"How To Write an Incendiary Blog Post" By Chris Clarke

Author/Blogger Chris Clarke

In the essay "How to Write an Incendiary Blog Post", author and popular blogger Chris Clarke gives readers some insight into the art of blogging. With a derisive/mocking tone, Clarke analyzes the structure used some other authors in an effort to create inflammatory and controversial blogs. He delivers a step-by-step analysis by stating what is found in each sentence of an "incendiary blog post".

Throughout his essay, Clarke repeats "This sentence" at the beginning of every sentence in the passage. His use of this anaphora is a reminder to readers that the goal of his essay is to show how some authors blog. It allows Clarke to detail to readers the point behind every sentence in such an essay/ blog. Moreover, his repetition of "this sentence" throughout the entire essay serves to depict to the audience the absurdity that some authors employ in their blogs. In addition to repetition, Clarke uses a mocking tone to show the ridiculousness of some blogs. For example, in a one sentence paragraph Clarke states "this sentence contains the thesis of the blog post, a trite and obvious statement cast as a dazzling and controversial insight." His use of derisory humor is an attempt to persuade readers that some blogs contain arguments so banal, that it'd be pointless to waste their time to read them. His humorous approach to his topic is also a very persuasive appeal to the reader's emotions. Furthermore, Clarke consistently emphasizes that many of the points made in such blogs are either illogical, "tenuous", "wildly overgeneralized condemnations", or don't even fit the topic being addressed. His diction used in such instances (in this essay) add to his mocking of those types of blogs. Additionally, his emphasis on those points are persuasive appeals to logos because they require the reader to question the reasoning behind some of the blogs, they receive information from.

I personally am not very accustomed to the world of blogging. I am not a big blogger, nor am I a person who reads many blogs so I don't know if what Clarke said is true for all "incendiary" blogs. However, some essays and other forms of writing I have read do follow the criteria of Clarke's "incendiary blog". Some authors do use circular logic or non sequitur statements to support their arguments, often citing those statements as logical connections. Some of the blogs I have read tend to use pointless or weak ideas to reinforce their topic and often result in conclusions that "don't quite fit the topic." Though I am not a typical blogger, I myself have made some illogical comments and claimed that such comments supported my argument perfectly. In my opinion, the notions made in Clarke's essay can also be directed at all forms of writing, not just blogs. Some writers resort to nonsensical statements or ideas that don't really connect with their topics in order to be controversial.