Purpose
Promote the use of a "Purpose" section in blogs.
Introduction
In the movie "City Slickers" , Curly Washburn who was played by the late great actor Jack Palance asks Billy Crystal who plays Mitch Robins, "Do you know what the secret to life is?" Mitch replies, "No, what?" Curly raises one finger, "One thing, just one thing, stick to that and the rest don't mean (anything)." Mitch confusing asked, "What's that one thing?" Curly responded, "That's what you got to figure out." In the end of the movie, Mitch found his one thing. His family is his one purpose in life.
Almost anything written needs a purpose for existing. A procedure needs a purpose for using it. A functional specification needs a purpose for implementing it. A blog needs a purpose for reading it.
Difficulty writing
Growing up, I was never a strong writer. While attending a university, I took a few sophomore English writing intensive classes. I was always amazed how others students could easily write their assignment papers in a week. For myself, it took me three times as long. Eventually, I would turn it in the assignments late earning a letter grade of either "D" or "C". Difficulty writing is a big reason why I majored in Mathematics.
Inspiration
One semester, I took a writing intensive course from Mr. DeRyke. One thing that he asked everyone in class to always do is to always have a purpose section for every document or presentation. Initially, it seemed very odd and worthless to have. I asked Mr. DeRyke for reasons for using the purpose section. He replied he would sometimes read some entire documents and not have a clear clue why he is reading it or what the purpose of it was. Eventually, he would simply ignore and not read any document without a purpose section. Some web pages are like that with huge big blocks of text that ramble on and on with no identifiable single purpose. By having a purpose section at the very beginning, the writer can help the reader focus on a clear topic. Another advantage, let the reader decide very quickly is this going to be worthwhile read.
Others who promote it
In The Principles of Project Management by Meri Williams, she also writes that you need to be clear on three issues below when presenting information.
1. Purpose
2. Structure
3. Outcomes
The first Purpose is "What are you trying to achieve?" Other project management books also suggest using some kind of purpose section in presenting information.
A Blog with a purpose
Having a purpose in a blog is good idea and helps to present the information clearly. It does look odd, but helps the reader understand by having a short description at the very beginning. It's similar to coding a function, would you tell a developer to just read function body to find out what's going on? No, you put a nice Javadoc at the beginning of the function with one sentence that tells you the purpose of the function. Blogging is no different. Do I recommend everyone start using a purpose section? If you think it will help the reader understand the document, then why not include a purpose section.
Show you an example
Okay, look back at the very document you are reading. Assuming you would read top to bottom and are not skimming, where is the main topic of the document. If you say the first sentence in the purpose section, then I have written the document correctly. If not, the document had diverged away from the main topic and needs to be rethinked. Some would argue that the title is enough, but that is usually used to lure the reader (ie clever newspaper titles). Other forms of a purpose section are objectives, abstracts, and overviews. They all try to give a clear purpose for reading the document.
Summary
Using a purpose section has improved me as a writer by focusing on a single sentence. What was once a task that I dreaded doing, it is now becoming something that I actually enjoy. The purpose section is unconventional and somewhat odd to put into a blog, but it works really well for me. Writing for the world is great audience to strive for and using a purpose section will help those readers. If the world comes to visit and likes it, that is also cool.
References
City Slickers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k1uOqRb0HU&feature=related
If this blog is still not a convincing reason to have a purpose section, then I will not write the purpose section for any future blogs to satisfy the requirements and avoid being penalized.
