Writing II: general information about Writing II

For this course, you will need to bring a notebook and pen, and the Longman Wordwise Dictionary, to every lesson.

In the second semester, we will build on the blogging ability that you learned in Writing I. To benefit from the course, you should be able to:

1. write a blog post, without feeling that it's a big job


2. write a reasonably interesting one-paragraph post in 10 minutes


3. write a comment on someone else's blog


4. use tabs to switch between different web pages


5. use keyboard shortcuts (Command-T, A, C, V, Tab)


6. send photos to your blog


7. find time regularly to blog outside of class time, even if it is only a short time

If you cannot yet do some of these things, please learn them quickly, because after the first 2-3 weeks I will assume everyone can do these things. I will be happy to show people how to do these things individually until about the middle of October. But If you come to me in December asking me how to open a new tab (for example), I will know that you haven't been studying seriously. In cases like this, don't be surprised if you fail the course!

In the first semester, it took many of you a long time to become accustomed to using the computer for writing. Typing, logging in, making links, using tabs -- all these things may have been difficult for you. Therefore, it was difficult to make strict rules about how much blogging you should do (though some people who blogged very little failed the course). In the second semester, everyone should already be used to using the computer, so you should be able to write much more. Try to always be aware of how much writing you have done. If you copy all your writing to a Word document, for example, how many pages are there. If you were taking a conventional writing course (e.g. handing in a "report" every week), would this quantity be enough? One advantage of blogging is that it helps you to write casually and enjoy writing, and therefore write more. Please make sure that it doesn't work in the opposite way for you!

I will give you more details later, but as a guideline I suggest that 500 words per week is a reasonable target. This would mean about 7000 words during the semester. For people who need a couple of weeks to become accustomed to writing regularly, 5000-6000 during the semester would be OK as a minimum.

So please make a little effort early in the semester to get into the habit of writing regularly. In this way, the course won't be too difficult for you, and we can all enjoy blogging together!