Peer Review

Yesterday, we broke up into groups of three to review and edit the blogs of our classmates. I ended up being with two guys: Steve and Liam. We decided to take the first part of our time to check out each others' blogs and read them to ourselves before commenting.

Liam's blog is about his quest to quit smoking, and discusses some common methods to aide the quitting process as well as his own struggles. I was actually very impressed by Liam's blog. The whole thing was interesting, relevant, and aesthetically pleasing. His About Me, especially was very well crafted.

Steve's blog is a lot like mine. His is all about the Miami Dolphins. Like me, he used his team's colors as his layout scheme. I think his looks a lot better than mine, though. His posts are well-written and interesting but general enough that most readers would be able to understand everything.

Steve and Liam both commented that my blog's description was colored pretty poorly. I actually had intended to change this but never actually gotten around to it. Their advice spurred me to fix it right then, it made a huge difference. They also both addressed the conflict I wrote about earlier, about being too general vs. being too specific. Their feelings somewhat echoed mine... they agreed that casual viewers would be confused, but that my actual, serious (potential) readers would prefer it the way it is.

"Filler" Posts?

Although I originally intended to write about anything and everything Manchester United, I must admit that the only time I feel compelled to make a post is after United plays a match. After United plays, they're at the forefront of my mind. I have so many reactions to the match including thoughts about how individual players performed and the strategies we used. Because of this, I feel like my post-match posts are effective and fun to read.

Unfortunately, though, United have only played two real matches since the beginning of my blog. Due to this and the requirements of having 4 posts, I have had to come up with two other things to write about. The most recent was the opposite of a post-match discussion... a pre-match discussion. I did manage come up with relevant things to write about, and felt like the post went ok. The other ended up being about my favorite player.

Now, I'm not saying that either post was completely forced, and perhaps the title of this post is a bit mis-worded, but I do wonder how readers will respond to the flow of my subject matter. In order I have a post-match discussion, random thoughts about my favorite player, a post-match discussion, and a pre-match discussion. Again, I may be thinking too much about a relatively unimportant issue, but I just hope the blog doesn't seem too inconsistent.

All-Inclusive or True Enthusiast?

While writing the posts for my blog about Manchester United, I've been conflicted about how to effectively cater to my audience. This problem originates from not knowing exactly what my audience consists of. Is my audience other Manchester United fans? Is it other football fans? Is it anyone who might just happen to be reading my blog? I've been writing under the assumption that my readers know a reasonable amount about English football and the bigger name players on the bigger teams.

Although I've decided to write while assuming a relatively high degree of knowledge (for now), I'm still left feeling that it might not be correct. My current feeling is that if I were to explain everything and introduce every player so that everyone could understand, there would be a lot of superfluous information for my more serious fans and the blog would be watered down. But if I keep my blog as is, and don't explain everything, I'm making it nearly impossible for those who don't follow football to become interested.

I'll probably keep my blog as it is. When it really comes down to it, I suppose it's important to ask the question, "Are people who don't watch much Premiership football actually going to read my blog seriously?" The answer: probably not. In fact, this conflict probably wouldn't have even come up if I were creating this blog on my own, outside of class. But for the purpose of a writing class which requires peer review and more general participation, I may have chosen a topic a bit too narrow in scope.

Rantings of a Red

Manchester United is an extremely popular team. It has supporters from all around the world. Consequently, there is no shortage of information about them on the Internet. So... why will people interested in Manchester United choose my blog? What will differentiate my writing from the rest of the discussion that is available?

As I came to realize from reading articles and blog posts about blogs themselves, people do not visit blogs for information and facts. They visit them for the writing behind the information. The humor, personality, and style that accompanies the subject matter is the real draw.

My blog will offer this. I will post relevant information regarding the team, matches played, and strategies, and I will do my best to make this information fun to read.

Enthusiast Blog

I have decided to make my enthusiast blog about football. As I stated in my previous post, I watch football from all over the world, namely England, Spain, and Italy, but scope must be considered. To make my blog as interesting and focused as possible, I will single out Manchester United, my favorite club, as my true topic. I am a diehard United fan, so I will be able to write more passionately when focused on the one team than if I were to write about all football in general.

Manchester United plays at least once a week, and there are always stories in the news about various things related to the game. I have no excuse to run out of things to discuss.

I would imagine that my audience will be other Manchester United fans. It is a gigantic club, one of the top 5 most popular sports teams in the world, so there are no shortage of supporters. I will be writing mainly about United, but I will also discuss the English Premiership and the Champions League, so my audience may extend to general football fans as well. The best way to speculate about what they would want to read is to think, "What would I want to read?" Discussions of match performances, certain players, strategies, and reflections about how the team is doing seem relevant and important, so these will be my focus.

I plan to get my real feelings and thoughts out of my head and into this blog, so my writing style will be informal to a certain extent. I have strong opinions regarding my team and its rivals, so there may be some strong language. Also, whenever I discuss football, English slang and tendencies appear in my writing and speech. My goal is to post meaningful and provocative material relating to Manchester United in an honest and stylish way.

