The Filter Post

Learning to write is just like learning to play Beethoven at the piano. The key to both is doing it every day. You know the old joke: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!

We learn to write by doing it every day. We become comfortable "speaking" through the keyboard. We naturally sit down in front of the computer and "talk."

So the goal of the weekly filter posts is to encourage you to write. They don't have to be long. They don't have to be deep. Just write.

Your first order of business when doing that should be to get the mechanics right, to write cleanly and correctly. That means getting the grammar and punctuation right. That means structuring sentences and paragraphs correctly. That means writing like a pro.

So please don't think of this weekly assignment as just a chore to be tossed off at the last minute to fulfill a class requirement. Filtering is the most basic function of online writing. Think of this as your chance to get good at it, your chance to practice your Beethoven piano sonata.

For the sake of discussion in coming classes, please at least skim this free online reading: The Blogging Phenomenon 

It is an old student paper from 2001, yet it does a good job of capturing the realization that blogging — and online journalism in general — can perform a function that traditional journalism cannot. And that is filtering: providing a valuable service to your readers by pointing their attention to worthwhile material — news, sports, entertainment — that you have found in the vast universe of material on the Web.

Think about how your favorite Web sites regularly perform this function. Think about how you can do this on your blogs. Think about both substance (what you add to the linked content) and form (how best to point readers to the linked content).

Keep blogging, and keep filtering!