Death to Paragraphs!

Long winding sentences in academic language be gone.

Yes, that has been me. That can be me.

After reading those long research articles for my literature review, my sentences became long winding roads through mountain passages. I became guilty of what Lynda Felder, in her book “Writing for the Web” called “tangled” sentences.

Let’s Revolt!

Now, with this Webpage Technologies course, my promise to self is to change lanes. Maybe I can become free again; free to move away from tongue twisters, free to have shorter sentences that have much less “academic-ese”.

As I dove into the readings for this first week, I began to think anew. What if all courses and certainly dissertations used blogging as a way of expression? Imagine if instead of quoting what was said during an interview, you inserted the interviewee’s voice so that your reader could hear the inflections in their voice. Ah, that would be the day! That would be a revolution Shelley Wright may appreciate.

The Insides of Blogs

So, I now understand from the readings that it is best to have blogs be infused with pictures, videos, audio, drawings, or illustrations to make them more visually pleasing and engaging.

It is fair to say that some blogs may seem difficult to read when you see all words with just one picture, so I peek in occasionally. Take Ms. Merryday’s flappinessis blog about her son and the world of autism with some very long posts at times. I peruse her prose appreciating her humor on a serious matter which I all too well understand. She surely would pass Sue Waters’ first piece of advice: “Use attention grabbing titles” with her latest post. But would Sue Waters’ suggestion of “embedded media” distract her readers from her message?

Maybe not so fast?

All the recent blog readings for this course reminded me that it has been a decade since I decided to create my own blog. Sadly, I became a once-in-a-blue-moon blogger, if you could even call it that.

Time to renew my interest? Maybe, maybe not.

Sharing my photographs, I am good with; but do I truly want people to “hear” my musings and reveries? What I had shared in the past, if any, were very very very short posts. Frankly, they were more like sayings of the moment. They came to me in a flash of insight. But, to share a full stream of consciousness with the world seems daunting. Responding to others, not so much, even though I never do.

On foot forward, dreamer

But now, what to focus on? From Linda Felder’s perspective, it depends on your interests and your audience. I agree with that but what if your interests span too many topics? What then?

It might be more important to simply start with something and be consistent. I’ll adopt Linda Felder’s advice and make the commitment. Maybe I could start by selecting from the Edublogger’s “10 Types of Blog Posts” list. The Reflection-type seems right up my alley. Now, it’s time to start using all these tips to bring in an audience that never leaves. That might be wishful thinking, but I can dream, no?

Maybe I can add in the occasional question for readers to respond to. That may allow for some dialogue and maybe some collaborative blogging, as discussed by Catherine Poling. Having people “read” without commenting would certainly not give much insight into who the audience is. Having some interaction may even build a community that can gather elsewhere in cyberspace. Maybe even in the metaverse.

Ok, it’s time to try. I feel freer already.

Let’s take the plunge to make the long paragraph extinct.

Cheers to blogging!

(all this and I am already guilty of a long post even with shorter paragraphs! 😊 )

Images found or created in Canva