Blog Reflection: Thoughts on the Experience

The purpose of this blog has been to serve as a depository of thoughtful ideas on current trends in journalism. New to the profession as an academic discipline, the first entries reflect my mild hesitance to claim authority in the field. As the duration of the course moved along, I became more comfortable both with asserting my knowledge as well as in the skill of communicating my analyses in an online environment. I was thankful for the few restrictions I had to contend with when choosing a topic for each assignment of the class, but I was concerned about adopting an appropriate blog writing style. I have striven to follow the scholarly template the course instructor, Dr. Geoffrey Middlebrook, prescribed. As persons privileged to an exceptional education, Dr. Middlebrook stressed the need for students to make their thoughts available publicly. His idealistic view of the online environment is one which dictates that web postings should be argumentations based on informed opinions rather than incomplete, unreferenced ramblings. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing in this context.

A self-critical summation of my work this semester leaves me with some successes and also with certain moments of ineptness. I will begin with the points make this blog strong. Perhaps the most appealing aspect of writing for this course has been the investigative stimulation some of the essay topics prompted. I am especially referencing the post entitled, “Maria Bartiromo: An Advocacy Statement for Her USC Honorary Degree,” where I raised issue with some of the university’s previous award recipients based on information I had researched. Although the intention of this blog was not to carve a niche into the blogosphere community, I am proud that another blogger deemed the required commentary I made on his site relevant enough for reciprocal feedback.

In terms of my efforts’ inadequacies, the most serious is my online writing style. In general, my writing is not conducive to suiting the tastes of online readers, who want succinct sentences. Many of the paragraphs of my posts are lengthy. Accompanying them are extensive sentences and complex ideas. With revision, some of these mistakes have been corrected. Without the constructs of the course and minimum word count mandates, I believe my adaptation to web publishing will continue to improve. Perhaps then I will make an impression on the online community.