Life sometimes teaches us lessons that if the lesson does not kill us makes us stronger people. The transition for me into sports blogging
from sports journalism after a long hiatus from any type of writing at all has at times been a like a roller coaster ride at an amusement park with highs and lows. Although the two types of writing have some similarities and clear differences. Recently I learned a writing rule that will stay with me forever.
Although this rule about attribution and documenting your sources in writing is a very basic thing, I learned as a journalist. This rule was not always applied when I started my sports blog. Honestly I was in such a rush to build this amazing blog that tons of people would read, that I had for gotten two most basic rules of writing. It was not for ignoring those two rules and not always applying those rules in posts that cause my newly developed since October, sports blog to come tumbling down like a bulldozed house.
Two of my blog followers brought these blatant errors to my attention. One via e-mail which I must say was quite embarrassing to receive since I knew better as an experience published sports writer. The e-mail and it’s words where like getting caught with my pants down in public by the school head master. The scrapping error was quickly brought to my attention and all effected posts came down off my blog. In fact, all my posts came off this blog that I had created. The other blog follower brought the post errors to my attention via a Facebook message. And again I dealt with the issue by removing the posts in question.
It simple, if the posts is not correctly attributed and sourced then it does not belong on my blog or any blog out there for that matter. Throughout media industry poor attribution and sourcing happens daily. That does not mean in any way that it alright because everybody may do it. In order keep your own integrity and the public’s trust in you as a creditable and good writer, it best to fix issues, like what I speak of, here right away once you gain the knowledge that an issue or problem exist.
I share this life blog event not to show you how stupid I was with my writing talent but to educate and tell you, so you do not make the same rookie blogging mistake that I did. Keep in mind while writing that, if you cannot attribute the source the information on your blog and or writing then it best not to included it in your writing at all until you can properly attribute and source it correctly. Better to play it safe than be sorry later like me.
Go forward from this point, I promise my readers and blog followers that I will definitely source and attribute every thing on my blog that needs such a reference, giving credit where credit is due.
Sports Buzz With Jame 