Week Three, Computer Session

As you put the finishing touches on your mission statements, I want to turn and start thinking about your first individual post. And, in doing so, I wanted to offer examples of the kinds of posts, taking note of their structure. One thing you'll notice about these posts, as you will notice about all interesting posts, is that they always do more than summarize. They all involve summary, but they also do something else to invite audience participation.

Here's a list of different kind of posts:

• X is more important than most people think because of Y
• X makes me wonder about Y
• X should be applied to Y
• X is significant because...
• the best X of all time
• the top ten X (and whY)
• You probably don't / I just learned about X

For a detailed example of X should be applied to Y, lets examine a post from Collin Vs. Blog. This blog typically deals with issues in rhetorical theory, but also occasionally offers insight into popular culture. Here's his recent post Pricing Oneself Out of the Market. Here's a great example of X idea should be applied to Y. In this case, Collin offers a nice, succint description of a new television show he has been watching. He then details a specific theory proposed in the television show [that less often sells more]. He then uses this theory to argue that NBC has dropped the ball regarding the sales of episodes on iTunes.

For an example of a top ten list, here's a recent post at 40 Acres Sports.

For an example of X is significant because, there's a good example over at FireDogLake.

For an example of You might not know about X, check out a sample post from Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools site.

What we don't want to see in your posts is straight summary! Good posts do more than summarize, they contextualize, compare, contrast, expose, critique, defend, or offer insight. In other words, they present some kind of argument.