At intervals throughout the quarter according to group blog assignments. All mandatory entries & comments should be completed by Monday, November 22.

Entries should be a minimum of 250 words. Comments should be a minimum of 50 words. You should complete no fewer than 5 entries by the end of the quarter and 2 comments.

What is a blog?

Wikipedia defines a weblog -- or blog -- as "a web application which contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common webpage." For our purposes, it will be an electronic space for your to address and interrogate issues related to e-rhetoric and digital culture. (To read other responses to this question, visit "What the Hell is a Weblog?")

Why are we keeping a blog?

Blogging gives us a unique opportunity to think about both the way in which electronic rhetoric transforms written discourse as well as e-rhetoric's innovative relationship to both private and public communication. In addition, keeping a blog allows you to use writing to explore issues related to digital culture, to sharpen your analytical skills, and to participate in a larger community conversation about the impact of technology on our lives.

 

How should I set the blog up?

There are many blog services available to you; two of the most popular with students are Blogger/Blogspot (which both have user-friendly interfaces) and the Stanford ITSS Blog Project (which assumes a more technologically sophisticated user). Whatever format you choose, you need to be sure that

• your blog has a comment function (which you need to activate), and
• that the comment function can be used by a broader reader base than members-only

 

How often should I write in my blog and what do I write about?

To prevent you from work-overload, I'm not going to require that you write in your blog every week (though that is certainly an option open to you -- in fact, you could write everyday if you liked!). Instead, I'm requiring that you complete five of the seven blog entries listed below -- you choose which five blogprompts you respond to. These blog entries should be completed by classtime on the days they are due. There is a writing prompt for each entry, that can be accessed through the BlogPrompts page or by activating the links below.

In addition, each class member during the quarter should write two comments in response to posts by two of their classmates (that is, they should submit the comment to their classmate's blog site). You may write more blog posts and comments if you like, but by the end of the quarter, each student should have completed a minimum of 5 posts and 2 comments.

All mandatory entries and comments should be completed by November 15; however, students may keep up the blog after that date for their own purposes.

 

What should it look like?

In general, what is most important about your blog is that it reflect your voice as a writer -- that it should express your own unique style, strategies, anxieties, etc. Also keep in mind that since our digital culture is intrinsically multimodal (employing multiple modes of expression, such as the visual, verbal, and aural), you consider issues of images, color, design and even sound in creating your log. Each assigned entry should be no fewer than 250 words in length.