Thursday, June 05, 2003
Got a great new link courtest of Samantha Blackmond's site--a colloquy hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, with Eugene Volokh as the "expert". Here are some highlights:
Question from Jim McGee, adjunct Kellogg School:
We've been talking about blogs as a publication avenue. What about blog technology as a
research tool - something along the lines of a dynamic research notebook? How do you see blogs
helping as a source for working out ideas along the road to eventual publication elsewhere?
Eugene Volokh:
I've thought a bit about this, and I think it's theoretically possible -- I just haven't seen this work
out concretely (my blog posts have sometimes led to op-eds, but not to scholarly articles), and I'm
not sure how likely it is to happen. I suspect that much depends on people's personal research
styles: Some people may find blogging a valuable source of inspiration or interaction with other
researchers, while others might not.
Question from Susan Herzog, Eastern Connecticut State University:
I recently read that some English professors are using blogs to improve the writing skills of their
students. Are you aware of this use of blogging? If you are, could you provide some URLs? Even if
you aren't aware of such use of blogs, could you comment on the idea? Thank you. Susan
Eugene Volokh:
Sorry, wish I knew more about this, but I don't.
Question from tom abeles, editor, On the Horizon:
I am wondering what the half-life of "blogging" will be. Some are maintained by "trusted"
individuals who scan the wild west of the web for information and may be,shortly, replaced by
intelligent "bots". Others appear to serve the same world as "talk radio", or, in The Academy, an
unconstrained rhetorical statement or question proferred in a conference or seminar to gain "air
time" for a position- sound bites with a life time of the Mayfly- rising and falling more quickly than
an article in a scholarly journal- Perhaps a gold mine for future cultural anthropologists looking for
a thesis?
Eugene Volokh:
There are indeed many different kinds of blogs -- but that just shows the dangers of trying to
generalize about "blogging." It wouldn't make much sense to make general pronouncements about
the "bookosphere," because there are so many different kinds of books. That's even more so for the
"blogosphere." Nor should it worry us that 90% of all blogs might be bad for various reasons. As
Sturgeon's Law puts it, 90% of *everything* is crap -- 90% of books, 90% of blogs, 90% of music,
and so on. So long as people can find the good stuff, the value of the medium is defined mostly by
the amount and quality of the good, not by the fraction that's bad.
The article also links to
Question from Jim McGee, adjunct Kellogg School:
We've been talking about blogs as a publication avenue. What about blog technology as a
research tool - something along the lines of a dynamic research notebook? How do you see blogs
helping as a source for working out ideas along the road to eventual publication elsewhere?
Eugene Volokh:
I've thought a bit about this, and I think it's theoretically possible -- I just haven't seen this work
out concretely (my blog posts have sometimes led to op-eds, but not to scholarly articles), and I'm
not sure how likely it is to happen. I suspect that much depends on people's personal research
styles: Some people may find blogging a valuable source of inspiration or interaction with other
researchers, while others might not.
Question from Susan Herzog, Eastern Connecticut State University:
I recently read that some English professors are using blogs to improve the writing skills of their
students. Are you aware of this use of blogging? If you are, could you provide some URLs? Even if
you aren't aware of such use of blogs, could you comment on the idea? Thank you. Susan
Eugene Volokh:
Sorry, wish I knew more about this, but I don't.
Question from tom abeles, editor, On the Horizon:
I am wondering what the half-life of "blogging" will be. Some are maintained by "trusted"
individuals who scan the wild west of the web for information and may be,shortly, replaced by
intelligent "bots". Others appear to serve the same world as "talk radio", or, in The Academy, an
unconstrained rhetorical statement or question proferred in a conference or seminar to gain "air
time" for a position- sound bites with a life time of the Mayfly- rising and falling more quickly than
an article in a scholarly journal- Perhaps a gold mine for future cultural anthropologists looking for
a thesis?
Eugene Volokh:
There are indeed many different kinds of blogs -- but that just shows the dangers of trying to
generalize about "blogging." It wouldn't make much sense to make general pronouncements about
the "bookosphere," because there are so many different kinds of books. That's even more so for the
"blogosphere." Nor should it worry us that 90% of all blogs might be bad for various reasons. As
Sturgeon's Law puts it, 90% of *everything* is crap -- 90% of books, 90% of blogs, 90% of music,
and so on. So long as people can find the good stuff, the value of the medium is defined mostly by
the amount and quality of the good, not by the fraction that's bad.
The article also links to
- John Lovas' blog -- he's a pretty big name in our field who just started a blog last month.
- a Chronicle news item, "Scholars Who Blog." We didn't get picked up -- English generally not well represented, which means that the author doesn't have a good sense of what is going on in our field. Nor did the "expert" in the Colloquy.
- comments on the chronicle article by Kiernan Healy and others .
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