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How does a blog differ from a traditional essay?

Revision as of 10:50, 27 July 2006 by Psandu (talk | contribs) (added info to essay section 2nd paragraph)

A traditional essay consists of a topic and a body ending with a conclusion and does not include web links. A blog consist of useful information that can be edited, added to, or discussed by others. When reading an essay one can not click to links to find out more information like they can do reading a blog. Most blogs are in electronic form and not on paper like essays. Blogs are a great way to put your opinions and point of view on the web for others to read and comment on.

Blog

A weblog, which is usually shortened to a blog, is a journal or diary that is available on the web, where anyone can write about any subject on an ongoing basis. The word blog can also be used as a verb, meaning adding an entry to a blog. The first blog has been ascribed to Dave Winer. He has been credited as the first regular, widely followed blogger. Blogs began to take off in 1999 with the launch of sites like Blogger, Weblogger and Love Journal, which made self publishing painless for the masses. Tens of thousands of blogs have blossomed since their creation. The mainstream media has only recently shown a glimmer of interest in the form ( Rodzilla 171) .

Anatomy

The features of a blog include:

  • Date header: The date the post is written. Posts are generally presented in reverse chronological order (most recent first).
  • Title: Each post is given a title. This is a pitchy phrase, a pun, or even a series of symbols.
  • Time stamp and/or permalink: The time the post is uploaded to the blog. The time stamp often is a link to a permanent page just for this post.This allows other bloggers to link to a post.
  • Post: A word, sentence, paragraph or essay, with links, names and current news. Key words and names are often highlighted in boldface, which makes the post 'scannable'.
  • Author nickname: The name or nickname of the person who wrote the post. For blogs written by one person, the author is often left off (because the author identification can be found in About page). For collaborative blogs, the author helps to differentiate contributors. The nickname can also be a link to a page of all the author's posts.
  • Category: Individual postings are often labeled as part of a category.
  • Comments: A software feature that allows readers to leave their own comments and reactions to the author's post.
  • TrackBack: A way for one blog post to link to the post of another blog. In other words, one blogger can write about the content of another person web blog, and the two posts are linked in a web (Zuiker).

Essay

An essay is a short piece of writing that discusses, describes, or analyzes one topic. It can discuss a subject directly or indirectly, seriously or humorously. It can describe personal opinions, or just report information. An essay can be written from any perspective, but essays are most commonly written in the first person (I), or third person (subjects that can be substituted with the he, she, it, or they pronouns). A traditional essay is used for formal documents or most of the time in school (English Works).

Fifteen hundred and eighty is the accepted birth year of the essay ( Tanner 11). Essays of today have a greater range, variety of subject, greater length and a greater literary finish compared to essays of the previous centuries. There is also evidence of greater individuality in thoughts and directness in style. The main influence that brought about these changes was the growth of individualism in all realms of thought ( Tanner 17). Essays have a particular purpose. They can expand a reader's knowledge of a topic, or just entertain.

Traditional Essay

A traditional essay is linear and without links. Traditional essays are written on separate pages and require the writer to use a step-by-step structure. The writer should not stray from this basic structure. Eliminating information that would normally be included in these structures could leave the reader confused and asking questions about information that should have been included. By researching a topic thoroughly a writer will have all the necessary information needed to write a efficient and informative essay. An essay should have a structure that includes all of the components below.

  • Introdution- the writer tells general information about a particular topic and the reason(s) why he has chosen it.
  • Body- the main part of the essay, include the descriptions or explanations of what is given in the introduction details
  • Conclusion- the writer summarizes the information, gives the evaluation and make the final word what he thinks about the topic.traditional essays

Links

Work Cited

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