Happy Halloween!

A Helping Hand

In addition to using banners to convey authorial intent and cultivate a sense of identity, good blogs provide background information designed to help readers interact with their posts in a meaningful manner. The value of providing such information cannot be underestimated. In fact, access to information of this sort can determine the extent to which an audience will follow a blog.

As experienced readers know, the subject matter addressed in blogs is potentially limitless. For some writers, current events provide fodder for posts. Others examine issues related to their own lives and experiences. Regardless of their differences, bloggers face a similar problem: their audiences may not be familiar with the subject matter they are addressing. Recognizing this fact, good blogs employ strategies designed to contextualize their posts. This is often accomplished using summative statements and links to other blogs. In the absence of such strategies, bloggers run the risk of losing their audience, thereby failing to impart their intended messages.

Mode for Caleb

The author of “Mode for Caleb” has used his blog to address issues related to the study of history, or instructional strategies. His blog has also provided a space for graduate students too meet and exchanged ideas. That this should be the case is not surprising. As I noted yesterday, his blog employs certain strategies to attract the attention of a particular audience. Despite their shared background, however, there is no guarantee that his readers will share his interests. Some may be pursuing degrees in areas other than history. Others may have happened upon his blog in the midst of a running conversation. To frame his posts for these readers, the author has relied on various strategies, including the use of summative statements and links. These strategies were evident in a recent post entitled “More on Grading." It began with the following sentence:

“S.L. Kim has an A-worthy post at Printculture on how grading affects classroom dynamics."

Despite its apparent simplicity, the opening line served a number of different ends, the most notable of which was the construction of a supporting frame through which the post could be read. The title, for example, indicated that the post was part of a larger conversation. Noting this fact, I searched the blog’s archives and found a post entitled “Grading Papers,” which had been published twelve days earlier. The more recent post constituted an extension of that conversation.

Equally important was the author’s decision to begin the post using a summative statement. Though it was only a sentence in length, the statement framed the post’s subject matter (the relationship between grading and classroom dynamics), presented the necessary reference material, and provided a link to the original essay. In doing so, it prepared the audience to interact with the essay that followed.

Orcinus

The author of “Orcinus” has relied on the use of summative statements and links to frame his posts as well. Because they often pertain to current events, his decision to do so is helpful. In a recent post, “Neo-Nazis and the Mainstream,” the author provided a rather lengthy editorial regarding an individual named Bill White. Though I follow the news, I was unfamiliar with this figure. As if anticipating that fact, the author began the post by placing Mr. White in a recognizable context, one that had occupied the media's attention for the previous week:

Bill White, the neo-Nazi who was chiefly responsible for inciting the riots last week in Toledo, Ohio, is really a classic fascist: that is, he’s a man with no real principles except a real devotion to obtaining power.

In the absence of such information, readers may have struggled to make sense of the post. Even if I had been unfamiliar with the events that unfolded in Toledo, the author employed a second strategy designed to help me. The post’s opening sentence provided a link to an earlier post, one that documented the event in detail. By directing his readers to this post, the author prepared them to participate in a larger conversation, thereby increased the likelihood that they would continue reading. Though these strategies may seem insignificant, their absence can lead to a number of problems, a fact attested to by my experiences reading “Jesus’ General.”

Jesus’ General

“Jesus’ General” constitutes an example of political satire. It routinely assails the policies of the Republican Party, and underscores the hypocrisy of the Religious Right. There have been several occasions when the issues it has addressed have been wholly identifiable. At other times, however, the subject matter has been more obscure. On such occasions the extent to which the authors have provided supporting information has played a significant role in determining the post's overall effectiveness.

An example of a post that I felt lacked sufficient supporting information was “Law and Order President.” The post depicted the presidential seal, and included the statement, “Le Pauvre Homme reports that Our Leader will not tolerate lawbreaking.” Though this sentence constituted a potential summative statement, it was vague, the result being that the reader's ability to contextualize the post was somewhat hindered. To some extent the authors rectified the problem by providing a link that brought their readers to an essay which addressed the White House's recent efforts to prevent a satirical newspaper from using the presidential seal. Absent this information, the post would have made little sense. Still, there is no guarantee that readers will take the time to follow the link. Some may choose to ignore it and move on, a problem for the blogger looking to establish (and maintain) an audience.

A second post published on the same day, “No More,” was even more problematic. It portrayed a black square with the number 1,196. No other information was provided, nor were any links apparent. While I follow the news on a regular basis, the number initially made little sense to me. Searching for contextual clues I could use to make sense of the number, I hurriedly scanned other posts in a search for relevant information, but to no avail. When I inadvertently dragged my computer's mouse across the square I noticed that it constituted a link. Clicking on it, I was directed to a page that provided a running tally of the U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. Given this information, the post assumed a far greater power, one I might not have appreciated.

