- A blog post will be due each week, Wednesday at midnight. If Prof. H. has not set a specific topic, blog about your progress on the current project. In weeks with a major design report due (Upcycle, Main project preview, or Final), the design review report will be the blog subject. These major posts will have detailed specifications describing required content. Other weeks will have less detailed requirements.
- For a regular post, aim for around 500 words plus three images or videos. A major post should be at least 1500 words.
- Every blog post must have a featured image and/or video link. Do not upload videos to the AesDes.org media library; we don’t have the bandwidth to support it. Instead, upload your video to Youtube or Vimeo and make the link the first text in the post, then select Video Format for the post. You can make copies of images and upload them to the Media Library to include in your post.
- All material that you do not personally create MUST BE CITED. Acknowledge the ORIGINAL author; do not use ANY material that you can’t find the original author of (use Google Image Search to trace). If you do not give appropriate credit for images, videos etc, you will be plagiarizing, and will get 0 credit, and may have to face academic sanctions. A good citation will include a reference to the image or video in your text and why you chose it. Example: “The above image is by Fav Art (1) and illustrates the best aspect of …” and at the bottom of the post is “(1) Fav Art, 2020, http://xyzURL”, specifically include the author’s name, date and a functioning link to the original source at a minimum. Be sure to add similar citations for other images you include. If you are having trouble tracing authorship, ask for help from Eileen or Prof. H.
- if you use ChatGPT or other AI to create or edit your writing, you must acknowledge it at the bottom of your post. Be sure to fact-check what it says; it is capable of factual errors.
- Be sure to categorize your post for the assignment. There is a specific category for each week’s assignment. Make sure your post is not also in the ‘no category’ category. Feel free to tag your work too.
- You are encouraged to post more than the specified assignments. Please post to the Links category whenever you find content from other people worth sharing.
- You are expected to write at least two substantive critiques on other students blog posts each week (due Sunday night at midnight). A substantive critique includes identifying at least one strength of the post and at least one question or suggestion for improvement. It’s better to phrase a suggestion as a question, and questions should be ‘neutral’, without an embedded opinion. Instead of ” it would be nicer with clean cardboard” or “why is your cardboard so stained?” ask “please tell us about the cardboard markings”. Try to identify more strengths than improvements. Comments on the content are generally more valuable than comments about the appearance or grammar of the post, but if there is missing or confusing content, ask for it! If a post already has two substantive comments, choose a different post to comment on. This way everybody will get some feedback each week. Note; if your post is late, you will miss out on this cycle; you won’t get timely feedback on your work. If your critiques are late, it will be hard to find posts needing comments, and you won’t be able to complete this part of the assignment until some other late person posts, plus your critique won’t have much impact.
- You must respond to your comments by Tuesday night at midnight. It’s important to change and edit and improve your posts as requested. You can edit any of your posts all semester long. If you change your project entirely, do go back and address the suggested blog content of old posts to match your new project so that your project ends up being well-documented.