Getting Started

Starting essays will never be a task I get excited about. I typically put the paper off until the night before it is due, then blankly stare at the word document that only has two words on it (my first and last name). I think really hard for five minutes then take a five minute phone break, allowing this to go on and on until the right words come to me. This blog post was no exception. I had never written a blog so deciding how I wanted to approach the assignment was difficult for me. Blogs are also entirely different from essays so I knew I couldn’t develop my argument the same way I did in my essay. I decided to reread my essay a few times and pinpoint the ideas I wanted to draw upon in my blog post.

 Source: WikiClipArt

Blogging An Essay

I assumed this assignment would be extremely hard and require a lot of effort to make a blog post powerful like an essay but casual like a conversation. Although, once I got my ideas straight and started writing, the assignment was not too difficult. I knew what I wanted to say, however making the same argument with the allotted word account was challenging. Turning a 6 page paper into an 800 word blog required a great deal of condensing, editing, and summarizing. Being able to link evidence made things a bit easier because quoting every text from every source would require many more words to be used.

 Source: Hover

For me personally, I struggled with the essay more than the blog. Gender roles in homosexual relationships is not a common topic to relate to education, especially for someone who has no previous knowledge of the issue. I had to educate myself first on what I would be writing about before I could even make a case that what I was writing is something I firmly believe in. Therefore, developing a strong argument, that also made sense, took some time. Turning that essay into a blog was a bit easier because all the hard work had already been done and my sources were readily available.

The Fun Stuff

There were a few things I enjoyed while making this page. I liked fooling around with my online voice in my introductory post and tried to give my writing some personality. It’s always impressed me how great authors can incorporate humor or unique word play to spark interest and give the reader a sense of what the author is like.

 Source: Epilepsy Association

I also enjoyed designing the page however I pleased and picking visuals that appealed to me and improved my work. I was always that little kid who looked at the pictures rather than reading the book so being able to pick images that I liked was fun for me. Looking at other people’s blog designs and images was cool too to get a feel for how other students went about their blog.

Overall this was one of my favorite assignments this quarter and is a good way to get students to practice different forms of writing. It also allows individuals to learn more about themselves as writers and incorporate a more opinion-based voice into their text.