Expressing Yourself Informally
For the Unit 4 Assignment, you will write a 1–1.5-page, double spaced, informal, and personal blog post on an issue that is in some way relevant to your field of study and that you have personal experience with.
According to The Social Psychology Network, a blog — short for “web log” — is an online journal or record of sequential postings with news, commentary, or other material” (2017). Like an essay, a blog post establishes and develops a clear point about a topic or issue. Depending on the topic, ******ience, and purpose, a blog can be formal or informal. A blog written by an individual, for example, tends to be about his or her experience with the topic and is written in first person.
Imagine for this Assignment that you have created your own blog site and that you are writing a post for your blog site. This specific blog post should establish a clear main point about your chosen topic, use your personal experience to develop that main point, and establish a connection with your non-professional ******ience through showing them how your experience might be of value in helping them in some way.
Examples might include:
If you are in the medical field and have experience with taking care of family members who are sick, you might write a blog post to other caretakers who are tending to family members, perhaps showing them a way they can avoid the stress that caretaking will create for them.
If you are in the law enforcement field, though you may not have experience with being a police officer, you might use your experience as a parent to write to other parents about what they might do to help their children to not get involved in gangs, if you have any relevant experience with it or know people who have.
If you are in the field of education, you may not be an experienced teacher with a degree, but you no doubt have experience either as a student or parent and could write a blog post to other first year college students, offering them a suggestion for how to manage their time or avoid procrastination on assignments.
Generating Ideas for Your Blog Post Topic:
Brainstorm your experiences: What personal experiences do you have with issues of ANY sort that are in some way related to your field of study?
Talk with others: Classmates, friends and family, WC tutors, your instructors.
Review this document for links to blogs and articles in your field of study. Writers often identify something they want to write about by responding to what others have written. You might read a blog post about the causes of homelessness in the US and then write your own blog post to people in your community suggesting a way they might help solve this problem in your community.
Be sure that your Unit 4 Assignment meets the following requirements:
Focuses on one specific point about the issue being written about
Uses personal experience to develop ideas; avoid research
Connects with the ******ience and establishes relevance of the topic to them
Demonstrates substantial revision of the Unit 4 Discussion Board post draft
Uses appropriate informal language, depending upon topic, ******ience, and purpose
Is organized into 3–5 well-developed paragraphs, 1–1.5 double-spaced pages
Utilizes transition devices to connect ideas
Applies Standard American English and avoids distracting grammar and punctuation errors
Demonstrates 6th Edition APA formatting, including title page
Cites any and all uses of source information (quotes, ideas,