Contribute!

We would greatly appreciate it if you can contribute a blog post. (email address is below)

This blog is for SUNY writing teachers to share their teaching reflections and resources, have conversations about advocacy and current issues about writing education, and get to know one another and our programs and projects.

Below we answer a few questions contributors and readers might have. 

FAQs

Who writes for this blog? Members of the State University of New York Council on Writing (CoW).

What issues and types of writing are included? Anything about teaching writing, including any issues that are relevant to the profession.The entries can be about teaching tips/methods, current issues/debates, thoughts about teaching writing or writing practices in other disciplines and professions, reflections about research and scholarship, discussions about teaching with technology, theoretical discourse about writing and rhetoric, etc, etc, etc.

How long should entries be? They should be within the range of 500 to 2000 words, unless the topic justifies otherwise. 

How can I contribute a post for this blog? Please send a Google Doc link or Word attachment to Amy Beth Wright at [image of email address].

Are there any “genre features” of blogging that I should keep in mind? Depending on what you are writing about and how you want to write an entry, the following notes may be worth considering.  Blogs are more of a mode of conversation–especially a form of “social action”–than a genre of writing. But there are certain features that tend to characterize the nature of writing on blogging platforms. 

• Short paragraphs and plenty of space make reading on the screen easier. Varying paragraph length is a good idea when writing about more complex issues.
• Due to decreased quality and span of attention on the screen, readers prefer paragraphs where key points are foregrounded as well as stated explicitly (especially in the beginning of entries).
• Jargon, long sentences, and abstractions are also minimized. Although blogs have become a “social” phenomenon, they have the provenance and ethos of personal “logs” or journals.
• Online sources are hyperlinked (bloggers also “trackback” by commenting from their own blogs in order to connect conversations). As with other types of writing, sufficient detail is provided about key external sources so that readers don’t have to leave the site. Citations of offline sources are minimized.
• Subheadings are used in longer entries, and bullet points are used for drawing attention to important details.
• Images are captioned using key details; they are also linked to their sources and/or credited within their captions.
• Bold and italic fonts are used for highlighting key points.

Who will read what I write? Members of the SUNY Council on Writing are primary readers but the blog is also read by broader audiences in the profession. Comments on the entries are moderated for preventing spam and maintaining decorum.

How can I help promote the blog/conversation? Please share the blog or specific entries on your social/professional networks (Facebook, Twitter, any listserv, etc). Please leave comments on any posts that you find interesting. Even simply “liking” posts will encourage writers. ‘Share’ and ‘like’ links are placed at the end of entries.