Writing Blog Posts

Join the Academic Skills Team for The Skills Pod. In this episode, Academic Skills Advisers, Anthony and Emma are joined by Dami Akosile, Lecturer in Human Geography, to chat about writing blog posts. We discuss the importance of planning your blog post's structure and content, finding the right tone, and share our tips for making your blog posts engaging. 

Follow us! @AcadskillsUOC

Don't forget to like, comment and follow the podcast!

Transcript

Welcome And Guests

Anthony 0:04

Hi everyone and welcome to this episode of the Skills Pod. My name is Tony, and I'm one of the senior academic skills advisors as part of the team. And today I'm joined by.

Emma 0:14

Hi, I'm Emma, and I am an academic skills advisor.

Anthony 0:18

And today we're joined by a special guest to talk about blog posts.

Dami 0:24

Hello everyone. My name is Dami, and I'm a lecturer from Geography and Environment.

Anthony 0:30

So yeah, thank you, Dami. So we really do appreciate you coming on to the podcast today. And a geographer, just like me, so it's nice to have another on the podcast. I've got to get that in there. Absolutely. Forever a geographer. So today we're going to talk about blog posts. Now, um, this is something we're seeing more and more, isn't it? Emma through through the team, these different kinds of um realistic kind of assessments that come through. So it's not just just standard um essays. So today we're gonna be talking about blog posts, but they are things to consider when you are doing those blog posts. Uh Dami has very kindly given up his time to kind of give that lecturer perspective on on blog posts. Because Dami and Moraine saying that one of your modules has um a blog post as part of their assessment.

Why Blog Posts Get Assessed

Dami 1:17

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's very correct. Um in one of my modules, uh one of the assessment points is a blog post assessment. So yeah, that's very cool. Excellent.

Emma 1:28

Like a a good kind of point to start with is why why do blog posts? Why why kind of have them as a form of assessment?

Dami 1:36

Oh yeah, uh, I would say the main reason why I would do blog posts is because it's a form of audience-facing kind of assessment. So it's more like looking at it from you're an academic or you're studying at the university, or how do you communicate what you've learned to a wider audience? So that's actually the main reason why um a blog post is a form of assessment, just teaching students that skill to be able to communicate what they've learned to a wider audience. Yeah.

Anthony 2:08

And that's so important, is it, Dami? Because you know, we're we're so used to as students of academia, you know, writing for the subject, writing for your tutor, but actually in the real world, we we don't tend to write essays, do we? We tend to talk to human beings and people. So, you know, it's it's a real key employability skill, I think, particularly when you are in a field that is can be quite complex. Geography definitely, you know, has really complex terms, uh, medicine is the same, but to actually distill that down to you know, a layman's person is such a key employability skill that I think you kind of don't do, do you, in a normal essay?

Dami 2:47

Oh, that's that's very correct here. And again, from a personal point of view, um, I remember when I was, because before I started teaching, I was working as a planning development officer. And one of my tasks was to actually communicate policy documents to a town hall. And usually in town hall meetings, you've got people from different backgrounds, and they're not all academics there. So, what you need to do is you need to make sure what you're communicating is understood by everyone in the meeting. So that's one of the reasons whereby, or when you think about blog posting shelves, where how you could develop that skills of effective communication in a way. So I remember uh I wouldn't lie, I struggled initially because I was coming from uh uh I was fresh out of the university, I haven't done any public-facing sort of communication before. So I remember my first panel was filled with a lot of jargons. Yeah, because I was thinking they should understand that they should know what I'm trying to say, but effectively, um, I kind of I kind of polished myself, I kind of understood what needs to be said and how to actually communicate better these points. So that's what or that's effectively how blog posts seems to work for us, yeah.

