 Unless
you're just blogging to exercise your writing skills, or to communicate
with a few friends, you're in the publishing business, and you have
readers who hope, or expect, that your blog, just like any other
publication, will be valuable to them.
Information science identifies two ways that published works can provide value to readers: They can inform, or they can entertain. Most newspapers and magazines have articles that do each.
As anyone who reads How to Save the World
regularly can attest, I'm no expert on writing for entertainment. I'll
leave it up to others to offer advice on how to write entertaining
blogs (though I have no doubt that good stories are an important component of many entertaining articles, columns and blog posts).
Most blogs aspire to inform, in one way or another, and that's something I do know a little about. The word inform means, literally, to put form around,
to flesh out. The 'value chain' at left, another artifact of
information science, shows the stages that we go through in the process
of becoming informed. A blog that takes us from one stage to the next
informs us -- and therefore has value.
Here are the four ways that this can happen:
- Aggregation/Research:
This is the process of pulling together, compiling data. It's what a
reporter does. Who, what, when, where, why, how. Just the facts, ma'am.
It's research. It's hard work, a lot of digging. Example: Billmon or Kriselda
go back and find out what someone said two years ago that's still
archived in some obscure publication or cache, which proves the Bush
Administration has been lying/up to no good.
- Synthesis:
This is the process of distilling and organizing information to provide
context for understanding it better. It's what news writers and editors
do. Charts and tables are also examples of syntheses. Example: I took
the aggregated data on US incomes and produced this power chart.
- Analysis: This
is the process of deconstructing the information to reveal what it
means, what it implies. It requires not only an understanding of the
information and its context, but also broad and/or deep expertise about
the related subject matter: politics, economics, history etc. It's the
domain of experts and specialists: business gurus, professors, and
lifelong students of specific domains of knowledge. Example: The New Yorker does in-depth analysis like this, while newspaper op-eds (and blog rants like this one of Rayne's) provide more cursory and subjective, but still valuable (and often entertaining as well) analysis.
- Prescription: This
is the process of advising and/or persuading the reader what actions or
responses are appropriate in light of the analysis. The analyst may
conclude with a prescription that follows from the analysis, or the
appropriate action or reaction may be obvious or tacit, or the analyst
may not presume to offer a prescription, and instead leave this final
step up to the reader. Example: Here is my recent prescription for education reform.
None of these four ways of informing the reader is inherently better or
more valuable than the others, nor is it always advantageous (or even
advisable) to try to do more than one of them in any single article.
But you'll generally find that the best publications, and the A-list
bloggers, tend to do (at least) one of them very well.
So, at the risk of taking all the fun and uncertainty out of your
blogging, and being accused again of saying there's a right and wrong
way to blog (there isn't -- there are no rules, OK?) here's a scorecard you can use to assess the 'information value' of your posts:
Criterion
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Applicable?
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Achieved?
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Appropriate research done, facts checked, citations given
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Article presents new information, or presents it in a new way/light
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Layout and organization is clear and concise
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Graphics used if (and only if) they improve understanding
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Aggregation/summarization saves readers time reading other stuff
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Article adds something unique that readers don't get elsewhere
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Analysis helps reader see the meaning/significance of the issue
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Arguments/solutions presented are logical and/or persuasive
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New ideas, perspectives, useful tools or ways of thinking are introduced
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Heading, intro help readers assess their interest in reading further
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I've been using it for awhile -- checking off the 3-4 things I'm trying
to accomplish in the middle column before I start writing each post
(which 3-4 vary from post to post), and then just before posting
scoring myself on how well I've achieved each of those 3-4 objectives.
It's caused me to 'pull' a few posts that didn't measure up, and miss a
few days posting, but it's for the better. I'm also realizing that time
pressures recently are negatively impacting my 'scores', and the
quality of what you read on this blog. The drop in comments and hits
shows you realize that too. I'll try to get back to full stride as soon
as work (and other writing) pressures ease off, and I appreciate your
patience in the meantime.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
