12 March, 2007

Hot Text: Concepts from Chapters 1-16

Considering I have been catching on to this blog thing, the chapter from the Hot Text textbook have been commone sense. Chapters 1-4 talked about knowing the audience. I you do not know the audience, you will have a very vague idea what to write about.

This blog is for a class and includes students and a professor, I write about topics that may interest them. You also have to make sure you have fun, learn from what you are writing about, be aware of how it will affect you, and get close to people whom you write for. The next important step for a blog would be the structure of it and paying attention to what you are writing about.

Chapters 5-10 discuss the importance of cutting away unnecessary details, using a before and after concept, seperating the blog into paragraphs, and using simple words. If you do not put the text into seperate paragraphs, the reader will not want to read anything that you typed. It gets boring. Next is including some vizualization of text. In chapter 6 the textbook talks about is seeing if the title can survive out of context. An example: "Shark eats man at Venice Beach".
Announcing a new topic can also keep the reader interested. But to make sure they have your full attention, use bold, italicized, key words, links, and phrases.

When you are creating a blog, use the most important information and establish credibility from where you may have recieved your information. It is also bad to stray far off the topic of the blog. If you stray, the reader may not have an easy transition to the previous conversation.

Distinctive paragraphs help connect the dots from one paragraph to another and make an easy transition. It is best to start with the summary or conclusion, and if you say "no"- say why.

Chapter 10 talks about adding visual proof to your blog such as, menus, graphs, tables, maps, and different levels of the context. Another important concept is perceiving stability when it comes to the blog. Instead of keep changing the background, keep it the same. Not only does it make the website or blog look neater, it is also easier to navigate.

In Chapter 11-16, the textbooks focuses on blog genre's. When topics are being explained, it is best to have questions and answers wtih the reference included. Defining confusing terms for the readers show that you care if they read your blog or not. With a blog, you have the options of expressing your own ideas, and you are able to use quotations from famous people or even yourself. The important lesson to being a good blogger is putting emotion and attitude of your own into your work.