By Mindy McAdams

In subsequent decades other Lactobacillus species have been generic viagra online including Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactobacillus casei, and Lactobacillus johnsonii, because they are intestinal species with beneficial properties.This restricts the considerable legal authority of the medical profession to where to buy viagra that are trained and qualified by national standards.In addition, fellowships can last an female viagra uk one to three years." According to the World Health Organization, there is no one "official" buy online viagra of mental health.Antibiotic resistance has become a serious problem in both developed and buy viagra in canada nations.Many other ancient cultures, including the ancient viagra 50mg, ancient Greeks and medieval Arabs already used molds and plants to treat infections, owing to the production of antibiotic substances by these organisms, a phenomenon known as antibiosis Quinine became widely used as a therapeutic agent in the 17th century for the treatment of malaria, the disease caused by Plasmodium falciparum, a protozoan parasite.

Teaching Online Journalism

You will see something cool here if you upgrade your Flash player.

Notes from the classroom and observations about today's practice of journalism online

5 tips for blog beginners

Typewriter, by avlxyz on Flickr

Craig Stolz, formerly a journalist at The Washington Post, has been blogging for one year. On the occasion of his blog’s anniversary, he wrote this succinct list of lessons learned, which is rather brilliant:

  1. A personal blog is as valuable to the writer as the reader.
  2. Entry titles are as important as content. Titles should be dead-clear.
  3. Don’t expect your best content to be rewarded. Accept that blog audiences are so unpredictable and that some of your most valuable gems will stay buried.
  4. Stand on the roof in a thunderstorm holding up a rake. You never know when lightning will strike, but you can improve your odds. (Definitely go to Stolz’s post and read the further explanation of this one!)
  5. Write short and use pictures.

Just a few comments:

Tip No. 1 cannot be emphasized enough among journalists and journalism students. Writing a blog will make you better at everything related to being a good journalist. Word. You will become a better writer, researcher, investigator, skeptic, listener, communicator — and editor. You will also become better at everything concerning the Web, if you really apply yourself to blogging. I speak from personal experience on this.

Tip No. 2 has a direct relationship to No. 3, and I think we could learn something from Stolz’s own post. His post title: “Five Lessons from a Year of Blogging.” My title for this post: “5 tips for blog beginners.” Now, think about a person typing search tems into Google. Lessons and blogging? Or tips and blog? Your choice of keywords in the post title is of paramount importance to the findability of the post itself. Every word counts. The title also needs to be short — five or six words is an ideal length.

No. 5 is as great as the immensely famous tip from Strunk and White — “Omit needless words.” Yeah.

See also:

7 responses to “5 tips for blog beginners”

  1. Craig writes:

    “formerly a journalist”? His “about” statement says he’s a former Post editor, but I (and I would hope he) would argue that he’s still a journalist.

  2. Mindy writes:

    You’d rather I move the adverb two words to the right, wouldn’t you. :)

  3. Nigel Barlow writes:

    Five very good points Mindy,the first being the most important.As you say it gets you to research better.
    I would also add to make sure that you comment on other people’s blogs

  4. Craig Stoltz writes:

    Mindy–Thanks for the kind words–and for showing how my own headline can be improved. Amazing to see how a sharp mind can always make things better. –Craig

  5. Mindy writes:

    @Nigel – Probably there are a couple of tips that could be added (at the risk of gilding a lily). I agree that commenting on others’ blogs is important, but first, one must READ others’ blogs!

    Sometimes my students, in the middle of their semester-long blogging assignment, confess that they never read any blogs. Wryly, I respond that that might be why their own blogs aren’t getting better.

  6. Cinco consejos para empezar a ser bloguer « PriXmA writes:

    [...] consejos para empezar a ser bloguer A través del portal Teaching Online Jourlanlism (Enseñando Periodismo Online), que escribe la profesora de periodismo universitario Mindy Mc [...]

  7. Teaching Online Journalism » RGMP 2: Start a blog writes:

    [...] related: 5 tips for blog beginners (July 17, 2008) This entry was posted on Friday, February 6, 2009, at 10:21 am and is filed [...]

Leave a Reply