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January 15, 2004

First Blog of a New Class

I'm so glad we're blogging in our Intro to Lit class...

And not only that, but there are people in Dr. Jerz's other classes that will be beginning their own blogs--my roommate has a class with him tonight (American Lit 1950 to present), and now she'll be blogging, too! (Try explaining the wonders of blogging and the excitement you find in seeing others link to your writing to someone that doesn't have a blog--it's not easy.) This is fabulous! There are at least a dozen new bloggers here on the SHU New Media Journalism blogosphere.

Let me extend a "Sugarpacket" welcome to all the newbies out there. Some blogging advice, you may ask? Well, I've got plenty of that, and I'm going to begin with Julie Young's presentation.

May I reiterate what Julie said about the importance of saying what you mean and meaning what you say? Yeah, that's pretty important. Julie really hit the nai on the head with that one. Remember that you're not the only person that's going to read it, and although it may bear a striking resemblance to a journal or diary, it's NOT! Be warned. The voice you take now may haunt you in the future because it seems that good blogs never die.

My own advice? Well, I'm going to have to suggest that you avoid having a boring blog. The point is to create interaction and stimulate conversation between you, classmates, professors, and even *gasp* the outside world, not lull us all into comatose. How can a blog be boring? Easily. Your blog could be labeled "boring" if...

  • You don't write in it often
  • You don't give readers something that's worth commenting about
  • Ignoring any previous advice given by Julie's presentation, you still consistently title entries "homework" and the like... *argh* or finally, my favorite (only because I learned how to change it! (Thanks again, Anne!))
  • Your colors and layout are painfully boring

    Last month, at the commencement of Christmas break, I posted a little how-to on color changes. Those are the basics for anyone that is interested. If you have a little experience working with HTML, that's probably best, but really the best thing to do (as I was told by my friend Anne who let me in on all this fabulously technicolored blogging) is to just play around with the colors. See what different combinations look like, find out what goes together well, figure out the best combinations for your text colors versus your background page... just play with it--take some time to sit down and play with it. But BE WARNED! (Tiffany can vouch for this one.) Save your stylesheet before you do anything to it. Or else bad things can happen that only create more work for Dr. Jerz.

    Above all, my greatest piece of advice is that this is waht you make of it, fellow bloggers. I have found blogging to be very invigorating, and quite a rewarding experience. If you make it fun, it'll be fun; yet, in the same way, if you make it a chore, it could be worse than scrubbing the kitchen floors. Perspective, people. That's where it's at--it's all perspective.

    Happy blogging! :)

    Posted by KarissaKilgore at January 15, 2004 3:03 PM

    Comments

    HEY!!!!! I like my blog!!!! BUT, if you all insist that the colors are boring, I will change them! :-)

    Posted by: Amanda at January 15, 2004 5:30 PM

    Boy can I vouch for that! Over break I was changing the colors in my blog and various other aspects of it to make it more appeasing. Well, somewhere in the midst of all the html I managed to completely rearrange the layout of my blog. I had no clue how it happened, but it did. After consulting Karissa and Dr. Jerz, I decided just to leave it until Dr. Jerz could take a look at it.

    All is better now, even though I now have two stylesheets instead of one. (Dr. Jerz couldn't figure out what I did either. lol) If I were you guys. I would most definetly take Karissa's advice and copy and paste the original style sheet into a word document!

    Tiffany

    Posted by: Tiffany at January 15, 2004 5:41 PM

    Hey Karissa, this is my first comment out there in the blog world. First, I really like your colors and the name you came up with. Second, thanks for all the helpful hints on here. I really want to change my colors more than anything, but I'm almost afraid too, because of making a mistake or whatever. This is something I must work on this weekend. I must say, I might be giving you a holler if I have problems my my blog, since I have no idea what I'm doing. I want to be interesting and fun :)
    Oh, by the way, how do you link again? I realized that after I wrote an entry I forgot to make a link to Julie's page
    Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you I really enjoyed reading your past enteries in the blog. I think I have spent more time reading everyone's entries and thinking about doing my own. Uh oh, guess I better get my mind back on track.
    well, back into the blog world I go :)

    Posted by: SueMyers at January 16, 2004 4:38 PM

    glad to hear that you're having a good time, Sue. Don't let yourself get too hooked on it, though... it's rather addicting!! :^)

    Posted by: Karissa at January 16, 2004 7:09 PM

    Karissa, hey, do you think you could take some time out after class this week or whenever to help me with the color thing? I would feel whole lot better working on it with someone who actually knows what they are doing. I'd really appreciate it :)

    Posted by: SueMyers at January 19, 2004 8:43 PM

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