The class will contribute to a blog, Researching Greenwich Village History, writing at least three extended posts, and comment on at least six other posts.
Develop Your Historical Voice
When you search for your name in a web browser, what do you find? As you start your career, first as graduate students and soon as professional historians and archivists, you will build an online body of work that may be the first thing that people learn about you. It is never too early to start thinking about crafting your presence on the web, to develop a web persona that is professional and uniquely yours.
Blogging Basics
Blog posts should not read the same way that your scholarly papers read. Your goals should be to engage an audience, made up of both class members and the general public, to impart some information on the history of Greenwich Village, and to attract readers and comments.
Here are some helpful articles and sites on writing blogs and comments:
- History Blogging Project's posts on "Why Blog" [http://www.historybloggingproject.org/why-blog/]
- Grammar Girl, "How to Write a Great Blog Post Comment," Grammar Girl, Mar. 20, 2009.
- Neil Patel, "How to Write a Blog Post," Quicksprout, July 21, 2009
- Darren Rowse, "How to Craft a Blog Post -- 10 Crucial Points," Problogger, Aug. 28, 2008
- Corey Tomsons, "How to Write and Academic Blog," Thought Capital, Mar. 11, 2007.
Assignment Requirements
- Join the blog and post a brief biography with an illustration by Week 2. Provide your background and interests so that readers of your posts get a sense about who you are.
- Post three extended posts, of approximately 750 words. Post one by Week 5, another by Week 10, and the final one by Week 15. Your extended posts may be on any of the following themes:
- A tutorial on how to do research related to Greenwich Village History. Examples might be explaining how to find and use census records, how to locate church records for Village residents, how to find images of buildings in the Village for different time periods.
- An interesting bit of Greenwich Village history that you learned about in the course of your research. Here you might provide information on the larger context for your exhibit, discussing the art scene in the Village in the 1950s, for example, give a short biography of an interesting character that was not the central theme of your exhibit, or write a discussion of the various neighborhoods and their changing names and locations within the Village.
- An interesting digital history tool. Explain its goals, how you think it works or doesn't work for historians, and how it can be used to study Greenwich Village. Choose from the tools below or find your own:
- An interesting web-based resource. Explain the resource and how you used it for your Greenwich Village project. //Please do not choose bad resources in order to review them negatively. The point here is to offer help and advice on good resources. //
- An interesting print resource. This can take the form of a short book review. Explain the resource and provide examples of how it is useful for conducting research on Greenwich Village. //Please do not choose bad resources in order to review them negatively. The point here is to offer help and advice on good resources. //
- Read all posts each week and rate them 1-5 for quality.
- Comment on at least six of your classmates posts during the semester (Two comments by Week 5, Week 10, and Week 15).
Grading Criteria
Bookkeeping |
Were posts completed? Were they completed on time? Were they the right length or longer? Were comments completed? Were they completed on time? |
Content |
Were the posts and comments informative? Were arguments well-reasoned? Do they relate to research on Greenwich Village History? Do they contain links to additional information? Do they contain images? |
Mechanics |
Were the posts and comments well-written? Did they contain typographical errors? Did all links work? |
