225 Blogging: An Interactive Experience

In my last of many, many blogging assignments for class this week (3 to be exact) I'm going to lead you, my reader, on an interactive experience through the blogs of my peers in class in an attempt to create a dialogue about the different ways my peers and I engage the rhetorical situation of blogging.

While that last sentence is certainly a mouthful, maybe coming close to rivaling Martin Luther King Jr.'s one page long sentence in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," (ok maybe not), I think you will soon understand what I mean by an interactive experience. In this blog I'm going to be taking a look at my classmates blogs to see how our blogging styles or techniques are similar or different and how we utilize ethos, pathos, logos, claims, warrants, evidence, etc...

To do this interactive dialogue, I'm going to use the blog of my classmate that writes under the alias mpro;). Mpro's blog is probably the blog I read most frequently amongst my classmates and there is a reason for this. I feel like his blog always invites the reader in with a serious, but informal tone. I always feel welcome to read and comment on his blogs, possibly influenced by his inclusion of a little smiley face at the end of the blog and a friendly sign-off, such as Happy Election Day eve or Sleep Tight.

This blog also seems to always include an exciting title which grabs the readers attention, such as Palin is too "rogue" for McCain. After deciding to devote my attention to his blogs I almost always notice the ethos of Mpro. Most of his blogs are based on an article or other source, which shows that he has educated himself on whatever he is writing about before he shares his thoughts with the world. Using outside articles also tends to aid Mpro, as he can use strong evidence from the articles to support his claim and warrant.

If I had one suggestion for Mpro, it would be breaking up his blogs into shorter paragraphs. This way, instead of having several large paragraphs which can sometimes make a reader feel like he has more to read than he or she actually does, each blog may flow more smoothly. Overall though, I definitely would recommend reading Mpro's blog: http://mpro2133.blogspot.com/

I am also going to look at the blog of my classmate that writes under the alias Chanchri. This blog is certainly one of the more open, informal, and exciting blogs in the class. With titles such as Welcome to Earth all you newborns....World War III has arrived, this blog knows how to bring in readers and then win them over using Pathos. By reading one or two of Chanchri's blogs, you can tell that she is always not only speaking her mind, but putting all of her emotion into each blog. This is often done quite effectively, as her emotional appeals rub off on the reader, making him or her feel as though they cannot oppose such a passionate and honest writer.

This blog also often includes an outside source or two which is posted in the blog. As I said earlier when looking at Mpro's blog, including sources in blogs like this often boosts the writer's ethos and logos. I feel more inclined to trust Chanchri, as I know her blogs are based in outside sources, which also include evidence to support her claims. Chancri's blog can be found here for those interested:

http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/~chanchri/

In the end, I have enjoyed scouring the blogs of my peers. I tried to be fair when critiquing or observing my peers blogs, but I felt that it wasn't hard to shower them in praise, as I feel like most of the blogs in the class are well written and include most of the main pillars of a strong argument: ethos, pathos, and logos