As has been seen, effective blogs bridge the divide between the author and audience and provide their readers with the background information needed to interact with posts. By doing so, their authors retain their audiences, and enhance the likelihood that their messages will be heard. Summative statements and links are often used to achieve this end. Their presence, however, does not necessarily guarantee success. As will be seen, the accuracy (or efficiency) of links has the potential to determine whether or not readers choose to pursue a topic.

The Use of Banners to Convey Authorial Intent

For the past several weeks I have followed three blogs, each of which has addressed a range of issues and served radically different ends. The first, “Mode for Caleb,” was a hold over from a previous assignment. Hosted by a graduate student, its posts have addressed the author’s scholarly interests, and his experiences as a member of the academy. A second blog, “Jesus’ General,” represents an example of political satire, and constitutes a departure from the academic blogs I have followed in the past. Its authors have typically assailed members of the Bush Administration, and criticized doctrines embraced by the Christian Right. Like “Jesus’ General,” the author of “Orcinus," a professional journalist, has addressed an array of political issues, though in a less vitriolic manner. Rather than resorting to polemics, he has instead maintained a balanced tone, and constructed arguments supported by a range of evidence.

It should be noted that I came across two of the three blogs, “Jesus’ General” and "Orcinus,” while consulting a list of frequently visited blogs. Having been asked to analyze the reasons for which some blogs were more effective than others, I assumed that such a list would prove useful. This was not the case, however. As I quickly learned, the quality of blogs is not necessarily commensurate with the degree of frequency with which they are visited. Instead, the application of certain rhetorical devices can play a critical role in determining the extent to which blogs are (or are not) successful with readers. One such device pertains to their use of visual design. My experiences as a reader have led me to believe that effective blogs employ the use of banners that are consistent with their authors’ intentions, and that combine imagery, visual design, and text to communicate them to the reader. In other words, good blogs incorporate the use of banners to attract the attention of like-minded audiences.

Mode for Caleb

As explained above, the posts published on “Mode for Caleb” have typically addressed issues that are likely to appeal to well-educated individuals, particularly those who are members of the academy. To some extent the author has communicated this fact through the blog's banner. The banner incorporates a color scheme that parallels the cover of a well-known jazz album, Mode for Joe: Joe Henderson. An image of the album appears directly below the banner and to the left. In addition to sharing the same color scheme, the banner borrowed the album's title as well, though with an obvious twist. This may attest to an attempt on the author's behalf to establish a carefully cultivated identity, one designed to attract the attention of a particular audience.

The banner also incorporates the use of a slogan to further reinforce the writer's identity as an academic. Situated above the blog's title, it reads, “History/Academia/Religion/Culture/ Politics/Jazz.” The blogger's reference to these subjects, which are associated with various facets of high-culture, further reinforces his identity as a well-educated individual with cultivated tastes. As such, the banner might be thought to invite a like-minded audience (one that shares the writer's background and interests) to interact with the blog. Given that many of the comments attached to the writer's posts have been written by graduate students, the strategy would appear to have been effective.

Jesus’ General

Like “Mode for Caleb,” the banner that spans the top of “Jesus’ General” serves similar rhetorical ends. The banner employs the use of anti-Republican slogans, each of which is designed to attract the attention of an audience that shares the authors’ political views and values. The slogan “Treason: The New Patriotism,” for example, was posted amidst accusations that members of the Bush Administration had leaked information regarding a CIA operative's identity. A second slogan, “Save America: Operation Yellow Elephant,” provides a direct link to another blog, one that addresses similar issues and espouses similar beliefs.

To the right of these slogans is an image of Jesus, an icon that reflects the authors’ satirical intentions. Wearing a four star helmet reserved for generals in the United States Army, and set against the backdrop of an American flag, he grins arrogantly at the reader while signaling the “thumbs up.” Working collaboratively with the banner's slogans, the image reinforces the satiric nature of the blog, and provides readers with a frame of reference through which to read its posts. The posts themselves constitute a form of political satire as well, in that they mock the policies of the Republican Party, and the hypocrisy of the Christian Right. In this sense the image serves to attract the attention of a certain audience, one that will share the authors’ values.

Orcinus

Unlike the previous two blogs, the banner that adorns “Orcinus” is somewhat more problematic. It includes the title of the blog, as well as an image of a whale emerging from the water. Above the picture is the slogan, “Policy, Culture and Journalism in the 21st Century.” Yet whereas the slogan employed by the author of “Mode for Caleb” reinforced a particular theme and established a parallel identity, this slogan seems disconnected from the accompanying image and title. As such, the reader's ability to gauge the nature of the blog's subject matter is compromised. For example, when I first visited the blog I assumed that it was a personal journal. Only after I had read several posts did I recognize its political slant. Given this ambiguity, the blog runs the risk of losing potential readers, particularly those who are unwilling to invest the time needed to read its and determine whether or not they identify with their subject matter. This problem could be rectified were the author to incorporate the use of a more clearly defined banner, one that underscored the blog's central theme and established its author's identity.

