I celebrated my blogiversary last week. My very first post appeared just over a year ago, on July 30, 2008. (I wasn't part of the beta group, but that's okay: betas work much harder than I do, because they're so frightfully clever; I'm awfully glad I'm not a beta.) The occasion caused me to browse through the posts I've written during the past year and to think about what I've learned.

Now, you might think I'm going to badger you into reading my past posts that have unaccountably failed to receive much attention--but no. I'll be happy enough if you read this post, and even happier if you write a post of your own about any lessons you've learned here, about your writing, your art, your social nature, yourself. (Open Call tag blogiversary. Even if it's not your blogiversary.) My blogiversary post will describe what I've learned about writing an informative expository blog post.

...after a brief diversion, that is: When I call a blog post informative and expository, you might be reminded of the essays you had to write in high school. (Verbal Remedy has written a marvelous take-down of the five-paragraph form, one of the cleverest things you'll find on OS.) Why do you need me to go over all this again? Partly because Google finds many lists of guidelines for writing such essays, and some of these lists, uh, totally suck.

An English professor at Hamilton Academy has composed a list of ten rules, or Guidelines for Essays, in which number 8 is Do not use a hyphen when you need a dash, and vice versa, and number 10 is Do not use the word "lifestyle" as a synonym for "life."

A professor at Waycross College has a more extensive list of thirty rules, or Basic Rules for Writing Formal Essays, which provides room for less-critical-but-still-important pieces of advice, such as number 11, If handwriting your essay, keep your left margin even with the red line down the left side of your paper, and number 24, Remember: Cannot is spelled as one word, not two [sic].

Then there's the fastessays Web site, which takes 550 words to give you one rule, that an essay should have an introduction, a main body [oh, a main body], and a conclusion. The site exists to sell you essays for your own use, essays that are guaranteed to contain "0% plagiarism". I've just put in an order for an essay on the topic of irony; I hope it's good.

Ahem. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. It's not that I doubt the value of a pet-peeve-based English curriculum, or a grading scale that includes the symbol $, to indicate that a student is not paying enough to get really high-quality plagiarism, but... Never mind. Back to business. 

Let's assume we all know the basics of writing. I certainly did, a year ago; I had some fifteen years of academic writing behind me. What was there for me to learn? Lots. Two things stand out, which I'll describe first, and then I'll give a list of more minor discoveries.

I write better when I write what I care about. It turns out that, for me, writing about what I know or find interesting isn't enough: I have to think it's important. Not of earth-shattering importance, but my writing seems to be more effective if I believe, essentially, "People will be better off, even if just in a tiny way, if they know this..." This sounds extravagant, I know, but so be it. I can't expect readers to care if I don't.

People like to read about people, including themselves. I've drawn on my academic background for a lot of posts. That background is split between cognitive science (with a tiny dash of psychology) and computer science; most of my professional work has a strong how-to flavor. It turns out that my posts here about how people think are far more interesting and popular than my posts about how computers work, even if the ideas have the same source. So if I write about abstract ideas, which I do quite a bit, I make sure that they're grounded, not just in the real world of things, but in what people think and say and do.

What else is there? In no special order, and in the form of those dreaded essay-writing rules:

• Write less than you know. That is, I try to give a big picture, but I'll leave out some details, even if they're interesting, to save time and space. And because they may come up in discussion afterwards.
• Give readers something to think about. There's reading, there's understanding, and then there's becoming engaged with a post. I hope for the last, a response along the lines, "Oh, that puts some of my own knowledge and experience in a different light..."
• Put a bit of yourself in your writing. One way for me to make that people connection is to write about my own experience--it's sometimes awkward or difficult for me (for example, I actually try to avoid thinking about why health care reform is important to me personally), but it's often worthwhile.
• Write in layers. Readers have all sorts of backgrounds, and I try to make connections at different levels. This can take the form of jokey asides, which an editor would probably tell me to get rid of, but what the hell, it's my blog. (A prime example is the Brave New World bit in my opening paragraph. Oh, and the entire middle section of this post.)
• Respect your readers. I've written an entire post about this.
• Own up to your mistakes. Few people seem to realize that admitting a mistake (as long as you don't make mistakes too often, and they're mistakes of knowledge rather than judgment) can improve your credibility. This is an example of developing a reputation for trustworthiness, which is also probably worth an entire post.
• Be happier with a few readers who really get it than with a lot of readers who don't. Not everyone has the background, interest, temperament, or time to care about or even read my posts. That's okay. If I wanted to reach them, I'd have to do things differently. Otherwise, I'm happy talking to the readers who have found something worthwhile.

That's it. Now you know what I think I know. Happy writing.