Great Research Tool …

Blog Post 

Length: 500-650 words 

1. For this assignment, you will be writing in a digital genre where you approach your work and write for a real audience of academic and public readers. 

2. Your topic should introduce and interpret a text (or, alternatively, an image set) from the course readings we have covered since March 1, 2022. Please choose a topic that you have not yet written about and that you do not plan to write about for your final research paper. This is a short piece, you want your topic to be specific, i.e.—one theme from the Qur’an (as discussed in two of our course readings, Rahman and Izutsu); the Qur’an in America (Spellberg or Mahmood); or Hermeneutics (Feminist approaches to the Qur’an and the Islamic tradition, Hidayatullah or Ali; or Calder on Tafsir). 

3. The point of this assignment is to learn what can be accomplished in a particular digital genre as opposed to a traditional academic essay. The following requirements are intended to get you thinking about how to present your work effectively using a technological platform, or, rather, how to craft your ideas with a slightly different set of tools. Getting Started: Consult one of the following blogs on the Study of Islam, and after reading and reviewing materials up on the blog, work with these five questions. These five questions will also form the basis for Class Activity Five and Six (worth two points). 

Here is the link to access different blogs:

 https://researchguides.library.vanderbilt.edu/islam/islamlinks

 [This collection of websites and links is also a great research tool…] 

Q1. What do you think might be the strengths and weaknesses of this blog?

 2 Q2. Can you suggest 3 improvements to the website, to make it more helpful to students? 

Q3. Which blog titles or topics are the most appealing to you, and why? 

Q4. Please find and read at least one blog post. Which blog post did you read, and what did you think about it? 

Q5. If you were invited to write a blog post for this website, what would you write about and why?

 For this assignment, your blog post must: 

• Use multimedia intentionally and thoughtfully. In other words, please don’t just plop some pictures in and move on. Any pictures, videos, memes, etc., need to be on topic, integrated into the post, and add real value to the point you are making. Include photo captions when necessary to identify subject matter and/or cite the source/owner of the image. • Incorporate close reading and interpret carefully chosen passages from one course reading, written in your own words. Note: you are required to use in some shape or form one required course reading or resource to form the framework of your topic for your blog post. • Address a wide audience that includes your colleagues and professors, but also your family, friends, and future employees (who will care about your ability to write well!). In other words, don’t assume that your audience has previous knowledge about the text, or that they know the specialized jargon of your discipline. Do write professionally, but accessibly. 

• Include a Works Cited in MLA, Chicago or APA format at the end and, if relevant, consider linking to online resources in the body of the post. One advantage of digital genres is that you can insert links to other online academic resources anywhere in your post. Be sure to carefully vet those sources for quality and relevance. Libraries and museums (e.g.––The British Library, The Getty Museum) often have excellent catalogs, blogs, online galleries, and more. Many academics and universities also work on fantastic projects: online editions, facsimiles and images of manuscripts, mapping projects, blogs, etc.

 • You may interlink with other website contributions on your selected topic for this assignment. Interlinking between posts on a blog site is one way to increase traffic and to highlight the connections between the site’s various entries. These links constitute a form of citation that is not possible in print essays, and they allow you to explore how to use this digital citation method. You can simply write in brackets and bold text [link to X’s post here]. Integrate this connection as smoothly as possible into your text • Include a list of 5 tags (keywords about your posts). Blog sites are organized by categories and tags. Here you will decide the tags for your post. Tags are keywords that identify the subject matter of your work, such as authors, themes, time periods, etc. A user might, for instance, want to click on the “” tag to see a listing of all the posts about on the site. 

• For two bonus points, include two additional websites that incorporate materials for further reading on your selected topic.