Frequently Asked Questions - About Blogs and Writing

In a word, yes... provided that each blog entry is a separate issue and can be justified to be published separately.

This means that each blog entry regarding your main topic should be a complete and individual subtopic with new information not yet presented in any other entry of the series.

That is not to say that information you've presented in earlier entries into the series should not be referenced or linked to... but subsequent blog entries must be distinguishable as deserving their own, separate posting. If the only difference between blog entries is one or two paragraphs, and the rest of the information is copied from another blog entry, we may ask you to consolidate your series into a single posting or unpublish entries into your series pending further edits or information.

If you are passionate enough about an issue to blog about it, chances are there are other people out there who will be interested. So the key point is just to post about things that are important to you. That said, here are a few tips:

• Tell people about your personal experiences in your posts -- why are these issues important to you? It's great to have facts and figures, but a blog posting doesn't have to be as formal and impersonal as a term paper. In fact, people often appreciate personal stories even more than dry facts.

• When you can, tie your post in with current news, books, movies, or quotes from celebrities or public figures. People are searching for things that are hot topics of the day, and if your post mentions something that is hot, people may find it through search engines.

• Do informal interviews and quote people in your posts, or grab quotes from events that you attended, or stories you heard or saw on the radio, TV, internet, or other media.

• Use the image post function to upload photographs. Photos grab people's attention, and help tell more of the story.

• Look at other posts for ideas -- you'll see that there are all kinds of styles and topics, and you don't need to conform to a particular format to post to a blog.

• You don't need to say everything that you have on your mind in one post. Break things down into easy chunks, and then use links in your posts to refer to other posts or photos that you have previously written.

Absolutely not! You will find a number of our users that avoid talking about politics and news like the plague. The news is certainly a good starting place (you can find news articles off the beaten path on our News page), but you are certainly not limited to blogging about it.

In fact, we encourage you to blog about things that matter to you. We have users that blog about personal experiences with religion, diseases, and even financial aid problems they face with their school. None of these necessarily come from the news, and none necessarily have to do with politics. Blog about what matters to you. If that's politics, great! If it's avoiding politics like a plague, that's great too!

You have fairly broad leeway on what to post about as part of this contest, but posts about Britney Spears will probably be considered off-topic (unless Britney Spears suddenly developed a social conscience and did something truly newsworthy).

The general idea is to blog about current issues and events, and to generate discussion. You'll find people blogging about music, entertainment, sports, news -- all kinds of issues, but we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.

• When you create a new post you'll have the opportunity to categorize it as being related to one of progressive principles that we have listed on the site: broad prosperity, shared responsibility, effective government, and better future.

• Select one of these principles and one or more category, if appropriate for your post.

• We do not want truly random postings for the purposes of this contest. Many students are writing well-thought-out posts about current events, social, and cultural issues, and it is not fair to those contestants if we allow points for random musings -- especially multiple postings of random musings.

• We also don't like it when you cut and paste multiple posting from your MySpace or LiveJournal blog and submit them for the contest.

• It is OK to post things that you have written for classes or posted before on other blogs -- if you think what you've written is good and would be appreciated by the Progressive U audience.

• Browse through other posts (especially those that have been promoted to the front page) to see what types of posts are appropriate.

• Finally, we will disqualify and/or remove any posts that violate copyright law, are libelous, obscene, or that harass or abuse other members and users of this site. For more details on these policies please review our Terms of Use and Fair Use Notice.

This practice is acceptable within reason. The Alumni Association Faculty discussed how to tackle the problem of copy/paste blogs without any substance, and have came up with the following guidelines.

• Make sure you have a position. There's no point in posting an article if you don't have anything to say about it. The majority of your post (at minimum 200 words) should consist of your opinions.

• Do not post the entire article without written permission. It is illegal. To figure out what you should include, keep in mind that most news sources use AP style, which recommends the "inverted pyramid" method of writing. This means that the most important information is contained within the first few (3-4) paragraphs of an article, so editors can cut off the article when there is limited space.

