A number of the responses to the Mid-Year Review (Week 12) said that Blog Post Bingo (Week 3) was a favorite topic, so I decided to run it again during July! This time, we’ll be going for three weeks (until July 24) and trying to write 12 kinds of posts.
The idea of Blog Post Bingo is to write different kinds of content. Like I wrote before,
It’s easy to get into a pattern of writing the same kinds of posts over and over again, but sometimes it can be fun to spice it up, or at least have ideas about other ways to present your ideas.
If you need some ideas about how many kinds of blog posts there are, check out these links: 20 Types of Blog Posts, The 5 Types of Blog Posts that Experts Write, and All 13 Types of Blog Post. These are just a few different ideas about what kinds of blog posts you can write, and although there are no definitive types there are some types of posts that can be the bread and butter of a successful blogger. Knowing some of these forms can help keep including content if you feel like you’re in a rut.
Please read all the way through the task for this week so you can decide what level you want to participate at (and and find out about the fabulous prizes!). There are some changes from the first time, so read carefully.
Blog Post Bingo!
Take a look at the 12 types of blog post below. Over the next three weeks, try to write as many of these different kinds of posts as you can.
A Link Post – share link (or series of links) your readers might find interesting
A Short Post – less than 200 words
A List Post – simple as it sounds, a list of some sort
An Opinion Post – take an event, news, or another blog post and share your opinion on it
A Poll or Question Post – post a poll or ask your readers a specific question for feedback
A How-To Post – You’re an expert in something; big or small, share how to do it
A Long Post – more than 700 words
A Review Post – self-explanatory, I think :)
A Definition Post – show your expertise about a topic related to your blog
NEW: A Personal Post – something that’s going on in your life, related to your normal blog topic or not
NEW: A Resource Post – you know a lot about something, share the sites/books/tutorials you go to on that topic. This is similar to a link post, except these links should be related in some way and be useful for other people who want to know about the topic.
FREE SPACE – a type of post of your choice (that is not the same as one of the previous posts)
By Friday, July 24 at MIDNIGHT, post a link in Mr. Linky to a wrap-up post detailing which of the post types you’ve completed. I need to be able to go to the wrap up post and see links to each of the posts and something that shows what type they are.
The blogger who completes the most number of posts will receive a prize — a $10 e-gift certificate from Amazon.com and be featured in the wrap up post for Week 13. I will also do a random number generator of all the other entries (whether you did one post or many posts) to choose a two other winners to be featured in the wrap up post. This way, everyone has incentive to participate even if you can’t post a ton of times in the next couple weeks. I know it’s not much, but who doesn’t love even little prizes?
Notes: Blog posts can count for multiple categories, but if there is a tie then I’ll give preference to a blogger who has not counted posts for multiple categories. You may not include posts written before this task was posted (it’ll just be too hard for me to sort through them).
Any other questions or concerns? Leave a comment and I’ll get back to you ASAP. Good luck and happy blogging!
Now that it’s July, it’s time to take a vote for the book from my growing TBR pile that I should read this month! This feature has turned into one of my favorites to do because it’s so interactive — you choose my book, then ask me questions about it for me to use in my review.
I’ve got a mix of new and old books in the poll this month, but they’re all fiction titles. If you don’t know anything about the books, follow the jump or scroll after the poll to read a summary of each that I pulled from online.
You can vote in the poll and/or leave your vote in the comments, I’ll tally everything up at the end of the week and announce the winner!
P.S. I’ll be out of town and off line for the entire weekend, so if a comment gets eaten by spam I’ll get it when I’m back. Happy 4th of July!
Title: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
Author: Jon Krakauer
Genre: Literary Journalism
Pages: 369 (paperback)
Two Sentence Summary: From the front of the book — “On July 24, 1984, a woman and her infant daughter were murdered by two brothers who believed they were ordered to kill by God. The roots of their crime lie deep in the history of an American religion practiced by millions…”
Two Sentence Review: This is a thought-provoking and disturbing book that I’m glad I read, but I can’t imagine that it would be for everyone. Read on to see if it might be for you.
I like this picture of a kitten (by eva101 via flickr) because the cat has crazy eyes, and this post is all about feeling a little crazy and overwhelmed.
Since last Monday I’ve been filling in for our online reporter at work, which has involved going into work at 5:00 a.m. and writing a lot of short news stories to post online. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn’t realized how much spending that much time writing stories at a computer was going to impact my life outside work.
It’s not that I’ve neglected my blog over the last week — I just checked and found that I posted five of the last seven days with pretty good content all of those days. What I’ve neglected to do is be a good member of the book blogging community.
For example, I haven’t really responded to comments on my blog in a timely way, and I haven’t made any effort to read or comment on other blogs. I’ve also been out of touch on Twitter, and haven’t kept up with BIP #12 posts at all. I’ve just been too tired to do some of the things I love about blogging.
