On research blogging
November 3, 2008
35% of researchers now say they use blogs. Research blogging, however, is a tradeoff between benefits and costs.
On research blogging
The Economist recently reported: “The Seed state of science report, to be published later this autumn, found that 35% of researchers surveyed say they use blogs” (Economist staff, Sep 18, 2008). It’s time for all researchers to start considering them, one way or another.
I said in my CLST 355 class on Oct 27 that I think that, as professionals, we are expected to have a web presence. This should at least be a place where we can post our papers, our CV and our bio, and then point interested people to it. Research blogging, however, is a tradeoff between benefits — working out ideas through writing, self-branding, networking, faster peer review — and costs — detrimental effect of comments on ideas, and the potential for someone to steal your work.
Benefits
I think that publishing thoughts on one’s reseach to an audience on an ongoing basis is very useful for many reasons. One is that it causes one to write, and writing is good for thinking and understanding. So many things I’ve read about both creative process and about Ph.D. research say: write, write, write. In addition, writing for an audience should cause one to coherently and clearly. My goals for my research oriented posts are to write mostly finished short articles that I could drop into a paper without too much editing, and this is a selling point.
Secondly, I’ve seen more and more that self-branding for professionals, even academics, can be important to their careers. Being able to point people at a website which contains coherent, clear, and hopefully compelling evidence of your research, work products and thought processes is becoming invaluable and in the near future will become expected.
Networking is another reason to blog your research (Lemire 2008) — communication is what academics is all about, right?
Finally, the timescale of blogging vs. academic publication is very different, also, and that attracts some researchers to it. Getting your paper through the review process and into a journal can take years, and even conference papers can take months. Blogging is instantaneous, and blogging about one’s research can be a way to get the word out about your work to people who would be interested in it and generate discussion and gather feedback (Efimova 2008) about it far more quickly. Which is to say: blogging allows peer review (Economist, Sep 18, 2008) earlier in the research process.
Drawbacks
There are drawbacks to research blogging, however. Some researchers won’t blog out of the “need that academics feel to protect and nurture their ideas privately, making sure that they’re ready for an audience to review” (Lawley 2004). They don’t want fledgling ideas to be killed before they had their chance of flight.
Others have a more dire concern. What makes the research marketplace work (a marketplace of ideas) is the recognition that one owns an idea (the Mertonian model of science). Ownership is granted through being the first to publish an idea in a peer-reviewed journal, and recognition is achieved via citation of that work by somone else. Blogs are not currently considered by most researchers when they’re searching for prior work in an area. This could be because they’re not peer-reviewed, or because they’re difficult to cite (Efimova 2006), or because they’re largely invisible to the academic world. Even if they are considered, blog postings to not confer the same weight (an idea vs. research question+experiment+results) or authority of ownership that journal articles or conference papers do. The fear that some people have in blogging is that people will publish the ideas they reveal in their blog before they can, thus meaning that their work is worthless.
Research blogs that I read
- http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
- http://benfry.com/writing/
- http://www.daniel-lemire.com/blog/
- http://eagereyes.org/
- http://blog.mathemagenic.com/
Other resources
References
- boyd, d. (2006) “In defense of BoingBoing or why I’m not a journalist”, http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2005/04/06/in_defense_of_boingboing_or_why_im_not_a_journalist.html, retrieved Nov 1, 2008.
- Economist staff (Sep 18, 2008) “User-generated science”, http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12253189 retrieved Nov 2, 2008.
- Efimova, L. (2006) “Challenges on writing literature overview on business blogging (or another turn on researcher vs. blogger)” http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/11/30/challenges-on-writing-literature-overview/ , retrieved Nov 2, 2008.
- Efimova, L. (2008) “Blogging research: attribution and ownership of ideas” http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2008/07/10/blogging-research-attribution-and-ownership-of-ideas/ , retrieved Nov 2, 2008.
- Lawley, L. (2004) “blogs, creativity, audiences and academics.” http://many.corante.com/archives/2004/03/12/blogs_creativity_audiences_and_academics.php retrieved Nov 2, 2008.
- Lemire, D. (2008) “How I built my web presence as a researcher …” http://www.daniel-lemire.com/blog/archives/2008/10/30/how-i-mounted-my-web-presence-as-a-researcher/, retrieved Nov 1, 2008.
