Blog Tips!

Category Selection:
Life is an overused category. Alot of blogs get placed in there that belong in other places. For example, a blog about teenage girl's image crisis shouldn't get thrown in life. It easily fits in politics. You may not directly be discussing the political aspect of the governments role in preventing things like that from happening, but its the same subject matter. Politics discusses theories on the governments conduct. If you think advertisements are leading teenage girls to have eating disorders, then you have an issue with the way the government regulates and censors things, don't you? Anyways, I think I'll suggest to Dujo that we get a "serious subject" category or something like that, so those blogs have a definite place.

World News is another underused category. If you made a blog on school shootings, or something to that affect, you might not be discussing recent news. At one time, however, it was news and its acceptable to put it in that category. I also notice alot of blogs about GSB cliques or whatever ending up in life. We have a category for all GSB related things. If you think we need another category, feel free to offer your suggestions. It would be alot better to make a suggestion than to crowd the life category with blogs that would be more suitable somewhere else.

Organization and Layout
DONT TYPE IN ALL CAPITALS. IF YOU DO, YOUR BLOG WITH GET DELETED. THATS SILLY FORMATING. Chatspeak isn't outright banned, but if what you're trying to say is hard to understand because of the way you spelled words, then you aren't using the blogs correctly.
Paragraph beginings get new lines.
Sentence beginings do not.
Which means it isn't needed to put in a new line for every sentence.
And that won't make your blog look longer.
I don't count lines, I actually read blogs and I can see how much effort you put into them.
Also, colors and pictures can make blogs look fantastic and great. So can font formatting and all that jazz. But don't over do it. Cluttered blogs are uninviting. And if your font color is so bright that my eyes start bleeding it can be difficult to read them.

Search Tags
Don't be lazy! Fill that section out. Right now they may not be useful, but when we get a way to search for blogs we'll be needing them. The more you include, the more likely that someones search will return your blog. Put in any word you think somehow relates.

Editing
You can edit your blogs, don't forget that. If you see a mistake and post "*....." as a comment, everyone might not see that and its messy looking. Plus, if you have more ideas you want to add to your blog, you can always come back to it later. I know I do that. Especially when I wrote my blog about why I liked Dita, I kept coming up with more and more things =)

Writing Style
This section of the site is moderated. You cannot post random entries, all entries have to be informative. Profanity is not allowed here. Do not submit copyrighted material, everything you submit has to be original.
We're completely serious about all those things. Random entries are deleted and result in you losing access to this section of the site. Now, you've probably noticed there has been some profane words in blogs. Try and avoid that. It looks so much more intelligent when you use other aspects of your vocabulary. If your entry is extremely profane and vulgar, then it will be deleted. If you ever plagerize material, you can expect to be banned from the section. That isn't tolerated. No one has the right to take credit for someone elses work. So far, no one has done that. Which is awesome, because its nice to read all of your wonderful blogs. Each blogger has developed an individual style and I think thats really neat. Also, check the grammar and spelling in your blog. We all make mistakes sometimes, but try and catch as many of them as you can. (I'm typing this at 1 in the morning, I'm sure I've made a few errors)

I hope you guys find these tips helpful.