There is much focus on Open Data these days, an important part of the Open Research “puzzle”. A much less talked about part, but one that I think deserves more attention, is the role of blogging in the academic research landscape.
Blogging Isn’t Dead
Some people say that the blog is dead. True, the advent of social media platforms has taken over a lot of the activity that you would previously have found in blog posts. However, even though many things have changed, I still think that the blogging format is useful.
Social media, of which Twitter is my preferred platform these days, is fine for rapid communication. However, I find a blog post useful when I want to engage in a slower and more long-term type of dialogue with others. I don’t expect that many people read my blog posts right away. Rather, I think about my blog as a kind of public “diary.” I write about things I think about. In fact, some of my posts that attract the most visitors are almost a decade old. For example, my entry about interdisciplinarity regularly attracts more than 1,000 readers per month.
When I wrote that interdisciplinarity blog post, it was to sharpen my thinking. Often, my blog posts start with an idea I want to shape (like this one!). It may sit in a drafts folder for a while before I decide to publish it. Then it may eventually develop into a larger idea that can be researched and written up as a conference paper, journal article, or book chapter. In fact, people’s interest in my thoughts on interdisciplinarity made me include it in the opening chapter of my new book.
Notes-to-Self
Another type of blog post I use frequently is the notes-to-self format. These are nerdy scribbles and irrelevant to most people. For example, I have a series of posts about FFmpeg. I use these posts regularly myself, looking up specific commands that I need for various file conversion activities. I also point my students to them when they ask for help.
Looking at the statistics of my blog, I see that surprisingly many people read these nerdy posts too. Just as I end up on random web pages when searching for very specific things, others come to my blog to find answers to very specific questions.
Blogging as Presentation Preparation
My own blogging has changed several times over the last 20 years. I have had both active and passive periods over the years, usually related to the time I have had to engage in research activities.
Over the last few years, I have developed a new method for preparing for public talks: blogging. I typically start out writing some text and trying to structure it within some sub-headings. Then I make slides that I can use in the presentation. Often, people ask about my slides after presentations. I don’t understand why because my slides are usually based on just using a word or two, a figure, or a photo. The slides are an accompaniment to my talking. I much prefer sharing a recording of my presentation than only the slides.
Sharing presentation files may work if you write lots of text on the slides. Some think about the slides as their manuscript, so they read what is on the screen and move to the next. Then it may make sense to share the slides because the complete content of the presentation is already there. Still, the formatting of slides is generally unpleasant to read on a small screen.
My solution is to write blog posts instead. Then I can summarize the content of my presentations in a format that makes sense for readers. A blog post works well on any screen, hence making it more universally accessible than a PDF exported from presentation software. I can also add links to relevant things, thus making the content more active.
Iterative Thinking Process
I haven’t thought much about it before, but I have recently started to think about my blog writing as an iterative writing process. Writing publicly adds to knowledge sharing and can in many ways be seen as part of my research process. Yes, many things on this blog is half-baked. That is also the point, it is part of my iterative thinking process. I could have written for a folder on my hard drive, but since some people tend to find it interesting, I will continue to write openly. Thanks for reading!