By no means is this meant to suggest that the quality of a blog is synonomous with the design of its banner. I do believe, however, that effective banners have the potential to attract the attention of like-minded audiences while signaling the direction a blog will follow. Given the growing number of blogs from which readers are able to choose, the ability to do so should not be underestimated. Banners that employ a combination of imagery, text, and visual design have the ability to hook readers' attention, thereby inviting them to interact with a blogger's posts. To what extent they are able to do so, however, depends on the author's use of context clues, a subject that will be addressed in a future post.

The High Cost of Blogging

The following article, written by Bradley Johnson, appeared in AdAge.Com, an online magazine geared toward businesses and advertisers. While I'm unable to vouch for the accuracy of its claims, I did find the article rather interesting. It would appear that yet another conflict has emerged between blogs and institutions.

WHAT BLOGS COST AMERICAN BUSINESS
October 24, 2005
By Bradley Johnson

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) - Blog this: U.S. workers in 2005 will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs.

About 35 million workers -- one in four people in the labor force - visit blogs and on average spend 3.5 hours, or 9%, of the work week engaged with them, according to Advertising Age’s analysis. Time spent in the office on non-work blogs this year will take up the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs. Forget lunch breaks - blog readers essentially take a daily 40-minute blog break.

Bogged down in blogs
While blogs are becoming an accepted part of the media sphere, and are increasingly being harnessed by marketers -- American Express last week paid a handful of bloggers to discuss small business, following other marketers like General Motors Corp. and Microsoft Corp. into the blogosphere -- they are proving to be competition for traditional media messages and are sapping employees’ time.

Case in point: Gawker Media, blog home of Gawker (media), Wonkette (politics) and Fleshbot (porn). Said Sales Director Christopher Batty: “The Gawker audience is very at-work; it’s an at-work, leisure audience -- a.k.a., people screwing off on the job.“

Bosses accept some screwing off as a cost of doing business; it keeps employees happy and promotes camaraderie. Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, said blogs have become the favored diversion for “office goof-off time,” though he notes it’s hard to segregate blog time since blogs often bounce readers to professional media sites.

But at the end of the day, more blogging means less working. Jonathan Gibs, senior research manager at Nielsen/NetRatings, said at-work blog time probably comes in addition to regular surfing -- meaning more time on the Web but less time on the job.

Expansion of online behavior
“Since for the most part blog readers tend to be the most engaged readers of online content,” he said, “they do not appear, at least for now, to be sacrificing time from their favorite news sites. Instead, it looks like blog usage is in addition to existing online behavior.”

Some blogs do relate to work, but deciding just how relevant they are to the employer is open to debate. For this analysis, Ad Age chose a simple score: Count all business blog traffic, half of tech and media blogs and one-fourth of political/news blogs as directly related to work.

Based on ComScore’s tally of blog categories, this suggests just 25% of blog visits directly connect to the job. Employees this year will spend 4.8 billion work hours absorbing wisdom from other blogs that may enlighten visitors but not amuse the boss.

Wasted time
Hard and detailed data on blogging time is limited, so Ad Age’s analysis is a best-guess extrapolation done by reviewing blog-related surveys and data. By Ad Age estimates:

·Work time spent reading and posting to blogs this year will consume 2.2% of
U.S. labor force hours.
·Work time spent at blogs unrelated to work will eat up 1.65% of labor force
hours.
·U.S. workers this year will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years (based on a 24-
hour day) or 2.3 million work years (based on a typical nearly 40-hour work
week) reading blogs unrelated to the job.

There is strong evidence of workday blogging. Server traffic for Blogads, a network of sites that take ads, spikes during business hours, reflecting page views on about 900 blogs. FeedBurner, a blog technology company, also sees a jump in work-time hits.

Workday traffic patterns
“Traffic rockets at 8 a.m. EST, peaks at 5 p.m. EST and then slides downward until L.A. leaves the office,” said Blogads founder Henry Copeland. “You see the same thing in the collapse of traffic on weekends. … Bottom line: At work, people can’t watch TV or prop up their feet and read a newspaper, but they sure do read blogs.”

And they create and post to them. Technorati, a blog search engine, now tracks 19.6 million blogs, a number that has doubled about every five months for the past three years. If that growth were to continue, all 6.7 billion people on the planet will have a blog by April 2009. Imagine the work that won’t get done then.

