So....What's the Difference?

Scott, Dakota, and Brittany

We were posed with the question of trying to describe the difference between blog writing and the traditional essay. There are four points that we need to compare.

First off, what are the concerns over audience?  Well blogs are more along the lines of entertaining. You want someone to want to read your blog versus having to read it in the essay. At the same time though, you are not worried about stirring up a controversy or if your viewers disagree or are offended by what you blog. In essays you tend to have to make a lot of “qualifiers” so that all exceptions can be accounted for. Essays are often more fact based with a lot research being done. Blogs are definitely more personal and opinionated.

The next point we would like to address is the question of formality. Essays are a lot more formal than a blog. The language used in an essay tends to be more scholarly.  You also are writing for a more academic audience and therefore you will tend to use more advanced writing styles, grammar, etc. In writing blogs you are focusing more on what you are talking about versus how well it is written. More everyday language is used and blogs are not usually very formal.

So what about the content of the writing?  What about the things you write about? In blogs you can really write about anything you want. They tend to be more random and more entertaining. In essays a lot of the time you are given a topic by an instructor. Topics in essays also seems to be more serious and formal.

The last point we are going to address next is particular to this blog. A lot of time bloggers will work alone, but we have been working in groups for this blog. So for our blog we have to make sure we can agree on the content so it is something we can all work on. You also have to be able to make sure every person’s opinion can be expressed. This tends to lead to more complicated blogs because everyone thinks differently and therefore there will be more inputs. In essays you will more than likely be working alone. You do your own research and are not focusing on everyone else’s opinion. You also don’t have anyone else to count on to work on an essay though.

So basically blogs are more fun and easier to write than a traditional essay!