Logging in and Posting

Visiting the Blog: You can visit “Counterintuitive” and comment on pages without logging in to the blog or WordPress. Just navigate to rowancomp2.wordpress.com and browse to your heart’s content. You can’t post pages or exercise your Author functions without logging in, though. In these ways, blogging is very similar to facebook.

Logging In to WordPress: You can navigate directly to wordpress.com and sign in there with your username and password, or you can log in from “Counterintuitive” by clicking the Log In link at the top of the right-hand sidebar.

Author functions: Once you’ve logged in, a menu bar will appear across the top of the page to give you access to blogging functions including “Edit My Profile,” “Dashboard,” and “New Post.” Play around with these. Add a Gravatar. Then click on “New Post” and practice submitting material to the blog. You’ll need this essential skill to post assignments and essays.

New Post: The link will open a simple page with a Title field (Enter New Title Here) and a Copy field (not named), and some simple word processing buttons to add italics and boldface to your post. Update your work often to protect against loss in case you’re interrupted while posting or make a mistake.

Choose a Category: Before you Publish, select ONE category from the list in the right sidebar. For now, that category is “Student Posts.” In future, you’ll find the name of your assignment or essay in the list. Don’t mess up this small detail or your post may be very difficult to find when I want to grade your work.

Publish: Click the Publish button and wait for confirmation at the top of the page. You’ll be invited to “View this Post,” or you can return to the homepage to see the entire blog with your new post at the top of the page. (Blogs always show the most recent posts at the top.)

Edit: If you hate or immediately regret what you’ve published, find the pale and tiny “Edit” link at the bottom of your new post (not easy to find) and make whatever changes you wish. This is not a way to correct assignments after the submission deadline. Every edit leaves a time-stamp and every version is available to the blog Administrator (that’s me) and to its Author (that’s you) so we can always find your earlier drafts or compare versions.

Simple, Really: Blogging is no more difficult than other things you already do on the interwebs for fun, dear friends. It only sounds complicated when you read through all the steps without visuals.