Field Research Report:
My
decision to blog for 30 days revolved around many interests of mine. I am
pursuing a Public Relations major; within Public Relations, one must have an
impeccable writing style. In high school I was the Chief Editor of my school’s
newspaper and I really loved working producing articles and stories. Throughout
my journalism classes through high school, I was constantly being taught that
blogs were becoming a huge part of journalism. So when my family and I took a
trip to Vietnam this summer, I started a blog that I would continue to write in
every single day that I was there.
For two weeks, I blogged about all the new sights that I was seeing, the
different culture and new experiences that happened to my family and I while we
were touring Vietnam. During that time, I looked forward to blogging, it was a
channel for me to share to family and friends back at home, what I was experiencing.
I found that I instinctively used my writing skills from English and Journalism
classes acquired during my high school years. My own personal interest in
blogging has pinpointed my desire to learn how to be a better writer.
I
started my 30 day research project towards the beginning of my second semester
at Anderson University. During this time period I had to familiarize myself
with my schedule of classes, as well as time to do my homework and find time to
blog. To gather data for my project, I took a practice editing in context SAT
test. After I completed the test, I recorded which questions were asked, and my
score. For the next 30 days I blogged at: http://losesightoftheshoree.blogspot.com/
. After the 30 days are completed, I will take another editing in context SAT
test with different questions. Once I have completed the test, I will compare
the pre- blogging score and the post- blogging score. From there, I will see if
I have increased my writing skills, based on that test. I wanted to research if
blogging can contribute to writing and communicating more effectively. I chose
to blog for 30 days because I was curious to see if writing every day without any
limitations, could improve my writing skills.
I can tell that I have become a more effective
writer. Based on my SAT context and editing results post- blogging, I have
improved by one point. When I write, I am more intentional to write in a way
that people can understand. One problem that I hadn’t thought about before
starting me research was finding time to blog. Blogging usually takes up two
hours of my day from brainstorming about what I want to write about, writing my
blog, editing it, adding pictures, and then posting and sharing it on social
media. When I originally had the idea to start blogging for 30 days, I had no
idea that it would require so much time. Especially during the week days, I had
to spend a lot more time doing school work then I was used to. I think that the
more I write, the more I can improve. I found that blogging has increased my
love for writing, and I have received many positive comments towards my writing.
After blogging for 30
days, I will take a break from posting blogs every day. However, based on my
own observations and people’s comments, I will probably blog a lot more.
Blogging not only has given me a way to express what is on my mind, but at the
same time it also has improved my communication skills. In the future, if other
researchers would choose to enhance the research that I had done, I would
suggest taking a more extensive test before and after blogging.
