HINTS ON USING THIS WEBLOG

It was great to meet all my Pretoria students at the SAEON Student Summit. Following on our discussion I thought I would post some comments and instructions to help you to use the Weblog for efficiently.

When you first open this site only the most recent postings are viewable in the main window (last three days). Use the Archives on the right to get to browse earlier postings which are dated.

EVEN BETTER..... why not use the SEARCH - ah this is a really great feature of the Blogger Service - just type in "INSTRUCTIONS" and see happens.

PLEASE READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!

Hey ... I know this was a bit nasty but please for this to work we need some discipline!!!!!!!!!!

When TO COMMEMT and when to POST A NEW ARTICLE

This depends on the target audiance. I asked you to book by using the comment section attached to the posted article so it was not necessary to post your bookings. (Sorry guys but instructions are instructions)

A POSTING is when you have something substantive to say of interest to the group.

A COMMENT is when you wish to add to a POSTED article - its primary audiance are the original author and those that have also added comments.

TO ILLUSTRATE......

....if there is something not clear in an INSTRUCTION or in an POSTEDARTICLE then add a comment.

....if you have done some researching and found some new views, topics etc you add as a NEW POSTING. You do not need to add since you should use the HTML view in your groupwise and this formatting is automatically captured when submitting to the Weblog.

SO WHEN TO USE THE ?

TAGS such as are for BOLD and are for ITALIC are only necessary whan replying to a comment.

Now to restate the HOUSE RULES!

....GET YOUR EMAILS PROPERLY SORTED OUT WITH SIGNATURE FILES THAT INCLUDE YOUR WEBLOG ADDRESS - FAILURE TO DO SO WILL MEAN YOUR POSTING WILL BE DELETED IMMEDIATELY - READ AND READ AGAIN AND THEN AGAIN THE INSTRUCTIONS ON SUBMITTING!

PLEASE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR THE SUBJECT TOPIC SO WE HAVE CONSISTENCY ON THE WEBLOG

......AND PLEASE USE THE HTML VIEW OF YOUR GROUPWISE SO THAT HYPERLINKS ARE ACTIVATED AND FORMATING IS DONE ACCORDING TO YOUR EMAIL.

IF THIS PROBLEM CONTINUES I WILL HAVE TO PUT IN MODERATION CONTROL.

What is moderation?

This no more than a filter, and is usually used to screen out anti-social comment/behaviour on a discussion forum of a Weblog. In this case it is to ensure reasonable consistency in how material is prepared for the WEBLOG.

Punctuation

Being a Weblog at an Institution of Higher Education it is not suitable to use sms language so language should be reasobaly formal so you should not use u for you and sentence start with a CAPITAL LETTER. Your NAME should also start with a Capital letter. Use commas and ensure your paragraphs are clearly deliminated.

The style of your personal Weblog is up to you to define!

PLEASE ADD YOUR WEBLOG URL TO YOUR GROUPWISE SIGNATURE FILE.

FINNALY YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THIS WEBLOG WILL COUNT 10% OF THE TOTAL SCIENTIFIC METHODS MARK

That is enough instruction for one POSTING, hope your PowerPoints are getting started!

Cheers

Rich