does posting articles to a website considered a "publication"?

[Nico Corr]

I'm going to apply to a couple International Relations grad school programs for Fall of 2018 and wanted to compensate for my lack of internship, and general IR experience. I've taken a few classes on the subject ( US Foreign Policy, US-Russia Relations, Etc.) but majored in Sociology. One of my professors has his own IR website, and allowed me to write 2 articles to post on it. I know having published work can be a boon to ones application, but do my website articles count as "publications"?

[TheScienceHoney]

Typically 'publications' need to be published in peer-reviewed journals. Posting an article online is not really a publication, but definitely not a bad thing to have on your resume. I would still include it, but it doesn't really qualify as a publication in the way that most schools are probably looking for.

Then again, I'm in a different field than you, so perhaps international relations programs have a bit different of a policy on what constitutes a publication.

[Nico Corr]

5 minutes ago, TheScienceHoney said:

Typically 'publications' need to be published in peer-reviewed journals. Posting an article online is not really a publication, but definitely not a bad thing to have on your resume. I would still include it, but it doesn't really qualify as a publication in the way that most schools are probably looking for.

Then again, I'm in a different field than you, so perhaps international relations programs have a bit different of a policy on what constitutes a publication.

You are most likely correct. I have submitted a paper to a research journal, but i'm not confident it will get published. I will certainly mention my article in my SOPs.

[StrengthandHonor]

I've written and published fairly extensively in a wide variety of avenues-- from white papers for policy organizations, to articles in prestigious magazines, to blog posts/web articles for different outlets, in addition to a peer-reviewed journal article I coauthored. All of these publications are useful signals for adcoms and potential employers, but they signal different things. In academia, the most important type of publication is peer-reviewed journal publication, but the other things make a difference too. I worked for a year for a well-known magazine with similar standards for publication as the New Yorker or The Atlantic. Most of the articles published therein were by academics (including very well known academics). That is a valuable signal.  

I separated these things into separate sections on my C.V.
So, 
Peer Reviewed Publications:
blank blank blank journal of blank.

Other Publications: 
I listed here a couple of selected articles, plus "other articles appearing in blank, blank, and blank."

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

I write articles as my main source of income at the moment and I do think that experience can be beneficial in an app. However, I do not list each of my articles under my publications. Instead, I've listed each of the websites that have hired me as a writer in my Related Work Experience section. Part of this has to do with space (I've written upwards of 80 articles) and part of it has to do with content (I'm fairly sure adcoms don't want to see how many articles I've written about DnD and Pokemon Go). Given you've written two blog posts that are academic in nature, I don't see why you wouldn't include them on the CV. Just be clear they are not peer-reviewed publications.

[AP]

Many professors engage in the media and often include these articles as non-academic publications in their CVs because they were not peer-reviewed. You could have a section like this.