- Position‹2 of 5›
- Writing skills
- Argument1 of 4›
Start a blog
Keep a digital record of your day-to-day that will inform generations about the corona pandemic. Blogs will one day provide a window into the locked down households of the past .
The argument
Starting a blog during the pandemic is a good way to preserve this moment in history. This is important because years from now when we look back and reflect on the pandemic, it is blogs that reveal the personal and intimate details of what life was like during the pandemic. Blogs allow anyone with a computer and an internet connection to have a voice. Years from now when people look back on what life was like under lockdown during the coronavirus, blogs will offer a window into the past. The blogs written during this time will be called upon to understand what people were going through. They will become a part of a critical and significant moment in history.
Premises
Counter-arguments
A rebuttal is that starting a blog documents the moment but does not, on its own, build writing skill. Craft comes from deliberate practice, editing and feedback; simply having a platform supplies none of those, and a great many pandemic blogs were begun and quickly abandoned. Preserving a personal record — the argument's real strength — is equally served by private journaling without the public-blog framing. Critics add that the historical-record value is a reason someone might blog, not evidence that blogging ranks among the most useful skills to learn versus higher-leverage options. The case establishes that blogging is worthwhile, which is weaker than the conclusion it is asked to support.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] Preserving a record of the moment is valuable, but private journaling documents history just as well without needing a public blog. [Rejecting P2] Having a platform to "have a voice" does not itself develop writing craft, which requires the structured practice, editing and feedback that merely starting a blog does not provide.