TOW: NewsU course

Our teacher had all of her students, including me, take a grammar course online. http://www.newsu.org/courses/cleaning-your-copy-grammar-style-and-more

One of the first things you do is take a pre-quiz. I got a 100% on grammar and spelling and did not do so well on style and punctuation. So, from there you go to the different tabs in the lesson and you learn about different things. In each tab there are multiple examples.

For example on the tab with numbers it had addresses, birthdays, and phone numbers.

At the end of each section in each tab there was a sample problem, and at the very end there was a test. I got an 8 out of 14.

There isn’t really anything more I would want to learn off of the course it was pretty all-inclusive. I would definitely say it was educational though.

It is a course I would highly suggest for anyone trying to brush-up their grammar.

TOW: Grammar Girl

The topic for this week is Grammar Girl’s website, http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ written by Mignon Fogarty. The website has links to different tips involving grammar. There are things like who vs. whom and lie vs. lay. I chose to look at one thing that is truly difficult for me sometimes.

Active vs. passive voice. I have always had problems making sure I have just one voice in my papers. Some teachers want you to use active, but in journalism many things have to involve the passive voice.

So, I chose to see what Grammar Girl had to say on the subject. She said that passive is not wrong. Also, that there are studies that show that the general masses understand active voice better.

Active voice is when your subject does something like, “I love Matt,” whereas passive would be “Matt is loved by me.”

I think that the article was helpful to me because as she says you do need to know about what active and passive voice are before you know how to use them.

I would like to learn more about why in certain journalism you use passive and not active voice.

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/active-voice-versus-passive-voice.aspx

TOW: Blog Comments

This weeks topic: Blog Comments!

So, I did some research and found out that there are actually some people who do not agree that blog comments are important. Steve Pavlina wrote that he was very happy about his decision to disable blog comments. I also found that there have been numerous posts about how some comments are too vile and dirty and that commenting should be censored.

However, my assignment is to write about why they are important and an integral part of blogs. I personally thought in my head that they are feedback, and how would a writer know what people thought without the readers saying something? I went on a search to see what other people thought.

Laura Quintile said that there have been studies done, and only about 9% of people are occasionally commenting and only 1% actively contribute to the blog.

An article on Zemalf.com made some good points. It had three general reasons to comment which were that you are sharing your opinion on a topic, you are getting involved in a discussion, and that you are potentially giving and receiving extra information. Another thing that the post/article did was outline the steps you can take in commenting to help your blog.

On affiliateprogress.com it says that when you comment on someone else’s blog and leave a link to your page you both get extra traffic and give it. When someone searches your blog in a search engine it will pull up theirs with your address in it.

All in all from these other opinions I have surmised that blog comments are important because they get you involved, tell others your opinions, and create traffic for your blog and the other persons. I still must add that I think the most important part for me would be the part of what readers opinions are and not the added blog traffic.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/blog-comments/ 

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2851522/blog_comments_why_they_are_important.html

http://zemalf.com/1081/blog-commenting/

http://affiliateprogress.com/2010/05/04/are-blog-comments-important/

**this is the same post as the one I did for TOW 2 summer**