27 Varieties of blog post: 2 Re-post blogging
Contributing to blogs is part of many professionals’ jobs these days, not least in HE. This is the second in a series of posts aiming to provide an arsenal of ideas to make writing those posts easier.
2 Re-post blogging
This is taking a post or article from another location and re-posting a significant part of it as a blog post with some original commentary. This is very easy to do – but only works if it is very relevant to your topic. It can also smack of plagiarism if done too often!
Example 1: Staying focused while working from home by Stephanie Booth on Going Solo
http://going-solo.net/2008/05/05/staying-focused-when-working-from-home/
An example of re-posting with some original commentary
Example 2:
Friends on Facebook – fake contacts? by Helen Whitehead on learningcommunities.co.uk
http://www.learningcommunities.co.uk/2010/01/03/friends-on-facebook-fake-contacts/
How to write this kind of post
- Use Twitter or your RSS feed to find a blog post which rings a bell with you, and that you agree with.
- Cut and paste a portion of the post.
- Add a paragraph at the beginning introducing it.
- Add a paragraph or two at the end saying why you agree with it (or disagree!).
Make sure you include a link to and fully acknowledge the original.
Other posts in this series: 27 varieties of blog post