Like A Rolling Stone!

When I chose the title “Sisyphus’ Stone,” I had no idea how prophetic it would be. Or maybe I did. I have a sneaking suspicion that, had the gods not condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly roll a boulder up a hill, they would have sentenced him to a life in graduate school. What a week! Sometimes I think that I am destined to fall short of my intended goals. No matter how much work I do, or how much energy I expend, something is inevitably left undone, or someone displeased.

A few points in passing... Caleb posted a link to an essay that concerns the many challenges involved in grading papers. It is well-written, and quite insightful. Having taught English for twelve years, I know how difficult grading can be.

I recently received an email from a friend who recommended that I view a car commercial hosted on the web. The setting (which may be Ireland) and accompanying soundtrack are spectacular. Should you choose to visit the site, make sure that your computer's speakers are turned up so you are able to appreciate it.

With that said, I need to get some much needed sleep. Tomorrow is a new day, and I'll need to resume pushing my stone.

You Can Go Home Again!

An advantage of taking a class on blogging has been the standing excuse I have had to leave my desk (and work) behind to go in search of subjects about which to write . This was the case early Sunday morning when my wife and I, having stepped out for a coffee, found ourselves deep in the countryside. What began as a brief excursion became a morning-long venture, one that carried us into the western portion of the state. Citing the trip as a chance to view the fall foliage (which is about a week or so away from its peak), we actually used it as an opportunity to enjoy the heat our car produced (a reference readers familiar with my previous post will appreciate). This fact alone gave us a reason to continue driving.

After having driven about fifty miles or so outside the city, we exited the interstate and turned south on a rural state highway. Throughout the remainder of the trip we were treated to an endless view of cornfields. As such, the above photograph represents my homage to life in the American Midwest, an endless expanse of farmlands, corn, and dairy cows.

When I stopped to take this picture, my wife suggested that people would be puzzled by my interest in a seemingly common (and otherwise dull) sight. In fact, a father and son (who I assumed owned the land) used the opportunity to take a break from their morning chores and watch me as I slopped my way through mud taking pictures of their cornfield. I could feel their stares as I made my way back to the car. Climbing in, I assured my wife that stories would be told that evening regarding strange city folk who took pictures of dead corn. Though my ability to appreciate such a sight may seem strange, I attribute it to the years I spent living in the Southwest, an equally vast expanse of empty land.

Though it has been enjoyable in a number of ways, adapting to life in another part of the country has presented certain challenges at times. In the Southwest, we were able to leave home and lose ourselves (quite literally) beneath vast expanses of open sky. There were occasions when, having been dropped off outside of town, I would take my dog and walk for miles without encountering towns or organized settlements. For those who haven’t experienced it, such a trip can be quite humbling.

In the East, tree lines, houses, and buildings combine to limit one’s view of the skyline, and produce occasional feelings of claustrophobia. The ability to leave the city and spend time in the country (a rarity for a graudate student) therefore provides me with the rare opportunity to reclaim the pleasure I felt in the open spaces I left behind. Strange as it may seem, a person can grow homesick staring at cornfields.

The Arrival of Fall

Fall has finally come to the Midwest, though not necessarly in as bright and cheery a manner as this picture would seem to suggest. The past two days have been rainy and unseasonably cold, a prelude, I fear, of things to come. Given the rising cost of gas bills, I find myself entering the winter season with a genuine sense of foreboding.

My wife and I rent an older house in a historic section of the city. It didn’t take long for us to realize that there were real drawbacks to living in an older home. When we met with our landlord in September to sign our lease, he showed us pictures of the house as it had existed when he and his wife first moved into it. One photograph, taken in midwinter, showed frost on the baseboards in the living room. At the time I assumed that the problem had been resolved. While the water in our dogs' bowl never actually froze, I'm not sure I could say our situation was a comfortable one. The countless gaps in the windows and door casings often made it seem as if we were living outside. In fact, there were evenings when we chose to take walks in the cold so that, having returned home, we could momentarily enjoy the sensation of being in a heated home.

Though we set the furnace to sixty-nine degrees, we were seldom able to heat the downstairs above sixty-three (we gave up on the upstairs which was akin to the Arctic Tundra). Recognizing the futility of our situation, we finally chose to abandon the cause and set the furnace to sixty-three. Doing only caused the temperature to fall further. Desperate for heat, we purchased a small ceramic heater which we carried with us from room to room. This year we intend to upgrade to actual space heaters.

In an absurd way, I find myself in a battle with the gas company, one I’m not sure that I can win. In my single days, I would have gladly walked around the house wearing a ski jacket and pants prior to paying an outrageous bill. As a married man, however, I am required to make certain concessions, one of which may include my turning on the gas.

