Typing by Sebastien Wiertz CC BY 2.0
Blogging can be a divisive topic amongst academics. It has been called frivolous, and a distraction from ‘real’ work by some – whilst others wax lyrically that it is the real work.
Fact is:
Social media and blogs are not just add-ons to academic research, but a simple reflection of the passion underpinning it
Recently, Injury Prevention Editor-in-Chief Brian Johnston shared how to write a blogpost from your journal article in eleven easy steps with the social media editorial team. I have decided to turn this into a pleasingly-meta blog post about turning your – yes your – Injury Prevention papers into posts for this very blog.
Blogging is a genre in and of itself. Today, blogs are as much a part of scholarly discourse as papers, presentations, and corridor conversations. This represents a new manner of sharing your life’s work with others, in a more relaxed and personal (if you like) way. This genre allows you to share more of your personal story behind a piece of research, or to highlight findings that are especially interesting, or merely to share your passion with a community of engaged scholars. Further:
Academically a blog post boosts citations for the core article itself. It advertises your journal article in ways that can get it far more widely read than just pushing the article out into the ether to sink or swim on its own. A post reaches other researchers in your discipline (those who are not digital hermits). And because it’s accessibly written, it travels well, goes overseas, gets re-tweeted and re-liked
On behalf of the social media team, I invite you to contact us if you would like to turn your Injury Prevention paper into a blog post. I will leave it up to you to read the “how to” detailed in the post shared above, and to peruse the tips and tricks given. My advice, however, is much simpler: write the blog post about your paper as if you are explaining it to your mother/a teenager/friends at a party (in other words: plain language!).
The most exciting part of blogging is that it has no rules, unlike academic writing. The most terrifying part of blogging is that it has no rules, unlike academic writing.
We promise we will make this process as painless as possible (we are all injury prevention researchers after all!). We can alleviate common fears such as not knowing where to start by doing an interview style blog post together. We can help you overcome the lack of formality by guiding the structure and content of the blog post. Or you can write freely as you please.
For examples of authors who have already done this, see: here, here, and here.
We are always looking to hear more about your thoughts, views, and experiences as injury prevention researchers.
Contact me via Twitter on @shereebekker, or email me at s [dot] bekker [at] federation [dot] edu [dot] au