• Cite your source (author, title, location) and/or post a link (when possible). This prevents plagiarizing, gives your credibility, and allows users to read the article in full (since you did not include the entire article).

• Check copyrighting rules and regulations of the news article you are trying to cite. Some news sources require that you gain written permission before posting ANY part of their article. To not gain copyright permission means that you are infringing on copyright laws, which is against the Terms of Service.

Please keep in mind that if these guidelines are not followed, your blog may be removed by a Faculty member. If it is removed, you will be warned.

You can re-post content that you have previously written, provided you have not transferred copyright to another party. When you re-post something that you have already posted elsewhere, please note in your post where it was previously posted.

Please ensure that you are not violating any copyrighting laws when you do this. Some sites (such as MySpace) sometimes gain propriety over submitted work, including yours. Read through the site's Terms Of Service before copying over a blog or article that you have previously written.

However, anything you post on Progressive U remains your property. This means that you can feel free to repost anything you've written for Progressive U onto any other networking site you might belong to. But we would caution doing this. Many of our users do check for copyright infringement and flag posts they find duplicates of across the web. Of course, if we are able to see that it's you, the flags are removed; however, if we can't tell that you've posted both copies, we will unpublish and notify you.

In most instances, we say no, do not repost chain letters because they're of little progressive value. However, there are instances in which posting a chain letter is acceptable:

• If you have an impassioned reaction to the chain letter and wish to post it to highlight your commentary on the letter.

• If the chain letter is part of a larger project (debunking myths, discussing hoaxes, etc)

Aside from these few instances, we greatly prefer that posting chain letters be avoided and that you instead focus on your own thoughts and opinions! They're of much more value than a chain letter of dubious origin and accuracy!

Sure, as long as it fits our guidelines for posts. This FAQ is filled with ideas about how to blog, when to blog, and what to blog about. Keep these issues in mind when posting something you've written for a class:

• Instructors and faculty often check the Internet for possible plagiarism. Alleviate this possibility by posting your paper only after you have received your grade.

• Depending on the nature of the paper, you might wish to add a small paragraph beforehand to explain why you wrote the paper, and why you felt it should be published on ProgressiveU

Here are some ideas to get you going. Before you know it you'll be addicted to blogging, and you won't need anyone to give you ideas.

• Blog about issues you are discussing in your classes.
• Blog about hot topics on your campus -- events or rallies put on by campus groups, guest speakers, something you read in the campus paper, heard about on the radio, or saw on TV.
• Review a book, movie, or album.
• Scan online news sources like Google News.
• Find out what's the latest buzz on the internet through sites like Yahoo! Buzz Index or MSN Search Insider.
• Scan other progressive blogs, like the ones on our blogroll, for ideas.
• Scan conservative blogs and websites, like these, to see what they are making a fuss about.
• Check out the ProU editors' News Feeds.
• Try writing a blog relating to one of the topics of the week.

Sometimes we find it necessary to use the work of another in our writing. ProgressiveU allows that, however, we have strict policies regarding plagiarism and we follow all copyright infringement laws. Violations of those policies will result in the post being removed and/or your account being blocked.

To avoid violating the Terms of Service there are a few things you should remember about each.

Plagiarism means using another person's ideas or work without giving proper credit to that person.

• If you are directly quoting or paraphrasing the work of another, always cite your source.

• Citing your sources is as simple as including:

• The name of the author or publisher if no author information is available

• The date of publication

• A link to the original source (if available online) or the title of the document (if not available online).

• This information should be included at the bottom of your post like a bibliography.

• You should also insert the last name and the date (if known) of the work directly following the quoted or paraphrased material. Example: "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" (Acton, 1887).

Copyright infringement means violating the rights reserved by the copyright owner through the unauthorized use of his or her work, and is illegal. Although Copyright Infringement also includes using another person's work, the details in what is or is not "copyright infringement" differ slightly. Copyright infringement also entails distributing another person's work via a means that owner had not originally intended.

