To blog or not to blog... That's the question!
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| https://www.examtime.com/blog/top-10-reasons-to-start-blogging-today/ |
The development of technology and internet influences our lifestyle significantly. It makes things easy, creative and open. This breakthrough has its imprint on teaching too. For example, teaching writing through internet blogging is now practiced in our classrooms. There are a lot of criticism from the side of students about blogging, championing the importance of academic writing. I am of the opinion that we certainly need academic writing, which is formal in nature, given its role in academia. At the same time we cannot underestimate blogging, which is less formal. I support the idea that both approaches of teaching writing should be used in a classroom, not excluding each other.
We have been taught academic
writing since the very beginning of the master’s programme. Since it is one of
the most important skills any researcher needs to possess much effort was put
on it. The results were quite surprising. After hard work during the first semester
scaring writing assignments became a pleasure. Writing skills developed
compared to what it was then. For example, in terms of structure, it is now
very clear how to begin an essay, how to write a road map and thesis argument, how
to structure ideas into paragraphs and make a conclusion. Moreover, developing
this skill helps coping with thesis and other courses taken on the programme,
as all of them have a number of academic writing assignments. I think many
students see benefits of it in their studies.
While the advantages of
academic writing are on the surface, there are lot of arguments about blog
writing. Surely, blogging is a new technique in teaching writing and as
everything new it encounters criticism, especially, for being informal. Some may
disagree with me, but I think it, as academic writing, has many advantages. To
consider, every day we surf the internet and read different blogs, posts about
food, news, sport and so on. Blogging allows us to reflect on everyday events
quickly. The author is a creator, a generator of ideas. He or she has freedom
to express own thoughts not necessarily justifying them with scholarly works as
in academic writing. Another advantage for me is that it is online and easy to
access. Since it is online other people can see and read a post and share their
views commenting on it. Blogs become sort of a platform for discussion, letting
even more new ideas develop, which sometimes academic writing is lack of. Besides
it, blogging is becoming increasingly popular in the world. Thus, we need to
adopt and adapt to what is accepted in society to keep in constant touch with
what is happening around, especially if one is a researcher. Given all these,
we cannot exclude either writing academically or writing blogs form teaching
process.
Concluding, it is important
to highlight the value of academic as well as blog writing. Formal style is
used in academia, while writing academic papers, articles and etc. On the other
hand, while writing on internet less formal style would be appropriate.
Mastering both of them makes students more flexible in communicating with their
readers.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi, Bauyrzhan! I totally agree with you. Blogs require quick mind and answers, which makes communication more natural. However, I do not really like the idea of writing everything without justifying it. Of course, if talking about usual blogs, this is normal case. But in our English blog writing we try to support ideas with scientific arguments and evidence. I hope so =).
ReplyDeletePersonally, I can highlight that blog writing gives us an opportunity to know about each other more than if we just chat on the breaks. This is because many people can express themselves better through writing form of communication than through talking.
Dear Bauyrzhan!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this thoughtful post. I do agree with these both opinions. In order to achieve high proficiency in academic writing we have to practice it as more as we can. However, blogging is a freedom. Freedom of choice and ideas. it is more informal and that is the reason of unity of people's opinions that it is a very good type to express your thoughts.
Last but not least, you gave an incredible idea for the final assignment.
Hi Baur,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, blog writing has many advantages since it makes us more comfortable with writing in English and encourages us to seek for additional information thus expanding the horizons of our knowledge. But as I understood the main aim of blogging in our course is to learn how to write about serious research based things in an informal voice. And as a learner of new writing technique I need systematic feedback about posts I wrote in order to know if I am on a right direction and become more confident in writing. The lack of this feedback is the main critic from personal point of view.