As Matt puts it, our group is the "bees knees"

So, for this blog, for once I'm not gonna talk about myself and my interests...hope you enjoy it!  This week, I will analyze my favorite English 225 student blogs and why they stick out to me.

First up to the plate...Matt McCrary's Rad Rhetorical Reasoning.  One of my favorite things about Matt's blog is the titles that he uses, whether those titles are for his individual posts or even for his blog as a whole.  The overall blog title uses alliteration, yet is informal and kinda makes me laugh a little (rhetorical reasoning...rad...really? Oh how I wish rhetorical reasoning was rad. Well, Matt's reasoning seems pretty "rad" most of the time...so, I'll go with it).  Then, Matt's personality and fun nature continues beyond the titles of the posts to the content of the posts themselves.  In one post, "If Somebody Told Me All I Needed Was  Axe,"  Matt discusses the visual argument made by a picture of a "nerdy" guy at the top and a periodic table full of beautiful women, and how Axe body spray allows this nerd to unlock the gateway to a periodic table of women.  Again, not only is the visual intriguing and interesting, but the comedic effect of the title, text, and image fit perfectly with one another and help you understand Matt's arguments, but also allow you to see his personality.

Additionally, Matt's blogs are generally fairly short (well, at least compared to my ridiculously long ones), and straight to the point.  I admire this aspect because I know, that as a busy college student, leisure time to thoroughly read a long blog is not probably often attainable.  Additionally, I know that I often have a short attention span, and if an article is too long, I likely won't finish the whole thing.  One example of the succinct, straight to the point format of his sentence structure is, "Yes, this ad is over the top. Yes, it’s blatantly sexual. But if I wasn’t a Right Guard man, I might just go get myself some Axe."  I appreciate that I don't have to meddle through long sentences, and the short sentences really drive the message home.  Therefore, for the personality and straightforward nature of his writing, I appreciate Matt's blog (http://matt-mccrary.blogspot.com/).

Another blog that I appreciate is Lauren's blog.  Now, in evaluating her blog, I see that it has many of the same characteristics that I liked in Matt's blog.  Like in Matt's blog, I really liked the titles of the posts and of the blog as a whole.  Titles of posts include, "Halloween: Slutty Nurse, Slutty Cop or Just Plain Slut?" and "Hi, my name is Bill and I have Cancer!"  Then, the title of her overall blog is "blogging my way to my identity..."  Any of these titles grab the attention of the reader (at least, they got my attention), and made me want to read the blog without already knowing the whole point of the post.  I didn't know where the "Hi, my name is Bill and I have Cancer!" post was going to go, but I knew that I wanted to read to find out.  Grabbing the readers attention is huge, and Lauren definitely does this, although I believe her titles are a little more controversial than Matt's.

Additionally,  I really liked the spacing/paragraph"ing" of Lauren's blog.  Her paragraphs were short and succinct.  In making the paragraphs short, it made it hard to get lost in the text (AKA, not knowing which line comes next).  Additionally, the paragraphs seem very well structured and thought out.  In her post "Hitler: can he convince you" Lauren even goes so far as to start out paragraphs with bold titles, thereby making it easy to see the organization of her blog.

Don't worry, Nehal, Angela, or the newest addition to our group, Gilad, I appreciate your blogs too (and the rest of Eng 225, of course)!  Everyone in our class writes great blogs, but I particularly appreciate the straightforward, honest, succinct, and often comedic writings of Matt & Lauren.