Although I have already written a piece on Elizabeth Podnieks' "Celebrity Bio Blogs: Hagiography, Pathography and Perez Hilton" for the short essay that was due on Wednesday, I feel as though I have no adequately explained my total feelings on the paper. Mainly towards her rather annoying use of quotes.

While I did enjoy the article's view point on Perez Hilton being both a wretched destroyer of reputations and a praiser of good deeds for his favorites at once, I must admit that Podnieks could've done a better job at getting her information across. Everything from her description of how perezhilton.com first started up to the very definitions of her main terms is second hand, quoted from someone else. Second hand information in analytical essays like these can be fine if you do it right and in moderation, but when literally 70%+ of your essay is made up of quotes from multiple sources you refuse to even elaborate on, you're got a serious problem. It makes your essay seem like it lack substance, that you yourself lack substance. Sure, from her endless quotes I can see she did her research on the blog and the terms for her analysis, but it doesn't leave room for other information directly from her. What did she learn? What did she discover? It's hard to explain, but I just want to know what she got out of it, not someone else.

The constant stream of quotes as evidence is pretty much the only problem I had with this essay. As a single problem though, it is a big one. An analysis is built on evidence, and if this evidence is unclear and too much of it is second-hand you have a pretty weak analysis. That's just what I believe. She got her point across and I found myself agreeing with her, but I'm not sure what actual professionals in her field thought. Did they see the flaws and like me, ignored them to discover that she may have a point underneath all of the jumbled quotes in her analysis? Or did they brush it off entirely? I hope they at least gave her paper a chance. It was a pretty interesting read, that's for sure.

"How To Blog" by Rob Beschizza Response

Rob Beschizza's article on blogging was a very interesting read. The fact that it came about from one of his speeches makes the style a bit easier to read in my opinion, it almost feels like he's talking to the reader, not in the usual writer to reader way, but in a speaker to listener kind of way. The fact that his points are sub-headed so that anyone can skim through them to get to what they want is a very important device to this feeling of listening to a speaker. 

As I stated in the first paragraph, his sub-headlines are very helpful. They made the article flow, made it easier to follow what he was saying. They were also very humorous with one sub-headline going from "What is blogging?" and him not really answering to "Seriously, what is blogging?" and finally responding to the highlighted question. I had a good chuckle or two over that one. It is true that some speakers get so lost in their explanations that they forget to truly explain, especially in layman's terms, the subject they are talking about. The sub-headline also truly sounded like something his audience would say, a "good crowd" of college students in response to his delayed answer.

The sub-headline were more than just humorous however, again as I stated in my first paragraph, they are very easy to skim which is always a bonus in most readers' books. After the initial explanation on what blogging is and its history, he dives into helpful advice to future bloggers like me and other possible readers. Of course, he made the general advice of the sub-topic, such as "Ignore Most Critics", the sub-headline so skimmers could get the gist of his information without having to dive too deep if they son't have the time or will. This technique is an all around good idea for most articles in my opinion, I believe that most readers, even if they do plan on reading the article in its entirety, skim the sub-topics in the beginning to get a feel for what they're going to be reading. I know I do.

So all in all, the thing I enjoyed most about Rob Beschizza's article, outside from the helpful advice of course, was his easy to read style and simple sub-headlines. It reminded me of the article I chose to do Paper 1 for this class on. I guess you could say I've got a favorite style!

Introductions

Hiya! My name is Imani B and this is my new blog. I hope you all enjoy! Have a wonderful day!