Boorish Behavior

Hoping to experiment using pictures as a part of my blog, I borrowed a digital camera for the weekend. What timing! My wife and I were taking our nightly stroll through the park on Saturday when we encountered a rather odd petwalker and his "pets." This picture was taken just moments after the owner gave the "Sit!" command. Finding myself at a loss for words, I'll let the photo speak for itself.

A Moment of Reflection

This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel to Lake George, New York, where I attended the wedding of a good friend from college. He returned home from serving in Iraq two weeks earlier, and this was the first time I had seen him in several years. Lake George, situated in the Adirondack Mountains, was beautiful. Though it rained throughout the weekend (torrentially at times), I was able to get out and take a few runs along the lake. That alone made the trip worthwhile. The rest of my time was spent beside a fire in the cabin where I worked on papers for my courses. I suppose the weather was a blessing in that sense. It would have been more far difficult to sit inside had the weather been a bit more cooperative.

Sitting through the wedding with my friends and their wives, I couldn't help but notice how much older we had all gotten. I'm not sure anyone ever really anticipates (or notices) such a thing. I couldn't help but feel a mix of happiness and regret as I sat there. I was certainly excited for my friend and his bride. At the same time, however, I sensed that this would be the last time the six of us came together as a group of friends. In recent years we have only seen each other on ceremonial occasions. The last, five years ago, was my own wedding.

When the deacon delivered the sermon, he indicated that we were gathered to celebrate the start of something new. In a way, that same celebration marked the end of something older as well. I suppose that, like everything else in life, the relationships we build with others are destined to come to an end at some point in time. Recognizing that fact doesn't make it any easier to accept, though.

Evaluative Feedback

In addition to fostering a sense of community, the academic blogs I have followed have fostered the exchange of ideas, and the evaluation of scholarly work, a fact that suggests the genre's antecdents can be found in academic journals and conferences. Both have allowed scholars to share their work with others. In a profession where careers are decided by the quality of one’s scholarship, the ability to receive evaluative feedback from one's peers is imperative. Although the authors whose blogs I have followed have not faced such high stakes, they have often used their blogs to improve the quality of their work.

In an entry entitled “How to Skim,” the author of “Mode for Caleb” presented a document he used to teach students in an undergraduate history class to skim read articles more efficiently. His intention in doing so was to equip them with strategies they could use to address the heavy reading loads they faced. I found his decision to publish the entire document interesting for a number of reasons. First, it attested to the role blogs can play in fostering the exchange of ideas. It also underscored the extent to which writers use their blogs to have their work critiqued. In the opening paragraph of the post he wrote:

Below is something I wrote last fall for students in a course I was teaching. I thought I’d reproduced it here for comments and suggestions. I got the idea for doing it from Timothy Burke’s very helpful essay “How to Read in College.” If others of you have suggestions you give your students for dealing with high reading loads, let me know. (emphasis added)

This blog initiated a conversation of sorts, one that united the author with his audience, and allowed him to have his work critiqued. That he was successful in doing so was evident in the feedback he received. The post received four comments, each of which evaluated his work (though to varying degrees) and offered advice. One reader, for example, wrote:

As for primary sources, don't you think you would have to tailor it to each type? Skimming a novel for a history class would be very different from skimming letters, which would be different from skimming edited diaries, an autobiography, legal documents and so on. And I might not suggest skimming at all depending on the length of the assignment of a primary source.

To what extent the author made use of this feedback cannot be known. That he at least considered it, however, was evident in a follow-up response he offered:

You're right to point out that students need to learn not just how to skim but whether to skim; I would want to stress in future iterations of this that not all kinds of reading assignments are susceptible to the method outlined here.

Like “Mode for Caleb,” the author of “Jenny D." has used her blog to facilitate the exchange of ideas, and to solicit constructive criticism from her readers. As was noted yesterday, for example, a recent post entitled “Teaching, Learning, and Other Odds and Ends” explored the author’s ideas concerning the extent to which sound pedagogical practices influenced a student’s performance in the classroom. It provoked a number of responses, and led to the construction of further arguments and debates. Of still greater interest was the writer's decision to publish a portion of her dissertation proposal, a text that had the potential to influence her future academic life considerably. As was the case with the post published on “Mode for Caleb,” the author received a number of responses, each of which offered constructive criticism and pinpointed areas of the proposal that could be improved. One comment read:

You really should investigate putting the majority of this text "below the fold."

This seemingly simple comment provoked a response from another writer, a fact that suggests the discourse initiated on blogs can be ongoing:

I agree entirely. Structure is anything from a haiku to a persuasive essay. Absolutely. It's the response to literature in a journal, in which kids write with no structure or goal or form that doesn't seem to help.

