Thanks for this column … I mean post. There, you see how difficult it’s been for me to transition from being a journalist (15 years) into blogging professionally. It’s been quite hard to evolve what I learned from J school into something that serves me as a blogger. Certainly, there’s still a lot from J school that I think is important: the toolbox that good writing draws from (grammar is your friend, most of the time it makes your sentences readable!), understanding your responsibilities to readers. The hardest thing for me as been two things that J school emphatically pooh-poohed: using your own voice, and daring to be wrong. As well as, of course, sharing your work rather than guarding your scoop like Cerebus at the gates of hell. I think the arguments I always heard was that such things lessen our credibility as trusted news sources, but it’s interesting to find that the honesty of putting yourself out there and on the line seems to count more than a 100% record of accuracy.

When PR people offer me interviews, my first response is always to simply say that the would-be interviewee should blog his or her thoughts, and then I can link to them. Better for both of us.

Grazie!

Of course, your rawest is probably the equivalent of my most polished. I don’t see how you and Ryan and Megan and Matt crank out so much.

I started a blog a while ago, and stopped posting to it. Every so often I come across an item that I think I should blog about and then the moment passes me by.

I hope to take it up again.

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Alternatively, you might get riled up by the *absence* of commenters, or people linking to you, and ask yourself if you’re just shouting into a void. Again, be zen.
ENDQUOTE

I have at least a few question and I may be back if its ok.

When and how much should you quote someone vs. a simple link? How much context do you need to give vs. expecting that people are following the conversation?

When responding to someone do you just focus on the persons best points or address the entirety of their argument?

How worthwhile is it to link and/or quote something you agree with. It seems boring to say “yeah what she said” but if you never agree with anyone are you a douche?

On that same note s it arrogant to aggregate or have link dumps when you are obviously small time and most of your readers have probably seen this stuff already?

What’s the etiquette if people much more established than you link to you. Should you thank them? Is that kosher?

On that same subject should you make a concerted effort to link to people who link to you? Or, should you focus on the stuff you read the most?

You would think that most of these questions would be clear from reading other blogs but for some reason they are not. Its just different on the other side.

Thanks for your time!

“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

Effort expended attempting to produce high quality works is not the same as actually producing high quality work.