How blogging can make you a better scientist.
Working in academia calls upon a myriad of skills. You have to do original research and publish high-impact papers. You have to attract funding to do your research and establish fruitful collaborations. You have to mentor and teach students. And you have to balance all this with your personal life. Why would anyone decide to start blogging as well?!
From time to time, I ask myself this question. Although my schedule seems packed with work-related tasks, I keep running my blog Avian Hybrids and I regularly contribute to the blog of the British Ornithologists’ Union (the BOUblog). A lot of people will argue that they don’t have time for blogging. That is why I wrote “my schedule seems packed”, because you can often make time. For example, instead of binge-watching a Netflix-show or mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, why not write a blog post. But is worth it? Are there any benefits to blogging about science? I believe so and I will use my personal experiences to illustrate this.
1. Keeping with the literature
One of the main reasons I blog is to stay up to date with the literature in my field (mainly hybridization in birds). I try to read as many papers as possible, but I always fear that I will forget about the findings in a couple of weeks. Blogging can function as a kind of mind-dump. Instead of trying to remember a certain paper or saving it in the dark depths of your literature folder system, write about it.
The structure of my Avian Hybrids blog posts is quite straightforward. First, I introduce the main topic, then I summarize the results and finally I give my own thoughts about the study. In addition, I try to link the blog post with previous studies I wrote about. This results in an entangled web of blog posts that helps me see connections and often leads to interesting ideas. For example, a few weeks ago I wrote about the Reunion grey white-eye (Zosterops borbonicus) and managed to link it to four other blog posts!
The blog also comes in handy when I am writing a paper. I sometimes use parts of a blog post in draft versions of the manuscript. This provides me with a solid backbone from where I can expand my writing. One of my recent papers – on the phenomenon of ghost introgression – is based on two blog posts (see here and here). This illustrates that blogging can actually help with publishing scientific papers.
2. You learn a lot
Although I partly blog to structure my own thoughts, other people are (hopefully) reading my stories. Hence, I have to make sure everything is clear and understandable. This challenge helps me to make sense of the studies I write about. Finding ways to communicate the complex content forces me to think more deeply about the topics. This way of learning is related to the Feynman Method: “If you want to understand something well, try to explain it simply.”
Apart from learning myself, blogging also improves my skills to explain complex content to a broad audience. Not unlike teaching… So, blogging might make you a better teacher.
3. Expand your network
There are many ways to run a science blog. You can write about your own research or you can provide a sneak peak behind the scenes of your academic life. I mostly write about the work of others (although occasionally I cover my own publications, which still feels akward). This obviously opens the door for networking.
When I publish a blog post, I reach out the corresponding author of the study (on social media or by e-mail). Scientists appreciate any attention for their work and they always react enthusiastically. Sometimes they point me to mistakes in the blog posts. More importantly, you create a connection which could result in a collaboration. And if not, you might get an extra follower on Twitter.
Conclusion
These are just a few benefits of blogging that I wanted to share. You might have noticed that these benefits nicely align with some challenges of academic life that I listed above (publishing papers, teaching and establishing collaborations). Hopefully, you don’t regard blogging as an extra burden on your schedule, but as an opportunity to become a better scientist.
If you want to start your own science blog, check out these tips and tricks.
jente ottenburghs 