Becoming a journalist needs a new level of consciousness

They say that knowledge is power but in my experience gaining new knowledge can also 

be intimidating. Perhaps this is why Anna's Antics has experienced 4 months of complete neglect. 

BCU Journalism School (Flikr: Elliot Brown)

In two weeks I will begin a Masters in Online Journalism at Birmingham City University (BCU).  I hope the next year, of 'learning by doing', will lead to a career that I can enjoy and will be fueled by my passions.  In the run up to starting the course I have been reading and learning about various aspects of life as a journalist. For example I have looked at:

• Writing and publishing styles
• Fact verification
• The tools and platforms available to journalists
• Current job opportunities 

I am gaining insight and a greater awareness of my audience, purpose and how easy my writing is to search and access. Many of the concepts, up until now, I have been oblivious to or at least not given them very much conscious thought.   You could say, my own ignorance had made life easy. But now I have woken up to these issues, I would like to put them into practice. 

That sounds simple enough, right?  To me it feels a little daunting.    There is so much to think about and consider, it's difficult to not be paralysed by a fear of making mistakes. But here is the resurrection post! I need to remember this is a gradual process, so I hope my efforts to improve my blog will become visible over time. 

All this should mean good things for you guys!

At the end of each post I am going to try and list any conscious improvements I have made to my blog, as I think having a physical record will be a rewarding experience.  You can skip over it if you're not interested in the technical stuff, but I will be including links to any online tools I have used.  Why not go and try them out for yourself?  Or if you have suggestions, from your own experience publishing online, please feel free to add them in the comments section.

Latest improvements and tools used:

• Making use of subheadings and bullet points so the reader can scan the page and pick out what they want to read easily.

• Adding labels for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and ease of navigation

• Writing clear and concisely, with some help from the Hemingway Editor app. Check out this article testing the app with Hemingway's own writing by The New Yorker, which illustrates some of its limitations.