The author of “Coffee Grounds” published a post that addressed the challenges graduate students face in their efforts to have their work published. In “Articles From My Past,” he shared advice regarding the nature of the publishing process, and provided suggestions he found useful in overcoming the obstacles it presented. He wrote:

You might not have the time now to get that paper done, but never let the motivation to get it published die entirely. Just because it is a couple of years since you worked on something, doesn’t mean you can’t pick it up and take it somewhere…The dissertation needs the most attention, but tell yourself that you will publish the other stuff later.

Although this post does not represent a direct attempt to solicit feedback, it does attest to an effort on the writer's behalf to share with others the wisdom he gained as a result of his experiences in graduate school. It also shed light on his perceptions of the audience for whom he was writing. His use of the inclusive “you,” coupled with the assumption that his readers would be interested in having their work published, suggest that he intended the blog for fellow graduate students.

In the past, “Coffee Grounds” has proved problematic, particularly where my ability to draw generalizations about academic blogs has been concerned. To some extent this proved to be the case once again. Unlike the other blogs I have followed, this writer neither solicited feedback from his readers, nor presented his own scholarship. Visiting his “About Me” page did reveal a number of links that led to articles he had published, a syllabus he had used, and a copy of his curriculum vitae, an instrument the writer of “Mode for Caleb” also provided. In the end, it would appear that this particular blog simply did not belong to the subgenre, a fact that suggests that blogs maintained by graduate students are not necessarily “academic.”

As has been shown, academic blogs, like academic journals and conferences, represent forums in which ideas are shared and scholarly work evaluated. They are used to construct communities of like-minded individual united by shared interests and similar experiences, and address issues relevant to life in the academy. In composing this analysis, I focused on blogs maintained by graduate students. A search of the Internet, however, turned up an array of similar blogs, many of which were maintained by university professors. This raises an interesting question. What, if any, similarities (and discrepancies) characterize the blogs maintained by professors and graduate students? Conducting a comparative analysis may show that the subgenre I have labeled “academic” can be pared down even further.

Building Community

In “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog,” Miller and Shepherd (2005) wrote:

Schryer’s useful formulation, that genres are “stabilized-for-now or stabilized-enough sites of social and ideological action,” emphasizes that “genres come from somewhere and are transforming into something else.”

This assertion is particularly relevant where academic blogs are concerned. As will be seen, the blog's antecedents can be traced to both the academic journal, and the academic conference. Each of these genres has played an important role in the construction of academic communities. They have also helped to foster the exchange of scholarly ideas. As I noted in an earlier post, “An Initial Attempt to Define the Academic Blog,” the academic blogs I have followed have generally served these same ends. The strategies bloggers employ to build on-line communities, and the ways they use their blogs to critique one another's ideas, provide criteria that can be used to better understand the functions that academic blogs are intended to serve. Given the scope of this subject, I intend to use this particular post to focus on the construction of on-line academic communities.

The blogs I have followed have united graduate students with similar interests and experiences. In this sense, they have reflected what Miller and Shepherd (2005) called genres that “come from somewhere,” and that are “transforming into something else.” Like academic journals and conferences, these blogs have brought graduate students together, and have allowed them to exchange ideas. Unlike its predecessors, however, the blog has done so on a far greater scale.

Like other genres, academic journals have been characterized by certain limitations. Because journals have traditionally been accessible to subscribing members, the scope of the audience for whom scholars have written has been limited. Similarly, the ability to have one’s work published in journals has been subordinate to the decisions of editors. Though reviews of scholarly work have appeared in journals, they, too, have been contingent upon editorial decisions. Though the writers whose work has been published in these journals have entered a community of sorts, it has been one over which they have had relatively little control.

Academic conferences have also played a significant role in structuring communities of scholars. They have allowed writers to present their work in public, and have it critiqued by peers. Like academic journals, the ability to participate in these communities has been characterized by certain limitations. Attending conferences has necessitated the sacrifice of both time and money, neither of which come readily to struggling graduate students. Additionally, these conferences are only hosted periodically. Academic blogs have allowed graduate students to overcome these obstacles in a number of ways.

Given its broad scope, the Internet has allowed academics to construct rather extensive networks of writers and thinkers. It is therefore important to examine the methods these writers have used to achieve this end. Two of the blogs I have followed have provided links to other academic blogs. In many instances these links have been inserted along the blog’s sidebar, though rhetorical choices have often determined the degree of ease with which they have been accessed. “Jenny D.,” for example, chose to arrange her links thematically. As such, her reader encounters a neatly catalogued collection of links assembled under the heading “Academic Blogs.” The author of “Mode for Caleb,” on the other hand, placed his links under a single heading, “Selected Bibliography.” Distinguishing between academic and non-academic blogs is therefore more difficult. The author of “Coffee Grounds” does provide links to scholarly journals and magazines, but not to academic blogs, a fact that suggests that rhetorical strategies are seldom applied universally.

