Why do bloggers eventually end up blogging about blogging at some point?
- profound realizations through examination and reflection of self
- running out of ideas
- too lazy to think of ideas
- something to do during bouts of writer's block while trying to write about about the controls on Holocene turbidite accumulation offshore of southern California
Regardless, metabloggingcan be an interesting exercise (am I meta-metablogging right now?).
Someone asked me the other day why I spend time with a blog. Good question. When I first started it (fall 2006), it was more of the public journal/diary type with some personal commentary. That was okay, but there's plenty of commentary out there...and some of it very well-written and engaging. I'm not one to share every thought in my head to the public at large so the diary type of blog wasn't really my thing either. As the geoblogosphere community grows, I find it more satisfying to post about earth science-related topics most of the time (although the beauty of the blog is to be able to throw in some random stuff from time to time....we all should take advantage of this wonderful self-publishing freedom). Besides, thinking and writing about geology is what I spend nearly all my time doing anyway.
Nowadays, I view this blog as the online equivalent of that person who, in the pre-internet days, would cut out and tack up various clippings from magazines or newspapers on their office door. I enjoy telling people about stuff I think is interesting but I really don't like bothering people. In that sense, the blog is perfect. Readers can check it out if they like...or they can move on. The majority of my posts are brief, contain a link or two, and include some imagery (photos or video) about a specific topic or current event.
I would love to create posts about the specific research i'm doing in a lot more detail. But, being relatively early in my research career, I don't have this stuff out in the literature yet. I'm focused on getting my work submitted and published in peer-reviewed journals first. When (not if) the papers start coming out, I will very much enjoy writing posts about my own research (i've got some stuff in the pipeline that will be featured on here soon). Others may disagree, but I think it's prudent to wait to put your science on a blog until it reaches a "cite-able" status. At least for work that one would want published. I think scientific blogs have the potential to be an appropriate venue for presenting original results someday too, especially review papers and others studies that look at previously published data with a new perspective or in light of other findings.
