Should you allow anonymous comments?

Until yesterday, I had no problem letting anyone comment on my personal blog- iamharriet.

I figured that allowing anonymous comments would make it easier for anyone to participate in my blog and it would increase traffic as a result. With the gift of comment moderation and the ability to delete, I figured it wasn't a big deal.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the amount of money that was spent on the wardrobe of a certain vice presidential candidate and her family. Most people would agree that the amount spent was a big number.

I received a comment that was threatening to me and to anyone living in my home state- Illinois. Illinois is the home of the Democratic Presidential hopeful and because we the people of Illinois elected him to the Senate, it was our fault that this amount of money was spent by the other party. The comment made no logical sense, however, I took it as being threatening.

As a result, I have limited the ability to comment on my blog to basically anyone whose name isn't anonymous. I still want to encourage readers to comment, especially the mentally stable.

Commenting is important if you want readers to get involved with your site and return regularly. I do have tips for commenting;

Think hard about allowing anonymous commenting. While it opens things up for readers, sometimes you can welcome spam comments or unstable commentors.

Word verification can be a pain in the butt since it can often be difficult to read. You can turn this off in your setting.

You can adjust your moderation to moderating all comments, comments on older posts, or a simple comment notification. Choosing one of these depends on how much time you have and how many readers you get.

Lastly, consider signing up for Feedjit, Sitemeter or Google analytics to get some kind of a grasp on who is visiting you and where they are coming from.

Feel free to comment.

How to find what you specifically want to blog about.

For some bloggers, they know specifically what it is they want to blog about. This is usually the reason why they start their blog in the first place. Usually, there bloggers are writing about an event, an aspect in their life, or something they have considerable knowledge about. But, what about those of us who want to write but, are unsure about what specifically?

Here is the challenge to help you figure it all out.
Answer these questions honestly and with an open mind.

• What is it that you wind up writing about the most? The common theme behind your posts?

• What do you know about? List one or more things that you have some knowledge about that many of us may not. Look at your life for answers. So you live somewhere that may be of interest to people who do not live there or may want to travel to?

• What are your life learning experiences? Educators know that experiences that you have lived through may hold as much, if not more, knowledge as the textbooks about them.

• What interests you? What are your hobbies? Your favorite sports teams? You source of daily Zen?

• Do you belong to any kind of groups? An alumni group, baby sitting group, political group?

• What have you always been curious about and have always wanted a reason to do research into?

• Don't discredit your daily life. There are readers out these, who may or may not be just like you, who may be interested in your ideas or life.

It is okay to not know exactly what you want to write about at first. Often, you need a few months of writing to develop a direction. I would suggest that after you have answered the above questions, you consider your best three choices and develop those. Within six months it will probably just come to you which direction to follow.

Developing your ideas while you write

I cannot tell you how many times I have started a post by writing the title first, only to find that after writing the post I need to rephrase the title. The reason: because I have evolved my post to the point of taking on a new direction. There is nothing wrong with changing direction as long as the post itself works.

Developing your ideas while you write is a good tool for any writer. After all, writing is a good medium for expressing your ideas. For some people, putting it down on paper or a screen helps them think things out because they have to see it as a whole.

How do you develop your ideas as you write?

First write your title. It is okay since you can easily update it in the end.

Start your post with your title in the first sentence. Then the remaining paragraph should be used to expand on the idea from your title. State your reason or argument.

The second paragraph should start with you asking yourself, "am I still writing about my title or have my thoughts taken me in a new direction?". It is okay to explore the possibility that you have decided to go to a new direction.

How to know that you have gone in a new direction.
It is easy. There are far more ideas, topics, and meat in the new direction than in the original. This should be your cue to change your title.

How to know if you need to stick to your original topic.
When the new direction leads to many uncertain paths. There may be many that can serve as their own topics. The solution would be to write a series of posts. Stick to your original topic if it is important enough to you or your readers.

Develop your ideas by writing everything down and then go back to edit things out. Edit out unrelated, redundant, or items that can serve as a post in themselves. Your goal is to make sure that your post solves the question posed by the title- whether it means that the reader has out a who, what or how before the title you have written.

