Weekly Blog Post 5

When our class began to discuss what we would be doing for our Blog Essay, I was a little unsure. Writing without making it sound too much like a paper and keeping it unique and interesting seemed like they would be a struggle. Not to mention, how was I going to reduce 8 pages of research into a 4 page paper?

Then we started going over the differences in blogs and papers, I noticed I had unfortunately chosen a rather straight-forward blog that was a bit boring compared to the examples some classmates had found. We talked about the pictures, titles, small paragraphs, etc... and all I could think was 'I'm never very creative on a deadline'. Which of course led to our in-class writings for possible changes, that wasn't too bad, until we needed a title. I stared at my paper, I looked at other people, I looked at the room, I looked back at the paper. No inspiration struck me like that magnet I love so much says "My mind works like lightning, one brilliant flash, and it's gone." I couldn't even get the flash, let alone forget it.

I'm not sure what it was anymore, some classmate mentioned a title and I thought, 'backyard', so I got the title 'The Mutations in Your Backyard'. Still not sure if I like it, but it sort of brought on a chain reaction of ideas, ones I've been wanting to write down and thought would work great as a blog post. Once I had a possible title and I chose 'pictures' for my big change from paper to blog, my mind started flashing. Hopefully it won't disappear until I can get it written down.

See, I figure I can use 3 to 4 pictures of different animals, environments, and mutations. Then I can focus my paper's research on describing those visuals. One picture I know I want to use is the 'snake with a foot' shot. I thought about discussing it as an evolutionary throwback (though that wasn't a topic covered in my paper) or perhaps using it to show how it was proving useful. A lot of that would be my own opinions on the use, but since it had managed to climb up a wall at a house, I think that snake could have an advantage. If things are still to murky for the shot, I'll use it as an eye-catcher.

Next, I thought I would post a penguin, talk about it's beneficial mutations with arrows pointing to them. Then, I could use 2 more pictures to show a harmful mutation and a neutral mutation. I can then move each into a different environment and discuss how the environment changes the mutations use. To wrap up the paper I could finish with a picture of a possible pollution-induced mutation and talk about human influence on the environment.

Overall, I want to give the audience (which admittedly is limited at the moment) a visual so that they can see just how something affects something else. I want to respond not necessarily to another article, but to the pictures based on my research. In doing so, I keep my paper without changing it drastically and add a bit more interest to it with visuals. Of course, I'll work on other aspects of the blog post too, such as shortening my very lengthy paragraphs.

Anyways, that was my idea and vague plan for the new paper. I'm not sure it will be terribly interesting in print, void of pictures, but the rest will hopefully make up for that, maybe I'll staple the pictures on as an extra page, just to keep them around.