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!

The difference in Blogging and Essays

By: Callie, Carolynn, and Elliot

There are a lot of differences between blogs and essays. When writing a blog, you're writing to anyone who wants to read it. You don't have to worry about your opinion being thought of as bad, because you're not writing it for a certain someone to read. Unlike in essays where you know who your audience is, so your paper is written in a way they can understand. Blogs don't have a certain format to follow, it's a write as you please kind of thing. Essays have the introduction paragraph, thesis sentence, body paragraphs, and conclusion. When a blogger is writing, they're writing their opinion on a subject. Not something they took hours to develop an opinion on and research that subject like in essays.

Our Blogging Experience

     When we first started writing these blogs it was a very new experience.  We weren't exactly sure how we were going to start out.  One of our largest concerns was how to write to an anonymous audience.  How do we know we're not offending our audience, or are we even keeping their interest?  Another issue was learning how to speak to this audience.  How formal did we need to be?  We knew that writing in the blog would be far more casual than any of the essays we would be turning in for class, but it took us a little while to get comfortable being this casual.  We could speak to our audience with more of a "day-to-day" language.
     It was difficult for us to write something so casual when we are so used to being graded on essays far more formal.  We feared how our blogs would be graded.  Are we too casual?  Did we do everything right?  The difference between our essays and our blogs made it difficult for us to be confident in our blog writing.  However, we enjoyed being able to write about the things we wanted to, and about things that affected our everyday lives made it more fun to do the blogs.     
     One of the biggest stresses we found was being able to trust that the work would get done.  If you weren't the one responsible for posting it you had a lingering fear that it wouldn't get done.  Checking our e-mails, texts, and Facebook only helped when you had a message keeping you posted on the progress of the blog.  Even then it was difficult to not be the one in control.  It wasn't that we didn't trust our group members, but it was difficult to trust your grade to someone else.  When you were the one responsible there was almost no stress about the blog.  It seemed like a breeze to get through the blog if you were the one writing it, but for everyone else it was just a waiting game.  We really enjoyed the blog.  It took us some time to get used to it and learn how to speak, but in the end we got through it with another learning experience.     
     
By:  Audrey and Morgan 

Differences in Blog and traditional Essays

Writing is a major part of the English language. Americans use English to express their ideas on paper, and more often than not, on the computer. Many people use traditional essay writing to complete homework assignments or for a job project, while some prefer to use a blog site to bring their ideas out. So what is the difference? Are there any similarities? One difference is how they use their audience. Blogs seem more opinionated by the author, and can sometimes have facts to prove their case, while essays are composed of information from books, or even educational web pages. The essays use more educational reasearch to write, rather than opinion. There are also issues with formating. A blog usually have a more freestyle writing to them, with no set rules or standards. Traditional essays, however, must set a style of writing and composing rules, for example, using MLA or APA. This then leads us to their content. Blogs have some fact in them, but it is syled to a more general, or sometimes specific groups of people. Though essays also are written for a specific purpose, they tend to follow a more educational path, by using a library to find research by professionals, and the essay can quote these writings, therefore making the essay more professional. Never the less, both blogs and essays can be used by collateration. Blogs then have more acces to opinions and sometimes facts or real life stories. Essays can be given an even futher educational value by allowing more research time and knowledge of the writers. So even though blogs and essays can be typed on a computer, they still have their different messages to portray.

difference between blogs and essays

courtney maye, katie mccauley, daisha mays

Writing blogs is a lot different than writing essays. The blog writing is geared toward a much larger audience than an essay. Blogs are available to the whole world, where as an essay may not be. The topics may be different and the style of writing will be less formal in blog writing. Blog writing is more of a freestyle writing and it can’t really be taught, it’s more of saying what’s on your mind. With a group you have to figure out a process to choose which topic you’re going to write about. There are many different ideas which can be good or bad. You must develop chemistry within the group. There can be different viewpoints on a certain topic which can strengthen the argument and help to make a moral argument. Blog writing can be more fun but at the same time more difficult because you have such a broad range of ideas to choose from. 

Chuck Norris Approved

Dakota Miller, Scott Tylenda, Audrey Shobert

There seems to be a craze of Chuck Norris jokes, saying and merchandise.  Teenagers everywhere are saying that when Chuck Norris does a push-up he is not pushing himself up, he is pushing the world down, another one is that Chuck Norris killed his living room and now it is just "the room." Sure these are funny and a great way to pass the time but in all honesty they are immature and frankly can get annoying after awhile. Who would have thought that a politician would have fallen into this teen fad? Mike Huckabee did.... His advertisement seems to be a joke at first glance but then you realize that he is for real! This is a real ad and it really is trying to get you to  approve of Mike Huckabee!  You would assume that politicians would know better than to use silly teen sayings  to convince people that they are right, but I guess not. This seems to be a far reach to try to get a vote.

Borat- OKC Traffic Commission

We all know who Borat is...now. But prior to the release of the extremely popular movie, Borat, or Sacha Baron Cohen, was relatively unknown. Somehow he found a way to speak before the Traffic Commission in Oklahoma City. And of course, hilarity ensued.
Borat in OKC Part 1
Borat in OKC Part 2
The speech starts off innocently enough though, despite the occasional funny pronunciation. But it's not long before fabricates a story about a massacre and asks for an awkwardly long moment of silence. He later apologizes for farting, makes a "joke" that draws delayed laughter, and states his wish to "do a romance inside of" a woman, but "not with force". Particularly impressive is Cohen's ability to keep a straight face throughout the speech. His humor may be racist, perverted, sexist...whatever you want to call it, but a guy who has the guts to do this in front of an official panel like this deserves high praise. Chalk one up for Borat.
By Scott, Dakota, and Brittany