Increasingly I’ve been reading many people on the blogosphere talk about their posts as articles; to which all I have to say is that you’re talking out of your ass if that’s actually what you think you’re writing when you post something on your personal weblog. In my eyes it’s very simple because blogging is RAW. It’s not something that’s been polished and massaged by several people before it’s released out to the masses. I don’t write a blog post and send it off to my editor and make sure that I’ve got all my grammar (note: I’ve corrected my spelling mistake but know that I originally spelt it with an e, and 5minutes later Andrew picked it up..didn’t even have time to review my post myself this time round) in the right order or that I’ve put my post in a correct structure with a nice resolution or question at the end of it all.

It might take me absolute ages to write something (a few weeks or whatever) but even then I honestly can’t claim that the final post is an article. If you’ve ever written a report then you give it to someone else to look it through. They see what you’ve written, they comment on things that you would probably never pick up on. In the end oftentimes the final outcome is very different to what you originally had. Once again in my eyes if you go through this external editing process (and only then) can you claim the final written piece to be an article. Until you do that, it’s a blog post.

It’s raw and guess what, it’s what makes blogging that much more special. It’s people’s thoughts downloaded, most often without the polish. In my eyes the less polished it reads the more fun it actually is. I’m not saying that blogging has to be complete and utter drivel because otherwise I won’t read it. However if you do this blogging thing long enough you start to develop your voice. You being to explain yourself in a specific and unique way to YOU. No polish. Celebrate your rawness! Stop calling it an article.