Academic blogs

I see the Times Higher Supplement has an article here this week on academics writing blogs. The article and subsequent comments indicate the ambivalence and scepticism:

• blogging is cheap
• experimental
• informal
• not real writing

But these are the strengths of blogging, aren't they? Being experimental helps you to work out what you mean

"I do it to pin my ideas down," explains Ruth Page at Digital Narratives

It helps me also to remember thoughts that I'd had a few months ago on topics, put aside, but then my research turns to that topic again and I can see what I thought then in my blog.

It's sometimes useful for other students who've missed a seminar or tutorial.

And sometimes people comment, which is lovely. It lets me know of other people who are looking at similar areas, or just encourage me. It's a networking tool for spreading and sharing ideas.

It means I write something, not a thousand words a day, but something. Eventually I may have the habit of writing so be able to write my doctoral thesis - all 50,000 words.

And it's addictive (See Steve Hill here.)

That's what I get from blogging, but I'd like to read blogs in my area, and there aren't many. There's Dubnick, the accountability bloke in the States. (THS reviewed bloggers in the UK). I don't know of business academics who blog. There's an OU communications blog. The OUBS has a blog where it brings in guest writers from the business school, but it's not the personal blog of any one OUBS academic. Maybe they are all blogging anonymously somewhere. I know some of the Associate Lecturers blog, like these:

• Bad Faery
• Blue Fluff
• Quoditian Hopes
• Topsyturvydom