Friday, October 19, 2007

Group A: Elisa C. E-tivity 2

Hi!
After hours spent searching for blogs in Technorati, I found two blogs which really drew my attention and which I hope will interest you.
The first one is about racism, a topic which is very relevant nowadays since our society is becoming more and more multicultural. In particular, it gives an interesting and explained list of mistakes that white people probably make when talking about race. I would mention for instance the first one, which says that although race is a touchy topic associated with the terrible experiences of minorities throughout history, people should talk about it in order to create a more unified society; the fourth one, which says that since everyone has a race, it is wrong to think that race is only an issue for minorities; the sixth one, which supports the necessity of forgetting stereotypes and finally the ninth one, which seems to be the most important because it asserts that it is wrong to think that cultural exclusion is racism: perhaps the different communities are against integration just to preserve their own specific customs. Certainly this topic is very tricky and allows many discussions, but I think that the list presented in this blog makes you reflecting on your behaviour and on what you see around you every day.
Structure and style: I think that this blog is well organized because each ‘mistake’ is not only divided from the others but also well developed containing quotations from different writers. As far as links are concerned, only few are integrated into the text while a large number of them are listed on the right side of the page. The language is rather formal but not difficult to understand.

The second blog deals with ‘the reasons why people fail to succeed’. I find it useful above all for young people who tend to dream a lot about their future, in particular of succeeding in their life thinking that ‘success is a matter of chance rather than of choice’.
Structure and style: There is a sentence that can well explain the language used in this blog and show the differences from the first one: ‘We have become a microwave society, where we want to push a few buttons and POOF you are rich’. As it can be seen, here the language is more informal since the writer tends to effectively give his personal opinion about the problem, whereas in the first blog the author expresses her opinion in a more impersonal way also making reference to other writers. Moreover, unlike the previous one, in this blog links are placed at the top of the page.

FINAL OBSERVATIONS : I noticed that informal blogs containing personal experiences (I would call them ‘diary-blogs’) tend to be shorter and simpler than those dealing with more delicate and complicated issues of general interest (religion, education, linguistics, war...) , even if slang is sometimes not so easy to understand. Furthermore, informal blogs are more effective because they contain many videos, photos, images and are usually written by using different colours.

Let me know what you think about the blogs that I chose,
Bye
Elisa

6 comments:

Anna B said...

Hi Elisa! Well... I'm sure your links are very interesting, but I can't open them! When I click on the link I see the www.http.com website... Anyway, your analysis is full of details! Good job!
Anna

sara said...

Hi Elisa! I cannot open your links... maybe you typed two times "http://" because the url of the first blog is "http://http//www.huffingtonpost..." but I don't know if that is the real problem! However both your blogs should be interesting, and you did a very good analysis! Good!!!
See you soon! Bye!
Sara

elisac said...

Hi, I'm sorry that you are not able to open the websites.
These are the url of my blogs:
racism:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-wood/10-mistakes-white-people-_b_68694.html

Top 6 reasons why people fail to succeed:
http://jtfoxxshow.com/WordPress/?p=5

I hope they work!!!
Bye
Elisa

Niko said...

Hi Elisa. I find your final observations rather interesting. I agree with you on the fact that informal and simpler blogs are more effective and -considering that the final purpose of a blog is the sharing of information- I think they are the best ones. What's the point in writing a blog that make a surfer not understand?
Even when a blog is about something specific it should allow surfers to approach it esily, otherwise they just "click away". What do u think about it?
See you in class,
Niko.

Davide said...

hi elisa....im so sorry but....links on your post does not work...and I am not able to open them...that so strange!!!! I am the only one who did not manage to open your links...i ll try again.....cheers davide

Davide said...

I am not the only one...I ve just red that elisa sara and anna did not open your links......davide