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Deictic Dialectic

Position Matters

“Deixis”, formally, is a collegiate concept, but chances are, you’ve known its principles most of your life. “Deixis” is the idea that meaning changes with position. For instance, “you” in English changes as the person being spoken to changes. The same goes for “I”, “me”, “they” and other pronouns.

Deixis also exists for time; terms like “later” and “before” depend on where in time “now” is. Also dependent on time is the “dialectic”. The dialectic is the mechanism by which ideas and there meanings interact with the past and slither into the future.

Since deixis and dialectic and are position-dependent, it makes sense that compouding the terms, such as “deictic dialectic” (or “dialectical deixis”) creates a cogent idea, namely that ideas are positional exist in relation to other ideas, whether they remain static or change over time.

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Introduce Yourself (Example Post)

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

  • Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
  • Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

  • Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
  • What topics do you think you’ll write about?
  • Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
  • If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.