Since my topic for the Literature Review Assignment is the Science of Blogging, I think it would be really interesting if I created a blog post to examine the topic. Ms. Soble has a personal blog that she mentioned my study in, with approval from a parental unit and myself, and received a response by a certain individual who mentioned pamphlets. Now, I’m not exactly sure what he meant, but the thought came to me: Is a blog the new pamphlet? To answer this question, we must ask the computer what a blog is.
So I don’t bore, short and sweet will be the name of the game. Blog stands for web log, certainly applicable given the function of a blog. Users make “posts” and often times, readers are able to comment back. Ergo, blogs are an interactive and easy way to develop one’s knowledge of a topic from multiple points of view. For me, blogging proves a place of personal reflection on the books I've read. Now that I have teamed up with SuperBlogger Soble, my blog may even be teeming with members of the blogging community who will express their own thoughts. So that is blogging, a rich, interactive, exciting new world in which I will leave my mark on the world forever, likely an insignificant mark, but still a mark all the same.
Christopher Young wrote an article titled In Defense of Literary Blogs, in which he fights to make clear that blogs are essentially wicked awesome. Young implies that the blogging world, despite its abundance of sloppy writers, is still worth the attention. Each viewpoint provides a unique and exciting look into the mind of a human being. Rather than consider the blogging world a junkyard that yields an occasional gem, consider it a bag of gems that yields an occasional piece of rare black opal. What people fail to realize, Young believes, is that blogs play a huge role in bringing inspiring literature to the internet, an otherwise stark wasteland of facts and porn which, trust me, doesn’t hold a candle to the orgasmic and educational literary blogs.
To conclude, a blog is like a microphone; it allows you to amplify your voice. When everyone speaks through their microphone at the same time, it is hard to hear a consistent statement. Which is what makes blogs so great, we hear snippets of so many different conversations that, in the end, we are left with more questions than answers. And since curiosity stems from questions, by transitive property (if this were math), blogs intensify curiosity! Which is really quite ironic because don’t we turn to blogs for an answer, a reassurance in some field, that what we are thinking is not being thought solely by us, but by others? That we are not alone in the world of thought. And blogs, in their damning way, confirm that we are not alone, but raise a whole new set of questions within us that increases tenfold our search for some sort of verification that we are not
What is a blog?
So I don’t bore, short and sweet will be the name of the game. Blog stands for web log, certainly applicable given the function of a blog. Users make “posts” and often times, readers are able to comment back. Ergo, blogs are an interactive and easy way to develop one’s knowledge of a topic from multiple points of view. For me, blogging proves a place of personal reflection on the books I've read. Now that I have teamed up with SuperBlogger Soble, my blog may even be teeming with members of the blogging community who will express their own thoughts. So that is blogging, a rich, interactive, exciting new world in which I will leave my mark on the world forever, likely an insignificant mark, but still a mark all the same.
Christopher Young wrote an article titled In Defense of Literary Blogs, in which he fights to make clear that blogs are essentially wicked awesome. Young implies that the blogging world, despite its abundance of sloppy writers, is still worth the attention. Each viewpoint provides a unique and exciting look into the mind of a human being. Rather than consider the blogging world a junkyard that yields an occasional gem, consider it a bag of gems that yields an occasional piece of rare black opal. What people fail to realize, Young believes, is that blogs play a huge role in bringing inspiring literature to the internet, an otherwise stark wasteland of facts and porn which, trust me, doesn’t hold a candle to the orgasmic and educational literary blogs.
To conclude, a blog is like a microphone; it allows you to amplify your voice. When everyone speaks through their microphone at the same time, it is hard to hear a consistent statement. Which is what makes blogs so great, we hear snippets of so many different conversations that, in the end, we are left with more questions than answers. And since curiosity stems from questions, by transitive property (if this were math), blogs intensify curiosity! Which is really quite ironic because don’t we turn to blogs for an answer, a reassurance in some field, that what we are thinking is not being thought solely by us, but by others? That we are not alone in the world of thought. And blogs, in their damning way, confirm that we are not alone, but raise a whole new set of questions within us that increases tenfold our search for some sort of verification that we are not
Hi, Solomon --
ReplyDeleteI am also enthusiastic about Christopher Young's thoughts about literary blogs. I would hate to think that the only people who could get involved in conversations about literature were the ones who wrote really well. I have never thought that writing well was a necessary condition for loving to read and to think about what one is reading.
So your post has me thinking a lot about multiple intelligence educational theory and the fact that various people are naturally inclined to be more adept at learning and expressing themselves in particular ways that may not be linguistic. As Howard Gardner explains, we all have these various intelligences, though some may be weaker or stronger in us for all kinds of reasons. That said, intelligence -- and intelligences -- can always be enhanced through instruction, practice, feedback, etc.
The reason I mention this is I have this theory that people who are out there reading literature and loving to read it may be expressing their love of it, and their interpretations of it, not in writing at all. Maybe someone at this moment is painting a mural on a city wall that's about what Howard's End means to him her.
All of this is my way of saying that I welcome blogs as a place where people can say something, mean something, and communicate it to others in some way, even if they don't communicate it PERFECTLY. Something still gets across, is shared, provides food for thought.
Thanks, Solomon, for posting! JSS