• To avoid copyright infringement never repost, in entirety, the work of another without express permission by the author or publisher.

• Stick to the four paragraph rule (never copy more than four paragraphs into your work)

• And remember to cite your source and provide links to the original!

For more information on Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement and Fair Use please see Copyright Infringement, Plagiarism and Fair Use.

Blogs are frequently promoted to the front page by the Faculty members. These blogs are chosen to demonstrate to bloggers and guests the exemplary style of blogging is on this site. They are listed in chronological order, with the most recent blog at the top of the page. While each moderator has a different set of criteria for promoting blogs to the front page, the following are general requirements to be promoted:

• The blog must contain correct grammar and spelling. If there are minor errors, the moderator reserves the right to edit the blog before promoting it. The blog must also not be copied and pasted from another source, or plagiarized.

• The blog must promote some progressive principle (Broad Prosperity, Shared Responsibility, Effective Government, Personal Freedom, Better Future).

• The blog should be unique in some way. If the blog is one of many written on the same topic, it should look at the topic from a different view than the others.

• The blog should encourage discussion and/or be very informative.

Generally blogs should be of a decent length; that is, they are long enough to explain your point of view, but short enough to keep our interest (250 words is a good limit to hold to).
The Faculty members try to keep the front page as fresh as possible, but that does not always happen. The quality and 'freshness' of the front page depends on the blogs that people are writing. If there are no good blogs, the front page will remain static.

Please note that if you edit your blog entry after it has been placed on the front page, it will automatically be removed from the Front Page. We have no idea why this is, but if you happen to notice this, just send a Faculty member a private message explaining the situation and we will try to re-promote your blog entry again.

Your blog should be long enough to cover the topic you want to cover. However, we do have some requirements and guidelines for the actual length of blog posts.

• Blog posts must contain a minimum of 200 words. If you do not post the minimum 200 words, the system will not permit the blog entry to be posted. If your blog entry contains borrowed material, such as a news article, that pushes the word count over the limit, but does not contain 200 words of your own content, the post will be removed and you will be contacted and asked to revise the blog entry.

• If you do have a post or question but do not need the 200 words or want to make it shorter, post it in the forums.

• Good blog posts are usually anywhere from a couple of paragraphs, up to about a page or two (sometimes three). Careful not to make your post too long (consider breaking the topic into parts), as you'll often lose people if your post is too long. Anywhere from 250-600 words is usually a good and effective length.

• If you have a 5 or 10 page paper that you wrote that you want to publish online, write a short summary in the body of your post, and then attach the whole paper using the "Attach new file" field. People who want to read more will download your file, but they will appreciate the summary you have posted.

• When considering the length of your post, be sure that it is broken down to be easily read. Paragraphs can become hard to read if there is no space between them to help separate your thoughts. The more paragraphs in your blog post, the more breaks in-between thoughts there should be.

There are several features that allow you to connect with other bloggers. Of course, the blogs themselves allow you to discuss any topic with other people on the site. However, there are other features we have available as well.

Profiles

Each user has the opportunity to build his or her own profile on the site. A few questions are asked during registration, but the rest is up to you. The profile has fields for name, location, school, school status, degree and major, interests, personal website, etc. You can add as much or as little as you want to the profile, giving you complete control over your privacy. You can also add an avatar that will be associated with any post you make on the site.

Profiles can also be used to find people with similar interests. All the things you list in the favorite music and favorite books sections become links. When you visit a profile, you can click on these links to find people with similar interests! The results page will also bring you a list of other interests that those people have.

You can update your profile by visiting 'my account' in your user navigation menu, then selecting the 'edit' tab at the top of the page.

Buddy Lists

Our buddy list feature allows you to track all the forum topics and blogs that your 'buddies' make. There is a section on the sidebar devoted specifically to updating the most recent blogs from your buddies (conveniently titled 'My buddies' recent posts'). Other people can also add you to their buddy list to track your progress on the site.

