Networking, Scholarship and Service: The Place of Science Blogging in Academia | Context and Variation, Scientific American Blog Network

"So that third year review committee has a tough job ahead of itself in a case like mine. I don’t look like most of the people who have gotten tenure before me, at least in terms of how I allocate my time....[H]ow do they talk about my blog? It doesn’t help that “blog” doesn’t sound very academic (oh, if only I had thought to call this the Context and Variation Monograph). And it doesn’t help that this writing isn’t just for scholars, but for everybody. That’s not because non-blogging academics don’t see the point of interacting with the public, but because this particular way of doing it is so strange to them. This isn’t a radio interview, or a book, or a talk at the local library, but a style of writing where the jargon is not academic....At Science Online last year, John Hawks said that “blogging is at best a tertiary activity.” And I would agree. But that still puts it on the radar for those of us blogging pre-tenure today. I have no desire to alter my writing style or choice of topics on my blog to help me get tenure. At the same time, I would like to be able to articulate the ways in which the process of blogging, the networking from blogging, and scholarly blog posts are a meaningful part of my identity and production as a tenure-track professor....Blogging is scholarly writing....Finally, the main reason this type of scholarly writing is important is that it makes critiques public among fellow scholars. By airing our grievances, we may arrive at new ideas, or at least achieve a grudging respect for our differences. And this type of post-publication peer review can happen more quickly than letters to the editor in a journal, allowing for faster transmission of ideas...."