Blogging – we often hear it – people getting popular because of their blog sites, gaining fans as they add the contents of their pages. Many people might think that a blogger is the same as a magazine writer or newspaper editor. However, they are not the same in terms of interest and writing philosophy. Every blogger would or should have his own writing style and his specialties; there are bloggers who love to talk about their own personal experiences and there are also bloggers who prefer to discuss popular events around them. There are many different genres of blogs, from sport blog to cooking blog. People choose blogging as a way to express themselves, like they would make a personal diary for themselves, except blogging means their personal diaries would be seen (or intended to be seen) by the whole world. But really, what is a blog? What differentiates it from other types of writing? Is it something similar as our essays or is it more like our Facebook posts? Every person might have different answer for this, but for me comparison between blog and other writings would be very objective, because all of them have their own uniqueness and have their own “fun.”
My sister used to be a blogger back when she was still in college. At that time I did not know what a blog was and what differentiated it from an article in a magazine. I tried to read her blog, yet did not find it interesting because she wrote about dietary procedure and things that were related to it. Thinking of that makes me wonder, what is the real “genre” of a blog itself that really differentiate it from article, essay, or journal? I feel that blog is much more entertaining than an article, because in most articles, the writers will only state facts and the researches about the topic that they are writing about. On the other hand, blogger should be able to express their own opinion, spice up the argument by raising controversial arguments, yet is still able to provide credible sources in which support the arguments. Without those sources, a blog will look dull and unprofessional, who wants to read a blog that full of lies anyway?
Here is one article that talks about what differentiate content writing with blog writing,
(Difference Between Content Writing and Blog Writing). The author of this article, Vivcek Sharma explains in depth the difference between article and blog. Unlike article, he believes that in blog there is a room for improvement for the writer to edit the blog later on, which is a good thing since it is very flexible for the writers. On the other hand, in an article, the final post has to be perfect or else the writing will look amateur and unprofessional. Basically, what I learnt from reading this article is that writing a blog is a never ending process. Readers will simultaneously give feedbacks to the bloggers on what they think could be improved, and bloggers may take note on that for future. Blog is more laid out writing process in which the basic idea is to engage with other person, try to get feedback as much as one could. I believe that this is a much more efficient process for “student writers” because, unlike the experienced writers, we as students are still learning all of the writing processes. We are still experimenting on what is our best writing style, which way do we enjoy our writing the most, and more, so blogging could be used as a practice tool to improve our writing and conversational skills.
So, can we write a blog very informally unlike those essays that we do in most of our English classes? Well, yes we could, but our blog will most likely to lose its credibility and professionalism. Even though blogs certainly are not as formal as our essay assignments and those articles in newspaper, yet it still requires a good grammatical structure, a valid point and argument, and of course it has to be entertaining. In fact, there are many blogs that look like article or vice versa.
(Difference Between Blog and Article) I found this link which discusses about this argument with much greater explanation. The author of this post explains about the difference that really divides these two are writing into two different things. "By writing an article instead of a blog, readers perceive that care has been taken in writing an article and therefore the information contained must be trustworthy. On the other hand, customers may suspect that a blog will have a personal spin to it and the writers are trying to promote something that they have vested interest in. If your aim is to market a product or service, then better use an article. If you have no marketing intention but merely want to get something off your chest, by all means create a blog."
In the end, I think that blogging would be much more interesting for those who do not really seek for a writing that will give an intense feeling when reading it, yet still would give them, as readers, a new fresh idea of the topic that the writer brings up. I feel that blogging is intended for those writers who love to express their thoughts and feelings without being judged and criticized by other people yet will still be able to get feedback and comments on what could be improved on the writing. Unlike articles and essays which focus on the content and the structure of the writing, blog is more like a continuous writing process that focuses on the interaction between the writer and the reader. However, it all comes down to personal taste – some people prefer to read an article because they believe it is more reliable, while others might find article boring and prefer to read a blog because there is more interaction between the writer and the readers. So, which one do you prefer?