Becoming a good writer takes time and work. Developing your ideas while you write is something that every writer has to do or has done.

Checking out your source

Using the internet to find blogging topics is a great idea. There are so many ways that you can become inspired from the vast amount of content. It's a good idea to use a variety of options to get these great ideas.

As a blogger it is important to keep in mind that in a way, you are a journalist. You are interpreting news, stories, ideas and more for your reader. Like actual paid journalists, you are responsible for what you report. Getting inspiration from another 'journalist' is often done, but, you are responsible for the interpretation.

How to find that great inspiration and use it.

• I have my Firefox browser tabs set to always open on six specific sites whenever I open my browser up for the first time in the day. This simplifies the process of locating news and keeping up with the world. Three of these tabs are different news sources. By different, I mean mostly different points of view. It is amazing how a story can be seen three different ways according to the different points of view.

• Browsing through the headlines is the best way to find a lead. If something looks remotely interesting I will read the story. Often the story will have sources or additional leads.

• Any journalism instructor will tell you to check out these sources. Make sure that they actually said or did what the story says they did. Link to the direct source. Why? Because if the story goes bad, the finger points to the source. Also, it makes you look more credible as a writer.

It is okay, and also a common practice to seek inspiration from others. However, in the end you are responsible for what gets posted on your site. Make is a good practice to check things out.

iamharriet

Explain Yourself- 5 easy steps

Like most bloggers, or authors, when you get an idea in your head you just want to run with it. Often the words come out so fast that you can hardly keep up with yourself. When this happens, it is easy to lose your readers.

Here are 5 easy steps to help you explain yourself in your posts.

• Get everything on your mind written down. Do it as it comes to you before your forget to mention something. If you are away from your computer, consider writing your ideas on paper, continuing with the process until you post.
  

• When everything is written, or typed in, edit your structure. By structure, I mean, your introduction paragraph, your closing paragraph (summation) and the meat in between. Weed out the extra words or tangent ideas in an effort to get to the point.
  

• Write your first an last paragraph. They should resemble one another in that the first paragraph will tell the reader what your post is about and the last paragraph will tell the reader what you just told them.

• Arrange the meat of your post into paragraphs. Each paragraph should have a main topic and 3-5 sentences explaining the one topic. Be specific in your wording as if your are speaking to someone who knows nothing about the topic.

• Finally, edit, edit and edit. If you have too much information, consider writing another post. Check your punctuation and wording. Imagine yourself as the reader if you knew nothing about the subject. Would be able to fully comprehend what the author was saying? It may help to ask someone else to read it for you and make suggestions.
  

Writing is a craft that everyone, even the experts, develop on a daily basis. Your goal is to inform your reader. Keep this in mind during the entire process.

I am Harriet

How to capture all of those great ideas.

When we start our blog often we go into it with a wealth of ideas. Often there are so many ideas that it is hard to bottle them all up and get them posted as meaningful posts that make sense to our readers.

Having a wealth of information to blog about seems like a good thing. It can be motivating because it gives us a sense of blog fertility. But, what happens when all of a sudden you can't remember all of those great ideas and you have nothing to post? AKA hitting the brick wall. This is the point where you may ask yourself is it worth keeping the blog going?

I have some tips on capturing those great ideas to use during dry spells.

• Keep some sort of a journal. Many professional artists and graphic designers swear by their sketch books. They carry a sketch book with them where ever they go. The sketch book becomes a wealth of inspirations and thoughts.

• Keep a collection of magazine and newspaper articles that inspire you in some way. Even if you don't use the specific article or topic you will be inspired by leads that you can get from a simple web address listed or organization profiled.

• Have you ever received some kid of junk mail or an advertisement that is absolutely inspiring to the eye? Hold on to it. This collection may provide your mind with the creative inspiration you have overlooked.
  

• And finally, use your bookmarks. Keep a bookmark of websites that you may want to visit again in the future for information. While a bookmark may not be today's inspiration, it may serve as tomorrow's topic.

I am so happy to be able to contribute to Successfulblogging. Thanks so much for your following.

Harrietb