At first I was feeling really bad about this. I mean, I never wanted my blog to be a place where I just spewed stuff out on the internet and then never bothered to interact with the people who deemed it interesting enough to read. I think it’s selfish to continually post to my blog, then not make the effort to respond or engage with all the great things other people are posting. I felt, and still feel, guilty about that.
But I also decided I need to give myself a break. Rather than continuing to feel guilty, I’m going to forgive myself for neglecting my role as a member of the community for the lase seven days and just try to do better. I’m going to do a “Mark All As Read” for the million posts I am behind and then try my best to keep up from now on.
My first commitment is going to be to respond to comments on my blog more efficiently. The second is going to make book blogs a top priority in my reader rather than saving them for last, because by the time I get to them I’m always tired. And my third is to make sure I’m better with the BIP and making sure people feel good about that.
I’m curious though, what do you think makes a good member of a community (the book blogging community, or another commuity)? To be a good, community-oriented book blogger, what should one aspire to do? Which bloggers do you think are great examples of good community members?
One Sentence Summary: Lucy Burns got stuck working for the Devil, but now, despite being gorgeous and able to each as much chocolate as she wants without getting fat, she wants to get out.
One Sentence Review: This book had an interesting concept and was pretty funny, but at it’s core it read like chick lit with a darker sense of humor.
Grade: 78/100
Important Note: I got this book for free as a review copy from Bancroft Press.
I’ve only watched the first three parts, but I already love how they’re playing with the characters’ personalities to tease out some of the funnier parts of the books. I think they’re doing sort of a mish-mash of all the books, which actually works pretty well.
And the part about foreshadowing? Totally awesome!
UPDATE: Sadly, the students responsible for the show had to pull the entire thing off YouTube because they were worried about copyright lawsuits. Personally, I think they are protected because the show is a parody, but I’m no legal expert. You can watch an explanation of their choice (and a great new song by the kid who plays Harry Potter) as you wait for the soundtrack.
Questions included how many personal references there were, how many paragraphs was the review, and how many sentences were in the review.
Six people contributed to the spreadsheet, which isn’t as many as I would have liked, but there are still some interesting things I noticed when I did some averages and stuff:
Book blogger reviews had between 4 and 14 pargraphs in each review — most had around 7. Professional reviews, on teh other had, varied a lot in length. Some were just 1 paragraph, some were about 7-9, and others were 11.
Similarly, book blogger reviews all had about the same number of sentences (an average of 22.9, but the highest and lowers were 33 and 12). Professional reviews had a bigger range — the lowest had 6 sentences, while the longest had 70.
Book blogger reviews use, generally, fewer words — about 432 in a review compared to 549. Again, the professional reviews had a larger range of values.
Sentence length and paragraph length, when averaged, were about the same for blogger reviews and professional reviews.
Most professional reviews don’t include a rating system, but a lot of blogger reviews do.
The biggest difference between blogger reviews and professional reviews was something we already sort of knew — bloggers use a lot more personal references. From these reviews, bloggers averaged about 9.75 personal references per review. Professional reviews had only about .25.
One thing I noticed is that professional reviews are a lot more varied — some are just a paragraph, some are basically full-length articles. Blogger reviews tend to be a little more consistent — similar lengths, etc. If I had to do this over again I’d want more contributions, obviously, because then there would have been a bigger sample size for the averages.
I was also hoping that the numbers for stuff like paragraph length would be more different, since blogger reviews are almost always online and online reading habits suggest that people scan online and therefore need shorter paragraphs. Maybe this suggests that even though bloggers are online, we still think a lot about writing in a way that’s easy to read in print.
What do you think of these findings? Do they make sense to you? Are there other qualities we should have looked at to distinguish blogger reviews from professional reviews?
Congrats everyone! We’re now halfway through the Blog Improvement Project! I think that’s pretty awesome. Week #12 is also a great time to get back on the bandwagon if you’ve fallen behind, or join the BIP for the first time.
At this point, I think it makes sense to revisit the goals we all set during Week #1 to see how we are doing. I have to admit, I haven’t looked my goals in awhile, so this will be a great exercise for me. You can look back to the Week #1 Assignment Post and the Week #1 Wrap-Up if you need a reminder.
Here’s the task for revisiting goals:
Find your original BIP goals post and take a look at what your goals were. Or, if you came to the BIP late or are just joining now, look at the Week #1 assignment to learn about setting goals.
If you’re feeling up to the task, I suggest looking at the ProBlogger list of 69 questions to review your blog. You can use these questions to look at how far you’ve come since January and see where you might want to go.
