I personally believe that the Progressive U organizations should lower the word count for blogs that have to be posted. I believe that blogging is getting your voice out there and start the debate between people. Blogs are usually usually short and a paragraph or so. I blog for a newspaper where i live, i have to lower the word count of my blogs so the whole blog will be published in the paper. Then, i come here to add my blog, and i cannot add it because it is less than 200 words. I think progressive U should lower it to 100-150 words. People have told me that good blogs are over 200 words and with good punctuations. I believe that it's the point of the blog that matters, not that number of words, or the number of commas or mistakes. See, i have finished my point, but, because of the the rules, i have to add another 50 words. By me doing this, it's going to seem that i am dragging my point out, and I will loose creditability because i am rambling. There is another point. I know that a lot of people disagree with me, but it's my opinion and i thought i would share it with everyone. I hope that i have reached the 200 word limit.
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This is a college level, academic style blogging site. This means that the target audience is college students. In contrast, a newspaper writes for the lowest common denominator, a person with an 8th grade reading level (on average) and a short attention span. Comparing ProU to a newspaper is roughly equivalent to comparing Jack London to Dr. Seuss. Two completely different audiences, which means two completely different writing styles and requirements.
Also, as a college level site, writers are expected to write at a college level. This doesn't just include grammar and punctuation, but also length. It's not uncommon for weekly writing assignments to have requirements of 500-1000 words. Writing 200 should be nothing for college students (and even some of the high school students we have).
Third, there are places on the site, such as the forums and the debate areas, where you can present a topic for discussion that does not require 200 words to start with. The blogging section, however, requires 200 words because a well-thought-out blog will easily exceed that 200 word minimum, and a good writer will be able to write within whatever constraints presented to them.
Finally, you can find out how many words you've written by copying and pasting your potential post into Word and using the Word Count feature. For example, this reply comes in at 231 words.
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
Dragonwolf presented a much better worded argument than the one I wanted to make.
I just want to add, though, if you'd like to voice your concern that ProU sets standards, there is, in fact, a forum to do so right here. And, as dragonwolf mentioned, placing it in a forum (where it belongs) wouldn't have required you to write a full 200 words, either.
Though I'm not quite sure how lowering standards will improve Progressive U.
read my blogs!
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Some mistakes can't be undone/ it'll never be like it was/ and wishing for it only makes it worse
Rocky Votolato
Though I'm not quite sure how lowering standards will improve Progressive U.
They actually raised the limit from 100 to 200 for this semester because of the quality (or lack thereof) of the posts that were being created.
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
I wasn't around for that era, but I'm glad they changed it. I've read some of blogs from before... I was kind of glad they were a mere paragraph ;-)
read my blogs!
ProU
Not ProU
Some mistakes can't be undone/ it'll never be like it was/ and wishing for it only makes it worse
Rocky Votolato
Good reply, Dragonwolf.
Lowering the word requirements would certainly diminish the quality of the blogs.
Most newspaper articles easily exceed 200 words, so that's not really the best argument. Also, as dragonwolf mentioned, this is a mostly academic site. We hold all our members to high standards, and 200 words should be no problem. Since we give points for blogs, and the most points equals money, we have to have better standards than letters to the editors sort of thing.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
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