A researcher’s blog like mine can serve as a digital repository of overflowing thoughts, which I immediately forget even if I put them on paper. A blog post can be searched and retrieved, and the most important thing is blogs can interact. I’m ready to meet the people, talk with them about my ideas, and keep these ideas as my portfolio. It’s not necessary just to write about research in the researcher’s blog – it can record personal feelings and other topics that demonstrate what kind of person I am alongside my academic identity. Prof Thomson’s post is here timely to justify my “point of telling”.
Worth a close read if you’re also interested in starting a blog to record your research life.
I often get asked about the pros and cons of doctoral researchers blogging, and I know other colleagues do too. There isn’t a right or wrong answer to the question of course, it’s always an “It depends”. But here’s a few beginning thoughts.
For a start, whether to blog or not depends what you are hoping to achieve. Maybe you are thinking about an individual blog, something you create yourself on one of the standard platforms like blogger, wordpress or medium… and if you are, here’s some possible reasons and some things to consider….
(1) Your personal blog is a place to reflect and record what is happening in your research.
A blog can do this. It can be like a journal. You might blog about the things you are reading and thinking about. Formulating ideas into a thousand words or so and linking to relevant texts and other online…
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Erik the Linguist 