Post #23: A Good Blog Post

What makes a good blog, or rather, a good blog post?  Well, it's got to have some color to it.  Whether that's color in the background, crazy images in the individual posts, it doesn't matter--it just needs to be appealing to the eye, not bland and boring.  Then nobody will want to read it.

I also love blog posts that are about more than just facts--they tell a story or a personal memory, are relatable to their readers, and can sometimes have a humorous tone that makes people laugh.  Like my post about good movies, if a person can't identify with or make a connection to a blog post, it isn't worth reading.

Kelly L.'s posts are great--the blog has a background of crazy colors, and she never fails to include images that catch my eye in her posts.  Her latest post is about John, someone she saw doing his math homework.  Even though she know absolutely nothing about him, she is able to describe him in immense detail, from the town in which he grew up to his goodbyes at the airport before coming to the University of Michigan.  I love all the metaphors Kelly uses--they made her writing sound very sophisticated, and yet the things she describes, like a boy in a messed-up situation with his parents, are not at all complex to us, and we can really identify with them, or at least understand them.

I also really like Matthew's posts; he doesn't have all the spurts of color that Kelly has, but the title of his blog, "Kippin' It Real," is a funny play on words.  That alone makes me want to read more of his blog.  His most recent post is about The Michigan Daily, which already makes it sound very professional.  I like how Matthew was able to take something professional and make it relatable to the readers, talking about how a newspaper is hard work, especially because of all the strict deadlines.  In school, we all have due dates for homework, but if we miss those due dates, it really only affects us.  If Matthew misses those deadlines, it not only affects him, but also all the people who read The Michigan Daily.

You can't have a post that includes all of things--personal stories, professionalism, and humor--because then it would just come off a chaotic.  You need to find a good balance between the three, like these previous posts have done, to attract a reader's attention.