In addition to offering links to other academic blogs, the blogs I have followed have employed other rhetorical strategies . Some have reflected those found in scholarly journals, a fact that further emphasizes the relationship between the two. The author of “Mode for Caleb,” for example, has often referenced the work of other scholars in his posts. In doing so, he has provided direct links to resources, an obvious advantage over the traditional bibliography. On other occasions the author has placed links to academic blogs within the text of his posts, another effective networking strategy. Consider the following passage, excerpted from a post entitled, “Rob On Ivan Tribble:”

Rob Macdougall has a brilliant post on recent debates, sparked by the pseudonymous Ivan Tribble, about the perils of academic blogging. (The post gives his extended answers to Rebecca Goetz's survey of graduate student bloggers.)

The links presented in the above passage carry the reader to blogs hosted by two other graduate students, both of whom attend Harvard University, as well as to the homepage of Chronicle of Higher Education, a scholarly magazine. Visiting these blogs provides access to additional links, a fact that suggests that the communities constructed by bloggers are potentially limitless.

Providing links that carry the reader to other blogs can occasionally prove problematic, however. These links are designed, after all, to point the reader away from the author's work. The author of “Jenny D.” addressed this problem by incorporating another rhetorical device, the use of questions. By posing open-ended questions, she invites her readers to become active participants in her blog. A recent post, entitled “Teaching, Learning, and Other Odds and Ends,” evidenced this fact. Having explored the extent to which sound pedagogical practices influenced students’ academic performances, the author raised the following questions:

At the end of a year, or two, or three, would that child have a higher IQ? Can high-quality teaching improve a child's ability to know, or increase intellectual capability? Or does the quality of teaching not matter much, as long as there's something resembling instruction then kids will develop as their IQ dictates?

At last count the post had received a total of thirty comments. An earlier post, “Suing A School District for Failing to Educate,” employed the same strategy, and received twelve. In some cases the comments these visitors provided directed the reader to still other academic blogs. Questioning strategies appear to provide a valuable tool, one that writers can use to construct a sense of community, and to encourage their audience's participation.

Unlike “Mode for Caleb” and “Jenny D.,” the writer of “Coffee Grounds” has been less concerned with the prospect of community building, a fact that prohibits my drawing generalizations. Though he does provide links to other sites on his sidebar, they are directed toward scholarly journals, rather than academic blogs. One post linked the reader to a survey conducted by a graduate student who hosted her own blog, but this was an exception. The link was presented in the text of the post, a strategy employed by the author of “Mode for Caleb.” Outside of this, few other links to academic blogs have been found. Likewise, relatively few posts have employed the use of open-ended questions. Interestingly, the posts published on this particular blog received significantly fewer comments than did the other two.

Like its predecessors, academic blogs have fostered the construction of virtual communities composed of graduate students (and occasionally professors). That this should be the case is not surprising. Graduate schools can be lonely places. Like journals and conferences, academic blogs have united people with similar interests, and similar experiences. In the process of doing so, they have promoted the open exchange of ideas, and have allowed scholarly work to be evaluated. These topics will be taken up in tomorrow’s post.

Bibliography

Miller, C. R. and Shepherd, D. (2004). Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog. In L.J. Gurak, S. Antonijevic, L. Johnson, C. Ratliff, & J. Reyman (Eds.), Into the blogosphere: Rhetoric, community, and culture of weblogs. Retrieved October 10, 2005, from https://carmen.osu.edu/d2l/orgTools/ouHome/ouHome.asp?ou=87955

An Initial Attempt to Define the Academic Blog

Efforts to define the blog as a genre have focused on the medium’s formal structures. Dated entries, arranged in reverse chronological order, have often been cited as a definitive feature, as have external links. Though useful in defining the blog at a macro-level, these criteria prove less effective when applied to the blog's many subgenres. Despite sharing the same technological format, the latter vary considerably, both in terms of the content they address, and the functions they serve.

Because blogs are currently categorized according to subject matter, it is not uncommon to encounter such headings as “humor blogs,” “sports blogs,” and “music blogs.” To what extent are these labels useful? I would suggest that defining subgenres in such a manner is problematic, as doing so assumes that content is capable of providing definitive frameworks into which some blogs fall, but from which others are excluded. To an extent this has been true of the “academic blogs” I have followed. The authors of “Mode for Caleb,” "Jenny D.,” and “Coffee Grounds,” all of whom are graduate students pursuing Ph.D.s, have typically used their blogs to address issues related to their respective fields of study. At the same time, however, they have occasionally addressed more personal subject matter, a fact that would seem to suggest that content, though useful as a preliminary tool for locating academic blogs, is not sufficient in itself.

