Write like a blogger

Now here's an interesting set of ideas over at Seth's Blog. Seth's core thesis is that we "can improve your writing (your business writing, your ad writing, your thank you notes and your essays) if you start thinking like a blogger" and then goes on to list some ways to do so. I'm also intrigued by his final question: "What would happen if every single high school student had to have a blog? Or every employee in your company? Or every one of your customers?"
Mainly because I'm thinking that this may be something to encourage our ministerial candidates to do as part of their learning. For which I would add the following to Seth's list of reasons to write like a blogger: it is something some clergy do and it can help in their church leadership or pastoral practice (though we need to be aware of how it can't and mustn't too!); it can help us to reflect theologically; it can help us to note those odd little things that become important potential factors in the exploring or the reflection stage of the pastoral cycle. A bit more on blogging as reflection at Postmodern Bible.
There is a further question though; some of the things he suggests may not be quite such a good idea in an academic essay; though some definitely should be there. I'll leave you to decide which is which, though I would say that in the latter category I would place the use of headings, if only they didn't go into the word count! I'm for excluding such things from word count (along with footnotes) on the basis that they are simply aids to the reader. Of course, one way to do that would be to make the headers into graphics files and simply add them as pictures. Don't tell anyone I said that, but, well, it's a good idea if people were to be picky. I'd actually produce a text only file for the word count proper and then add the headings and even Title and contents pages later.