Blogging vs. Academic Writing

Blogging and academic writing are indubitably two different forms of writing. Consider them contradictories: unbounded vs. bounded, expressive vs. reflective, unstructured vs. structured, and so on and so forth. When it comes to school and writing composition classes, blogging isn't typically the first thing that comes to mind for most students. I never took any creative writing classes or participated in any clubs of the sort, so when I heard the word "writing," typically from a student's perspective, I always thought of the typical five-paragraph essays, mindless papers, and tedious lab reports. That is, until my first term in college (if you don't count the times I was dual-enrolled) in LHSP125.

After reading the article "Blogs vs. Term Papers" in the New York Times, I began to better understand the entire purpose of including this blog feature in this first-year writing course. I mean, our blogs are being counted for 20% of our final grade, so, of course, there had to be some sort of purpose.

With social media taking over today's generation, I think blogging assignments are a wise addition to college writing courses. As stated in the NYTimes article, "blog writing has become a basic requirement in everything from MBA to literature courses." Although the style typically is a bit more informal and the analysis, if any, is much less in-depth compared to academic writing, I've found that blogging allows writers to be more expressive. Sure, there may not be much, if any, structure in a blog post, but if it gets the writer's message across, then doesn't it fulfill the purpose of writing? Also, there's an immediate audience, as opposed to a single reader. Instead of having to wait around for one professor to sluggishly get around to reading and grading a piece of writing, a blog post makes the writing public, allowing anyone who stumbles upon the post to read and to comment. The immediacy of a viewer especially appeals students in this day and age, as growing up in a technologically-advanced generation has caused them to constantly want things instantaneously. Within the past two decades, communication has only grown faster, as snail mail and phone calls evolved into e-mails and text messages. It's a bit unfair to think of today's youth as impatient, needy individuals, since society and technology both primed them to become the way they currently are. But back to the point, having a universally larger audience means there's more than one person to keep in mind. You can be personal, but you also want to be relatable, otherwise no one will give a shit about what you say.

However, all of this doesn't necessarily mean I don't see the purpose of formal papers. For a while, academic writing was all I really knew. From five-paragraph essays to three-part theses, I learned how to structure my argument and emphasize that I really knew what I was talking about, even when I didn't. Although I've always aced every essay I've ever written, I felt like I didn't really know how to properly express myself in words. I constantly felt like I had so much to say, inside and outside of the classroom, but simply didn't know how to say it. Even though it didn't really help me be more concise, blog writing helped me better express understand myself.

I like to keep things in moderation. You never want to have too little of one thing and too much of another. Moderation helps you experience and learn from the best of both options. So, the best way to teach writing, in my opinion, is a combination of both blogging and academic writing.