Potential titles:

Rantings of a Red (I think I'm already set on this)
Glory, Glory, Man United!
A Yank Who's a Manc

Post ideas:

Whenever Manchester United plays:

Match analysis
Player ratings
Criticisms and compliments

Potential Ideas for Enthusiast Blog

1. Football (soccer) - I have had a huge passion for football ever since I began watching and playing it a few short years ago. My favorite club is a team in England called Manchester United. I watch tons of football that takes place all over Europe and might be interested in sharing my thoughts, criticisms, and suggestions for the modern game.

2. Social conditioning and human interactions - Very recently I've found that human interactions and the way society's expectations can change them is huuugely interesting to me. If I blogged about this topic, I could discuss anything from daily interactions I take part in and/or observe, my ideas about what's right and wrong with society, relevant things I read, and potentially more.

3. Poker - This idea is much less relevant than it may have been for me even just one year ago, but it still is a possibility. I started studying and playing the game 3-4 years ago, and even though I haven't played seriously in months, the game fascinates me. Most people still consider poker to be "gambling," but with statistics, probability, game theory, human behavior, and countless other factors all influencing the game at the same time, it is much, much deeper than something like pulling on a slot machine or rolling dice.

4. Running - This topic suffers in a way similar to poker. I have not been running recently, but in the last eight years, it has been a major part of my life. I ran indoor track, outdoor track, and cross-country for three years in high school and have run recreationally on and off ever since. This summer it was probably the most important thing to me in my life. Somehow, though, the motivation and drive has a way of disappearing and reappearing cyclically...

5. Education - Although I have virtually no real knowledge relating to the way students should be taught, I always have something to say about the way students are being taught. I could probably find countless examples of methods and attitudes I like and dislike during a single day of class at URI.

Reflections on Stefanac

Stefanac's piece about blogging served to really reinforce what I already thought I knew about blogs. It provides very relevant and useful tips for creating and maintaining a blog as well as it warns about potential pitfalls. One such pitfall had an interesting connection to my own life.

Last summer, a couple of my friends and I were on a long drive home from New Hampshire and ended up on the topic of trying to get rich. After an hour or so of throwing ideas around and knocking them down, one of my friends mentioned blogging. He told us about how successful blogs can end up making decent amounts of money through advertising and other methods. My response was that you have to start a blog because you have something to say, not to make money. I may show my friend Stefanac's piece for an "I told you so," type of moment.

Another thing I noticed was that Stefanac's number one piece of advice tied in nicely with some of Rebecca Blood's ideas. Stefanac writes that the best blogs are the best because of the author's personality shining through. If a person wanted the most factual, informative information, they wouldn't go to a blog for it... unless they had never heard of Google, I suppose. People frequent blogs to read about things they love, and read them in a style and tone that entertains them. Blood wrote about the process of finding your own real opinions and having the confidence to express them the way you want to. Surely, if you're capable of doing this, your blog will end up with a personality.

Blogs - My Experience, Thoughts

I've known about blogs for several years, but have held very little regard for them until somewhat recently. I became aware of them right about the time that EVERYBODY became aware of them, during the explosion that Rebecca Blood wrote about. I never considered the fact that if I actually searched for blogs that focused on things I was interested in, that I might like to read them. Instead, I thought to myself, "Why do I care what someone else, who is NOT an expert, thinks about anything?"

That viewpoint holds little weight anymore. Even though I still haven't really searched for blogs to read, and I still don't frequent any blogs, I admit that I might like to. With the amount of attention blogging receives these days, the really interesting and relevant ones are readily available. And to discredit my earlier thought, many of the popular bloggers actually are experts in what they're writing about.

Weblogs

Before reading Rebecca Blood's post about Weblogs, I quickly scrolled down, noted the length of it, and asked myself what it might be about. Would it be detailing the history of blogs? The merits of blogging? How blogging actually works?

After finishing the post and realizing that it was about all three, I realized the irony in my original attempt to guess the subject matter. This is not a persuasive essay, it's not a term paper, and it's not an article. It's a person, just like you or me, writing their thoughts and opinions about something and providing some backround information. Rebecca Blood's post serves not only as a source for people who may not know about blogs, but also as a perfect example of what blogging is about. It's personal, informal, and unpredictable. A person's true personality is really capable of coming out in a blog.

Rebecca's remarks about the evolution of an individual blogger who begins with weak opinions, formulated mostly by the thoughts of others and ends up really being able to express themself really fit into some things I've been thinking about lately. She described, essentially, a journey of self-actualization and discovering one's true feelings. I had never once considered that a person could potentially learn to value their own thoughts more through blogging, but Blood writes convincingly. I can't help but wonder if there are many examples of timid, overly cautious people becoming far open and extroverted as a result of blogging.

What is writing?

Writing is the recording of thoughts, ideas, and statements. When something is written, it has been committed to record until it is actively deleted or discarded.

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