A Blog Around The Clock

Paper number 0000001 was published in PLoS ONE on December 20th 2006 - exactly two years ago. So, we will have various types of celebrations, of course. One of those, the one you can and should participate in, is the Second Birthday Synchroblogging Competition.

So, how does it go? How can you participate?

First, spread the word about it to your own contacts and readers.

Second, if you are not already registered with ResearchBlogging.org, do so ASAP, or on December 17th at the latest (to give them enough time to approve you and to give yourself enough time to look around and familiarize yourself with the way it works).

Third, go to PLoS ONE and browse the articles - there are almost 4000 there so there are plenty to choose from. Pick one that is in your area of interest or expertise, a paper that you find exciting and you can fully understand.

Write a blog post about that paper, using the guidelines of ResearchBlogging.org - once you are registered, look around the forums and the blog there for discussions on exactly what the criteria are.

Now wait - hold on. Don't post it yet! Make sure that you publish your post on December 18th.

Make sure that your post contains the BPR3 icon and the Reference (both provided by a ResearchBlogging.org automated tool). This will ensure that your post shows up on the ResearchBlogging.org front page aggregator.

If your post does not show up there within a few hours, or if you already know that there is a technical incompatibility between ResearchBlogging.org and your blog, please e-mail me (Bora@plos.org) the permalink of your post. Also, try to make sure that the words "PLoS ONE @ Two" appear in your post or in your tags. I will look at the ResearchBlogging.org aggregator, in my e-mail, at Google Blogsearch and Technorati - that way I will be sure to catch all the entries.

If you are blogging on an "upper-level" platform, e.g., Drupal, Expression Engine, Wordpress, MoveableType, Typepad, etc., please send a trackback from your post to the paper itself. You have to make sure that the body of your post contains the link to the paper in this exact form (there are several alternative URLs that will not work):

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000000

Then, in the "outgoing trackbacks" field of your blog, paste the URL of the paper in exactly this form:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000000/trackback

If you are using Blogspot, LiveJournal, etc. you cannot send trackbacks. But there is no reason why you cannot drop the permalink of your post in a comment on the paper itself.

You should login/register at PLoS ONE and consider posting your brief comments, notes or ratings there as well - after all, you are one of the few people who actually read the paper in great detail and with deep focus - you know more about it than most other people on the planet.

Once everyone's posted their posts on the 18th, all the entries will be judged by a panel of four judges: Liz Allen of PLoS, Dave Munger of ResearchBlogging.org (and blogger on Cognitive Daily), Jason Stajich from the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UC-Berkeley, and myself.

The winner will be announced on December 20th. The winning post will be (with permission) cross-posted on the PLoS ONE Blog and here on A Blog Around the Clock. The author of the post will also receive a bag of swag that includes the new PLoS Water bottle (H2go brand) and a couple of cool PLoS t-shirts.

So, let'a start writing....