Blogging

I have realized that up to this point, I have yet to talk about the means of communicating that I am using right now: blogging. While I disagree with the concept of blogging and it is still a medium through which ideas can be shared, and it also comes with some benefits.

It allows for a global perspective on the issues that a blogger writes about. People from all over the world can offer their own unique perspective on the issue, and propose ideas that may not have occurred to the writer. The Hindu that lives in India will have completely different ideas than the feminist that lives in the United States or a communist from China. It is this free-flow of ideas that lead to innovative solutions to complex problems that plague the world we live in. The comment tool available on each post enables contribution to this web to be easy and simple. By simply taking a few minutes to write a thoughtful comment you could propose your unique perspective.

One thing that has been beneficial about blogging is that it encourages more formal writing than in any other English class I have been in during my academic life. Usually, the only formal writing done in most English classes is the essay after finishing a novel, which is usually highly restrictive in terms of topics. With the limited amount of exposure to constructive comments and the amount of time between essays being quite lengthy, it becomes difficult to further develop writing skills since there isn’t the necessary practice that is required to improve at anything. The blog posts act as the practice. They help to break up the droughts of writing and maintain efficiency at a minimum.

This practice is also helpful in developing a distinct voice to your writing where the is the constant struggle between that informal style of a blog as well as carefully crafted language and sentences to accurately convey the message. I think I did an especially good job of this in my past post titled “Bacterial Communication.” There could have been a post riddled with complex terms and ideas that would have made sense to few but instead I chose to use a more dynamic voice to make the post more entertaining and dynamic instead of dense and dry which are commonly associated with scientific topics because of complex terms.

I still don’t enjoy blogging as a means of communication. It merges the public and private lives too much in my opinion. But, no matter how much I would rather not blog, I still realize that if I want to get better at communicating with others through writing I need to practice, and blogging is helping me practice. It’s like how at a young age parents are always telling their kids to eat their vegetables. No matter how much you may dislike the taste or texture, you must eat them anyway because they are good for you.