Translating Jargon For Real People

Anthony 4:07

And you hit the nail on the head there, damn. You know, it's not easy. These some students might say, Oh, blog posts great, you know, don't have to do loads of references, loads of reading. You do, and actually it's quite a difficult skill to distill these things, and particularly if you're in your final year and you've had two years of speaking in the academic language to actually switch that up. Um so yeah, we'll probably cover some of those things today. So I think there's question, I guess we kind of touched on it there a little bit, I mean, it's it's all about audience. So, what advice would you have to kind of to present to that audience to get rid of that jargon? What what what kind of processes did you go through from kind of the start to where you are now, and what do you want your students to do as part of their assessments?

Dami 4:52

Okay, yeah. Um, I would say for me, what what worked best was understanding my audience. So understanding the people, their um demographic makeup, and trying to understand um my audience could be filled with people, say, for example, Tom who's got a primary school education, and I need to communicate this information in such a way that Tom understands these, compared to say Charlie was a world-class professor, and definitely would understand some of these jargons. So it's a matter of making sure your language is accessible, so it's easy for everyone to understand. So if there is any jargon in whatever you're trying to present, you try to make sure that that um theme or that terminology is spelt out, is is spelled out in a very accessible manner so that everyone understands. So I think um uh when it comes to it, um, accessibility, language accessibility is the crux of the matter here.

Testing Readability With Real Readers

Anthony 5:55

So yeah, and something that I I certainly was told fairly early on was to kind of think of somebody you know who fits that demographic and ask yourself the question, would they kind of understand it? Yeah, because I think a lot of students fall into the trap of writing for their tutor and having that assumption, you know. Um and I think it's really important when you do think of somebody is to go, actually, would they would they understand that? And in terms of you know, this jargon accessibility all comes down as well to like sentence structure, doesn't it? You know, in an academic sense, we're used to quite you know flowy complex structures, but I'm pretty sure the average reading age for the UK public is nine years old, so you've really got to like strip it back in and one thing that's quite useful if you are working on Word is the editor. So um I can't remember what I think we're on Word 365 or whatever the Word offices that we use through the Uni. There is the editor function, and within that, there is it gives you a score of how readable your work is. So it is something to check out uh if you are writing a script for a blog post to use that built-in editor function in Word to see actually how complex your language structures are. It's a it's a useful tool. I only came across this not so long ago, so yeah, um please do check that out.

Dami 7:16

And again, uh just before we move on, and one of the things I also tell my students uh is when you're writing, when you're writing a blog post or when you're writing a blog, just try to understand that you were not writing for the lecturer. Fine, the lecturer would mark your blog post, but you are not writing for the lecturer, you're writing for a wider audience. So, how do you think the wider audience would understand what you're currently writing? So that's why I try to make them understand because um unfortunately, even after you reiterate these, you still get people writing in such a manner that it's not accessible to a wider audience. So yeah, I always try to explain to them, always think about the wider audience. So forget that you're writing to the lecturer, forget that the lecturer will mark this at the end of the day, but how would the wider public um receive this information you're put you trying to present to them?

Anthony 8:10

So yeah, it's so absolutely key, isn't it? It really is how we we see it so often, and you say there, Dami, despite the amount of time she might tell your students. So it's making sure that yeah, if there's one thing you take away from today, it's yeah, think of your audience, not your tutor.

Finding The Right Blog Tone

Emma 8:27

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I think I always say your assignment brief is your best friend, and your assignment brief is going to tell you who that audience is. And kind of tying what in with what you said, Tony, about thinking about somebody you know who's in that demographic, even better is to give it to somebody you know in that demographic to read through. You know, I used to give stuff to my dad, and if my dad could understand it, sorry, dad, um, then um then you know I knew that I was on the right track, particularly with things like blog posts. Um so yeah, give it to somebody who doesn't have the subject knowledge but fits that demographic, and that can be a really good test of whether whether you're kind of reaching your target audience.

Anthony 9:10

Yeah, I I think when it comes to some students might think, okay, well, well, how do I do that? How do I what's my first step to writing for this general audience? And I think one thing is think about formality. Academic rating, you know, is typically very, very formal, as you know, as it should be. But when you're talking to the general public, over formalized words is probably not the way to go. So tell me, what advice have you got for that kind of tone of a blog post?

