What are your thoughts on "blog posts" as a new way to publish

[RedPill]

I've been hearing from different people that blogs are becoming more popularized forms of actual publications. Now, this is not to say a blog post would be considered a referred publications even if its peer reviewed and edited. However, some may consider blog posts something like an op-ed, opinion piece or an interview in a mainstream or non-academic publication. Alternatively, some academics may use blogs to communicate with the broader practitioner community.

 

(The blog would not be your personal blog, it would be a blog run by some other group. See below)

 

For example in neuroscience: http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/

For example in student affairs: http://wisakc.com/

 

What are your thoughts on blog posts? Is this really an effective way to communicate your ideas? Does anyone know which fields use this the most and which fields use it the least? Etiquette for listing blog posts on CV?

 

Personally, there is a professional/academic association in my field(science & tech policy/higher education) which uses blog-like posts on their website. I would consider writing for them because the group is well-known and well-respected in my area. I don't know if it would be worth my time to write a piece for a smaller blog.

Edited June 28, 2014 by RedPill

[beyondaboundary]

For any number of reasons, both professional and academic, I've spent way too much time thinking and reading about just this.

 

There's a huge current debate about it and personally; because I believe that scholarship has a place in the public discussion and thought I intend to do it.

 

I see the benefits as two fold - writing practice for those days when my writing schedule allows and more significantly, a forum for feedback for my scholarship.

 

As a practiced blogger, I would suggest that you focus your blog on your area of interest, remember to engage with your audience and work diligently on building traffic through links, keywords and the like and see it as a place to develop ideas, engage in conversation and to learn.

 

In that sense, I wouldn't list individual posts on my CV, but I would list my website address www.mythoughtsandideas.com. I think if you're going to engage do it professionally - pay for hosting and a domain OR start on your school's site.

 

Hope this makes some sort of sense

 

Here's a link to get in on the debate: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Lack-of-Public/145489/

[RedPill]

Well, I'm referring to "professional" blogs maintained by some organization or entity as with the links given above. I, of course, wouldn't list a blog post on my CV that's from my personal webspace, just as I wouldn't list a Facebook status or a  but I'm not sure if I would or wouldn't list if I submitted an article to a blog and it was published a la these organizations.

 

Judging from your sidebar, your field is media and communications, so folks may be more open-minded to new forms of communication. 

[Guest |||]

If your goal is to improve your CV, I personally would highly shy away from investing a great deal into these blogs.

 

If you want to have some fun, and communicate your opinions/research/etc abroad then go for it.  Though keep in mind, people will judge you based on what you post, so, double think it before hitting submit.

[lewin]

I never wrote blog posts during my PhD because I figured that if my advisor saw them he'd think that was time I should have spent doing writing that was destined for peer reviewed outlets.

[themmases]

I recently submitted a blog post I wrote as a writing sample for a job, and got an interview really quickly after-- the program director seemed to like it. This was for a blog I own specifically for writing about issues related to my field. The job was in public health program evaluation, and they need someone to write general audience overviews of their program, so I'm pretty sure the blog post actually helped me.

 

I'm split on whether they're a good way to spend one's time. I really appreciate academic blogs, because I find them interesting and I got some great insight into the field from them when I was deciding whether to go to grad school. I believe academics benefit from our societies' investment in education and research, and we owe society a mainstream, accessible window into what we're doing with that. However, I thought my blog would be more of a place for me to workshop ideas and explore and it didn't turn out to be that. People are very competitive about pushing traffic to their blogs now, and I found it a distraction that put a lot of pressure on me to write A+ stuff for the blog rather than just explore. I didn't realize before how much I would care if people read it!

 

But it did help me. I wanted to be google-able as myself (there are a handful of people my age with my same name, including a publicist and a teen with a fairly popular twitter), and have a demonstrated public interest in this field outside of my official activites or what I'm being paid to do. I wrote some great stuff for the blog that I might not have gotten around to, or polished as much, if it had been for a private journal. I would definitely recommend it for those reasons, whether it counts as a publication or not.

[dr. t]

When blogs start counting for tenure, then I will start publishing my work on my blog.