On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

First is the nakedness of blogging.  I'm the only person keeping me from looking like an idiot in public. There's no editor to purge any of my flat-earthisms before I click "publish".  So if I'm horribly, terribly mistaken on some obvious point, if I routinely misspell some common latin name, well, there it is for all to see.  It's far easier to be seen as a moron as a blogger than it is as a carefully vetted publishing scientist.

Second, the fact that my posts aren't reviewed provides a ready excuse to dismiss any legitimate criticisms I might have about a particular bit of work.  For example, A few weeks ago I published a criticism of a rather large study of ant macroecology.  Authors of that paper- rather than address my argument, can if they like point to the fact that this is an unreviewed blog and ignore it.  In fact, I was privy to some behind-the-scenes emails about the post, and that's exactly what happened.  Had I published my critique in a technical journal it'd carry much more weight.

...

I am not trying to avoid accountability by ducking the review system.  It's that the blog is an outlet for short snippets that I'd not have tried to publish previously.  Does exercising this new niche damage my academic credibility?  I don't really know.  Scientific blogging is an emerging media without established norms.

Mind you, scrutiny and rigor don't mean that you can't also entertain the masses or write a stylized piece.  It just means that if you're going to put a teddy bear on a toilet, you had damned well better mean it.

Figure 3: And if you're going to put Coturnix on a potty, you had better sleep with one eye open and one foot on the floor.

Alex does allude to a couple of very valid and important points that those of us who put on our capes and play science blogger in our spare time have to remember.

• A blog post is not a scientific publication.
• It doesn't count if you publish your data in a blog post.
• Your blog usually doesn't generate novel data

And, most importantly added by Isis:

• Don't let your blog make you take your eye off the prize.

That's just the way it is.  It's phenomenal to contribute to the online discourse and to educate the public.  I have a blast here and I do believe that there is value to the things I do here.  However, when it comes to hiring and promotion and other career advancement-type things, unless your blog gets itself an impact factor overnight, it's importance is trivial compared to the research dolla dolla bills y'all and the number of peer-reviewed publications you've amassed.  It also means that if you are not achieving the career milestones you need to, your blogging can be viewed as an necessary distraction.  That can hurt your career.

Is it right?  Doesn't matter.  It's reality.

That's the part of blogging that I sometimes have to remind myself of.   When I first told a more senior colleague what I was up to, he told me, "Isis, I don't care if you are building model trains in your spare time and then blowing them up. Just keep the data coming."  That is the metric by which we are judged. But, keeping the data coming can be  tedious and sitting to hammer out a grant application, book chapter, or article can feel endless.  I can throw out a blog post, by comparison, in a minimal amount of time and feel like i have accomplished something.  And I have to you and to me, as long as I don't take my eye off the prize.

What am I getting at?  I suppose I am getting at the way I am feeling about blogging lately.  There are a million things I want to accomplish here and my blog idea notebook is getting fuller by the day, but I have to be a scientist first.  That means I probably won't be the ScienceBlogger who breaks all the headlines or posts six unique posts each day.  It also means that I frequently feel guilty for not moving the blog content along fast enough.  I'm not finished my contributions to Silence is the Enemy.  I still owe you my letter to the ambassador and I have one more SitE-related activity for you.  I still have another round of letters to send out for the Letters to Our Daughters Project.    I have more hilarious Photoshops backing up than I can shake my magic wand tool at and at one point I promised to write more about Egypt.  It's still in there.  I still promise.

On the other hand, I have had a book contribution, data, students, two articles, abstracts, and two seminar presentations waiting for me here and those are the metrics by which I am judged.  So, while I have wanted to sit and finish my SitE contribution before the end of June, I have to be realistic and know that my book deadline is more pressing.  My blog has to happen on Isis Standard Time, meaning that it gets everything I have left at the end of the day after my role as scientist is finished being played and sometimes I am going to be a day behind in the blogosphere and projects may take longer than I'd like. 

But, what's a breathtaking young scientist to do?  I'll tell you. 

Get herself some damned tenure so that she can blog more.