Dami 9:37

Oh, yeah. So for your tone of the blog post, I kind of find it it's kind of difficult because when you tell students, um, you need to keep a balance when you're writing a blog post. So there's the academic tone, the overly formal style of writing, and there's also the I wouldn't say laid back, but it's a little bit much more lighter. And but I find out that students would either go to the extremes of both ends. So you either have submissions with very, very, very academic in writing, and you're there, so submissions which are very, very way too light in tone. So I try to tell them just try to find a balance, you know. Um, when you're writing a blog post, as Emma said, if you could give it to someone within a particular demographic that you're trying to speak to and they can understand what you're saying, then that's that's that's the best thing to go, or that's the best way to cope. So try to find that balance. So I and it's it's very difficult, and I know I might not really be helping a lot when I say that that you need to find the balance, but you you just need to try to find the balance, you know. And if you can strike that balance between not being too formal in an academic style and not being too um light when it comes to writing, then that's that's the sweet spot for writing for a blog post, yeah.

Drafting With Questions And Lists

Emma 10:58

I think that um editing is really important when writing a blog post. I think a lot of students think, oh, it's just a blog post, I'll just write it and submit it. But actually, it takes the same work as an academic assignment. You still need to do your research, you still need to draft it. Um, and in come in terms of kind of finding that balance, you might write your first draft and it might be too formal. So that's where you can kind of start to unpick that formality a little bit. And with a blog post, obviously check your assignment briefs, but you can do things like ask questions. Like in an essay, if you asked a question and you sent that, you know, you put a question in your paragraph, we would like the academic skills team would likely flank that and say, this is too informal for academic writing. Whereas in in a blog post, you can directly address your reader, you can ask questions, you can use bullet points. Exactly, yeah. Um ask questions, use bullet points. It might be that you can use images as well. Um, you can use shorter paragraphs, you can really kind of play around with form, obviously check your assignment briefs. But yeah, there's that kind of playfulness, I guess, that comes with a blog post. How is the kind what is the most kind of effective way, which again ties in with your audience, um, but also ties in another question I think about is what's the purpose of your blog post? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to inform your reader? Are you trying to persuade somebody to to kind of think a certain way? So, what kind of techniques can you can you use to convince your reader, persuade them, get them kind of passionate about something that you're writing about? Um, and I had another point and I've completely forgotten it. Oh yeah, that was it. And um, I would always say read read blogs. No, so look at the the examples that your tutors have given you or other blog posts in your field. What kind of techniques are those um those kind of writers using? Um that I think that's a really good way reading as a writer to help you kind of take on the conventions of a blog post.

Anthony 12:59

Yeah, because with that, Emma, you know, you mentioned there like posing questions to your readers is a great one. Another one that we would see if if it is your if the blog post purpose is to inform or to persuade is if you have a key couple of points, bullet pointing those ones or listing them, which you would never see in a normal academic piece. We would be like, no, they should be paragraphs. So like I was saying, we can that's where your informal stuff comes in, it's that stuff. So and to touch on what you know Dami said before about the really other end of the academic toe and the really light stuff often. I think that's when students are using slang, cliches, or it's gone too conversational. And like Dami said, to find that sweet spot is to remove all that formalized language, but to still keep it you know sensible and it still makes sense. But it's like Emma said, it's that informal style of posing questions, smaller paragraph structures, um, bullet points, for example, that's how you get that slightly different tone. Um, and you know, again, I think uh like Emma said before, you know, use of images is potentially really powerful as well in in a blog post, which again, okay, yes, some essays you might have figures, but typically they're graphs or tables, actually using imagery in in your blog post could be really, really useful because that's what you would see, isn't it? To pick online or in magazines, that kind of visual aspect.

Planning A Clear Blog Structure

Dami 14:25

And in truth, uh that's true because that's what separates a blog post from an essay. Because um with a in with a blog post, you're using images, you're using hyperlinks. So it's similar to what you would see when you say viewing a media article, for example. So um that's that's um that's similar to what you would see in the real world. So yeah.