To add a person to your buddy list, visit their profile page, and click the link 'Add (user) to my buddy list'. To remove, just visit their profile again, and click the 'remove (user) from my buddy list' link. It's as easy as that! You can also see your buddy list at any time by clicking on 'my buddylist' in your user navigation menu.

Of course, meeting people doesn't stop at the site, so we've compiled an outreach page for you to visit for ideas of things to do in your community. Remember, progress can only be made when you Reach Out.

There are many ways to promote your posts. Here are some suggestions:

• Put a link to your blog in your signature

• Invite your friends to sign up

• Add a link or feed to your Facebook, Myspace, MyYahoo!, etc.

• Send a link to your blog post to reporters or well known bloggers

It is relatively easy to embed videos from video sharing services like YouTube; you just need to make sure you are using the correct editor when you paste in the code that references the video.

Usually it's best to write the text of your post first, and then insert the video where you want it to appear. Note that for blog posts you still need to write at least 100 words of text. For forum posts you can post the video and nothing else, if that's what you want. If you have more than a paragraph of text you may want to use the rich-text editor to enter your text (that's the editor with all the word processing icons at the top).

Once you have your text entered, following these steps:

• Save what you've done so far. Click Preview to temporarily save your text.
• Click "disable rich-text" below the editor window to go to HTML view.
• Copy the "embed" code from YouTube, or other video source, and paste it into the window either before or after your text.
• If there are HTML tags that say "pre" and "/pre" in the window, remove them before continuing (remove the angle brackets that precede and follow the tags too).
• Preview your post, and Submit when you are satisfied. You should now see the video window in your post.

Do not insert copyrighted video into your posts unless: a) you own the copyright, or b) use of the image would fall under fair use guidelines. If you do use a video segment under fair use, be sure to give proper credit to the copyright owner. We reserve the right to remove video that are deemed inappropriate or are clear violations of copyrights, fair use guidelines or the ProgressiveU Terms of Service.

Posting photos can be tricky at times, but it can be done if you keep a few things in mind during the process.
It is usually best to write the text of your post prior to inserting the photos where you want them. Once you have your text entered, follow these steps:

• Save what you've done so far. You might want to use this time to copy your text into a wordprocessor such as Microsoft Word, so that you can easily return should things go wrong. Click preview at the bottom of the post to temporarily save your post on the website (note that, except in rare instances, your blog will not be saved if you exit out of your browser with this.)

• If your photo is already available somewhere on the internet, skip to step 5. If not, click the 'file attachments' link near the submit button, and attach your photo to your post by uploading it from your computer.

• Near the bottom of the input form you will see a ProgressiveU.org URL listed for your attached photo. Highlight and copy this URL.

• Place your cursor in the Body edit box in the place where you want to insert the photo. Click on the Insert/Edit image icon (it looks like a tree) if using the rich-text editor (clicking the link that reads 'enable rich-text'). Skip the next five steps if you do not want to use the rich-text editor.

• Paste the URL for the photo into the Image URL field.

• Choose the alignment that you prefer. Left or Right usually work best (text will wrap around photos this way), but you can experiment with other alignments.

• Vertical Space and Horizontal Space are for padding around your photo. We've found that a value of 5 for both of these usually works well.

• Click Insert.

• You many need to resize your photo in the Body editor box. We recommend a maximum size of 450 x 450 pixels, to avoid throwing off the formating of the right sidebar.

• Here's the most important step, which many people fail to do at first: Under the editor window in the input methods section, select the Full HTML radio button.

• If you are not using the rich-text editor, write <img src="YOUR URL HERE">. You will also uee this method to post photos into your comments.

• Preview your post, and Submit when you are satisfied.

Once you feel comfortable with the image insert functions you can skip some of the extra 'save your work' steps above.
Do not insert copyrighted images into your posts unless a) you own the copyright, or b) use of the image would fall under fair use guidelines. If you do use a photo or image under fair use, be sure to give proper credit to the photographer or copyright owner. We reserve the right to remove images that are deemed inappropriate or are clear violations of copyright or fair use guidelines.

