Blog vs. Blog

 Sunday, June 2, 2024

The First of Many Blogs (Practice Entry)

Hello Everyone, 

Well I want to just first say that it sure feels weird that the first blog is just a blog about comparing and contrasting other blogs. I also want to say that blogs for me are quite a new and strange world because I never been keen on reading blogs nor do I have experiencing writing them. But from the blogs that I did chose I decided to stay in an area that I am familiar in, SPORTS! I decided to do my research on Yahoo! Sports and Bleacher Report. I wanted to do these two because they have the same audience (sports lovers like me), so comparing how they format it and what direction the author choses would be easier to compare. As I was analyzing one blog from each website, I found Bleacher Report to be the superior one not just for their stylistic structure but also the greater sense of personality from the author to the audience. 

First off, in the Yahoo! Sports, I found an article about NBA player rankings in the playoffs (Yahoo! Sports Article). The use of linking was atrocious, they linked the player information and statistics according to their name which at first was good, but they only linked it the first time the player was mentioned. It was a jumbled mess because you would have links to players in the description of reason for the rankings, but when it came to showing those players in the ranking like Daniel Gafford at 12, he didn't have a link because he was previously mentioned.

Poorly rendered photo of the example I stated. Image cropped from the same article (Yahoo! Sports Article)

This took away from a solid formatting issue of just having each player's link along next to their appropriate ranking instead of it being scattered across. Pair this with the fact of the disjointed use of images for players in the ranking with some having some and others not and especially in no particular manner of which player having an image. The worst part was the dryness of the diction from the author. I can certainly understand including the player's statistics or efficiency, but the author makes not attempt at using rhetorical devices like metaphors to show a player's brilliance in the series. 

This is a representation of me praying that I don't have to read that article again.

On the other hand, Bleacher Report's article on past NBA trades were much more endearing to read (Bleacher Report Article). You can immediately see the difference in just the font usage and sizing, putting both the title and each major trade clear-cut for the reader. 

Here is a not so clear photo of the lovely structure (I will definitely try to figure out to render in higher quality) cropped photo of the same article from Bleacher Report as mentioned (Bleacher Report Article)

It doesn't litter itself with images at different intervals. It denotes the entirety of the trade with a nicely bolded and underlined finish to distinctly separate it from the description of the effects of the trade. But just the sheer personality from the writing makes much more of a personal connection between the author and reader, as the author, Grant Hughes, first says:

"Nothing rankles fans and intensifies ulcers in NBA executives like dredging up bad trades from the past. 

So, hey, let's go for it!"

Hughes is able to capture both my attention by bringing up the topic of bad trades whilst being witty with his language, as he compares these looking back at these "bad trades" to an intensifying ulcer for an NBA executive. Another example of metaphor, is when he said: 

"The Nets made out like bandits in subsequent trades, replenishing their draft stock with all the picks they secured in the Kevin Durant deal with the Phoenix Suns."

His use of metaphor here compares the trade between the Nets and the Suns to the Nets being like bandits and robbing the Phoenix Suns of their draft picks. This type of effective writing connects readers who may not know the gravity of the trade to a clearer image that they can visualize. The use of diction and rhetorical devices is simply just the flair needed for such a riveting and intense game such as basketball.  

Well I hope you enjoyed my ranting about sports blogs, and maybe in the future blogs I'll still be ranting. But in the mean time, hope you're having a good day and stay being awesome. 

Signing off for now, 

Tristan Cheung