7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Bloggers
These seven bad habits are Kryptonite to the partisan political blogger and must be painstakingly avoided. 1. BECOMING OVERLY EMOTIONAL There’s nothing more counterproductive to your cause, or costly to your metaphysical well-being, than becoming emotionally unraveled in the middle of an argument. If you’re experiencing heart palpitations, developing blurred vision, or smashing at your keyboard, you’re not winning. Keep your rage in check at all times and don’t take things personally. Don't SCREAM or use multiple punctuation!!!! Correct your speling before posting, too. 2. OOZING CONDESCENSION Even if you believe you’re preaching to a misguided knuckle-dragging, inbred, beer-swilling ignoramus, conceal it. If you patronize or belittle your opponents, they’ll only dig in their heels and call you a jerk. Which you are. Others will confirm that you’re a sanctimonious, pompous @&*%&#. 3. SPEWING HATEFUL INVECTIVE If you really want to be persuasive, you have to avoid savage personal insults, smears, epithets, ad hominems, and ridiculously inflammatory rhetoric (e.g., calling Republicans crazed, Bible-thumping, totalitarian, bigoted, homophobic neo-fascists). Media bloviators have built entire careers on hysterical diatribes, but that only works when you’re getting paid big money to preach to the choir. Back here on planet Earth, you’ll never succeed in making a convincing argument if you come off as a raging misanthrope throwing poop out of your cage. 4. INVENTING FACTS ON THE FLY If you don’t have the facts on hand to back up your argument, you probably don't have an argument. Don’t make facts up. The honest facts will eventually catch up with you, and you’ll be exposed as the fraud that you really are. 5. LUMPING UNRELATED ISSUES TOGETHER Nothing screams sophistication like a protest to save the whales, get out of Iraq, shut down the IMF, stop the sale of genetically modified yams, allow gay marriage and recycle your toilet paper. Pick one issue at a time. And for the love of logic, please stay on topic. 6. BECOMING CONSPIRATORIAL It’s tempting to believe there are sinister political/corporate/military forces engaged in world-shattering diabolical schemes (e.g., Obama is an illegal immigrant from the planet Kolob, secret Sikhs are taking over Christmas, Iran is developing an impotence ray, etc.) Don’t bother going there. There are plenty of good arguments to make without bringing in the vast conspiracy of little green men on the grassy knoll. And besides, as anyone who has worked there will tell you, the government isn’t competent enough to pull off a functional conspiracy. 7. WRITING BADL...POORLY. Nobody wants to read incomprehensible drivel written by raging bloggers. Watch for common mistakes such as: A. Avoid alliteration. Always. B. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. C. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat) D. Employ the vernacular. E. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. F. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. G. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. H. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos or de rigeur. I. One should never generalize. J. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations; just tell me what you know." K. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous. L. Be more or less specific. M. The passive voice is to be avoided. N. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. O. Who needs rhetorical questions? P. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. Most of all, have fun. If it isn't fun, quit.
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Ending a sentence with a preposition...
A fine example of an artificial “rule” which ignores standard usage. The famous witticism usually attributed to Winston Churchill makes the point well: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” and on split infinitives....
For the hyper-critical, “to boldly go where no man has gone before” should be “to go boldly. . . .” It is good to be aware that inserting one or more words between “to” and a verb is not strictly speaking an error, and is often more expressive and graceful than moving the intervening words elsewhere; but so many people are offended by split infinitives that it is better to avoid them except when the alternatives sound strained and awkward.
My favorite: "While searching through the closet, he discovered the missing purple woman's coat."
And, what is your point?
But it is only "fun" if we can call each other names and violate all the above rules. And how can we, the uneducated illiterates of the world, partake of free-speech if we can't get on here and spew?
Exactly. That's why we have rules.
They say that impersonation is the finest form of flattery.
They say a lot of things. Doesn't mean there are not exceptions to the rules.
Rational_Thinker - I knew there was a complimentary reason why you copied my avatar. Thank you.
Rational_Thinker - How come you hate Muslims? And gay people? And Mexicans? And liberals? And the French? And intellectual African-American Presidents-Elect?
Is there any non-white non-conservative, non-Christian fundamentalist, non-mainstream American culture that you DON'T hate? Which one?
Skeptic: I don't know what you mean by saying I copied your avatar, but with regard to your last question...
I may be a hateful bigot, but I still love you.
Oh wait... I think I get it?!?
Skeptic, when you say "My Avatar", you must mean your OTHER avatar..that of Thos Payne???
Well, if that is the case, I can only think one of two things.
1) You are wrong. My avatar is Thomas Paine, the great philosophical and rational thinker. I use his picture in my blog home. YOUR avatar is Thos Payne. Clearly, you were thinking of the mundane book store owner named Thomas Payne.
2) I actually DID steal your avatar because your avatar was Thomas Paine but you merely and mistakenly misspelled his name repeatedly for months before I finally and laughingly pointed it out to you. You never corrected this spelling error, so we can only assume that is not the case.
I was pretty happy with my original avatar, Prospector, but we both know what happened to that.
Why do you feel the need to use multiple identities here? Is it to create an image of support for your whacky ideas?
Do you realize how often I laugh at you? I don't know which one is funnier, ThosPayne, Skeptic, UhHuh, the list of others, or Ron Lowe. They are all pretty amusing.
Roland, thanks for the English 1A lesson. It reminded me of many years ago and the lessons I could not have lived without.
Oh...SepticK.... ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mind like a steel trap.
Not going to venture into the quagmire of explaining #1 or #2, eh?
I understand.
M: I came here for a good argument.
A: No you didn't. You came here for an argument.
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
A: (short pause) No it isn't.
M: It is.
A: Not at all.
A: (rings bell) Sorry, your five minutes is up.