If appropriate, reset your goals. Get rid of goals you’ve accomplished, and add new ones that make sense. Think about where you want to be at the end of the year. Or, if you’re new, set some goals for the remainder of the year. Write a post with your new goals, and leave a link here in the comments or sign Mr. Linky. Stop back to this post and revisit some BIP blogs to check in on their goals too.
The last thing I’m asking is more of a favor than a requirement for this week’s task. If you have time, I’d love it if you could do me a favor and answer the following questions in your goal post, in the comments to this post, or in an e-mail to me [sophisticated.dorkiness{at}gmail.com]. I’m trying to figure out what to do for the rest of the BIP, and I hope re-reading the goal posts and looking at some of these questions will help me out.
What BIP task have you liked most? Least (including ones you have skipped)?
Which tasks have been the most helpful? Least helpful?
What are the top three things you still would like to work on this year?
Are there any blogging-related topics you feel like you know a lot about and would be willing to write a BIP guest task on?
Any other comments about the BIP?
I promise not to take offense at any negative answers — I really want to use some suggestion to help make the rest of the BIP awesome.
As always, contact me with questions, comments, or concerns (and answers to my questions!). Good luck, and happy blogging!
In order to finish up the Spring Reading Thing 2009 Challenge (results posted soon), I had to read The Year of Magical Thinking and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close back-to-back in the last week and a half. Both were great books, but also emotionally draining books.
I finished ELAIC on Thursday night. About 50 pages from the end I started to get teary-eyed, and at about 10 pages to go I was full in crying. Boyfriend was here and, poor guy, he didn’t know what to do. Of course there wasn’t anything for him to do because it was good crying, crying from being emotionally touched by a story, but I can see why that would seem weird.
I got myself together a little bit after I finished the book, but then he asked me to explain what the book was about and I started to cry all over again. September 11 stuff and stuff with kids gets to me especially, so I’m actually not too surprised I got so emotional. But as I was laying in bed later that night, I realized I’ve been reading a whole bunch of emotionally intense books right in row and maybe that’s taking a toll.
I think need to give myself a little break before heading back into some other heavy books I have on my TBR list. I don’t really want to read romances or anything, I just want something that doesn’t hit me so hard emotionally. I’m thinking some nonfiction, perhaps, might fit the bill. Thoughts?
What’s the most emotionally draining book you’ve read lately? Any suggestions for good books that are not so emotionally intense?
Well, the start of my Bloggiesta started out with work and a siesta, but now I’m ready to go! For part of this afternoon and tomorrow I’ll be participating in Maw Books Bloggiesta, “a blogging marathon with a fiesta flair.” You can follow at the blog, or follow @bloggiesta on Twitter. I’ll be updating my blog over the next couple days about my progress.
This first post is my overly-ambitious “To Do List.” I wish I could have started earlier today, but I had to work and then I had to take a nap (it’s been an exhausting week).
Reviews
I’m not actually that behind with reviews, but I am going to try to catch up on all of these over the next couple days. Or, at minimum, get the templates for the reviews ready so I can just fill them in when I’m ready.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Under the Banner of Heaven by John Krakauer
The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns by Elizabeth Leiknes
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safon Foer
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Blog Improvement Project
This is something I’ve been hosting since January (details here). I need to get ahead on writing task posts, so that’s a major part of the agenda this weekend. Feel free to comment or tweet (@kimthedork) with suggestions for BIP topics.
Week #11 Wrap Up
Week #12: Mid-Year Review
Week #?: Blog Post Bingo #2
Brainstorm new topic ideas
Send some e-mails about possible guest hosts
Other Blogging
And, of course, if there’s time between other things or I need a more free-form post to write, I have all sorts of other ideas and blogging maintenance floating around in my head.
Kim is a busy journalism master's student at UW-Madison who blogs about books, school, and other dorky topics.
You can contact Kim via e-mail at sophisticated[dot]dorkiness
[at]gmail[dot]com.
Link Exchange Policy
If you have reviewed a book that I have, please leave a link to your review in the comments or send it to me via e-mail. I will link to your review, and only ask that you link to mine in exchange. Thanks!
A number of the responses to the Mid-Year Review (Week 12) said that Blog Post Bingo (Week 3) was a favorite topic, so I decided to run it again during July! This time, we’ll be going for three weeks (until July 24) and trying to write 12 kinds of posts.
Now that it’s July, it’s time to take a vote for the book from my growing TBR pile that I should read this month! This feature has turned into one of my favorites to do because it’s so interactive — you choose my book, then ask me questions about it for me to use in my review.
Title: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
I like this picture of a kitten (by 
Title: The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns
Well, the start of my Bloggiesta started out with work and a siesta, but now I’m ready to go! For part of this afternoon and tomorrow I’ll be participating in 
Kim is a busy journalism master's student at UW-Madison who blogs about books, school, and other dorky topics.