Emma 14:48

So I think it would also be worth talking about structure.

Dami 14:53

So they still exactly, yeah. That's that's quite important.

Emma 14:58

It needs a structure. You need to know kind of what it is that you're arguing. So that's where this planning comes in, doesn't it? Like it's really important to know what your stance is, how are you going to present your information to the reader? What's the kind of key thing that you want your reader to take away from your blog post? So it's still the way it kind of is similar, particularly in you know, with within kind of academia, a blog post is similar to an essay in that it still requires a structure. So you still need to have that introductory paragraph, that hook for your reader. Um, I would say try and keep to one point per paragraph as you would in an academic assignment. And I'd still recommend having some sort of conclusion, because obviously what you want, a good blog post, um, I would say leaves your reader with something that they're still thinking about afterwards. You could end on a question, a recommendation. So it still needs that kind of structure that an essay has.

Titles Hooks Subheadings And Links

Dami 15:51

Yes, uh, so I was going to add to that to that. Um what I generally tend to tell my students is when you're writing a blog post, think of it as um, you know, the um introduction, the main body, the conclusion, but also think of it about and think of it in this way. Uh you've got your title first, and you want to make sure your title is a catchy title. Like uh, I tell people like uh you might read it and say, Oh, this sounds cheesy, but sometimes the more cheesy it sounds, because it has to be catchy, it has to be engaging, it has to be something that someone someone reads it once and like, oh, okay, it catches the person's attention. Uh, I would want to read this and let me know what it is about. So, yeah, uh, and I've seen a lot of creative titos over the years. So, yeah. Uh, I would I would always advise make sure you have a very catchy title. Then when you're writing your introduction, remember to introduce your hook early on. So that particular statement or that particular sentence, it could be anything, it could be a question, it could be a statement, it could be a statistic. You need to include it in your introduction just to grab the um reader's attention, make the readers keep the keep the reader engaged in what they're reading. Yeah, so that's something to also point out, or that's something I also try to tell them. Then for your main, for the body of your of your blog post, um, another thing I try to remind them is make sure you've got subheadings when you're writing your blog post. Because um, in in terms of when it comes to organization, content organization, you need to make sure it is properly organized. So make sure you have subheadings in your um in your blog post. And also remember um to include your hyperlinks when because the referencing system in a blog post is very different from an essay. And as an academic piece of work, this is still going to be marked. Your referencing is still going to be marked on a blog post. So um try to make sure you include these as hyperlinks in your blog post, and make sure at the end of your blog post you still have a reference list showing some of these or all of these hyperlinks that you've included. And this brings me to the conclusion that you mentioned. Like one thing I always tell my students is make sure when you're writing your conclusion, there's a there's a form of um reflexivity in your conclusion. So you're not just summarizing everything that you've written down, or um going back to what Emma said, the information you're trying to pass across to them, or that thought-provoking um piece of information that you want them to keep um ruminating on, you need to kind of spell it out and you need to kind of extend it in these conclusions and conclusion of your blog post. So you might find, because I I tend to direct my students to go and read um some um blog post online just to get a sense of idea. And I tell them that you might find that their conclusion ends in a question. That's perfectly normal. Because it's it's it allows you to then take critical and go for that. Okay, uh, this is what I currently know. How do I know more? What do I like? Then you tend to conduct a deeper dive into what you currently or what you've just read. So um make sure there is this form of reflexivity when you're writing your conclusion for a blog post, because at the end of the day, that's one thing that actually matters to your audience. So and last but not the least, include visuals, as you said, as Anthony said, like include visuals in your in your blog post because there's the difference, even when you're writing essays, you still need to include sometimes you still need to include some pictures, you still need to include some tables in your essays. So try to include visuals because it's one of the um main major major points of a blog post, the visuals. Yeah.

