Blog Etiquette

Many of my friends blog. The newest member of my "reads" is one of my best friends whose friendship goes back to Junior High (before the term "middle school" was invented). She posted that she's trying to learn blogging from me.

No need to look to me...there's a ton of stuff out there to reference for ideas, links and perfection. But.... I, you know me, have some opinions to share. Two of my friends have a journalism background - so the following probably isn't needed, but for the sake of anyone else thinking of blogging or intelligently IMing, I'm going to go out on a limb.

1) My biggest pet peeves are with with use your and you're. If it belongs to one of us the word is your. If there's an action involved it is you're. Nails on a blackboard come to mind when someone writes to me "your so smart". Well sir: you're not!

2) Next peeve - plurals and possessiveness. This weeks menu isn't right. This months records are wrong (joke here - did you notice?). Week's and month's. Now if we're talking about the past's collection of weeks then it all changes. I'm far from perfect in this arena, but the basics should be known - we're all adults around here (or at least we should be).

3) Reference sites - reference being applicable in two ways. Try www.answers.com - to check spellings and definitions. If you're (not your) attempting to use big or obscure words, check to make sure you're not actually using the plural of bug butts. General information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Quotes: http://www.quoteland.com/. Best of all, anything you want to know more about can be found by searching www.google.com.

4) Look for your (not you're) typos. I found that I find my mistakes best by clicking "Publish Post" and then "View Blog) to review it. I can read it a couple or so times in the Create window and still miss my mark.

6) There, their, they're. There.

8) Be unique. If you can't be unique, give credit where credit is due. If someone's post inspired you and you want to take it a step further - just say so. Keep in mind, it only takes a nano second for Google check originality.

9) Ohhh and don't forget: It is "I couldn't care less" and not "I could care less".

10) Want to learn some more? http://www.dailyblogtips.com/

11) Gina pulled it all together on her blog: http://ginamama.blogspot.com/2007/08/blog-etiquette.html

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