A Milestone: 1,000,000+ …

I’d love to have a million book sales or a million dollars or a million comments. But a million spam comments? Not so much. I happened to look at my Akismet stats today, and this is what I saw:

Guest Post from Tara Miller: Three Techniques of Journalism That Could Improve Your Blog Writing

Great writing is essential to running a successful blog. When a blog’s posts are consistently well-written, readers will be more compelled to return for new posts as well as to look over old ones. Unfortunately, good writing is not something that comes easily to everyone. Writing well can be difficult and confusing, but bloggers who are struggling with their writing skills can adopt some time-tested journalism techniques for guidance on how to create informative and gripping blog posts.

1. The Inverted Pyramid

Writing using the inverted pyramid means that your post should start off with the most important information first and then gradually narrow down to less important details. In journalism, this ensures that the reader gets as much of the important information as possible early on so that even if the reader drops the news story halfway through, they will still have the basic gist of the news piece. In blogging, you can use the same approach by introducing each post with the most important information first and delivering the more unimportant information further down the post. This way, your readers will get a good idea of where your post is headed so that your ideas are more clearly understood.

To successfully create an inverted pyramid style of writing, your first paragraph will have to pack in a lot of information. Strive to answer as many as the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions as comfortably possible within the first two paragraphs. This will give your readers a firm grasp on your post topic. Following that paragraph, you can write on something less essential, such as using that paragraph to set a scene or further explain the post topic. You would end your post with a tidbit that may be entertaining or helpful, but not necessarily essential. Using this model will help you to hone your ideas so that you are more effectively communicating information in each of your posts.

2. Show and Not Tell

Vivid writing can be difficult, but it is not impossible. Journalists often must pack life into their news stories to elevate them from a dull collection of facts to a real news story. One way they turn boring news reports into entertaining reads is by showing and not telling the reader about all of the events that took place. As a blogger, you can use the same writing style to make your posts much more exciting.

Showing and not telling a reader about events means that rather than outright saying that someone was feeling something or doing something, you simply describe exactly how they are behaving so that the reader can see that feeling or action. For example, rather than saying, “Bobby felt guilty about eating all the cookies,” you could show your readers Bobby’s guilt by saying, “Bobby looked down sullenly and silently wiped the remaining cookie crumbs off his mouth.” This way, readers will have a more compelling picture of Bobby’s feelings and your piece will be much livelier.

3. Break Up Your Posts

It is difficult for readers to trudge through long blocks of texts, whether it is online of offline. For this reason, most journalists make sure that all of their paragraphs are only a few sentences long before breaking into a new paragraph. Online, bloggers can do the same thing and make their posts easier on the eyes by writing shorter paragraphs and including other visual elements like bulleted lists wherever necessary. A picture or graphic is also a great way to break up text-heavy posts, as it will give readers something else to look at before they return to the text of your post. This retains the reader’s visual interest and encourages them to continue reading.

Byline:

This guest post is contributed by Tara Miller, who particularly enjoys writing about psychology degree.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: miller.tara23@gmail.com.

Should You Follow a Style Guide for Your Blog?

An interesting discussion developed on my last post, Changing Styles. If you haven’t read, click over and read it now, and be sure to read the comments.

As a result of that discussion, I’m turning the post into a series of three.

One question that arose was whether bloggers should follow a style guide.  I used the example of my little sister many years ago. When we used to write letters by hand without benefit of spell-check, she would spell a word a different way every time she used it. Her philosophy was that by guessing a bunch of different ways to spell the word, she might get it right once in the letter.

My philosophy is that it’s better to be consistently wrong than to be wrong most of the time and right once in a while. It’s even better to be right all the time. So I think it’s important to have consistency in your blog.

Inconsistencies can be distracting and confusing for readers. Any time readers are distracted or confused, they are trying to figure out what you meant or why you did something the way you did rather than focusing on your message. Whether you’re writing a novel or a blog post, you don’t want to pull the readers out of your story or your article.

Matt Keegan agrees with me. He was thinking along the same lines when he wrote How to Maintain a Consistent Writing Voice. He emphasized that inconsistency in a blog damages the blogger’s credibility.

