Abbey-Roads2

Just some advice - blogger to blogger - oh, and it is just my opinion:

If you use material other than your own, be it from a book, a news source, what have you, remember try and cite or link to your sources.  Especially if your entire post is nothing more than something “lifted” from another source.

If you make certain claims, try to provide your source back-up.  It is like doing a paper for school - cite.  And verify to the best of your ability.  When you are wrong - post a retraction.

If it is your opinion or you are writing from anecdotal experience - great - you are sharing something you learned.  People like that.

A blog can be a reporting tool - especially if you happen to be a news blog, such as Stella Borealis and others. Having said that, many bloggers will usually get the same information from those sources everyone else has access to.  What will make your post interesting is your view of the story you lifted.  It’s like an editorial, a letter to the editor, that makes the post interesting.  (In my case, not always.)

When you get a scoop - by all means, be the first to post it!  Or news no one else has access to - post it. 

When you write about human experience, make it your own when you can - people like that.  The life lessons from our personal experience is often helpful to others.  Just as much as the personal testimony of our faith and spiritual life can be edifying for another.

Try not to make your posts too long, people get bored.  If they happen to be long, divide the paragraphs up with headers that define what follows.  (Don Marco taught me that.)  Use pictures if you want.

Link to other sites/blogs, both on your blogroll and in the body of your post - it’s a network thing, and it also substantiates what you are writing about - especially if you got the idea from that particular site.

Not always, but occasionally acknowledge your commentators - respond to comments, blogs are not forums, but people love to be acknowledged.  It isn’t that hard to do.  (If you ignore them, they may ignore you.)

There are oodles of sites that provide news; news one doesn’t come across on television or in print - many of us go there.  Since most web savy people know the news already - give us your perspective, just don’t lift the story -  the exception would be if your blog happens to be a news blog, bulletin board, what have you.

In my opinion, blogging is kind of about that, unless it is a blog about the minutia of your daily life, a spiritual journal, a teaching blog, a spiritual blog, an author’s blog, a historical blog, etc. - which are always more interesting than reading a supplanted news story.  (AGAIN! - news blogs being the exception Stella!)

Finally, a blog can really be anything you want it to be, so go ahead, just ignore what I wrote.  It is probably just me - I don’t care for blogs that simply paste and copy news items with nothing else going on…unless they are a news source.

That’s all.