The Genre of a Blog

Blogging is so popular today. It makes everybody wants to become a blogger. Especially in business, some people even say that, “if a business does not have a blog that business is too out!”  I didn't know about how to blog before I started blogging.  I got to know more about it after I did some research about blogging.  There are a lot of blogging websites and software out there to let you learn about blogging. For example, at Blogger.com people can take a quick tour at blogger.com; or watch a video for a video tutorial; or just read the Blogger Buzz at (buzz.blogger).  Anyway, I would like to share some of my findings about a blog from my research.

 On my online research about the genre of a blog, nobody discussed about the genre of a blog, but a lot of people discuss blogging as a writing genre.  So, what exactly is the genre of a blog?  As Charlie Jane Anders discussed in the article “Genres Aren’t Boxes, They‘re Reading Instructions”, genres are something that the readers are expecting in their readings.  So, what do you think your blog readers will expect to see/read in your blog?

According to my research, they are the following: the blog content, comments, archive of older articles, links to other related sites, and some kind of feeds (Wordpress.org).  Blogs can also have YouTube video, pictures, comic, and group blog posts.

The blog content is what you want to share on your blog.  It should be updated often in order to gain more readers and comments.  The blog content generally could be anything.  For retailers, they put catalogs of their products (wordpress.org). Such as H&M’s blog post, it has a brief intro and a picture of their new arrivals products (H & M).  And for a personal blog, “you might have a bunch of observations, or reviews (wordpress.org).” The blog content for a business major student  should be articles that are more business related topics.

Comments in a blog are also very important. According to the article “Introduction to Blogging” on the Wordpress.org’s website, “Posting comments is one of the most exciting features of blogs.” If you want to have an interactive website, you better have some comments on your blog.  When a writer of a blog posts something, the writer may expecting people to leave comments, suggestions, advises, tips, concerns, etc…  Jeff Bullas points out in his blog posting about “18 key observations about the state of Blogging in 2011” that people “love” sharing (jeffbullas.com).  So, as the bloggers share their posts on their blogs, viewers love to share their opinion or their point of view with the bloggers too. Make sure to complete your comments and answer questions from your readers.

The archive feature of a blog lets bloggers keep track of their blog postings.  An archive can be based on dates, categories, and authors for group blog post, or alphabetically.   The archive feature is one of the million reasons that make blogging so popular (wordpress.org).

Your readers might also expect to see some links on your blog. It lets your readers to find other topic-related sources from your blog. Links to other related sites are very important. First of all, if the links to other sites are where your recourse from, you need to give credit to whoever that you quoted your information from.  Second of all, it also shows people where to find more details about what your blog posts are talking about. Links to other related sites also makes your blog posts more informational as well as convincing; moreover, it can gain more blog posting viewers.

 Besides links, readers might also look for feed function in your blog.  According to the wordpress.org’s website, “A feed is a function of special software that allows ‘Feed readers’ to access a site automatically looking for new content and then post updates about that new content to another site.” It lets readers to keep up with the newest update from different bloggers that they followed.  On blogspot.com that we use to post our blog posting for our English class, it is Atom.  You can find the Atom icon at the bottom of a blog. If you want to add somebody’s blog to your feeds, simply click on the Atom icon and it will add the updates of that blog to your newsfeeds.

As we discussed earlier, we can also put YouTube video, Pictures and comic in our blog post too.  Jeff Bullas points out in his blog post “18 key observations about the state of blogging in 2011” that “the continuing evolution of an increasingly ‘visual web’ that communicates quickly and efficiently with images (jeffbullas.com).” By putting YouTube videos, pictures and comics in your blog posting makes the blog more vivid and interesting.  It also has the same function like putting links in your blog posting to make it more convincing.

 In short, a personal blog is more like a diary, and it is more conversational than a formal essay.  A professional blog is more about a particular topic that relates to a person’s interest or professional expertise. Personally, I think writing a blog is like the free writes we do in English class. It can be any subject, and form, and have some elements we discuss above but not necessarily have all of them in it. People should use those elements according to what they have and what they want to put on their blogs.  For example, I just put a picture of my handmade jewelry for my other blog posting, (shopaholic) and just have one sentence telling people what gemstone that I had used to make it. I think it is totally fine, as long as I am enjoying doing it.  Blogging can be any way you want to do it. The most important thing that matters is if you have fun doing it. Have fun blogging, my friends!