The Writing Way and ORBlogs

I just visited ORBlogs, the public site hosted by Paul Bausch, and was thrilled to see my blog listed in its directory. As early readers of this blog know, I began it with a good deal of trepidation--and maybe also a bit of skepticism. After all, I write all the time, and to multiple audiences. Why do I need a blog?

But since I'm studying blogs and other online forms of communication as a scholarly project, I realized that I should at least try hosting my own blog. So far, I've found that the more engaged I am with it--and the more comments my blog gets--the more interested I am. One sign of this is my desire to personalize my blogs more. Blogger is a wonderful software tool, and I never would have created a blog if it hadn't been as easy as it is, but now I'm hoping I can add some distinguishing features.

For an example of a blog that does that, take a look at culturecat.net. This is a blog by Clancy Ratliff, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of Minnesota. Clancy is one of the co-editors of the blog-published Into the Blogosphere collection that I've mentioned before. I think her site looks very interesting--but then it's clearly addressed primarily to academics. Which is what (for better or worse) I am.

I wonder what others think of Clancy's site......