Feb | 18 | 2008

Bloggers Don’t Really Write Much At All?

Posted by Jimmy as Blog Tutorials News, Opinion, Writing

While going about my daily Internet browsing, I stumbled upon a blog called Writing for the Web. Of course, it caught my attention as that is exactly what I am doing. The latest entry had me flying across the Web, though, in search of the original article that the blogger was talking about. Even right now, I am feeling a mixture of emotions, after reading through the article.

So what is this all about? Sarah Boxer writes about being given a “dreadful” idea for a book – that was, to create an anthology of blogs. In her article, she explains what a blog is and describes its nature:


Reading blogs, it’s pretty clear, is not like reading a newspaper article or a book. Blog readers jump around. They follow links. They move from blogs to news clips to videos on YouTube, and they do it more easily than you can turn a newspaper page. They are always getting carried away—somewhere. Bloggers thrive on fragmented attention and dole it out too—one-liners, samples of songs, summary news, and summary judgments. Sometimes they don’t even stop to punctuate. And if they can’t put quite the right inflection on a sentence, they’ll often use an OMG (Oh my god!) or an emoticon, e.g., a smiley face :-) or a wink ;-) or a frown :-( instead of words. (Tilt your head to the left to see the emoticons here.)

Alright, there is some truth to that, I agree. However, this line just really got me:

Many bloggers really don’t write much at all. They are more like impresarios, curators, or editors, picking and choosing things they find on line, occasionally slapping on a funny headline or adding a snarky (read: snotty and catty) comment. Some days, the only original writing you see on a blog is the equivalent of “Read this…. Take a look…. But, seriously, this is lame…. Can you believe this?”

Again, there is a grain of truth here and I believe that working on our writing is the only way to prove this statement wrong. It is such a sweeping statement that does not do us – bloggers – any justice. I could go on and on about this but I think I’ll just go about my business and go on writing fantastic blog entries that are nothing like what is described in the article. What say you?

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Comment (1)

One Response

  1. Fausto Ponce

    19|Feb|2008

    Funny, I read that articule too (it’s was published in spanish, in a mexican newspaper), and gave the same feeling. I think it has some interesting ideas, but I think it’s the look of an outsider who doesn’t quite understand the bloggin bussines: blogs can be a powerful tool for writers and other people who wants and have to say something, ok, some blogs don’t say anything, but there is a lot of interesting stuff too.

  


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