Anthony 20:06

And I think as well, have a bit of fun with it. Like you said, the the cheesy title, and yeah, you know, have that little bit of freedom with the blog post to actually have that creativity. So, you know, we know that some students that standard essay stuff kind of limits their creativity, you know. This is your chance, if you are somebody who is quite creative, to add a bit of flair to it and yeah, have it have a bit of fun with it. And I think as well, you know, having read some blogs, that personality kind of comes through in the writing, doesn't it? You know, if you're all having fun, you're enjoying what you're saying, you're engaging, that kind of bleeds through in into your writing and for your reader. So so yeah, all good advice. So I think you should be excited about writing blog posts. I I wish I had that in in yeah, uh that we had a chance to do that rather than the standard essay. So I think yeah, for some students it's quite daunting, and I think we all agree it's it's not an easy task to to do to write a blog post. Um, but it is something I think that potentially has more value, I would say, outside of university and something that you'll be doing more and more because even if you're not going to be going into a town hall to present to people, you're gonna be talking to your colleagues in you know, in particular, you know, and they all come from different backgrounds and not everybody sees the things the same way. So the ability to translate complex information in different mediums to people is is such a key skill, and um it's great to see that the university sector is moving towards those kind of assessments. Um but yeah, it's um I think the key take home is really it's think of your audience, think of your tone, um, and yeah, think of that that structure and and how you can play around with that little bit of freedom that you have compared to a standard um assignment.

Emma 21:54

And I'd also kind of encourage students to you know, once you've drafted your blog post, obviously As I said, it it will take a few drafts, it's not an easy option, but make sure that you've got that assignment brief and you're checking that you're meeting those competencies that you're answering the question or the brief that you've been set and you're following that guidance. And because there is more freedom. Um, but it is still at the end of the day, it's still an academic assignment, so you need to make sure that you're working within the perimeters of your assignment brief.

Dami 22:26

Yeah, and again, just what one thing I tell my students is the way you approach blog blog posts or the way you see blog posts is think that as storytelling with a sprinkle of evidence around the storytelling.

Key Takeaways And Final Thanks

Anthony 22:39

I like that. That's a nice way, yeah. That is a nice way to end that one. Um yeah, brilliant. So, Dami, thank you so much for coming on. So that has a that's been really, really good. And then I'm sure yeah, and it's great to the uh you know the lecturer's perspective on on blog posts. I think a lot of students find that really, really valuable. So thank you, Dami, for for coming on today. Um please do listen, we've got a little advert at the end so how we can help you as a University of Chester student. Um, but yeah, please do check back for more episodes. But for now, that's me. Um and that's Emma, and that's Dami. So thank you all. Bye-bye.

Emma 23:19

Hi. Hi there. If you're a University of Chester student, here are the ways you can access support from your academic skills team.

Anthony 23:26

On our Moodle pages, we've got lots of interactive resources for you to use. On our literacy's Moodle page, you'll find help with a range of skills from academic rating to revision. On our Maths and Statistics Moodle pages, you'll find help with different statistical tests, calculations, and formulas.

Emma 23:44

You can also use our Feed Forward email assistance service. You can send 750 words, which is around three paragraphs of your work, to ask at chester.ace.uk and we'll respond within three working days with generic and developmental advice on aspects such as paragraph structure, criticality, and referencing.

Anthony 24:04

You can also book a one-to-one with the Academic Skills Advisor via our Moodle pages. These appointments typically last 30 minutes and are available online and in person. You'll have to see the campuses we're at by looking at our booking scheduler. You can send across an extract of your work for us to look at in preparation for the one-to-one, or you can book a one-to-one to discuss a generic skill such as referencing or critical thinking.

Emma 24:27

If you and a group of your course mates are struggling with the same academic skill, you can book an Ask Together session by emailing ask at chester.ac.uk with details of your availability, how many people are in your group, what skills you want to cover, and where you'd like the session to take place.

Anthony 24:45

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook using the handle ACEDSkillsURC, where we post practical tips on a range of academic skills, and it's also a great way to see what the team are up to.

Emma 24:57

And of course, you've got the skills pod. If you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or you'd like to be involved with our podcast, please email ask at chester.ac.uk.

Anthony 25:08

Ask.

Emma 25:09

Supporting your success.