You'll notice every time you decide to "post a new blog entry" that there is a field below the main text area that reads "Input format". The default is set to "Full HTML". This selection allows you to use several of the most common HTML tags within your blog for emphasis, hyperlinks, or even to separate quoted text from your own text. To use these tags in your blogs, make sure that you do not click on "enable rich-text" - as the rich-text editor will not recognize your tags because it has features that work to automatically add the tags just as in a word processor. To use them in your comments, just follow the simple directions for each one. Here is a list of some of the allowed HTML tags, what each one does, and how they can be used in your blogs.

• <a> and </a> This tag allows you to create a hyperlink in your blog without having that ugly URL address taking up space. To use this tag, follow this example:

  <a href="http://www.progressiveu.org">The text you want to link</a> Will turn out to look like this:

  The text you want to link.

  Notice, the code is opened with the <a> tag, and then closed with the </a> tag; this is important as if you forget either of the tags, your code will not work the way you want it to.

  You can also make your links open into a new window - keeping people from leaving your blog entirely when they go to read an article that you may be citing within your blog. To do this, add the line Target="_blank" into your tag like this:

  <a href=http://www.progressiveu.org target="_blank">The text you want to link into a new window</a>. will work like this:

  The text you want to link to a new window.

• <b> and </b> This tag will allow you to make some your blog bold to emphasize certain points. This is not recommended as a means to publish your entire blog in bold text, but sometimes certain areas or ideas should be emphasized to make a point. To use this tag, place the opening tag before the point in question, and the closing tag directly after the point in question, like this example:

  <b>Here is an example</b> will give you this result:

  Here is an example

• <i> and </i> This tag allows you to take some of your blog's text and italicize it for emphasis. As with the <b> and </b> tags for bold, it's not recommened to publish your entire blog in italics. But occasionally, italicizing a word or two can bring just the right amount of emphasis to a point you'd like to make. Simply place the opening and closing tags around the words or phrase you would like to emphasize like this:

  <i>Progressive U is a great website!</i> will look like this:

  Progressive U is a great website!

• <blockquote> and </blockquote> This tag will allow you to separate parts of your blog into a blocked of section: perfect for use when directly quoting an article or other source:

  <blockquote>ProgressiveU.org is a nonpartisan social welfare organization that encourages an open discussion of current events, progressive values, and public policy priorities.</blockquote> Will look like this:

  ProgressiveU.org is a nonpartisan social welfare organization that encourages an open discussion of current events, progressive values, and public policy priorities.

The ProgressiveU Terms of Service states:

We welcome active debate but in order to ensure a safe and civil online environment, ProgressiveU reserves the right to remove any content you post on the Site or terminate your participation. To maintain that safe and civil environment, you agree not to upload, post, display, distribute, transmit or otherwise publish on the Site any material that:

(1) is libelous, obscene, pornographic, harassing, invective, or abusive;

(2) is violent, hateful, or threatening to anyone or any group.

But what exactly does all of that mean? What is a personal attack and how do we enforce it? Read this guide for specific information on what the policy entails.

Personal attacks, including name-calling, harassment, or violent, hateful and/or threatening statements made about or to any individual or group, are expressly forbidden at ProgressiveU.

When engaging in discussion, you should comment on the content of the blog itself and not on the blogger. Personal attacks will not help make a point. Instead, they degrade not only the discussion, but your personal integrity, that of the website and the mission of ProgressiveU.

Debate and discussion are a vital part of the ProgressiveU mission. Users should be civil and adhere to good netiquette when engaged in discussion, debate or general blogging. Comments should not be personalized and should be directed at content and actions rather than individual(s). When in disagreement about content, remember that it is not a personal attack to say "Your statement about this is wrong because ______." Nor is it a personal attack to debate with the individual who made the statement.

When in debate or discussion, the following types of comments and actions are never acceptable: