TEN, STAT!

A blog's dashboard is like a report card.

In this you can find all things in reagrds in who, when and how often people have visited your site, which post is the most popular and how many comments were left for each.

I was surprised at how detailed the stats were for each post.

No generics here.

I need to become more familiar with all aspects of wordpress because for the longest I blogged with Blogspot (yes, I have now made the transistion to Wordpress) so now I am behind on the logistics.

Pray for me in my catching up process.

EIGHT, Lead Lab.

I learned a lot of specifics in the lead lab. I didn't enjoy it very much- unlike the other labs, the Lead Lab was quite boring- but I did learn a lot.

I always took leads as so generic, just three or so way to create one, and realized that there are such specifications when creating a lead, each which enhance a story in a differet way.

So this I learned AND it surprised me.

I would like to know everything about leads, because of my surprise in this educational lab, I realized that I don't know much when it comes to leads.

The very basic, actually.

SEVEN- Tweet, Tweet!

As an avid "tweeter", this assignment was one that was thoroughly enjoyable!

However, I definitely learned that Twitter is not as fun when it is required.

I found that when I tweet, up to 10 times a day on average, I include photos and links and random nothingness that most people couldn't care less about but that I find quite amusing.

But when it was an assignment I formed a rather reluctant attitude that I did not expect, feeling like I "had to" tweet some stuff and include some hash tags, etc.. like it was extra work.

I enjoyed being a part of the #COMM4333 list and was surprised to see how involved the class was in participating. Despite my reluctancy, seeing the class being so involved inspired me to to throw my two-cents in as well and grace my COMM4333 class with the presence of my tweets.

I would love to know more about the specifics of Twitter, in the case of using it professionally. Tips on a prefessional Twitter account may be helpful, as well.

Tweet on, readers. Tweet on.

SIX, worthy.

Newsworthy-ness will make or break if an article goes to press.


Period.

As discussed in Chapter 6, there are a few key components to making an article newsworthy. That chapter review said all kinds of jazz about it, but the main 5 points discussed are:


Timeliness
Unusualness
Human interest
Proximity
Prominence


which basically breaks down like this: timeliness refers to when the article is released- you don't want to release too early or too late.

Unusualness is reporting things that are weird or different or "unusual"- imagine that!

Human interest is finding the story within a story. For example, during the 9/11 attacks, the human interest story would be the one spotlighting the one fireman who saved 3 people who were far away from the masses, etc. Highlighting a detailed story out of the big picture.

Proximity is all about location, location, location- where the event takes place in relation to where the readers if the publication are located- what is cool in Nebraska isn't necessarily cool in Florida.

Last is prominence- the rich and famous always draw a crowd!

The end.

Week FIVE, Don't Fake it...

Plagiarism is tricky.

There are those times where a writer just forgot to add quotation marks and other times where the writer just liked the words of another and wanted them as their own. In the latter, plagiarism is absolutely not ok, and will probably get you kicked out of school or fired or wherever your writing is headed.

Let me ask you this, would you steal a movie? ok then, same thing.

Purdue University helped out a lot with some extra tips, beyond what I wrote about for the chapter review. A great resource overall, but see what they had to say about plagiarism.

Week FOUR, Clean it Up

The NewsU courses are kicking my butt!

Ok, I feel so much better now that I got that out there and off my chest.

Initially, I wanted to ust my 3-pronged approach to say the following:

1. I learned that- I DO NOT know as much as I thought I knew about this.

2. I was surprised that -I DO NOT know as much as I thought I knew about this.

3. I would like to learn- All that stuff that I thought I knew.

However, I have decided to push past my depression and dig a little deeper into my new knowledge.

I know your excited.

1. In this course I learned a lot more about punctuation. I am an editor, and this is why I was so surprised how much I don't know. I learned to rely on AP Style a lot more than I already do.

AP Style and I are officially on BFF status!

2. What surprised me was how easy it became to navigate an AP "flow"- not as hard as it seems.

3. I would like to become more comfy using those things. you know, to just be able to KNOW more of those rules and be able to "phase out" my deep relationship with my AP Styleguide.

I actually really like the interactvie format of the News U courses- time flies when your having fun- and these courses go fast!

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NewsU sounds cool, right? It is. Check it out.

Something To Talk About...

Comments are the best way to keep a blog interesting and worth the authors time. But even in writing a comment, if it is uneffective or too short, it defeats the purpose of the comment. There are many ways to help create a blog comment that is more effective, some of those are:

1. Create a comment that will be interesting for the author and other readers.
2. While writing a comment, remember- Not too long, but not too short- there is no reason to ramble, but saying, "that was good", i something that is already known.
3. Give effective feedback for the author- the good, bad and ugly- so that the author knows what to put more of, but also what to add for next time, or what the audience didn't care for much.

Visit Grammar Girl, for more detailed information on how to write an effective comment.

Week TWO, Grammar Girl: Active Voice Versus Passive Voice

As a copy editor, Grammar Girl's posts are very helpful- like an AP Style guide in blog form. Today I read Grammar Girl's article on writing in an active vs. passive voice. It was an interesting and clear article, but the main things I learned were:

1. The easy way of identifying the difference: keep the action on the subject.
(Steve loves Amy. If that sentence said, Amy is loved by Steve, which is the passive voice, the subject and focus is changed from Steve to Amy.)

2. An active voice is easier for a general audience to comprehend.

3. A passive voice is good for an open ended statement or an unknown subject. (Politicians often use a passive voice to smooth statements over, such as, "Bombs were dropped". Or crime reports may say, "The store was robbed", because the robber is unknown.)

4. A passive voice is sometimes good for objectivity in scientific writing. (In order to keep objectivity, a passive voice would be written, "The data shows a result of...", instead of, "We tested the subject and the results were...".)

5. An active voice keeps writing tighter and less wordy. (The song title by Marvin Gaye, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" wouldn't be quite as catchy if it were, "It Was Heard By Me Through the Grapevine".

The section about crime reporting or mystery novels was most interesting, because of it's focus on keeping the subject anonymous, which is very important in some cases; however, I would like to learn more about those little unknown exceptions where a passive voice is preferred over an active one.

Thanks Grammar Girl!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Week ONE, What I'm About..

I love embracing the new technology that PR professionals have at our fingertips. Getting a message to the public has never been easier if done in the right way- which can be a good or bad thing. Right now I try and use as many outlets as I can, top five being:

1. Facebook (Hope Dodson)
2. Twitter (@hdodson)
3. Blogspot (hopedodson.blogspot.com)
4. SEU Times (any SEU student can- meetings at 9:30am every Tuesday)
5. Texting (like I would put that online..)

I use these platforms because they have proven to be the most simple and convenient for my lifestyle right now. For example, after my time at Southeastern I will no longer use the SEU Times as an outlet for communicating, but as for avenues such as Twitter- it is the easiest way to get a small message out without all of the clutter of other social networking systems.