BLOGGING INSTRUCTIONS FOR ENGLISH 283: CREATIVE WRITING I

Important!! Don’t forget to regularly visit the Main Course Blog for reading assignments, written assignment guidelines, and important course reminders and announcements. All the information that you need will always be at your fingertips at the Main Course Blog. (The syllabus will be posted as the first entry on the Main Course Blog, and you can download a hard copy of the syllabus from this same entry as well.)

The URL for the Main Course Blog is: http://english283spring2006.blogspot.com

To set up YOUR course blog (an online journal website), first go to Blogger at http://www.blogger.com to sign up for a Blogger account. Blogger will take you through an easy, step-by-step process to help you set up your blog and create your very own URL. Your new URL will look something like: http://INSERT-YOUR-OWN-TITLE-HERE.blogspot.com.

A Few Tips On What To Expect When Setting Up Your Blog:

If this is your first time visiting Blogger, click Create on Create Your Own Blog now. You will be prompted to set up a user name and password. Tip: Make sure to write down your user name and password so that you can access, edit, and post to your blog.

Once your account is set up, click next/continue, and you will be prompted to give your blog a name/title, and create a URL for your blog (In other words, choose your own address for the "INSERT-YOUR-OWN-ADDRESS-HERE" portion of your URL http://insertyourowntitlehere.blogspot.com. Tip: Make it something easy to remember).

Hit next/continue, and you will be prompted to select a template (i.e., a layout for how your blog will look on the internet . . . you can change it later, if you wish.)

Blogger will create your blog for you, and then give you a Start Posting prompt. I definitely recommend writing and publishing a test post at this point (even something as quotidian as TESTING, TESTING, ONE TWO THREE . . . you can delete it later if you like) to establish the blog on the internet and familiarize yourself with the posting process.

When you're on the posting and editing screen, you can just type in your entries (or cut and paste from a word processing program—-for longer, assigned entries I definitely recommend cutting and pasting from a word processing program so you don't accidentally lose an entire post should there be a technical glitch). When you're finished with your entry, simply click on the button labeled Publish. Blogger will publish your post on the web, giving you a message that your post was published successfully once it’s done publishing. At that point, you can then you can click on the link to view your blog post on the internet.

Once you've posted an entry you can always go back and edit it by clicking on the edit posts link. This will pull the entry back as a text window where you can edit it as much as you like, or even delete it altogether. You might want to play around with posting, editing, and deleting test posts a bit to get a feel for how all this works.

On subsequent visits to Blogger, you will simply go back to http://www.blogger.com, then log in with your account name and password, and you'll see the title of your blog listed on your Blogger Dashboard once you sign on. You can simply click on that link and your editing menus will come right up for you.

This should hopefully be enough information to get you started. Please don't hesitate to e-mail me with any questions at lroripau@usd.edu, or feel free to come visit me during my office hours or set up an appointment if you need further assistance. Good luck, and have fun blogging!!