As I approach my one year anniversary of blogging here on ScienceBlogs.com, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the benefits and drawbacks of blogging. Being here on Sb has done a lot of good for me, from speaking engagements to opportunities to write academic & popular articles, but I have also been thinking of what my "next step" should be. Coincidentally, last night a number of bloggers posted some unrelated articles that corresponded to my own questions and concerns about science blogging.
- At the World's Fair, Benjamin considers the failure of blogging to initiate informed public discussion (at least in comment threads). It makes for some very funny (and adept) reading.
- Chad of Uncertain Principles discusses our tendency to skim over blog posts, as reading on the web is markedly different from reading print resources. If I didn't actually write these words, I would probably just skim over them, too...
- Blake, of Science After Sunclipse fame, considers the role blogs might play in classrooms for teachers (and students) fed up with expensive textbooks filled with recycled information. It sounds like a fair idea, but getting the motivation to enact some of the changes is going to be the most difficult part.
If I was blogging just to try and impress people, the realizations noted in the first two links would be enough to deeply discourage me. For many (including, I admit, myself) reading blog posts isn't so much reading as it is skimming, and not infrequently do I receive comments that make me think "Did you even read the post?" The answer in probably "no," and I have little doubt that my propensity to be long-winded has sometimes discouraged otherwise interested readers.
I certainly appreciate the attention and comments I do receive, of course, but traffic is not the driving reason for my blogging habits. The secret is that I'm not really writing for you. I try to make the topics I want to cover easy to understand, but I primarily write because it is something I like doing. More than being a highly-refined repository of information, I see my blog as a writing lab. (I owe that realization to Jennifer Oullette's excellent talk at the 2nd Annual Science Blogging Conference) In fact, the whole reason I started writing online in the first place was to organize ideas for my evolving book project, and much of what I write here is "practice" for other projects I am working on.
Science blogging presents a good forum for just this kind of experimentation. It provides a kind of freedom not normally available otherwise, as well as important feedback on those pieces. There's no guarantee that what I write will be good (there are benefits to having editors, after all), but I certainly would not be able to engage in the other projects I'm involved in had I not started blogging. Support from others has also been essential in this regard; while my main motivation for blogging might stem from the simple enjoyment of writing, I definitely would not continue in the fashion I have without the comments, criticism, and support of others.
Indeed, the question for me right now is not "Should I keep blogging?" (the answer is "Yes!"), but rather "How much time should I devote to blogging and how much to my other projects?" Finding a proper balance can be difficult, but I think it's time that I start making more use of this blog as a springboard for other endeavors. I see this blog as a personal forum that has opened up new opportunities rather than being an ultimate end-goal, and who knows what the next year will bring?
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Why do we skim over blog posts?
Well, remember Sturgeon's Revelation: 90% of everything is crud. There's no shame in trying to find that elusive 10%. And we can try to leverage up the influence of that 10% (we preferentially link to the better items, making them perhaps easier to find).
Sturgeon's maxim also applies to comment threads. I actually have a couple research projects going on the side which were provoked by discussions in blog comment threads, so there's maybe two chances in three that my wasting time on blogs will lead directly to a journal article during the next couple months. I'm hardly going to complain that every comment thread isn't a great dialogue of the age when ordering lunch at the sandwich place isn't exactly Socratic either.
Exactly. I have always written, and enjoy doing so. The science forum is, in my purpose, to learn about science and to write. As I go about my days in payroll/workman's comp/insurance/recruiting and personnel needs and whine's... instead of discovering or figuring out some new and exciting scientific breakthrough ;) -this is the void blogging fills for me. I expect others have varied reasons. Plus, I find that if I write down the information that I am attempting to learn/understand or evaluate; it retains much better. Unfortunately/fortunately I get more caught up in reading other's blogs and commenting or; I start out following something I want to blog about and get caught up researching questions and leads instead... but, alas, I am new to the world of blogging and of knowledge -- so, I may just catch up!
Wouldn't a poll/survey of bloggers, as to their purpose, be very interesting indeed! For example;
1 - 'Publicity/popularity/exposure/hits'
2 - 'Business/Marketing/making money'
3 - 'Creative writing/art or expression/hobby'
4 - 'Scholastic/career/practice/testing grounds'
5 - 'Self therapy'
~KAS
you keep writing. i will keep reading! ;-)
I guess this is where being a bass-ackwards Luddite pays off. I read material on-line in much the same way that I read books. When I send emails they tend to be no less developed than letters I send through snail mail. Frankly I prefer people whose blog entries are more substantial and thoroughly written. I definitely tend towards the verbose myself.
(And this blog is a favorite of mine. You poor bastard...)
I'm another who really enjoys the many substantial posts you present here. I've been a very fast (and addicted) reader since I was a child, and my joy at my discovery of blogs a couple years ago was that of a kid who's found a hitherto unknown free source of candy.
Writing fifteen pages a day sounds more than substantial to me - best of luck with your book.
Sturgeon's maxim may be correct in general but most of sb is imho of the top ten percentile (over 900,000 crud comments?).
The problem is that there's way more good writing than anyone can read.
How to pick and choose? Is the headline or the twenty-odd word blurb the main factor?
Or is it a case of all rushing pharyngulawards?