mere 800<\/b>\u00a0words. I ramble, and the temptation was to go on and on typing away my thoughts. It was quite tough not to, but by focusing on the topic geared towards technology, I knew how to format my post.<\/p>\n

    \"\"

    And Now, The Challenge Begins: Source<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

    Instead of writing long pages of text explaining how intellect and technology go hand-in-hand, I decided to focus primarily on the technology theme. I went\u00a0further in-depth into answering this question broadly: Is technology good or bad?<\/p>\n

    Not having to focus as\u00a0much on the intellect theme of my paper led me to research more, which helped me discover more additional points that were more effective for a blog post instead of an essay.<\/p>\n

    One example was when I used the photo by Eric Pickersgill<\/a>, which effectively showed how technology was overused, even in places it should not belong. Plus, this was a picture, and most of us know the saying, “a picture speaks a thousand words,” right?<\/p>\n

    Surprise! Last Opinions\u00a0<\/strong>In all, I have tried to ignore the letter grade in the end of this assignment. I never thought blogging, or the process of drafting, could be so entertaining. I get to express my thoughts, hope people will see them, and then know I have shared my opinion. While I guess part of me does this for the attention, some parts are just in for the fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What Did I Do? My\u00a0most recent blog post,\u00a0The Best of Technology, is a condensed version of a synthesis paper I wrote for my Santa Clara University Critical Thinking and Writing course. My basic approach can be summarized by 4 challenges. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1918,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"gutentor_comment":2,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"cgong","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/author\/cgong\/"},"qubely_comment":2,"qubely_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"What Did I Do? My\u00a0most recent blog post,\u00a0The Best of Technology, is a condensed version of a synthesis paper I wrote for my Santa Clara University Critical Thinking and Writing course. My basic approach can be summarized by 4 challenges. … Continue reading →","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1918"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/cgong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}