However, we both agree with commenters that blogs don’t have to follow the same rigid rules as some types of writing, such as academic writing. I no longer edit academic papers because I don’t enjoy that type of writing—often written to impress rather than to inform or entertain. Most of the projects I edit are far less formal, primarily novels and some nonfiction books. The goal of these books is to inform or entertain—or both, and they are written in an informal, easy-to-read-and-understand style. Yet it’s important to follow a style guide (generally the The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition) for consistency. Without some guide to follow, the writing will be inconsistent. Perhaps words will be spelled differently in different parts of the book, or the serial comma will used in some places and not others. Knowing the preferred way to spell the words and that Chicago style requires serial commas, the writers can avoid those inconsistencies.

I tend to follow Chicago style since that’s what I’m familiar with and use the most. Dominique at 4Walls and AView likes MLA style found in MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 7th Edition because that’s what she accustomed to. Matt uses Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law 2010 for some of his projects. I don’t think it matters what style you follow, as long as you are consistent.

In fact, you can use something more basic than the extensive style guides like the ones mentioned above. The classic Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style covers the major things you need to consider. An excellent online resource is the Guide to Grammar and Writing from the Capital Community College. It’s free and easy-to-use. When I was Editor-in-Chief for an Internet publishing company, we used the Guide To Grammar and Writing as our style guide with some additional information in a style sheet (which I will cover in the next installment in the series).

The major style guides include preferred spelling for many words, which some of the more basic guides don’t. You should choose a preferred dictionary to ensure that you are consistent in spelling—there are discrepancies among dictionaries as well as among style guides.

If you create or write blogs for clients, you need to determine the style for the blog at the onset. Many organizations already have a preferred style, and you will be expected to follow that style. If the company doesn’t use a specific style, you can choose the style. If other people post to the blog, they need to know the style, as well. For a group blog, the Guide to Grammar and Writing or a similar online resource that can easily be accessed by all bloggers may be best. Other style guides, including Chicago Manual of Style, are available online, but most require a paid subscription or the purchase of the print book to access the online edition.

Don’t let your readers become distracted and confused by inconsistencies in your blog. Keep them focused on your brilliant words by using a style guide to maintain consistency in your writing style.

Blog Book Tour Stop: Second Visit to Father Jerry’s Jottings

Today I’m back at Father Jerry’s Jottings with the conclusion of my two-part series on blogging: Blogging for Beginners. I’m sure most of my readers know everything I’ve covered in this introductory post, and I know you can add some tips I didn’t mention. Stop by Father Jerry’s blog and give your best advice to beginning bloggers.

Blog-to Show

Liz Strauss at Successful-Blog is generously giving all bloggers a chance to show off their blogs this weekend at the Blog-to Show.

So this weekend is a Successful-Blog Blog-to Show. It’s a Virtual Auto Show for Blogs. Detail your blog. Polish the trim and come show it off. We’ll line them up, look them over, and get to know each other and our blogs just that much better.

I don’t have time right now to detail or polish the trim on my blog, though that’s planned (and has been for some time). But I’m going to participate even if the chrome isn’t as shiny as it could be.

Liz suggested that we write a post linking to some of our most popular content to introduce visitors from the Blog-to Show to our blogs.

The three most popular posts recently were all Stumbled – something I’m learning can make the difference between a handful of page views and 8,000+ page views.

How to Write an Interview-Winning Resume

Remembering My Parents

Thank You for Your Comments

Two of the three posts with the most comments in the last six months were directly related to this blog I find it interesting that two different thank-you-to-commenters posts are among the most popular and the most commented.

Beginning the Year with Thanks

Two Years Old Already?

What I Learned from Mashing It Up

I listed some of my favorite posts from my first year of blogging in Double Whammy: Blast from the Past Meme and Carnival of Circular Communication. Those posts haven’t been read or commented on as much because my blog had fewer readers then that it does today, but they are still among my favorites a year later.

Most months feature a series of posts on a particular subject. The Series and Related Posts page lists all the series and many related posts. Visit that page to get a good taste of my blog.

And when you read the posts, be sure to read the comments as well. You’ll find great conversations filled with inspiration and information.

Thank you for visiting and thanks to Liz for the Blog-to Showcase.

 

March Madness

Time always passes faster than I think it should, but March sped by in a blur.

In addition to taking a week off to visit my sister – which was wonderful, I spent extra time preparing bulletins and announcements for Holy Week church services as well as attending services.

My clients, as usual, had plenty of work for me to do, and I created a new Web site for our church, All Saints Anglican Church of San Antonio.

That has left little time for blogging, and I didn’t write a series this month. I haven’t read and commented on other blogs as much as usual and I missed out on Joanna Young’s group writing project … and perhaps other projects I didn’t even know about.

I’m trying to catch up and hope to be back to the blogging world next week.