Archive for » December, 2009 «

Dec

: Image via Wikipedia

The title “Is Google Making Us Stupid” intrigued me.

Nicolas Carr authored this post which implies we may be dealing with a population of people whose reading habits, both online and off, are changing.

Our audience might be so preoccupied, comprehension of what is written on the page could elude them.

Nicolas admits it’s happening to him,

…Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy….

He then goes on to add,

The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

Today’s Lesson

To reinforce what he’s saying, Nicolas references a study conducted by the University College, London which published an article titled, Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future.

Part of their findings state,

The picture that emerges from internet research is that most visitors to scholarly sites view only a few pages, many of which do not even contain real content, and in any case do not stop long enough to do any real reading. This is either a symptom of a really worrying malaise – failure at the library terminal – or maybe a sign that a whole new form of online reading behaviour is beginning to emerge, one based on skimming titles, contents pages and abstracts: we call this `power browsing’. We urgently need to understand the root causes of this phenomenon.

Although the University College, London is wanting to understand the “why” of this phenomenon, as bloggers we should be asking, “Will this, or should this, change the way we blog?”

I’m thinking it might.

If we’re aware our visitors may not be stopping long enough to read our posts, finding a way to capture their attention should be of utmost concern.

What say you?

Today’s Assignment

Do you find the internet has changed the way you read?

Thinking abut your surfing habits, what captures your attention long enough to actually read a post?

HOW TO: Speed Read (geeksaresexy.net)
How To Remember a Word or Name You’ve Blanked on (howcast.com)

Category: Archives, Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Comments, Lessons Learned, New Blog Of The Week, Writing Tips 70 Comments

Dec

If I Said It First, Is It Mine

Barbara Swafford

Millions of people go online each day and share their brilliance.

We see it in blogs and comments alike.

With the click of a button, those ideas are ours for the taking.

But who do those ideas belong to?

Today’s Lesson

Suzen of Erasing The Board brought up a good point in the comment section of the Save Time – Copy and Paste A Post article. She said, in part,

I just ran across a blogger that used my comment in their very next post, no attribution either.

Suzen went on to say,

Whenever I’ve used so much as a phrase from another, I always mention where the idea came from. I think it’s only fair, don’t you?

Although most bloggers do try to link back to where they got an idea from, in many cases we won’t see that happening as we’re dealing with blogs; a medium which has no rules.

Depending on how a blogger learned to blog, proper blog etiquette may not have entered their mind.

And then we have to ask, “What came first, the comment or the exact same idea that was swirling in our mind?”.

Suzen re-commented and said she “let it go”.

Today’s Assignment

What would you have done?

When we leave a comment on another site, who do those words belong to?

Raise your hand and share what you think.

Category: Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Comments, Linking 75 Comments

Dec

Save Time – Copy & Paste A Post

Barbara Swafford

copy and paste image 1 No, I’m not saying to plagiarize another blogger’s writings.

What I am saying is sometimes we write what could be a post and don’t even realize it.

Today’s Lesson

As I was reading the comments on The Battle Over Comments – Part 2, Davina’s reply reminded me of something I’ve done and wanted to share.

In part, Davina said,

…I once did a word count on my replies to a batch of comments and found I had written the equivalent of another post….

Lance of Jungle of Life echoed the same saying he’s thought of shortening his replies, as did Sara B. Healy of A Sharing Connection and Patricia of Patricia’s Wisdom

Cutting down on how much we write in a comment can save us time, but so can what we write.

And it’s not just on our own blog, but on the blogs we visit.

I don’t know about you, but there have been many times when a blogger has inspired me to the point I wrote a lengthy comment. It’s when I’m rereading my words I realize the material would be perfect for a topic on which I can expand.

So what I’ve done, is either copied or cut what I wrote, and pasted it into my “edit post” screen. From there, I continue to complete the thought.

As we all know, our muse can remain elusive at times, but if we take the time to reread what we’ve written in our comments, we often find our muse is alive and well.

Today’s Assignment

Other than “have you ever done this?”, I couldn’t think of other questions to ask on today’s lesson.

Therefore, what I am asking is for those who are reading this to go to Patricia’s blog on which she is offering a beautiful free ecookbook, and download it.

As Patricia mentioned in the comments of the The Battle Over Comments – Part 2 post,

I was offered matching funds for my eBook recipe book today (11/30/09) – if I can get 1000 people to open the eBook this week the company will give $1000 to UNICEF….so far the book has only had 137 opens…I am hoping I make it

Let’s help Patricia make it and raise an additional $1000 for UNICEF.

Just scroll down to near the bottom of her Harvest Potluck UNICEF Fundraiser post and find this link,

To download your free copy of the ebook, click here.

P.S. The recipes in the ebook were contributed by bloggers from all over the world. My contribution is the last recipe in the book – Rich and Tasty Scones. YUM!!!

P.S.S. By Tweeting, Stumbling, and/or blogging about Patricia’s ecookbook, we can help spread the word.