How To (Critically) Read A Blog

1% of the users participate a lot and make up the majority of the (social media) donations. -DR. Jakob Nielsen
There seem to be many articles on blog writing, and only a handful on how to read them in a way that will give you a significant return on your work.

Let’s start with an interesting statistic: 3.3 billion results (the number may vary depending on the access typical of SERPs) can be found by doing a Google search for the term blogs.

If we consider the possibility that only 1% of these results represent the current number, we get 33 million blogs. This figure is in stark contrast to the estimate of 152-156 million. But let’s use our own conservative estimate here and consider only 33 million. If someone read 10 blogs a day and owned 10 minutes per blog, it would take more than the next 10,000 years. I personally know of the few in today’s endless rush with a destiny that holds that kind of time in their hands.

This summary is further complicated by the need in today’s business environment to find a pin for accuracy and quality in this haystack content so that information can be made useful. Provide a logical and compelling reason to critically read blogs.

So how do you read a  pc kart critically? The following guidelines, based on the methods used to teach effective learning techniques to secondary school students, may be helpful:

Pay attention to what you read, do not just search on keywords and formulate a working hypothesis based on the result.
Only by allowing a reading session that lasts no longer than personal attention can fatigue set in.
Preview, a process accomplished by looking for key elements usually highlighted by:
Names (and subtitles if available)
Introductory sentences or paragraphs
headlines
First statements under these headings
Development of questions based on the collected information.

Review after reading.

Classification of the collected data.

The average person likes the job at this point; the thinking man only half understands it. When a skilled instructor finishes his or her lecture, he or she moves on to the next step in knowledge-gathering – they encourage discussion on the topic. When reading a blog critically, it is good to remember that the social network is an interactive tool. Add smart comments (that don’t contain simple statements like “Well done”, “Well written” and the increasingly popular “I agree”) in the form of questions, add insights or even disagreements (which must be supported by verifiable facts, never with opinions, however well-informed) creates an opportunity for dialogue that can lead to the discovery of new knowledge, and provides full control over quality and online research activities.

It is a constant source of surprise and amusement to me that authoritative authorities write so many relevant, topical blogs that get the same response as cows staring at a passing train. It is as if the reader is watching a television program, and he thinks it would be foolish to discuss, agree or even suppress it. More incredible are those who give up their passions and claim to agree or even suppress what is being said on the small screen, be it stupid, than read the blog and silently nod in response. † This behavior is akin to walking past a previously undiscovered gold mine, stopping to fill your pockets with a few chunks, and then moving on with no intention of ever returning or acknowledging its existence to others to take advantage of its riches.