As noted above, the blogs I have followed have been maintained by graduate students pursuing their Ph.D.s. “Mode for Caleb “and” Coffee Grounds” are hosted by students studying history, and “Jenny D.” by a student in a college of education. These writers have used their blogs to address a range of issues, many of which have reflected their respective fields of study. The author of “Mode for Caleb,” for example, posted an entry in which he critiqued an argument published by a scholar who suggested that Abraham Lincoln suffered from clinical depression. Another, "Is This Progress? Part II," compared the media’s racist depiction of African-Americans following both Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic in 1793, and the decimation of New Orleans by a hurricane in 2005. “Jenny D.” has consistently used her blog to address issues related to teaching and learning, and to raise questions regarding the state of education offered in America’s schools. In "Conference Papers," the author of “Coffee Grounds” addressed a recent proposal to eliminate the formal session from the American Historical Association’s conference, and, in "Articles From My Past," he explored the challenges graduate students face in their efforts to have their work published in academic journals. In highlighting these posts, I hope to illustrate the extent to which these academic blogs are characterized by similarities in content. At the same time, however, they have been marked by difference as well.

On occasion the blogs I have followed have addressed personal, rather than academic, content. In doing so, they have resembled journal blogs. Of the three, this has most often been the case with "Coffee Grounds." Its author has posted entries that have addressed his passion for running (“Random Things I Have Learned”), presented his thoughts on political matters, (“Ineffective Opposition” and “Still Not Quite There”), and shared images he found humorous (“New Job for Michael Brown” and “Swinging On the Front Range”). Though decidedly less personal, “Mode for Caleb” has occasionally strayed from its treatment of academic matters as well. “The Friday Shuffle,” for example, has presented readers with arrangements of songs that were reflective of the writer’s musical tastes, and of his mood at various points in time. In doing so, these posts reveal a facet of the writer's identity that might not otherwise be seen.

Of the three blogs, only “Jenny D.” has served exclusively academic ends. At the same time, however, its author has occasionally adopted a less formal tone, a fact evident when, in a recent post entitled "A Self-Indulgent Interlude," she identified a series of individuals she had met while attending a conference. She wrote:

So Jay Rosen turns out to be one of my favorite people, not surprisingly. He’s wonderfully smart and thoughtful, and funny. We had a great conversation over wine, and meeting him in person was one of the high points of the event.

Though far from personal, this entry did attest to a departure from the blog's customary function, namely the advancement of the author's thoughts regarding scholarly matters.

Two of the three blogs I have followed, "Mode for Caleb" and "Jenny D.," have served primarily academic ends. Only the third, "Coffee Grounds," has consistently embraced a wider range of subject matter. Though it does provide a starting point from which to begin to locate academic blogs, the application of content matter alone cannot be used to define the subgenre. Additional criteria are needed. By considering the rhetorical functions these blogs serve more closely, it may be possible to locate their antecedents in an earlier genre. This topic will be taken up in tomorrow's post.

Ways of Knowing

It can be reassuring to know that the issues one studies in the classroom bear some degree of resemblance to everyday life. As a graduate student preparing for a career in the academy, I am taking the first in a series of qualitative research courses. In our most recent class, we were introduced to different research paradigms. A theme that emerged in our weekly readings suggested that the “stories” we tell, or the theories that we weave, are influenced by the epistemological, ontological, and methodological beliefs to which we subscribe. Each paradigm essentially represents a different way of "knowing." Those who doubt the existence of multiple realties need only consult today’s edition of the on-line The New York Times.

"Seeing Evolution and Creation,” a news article, documents two rafting trips taken by two different parties through the Grand Canyon at a similar point in time. The purpose? To better understand the earth’s geological past. Despite this shared objective, each group approached the task through a radically different set of interpretive lenses. The first, a collection of scientists, half of whom held Ph.D’s in science, understood the Canyon’s history in terms of evolution. The second, comprised of vacationing tourists who shared strongly held religious beliefs, wore the lenses of Creationism. As such they were able to see in the Canyon’s walls evidence of a biblical flood. The same trip…the same stopping points… the same objective. Nevertheless, each party arrived upon a radically different explanation. To make things more problematic, I had the good fortune to work on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations in northern Arizona where I made several friends. On those occasions when we hiked the Canyon together, yet another theory emerged, one that saw the Canyon’s past in still different terms. For the Hopis, the Canyon marked the location of a “sipapu,” or hole in the earth, through which their ancestors had emerged (for more on this see The World of Myth by David Adams Leeming). Is such an explanation any more or less valid?

“Like They See ‘Em,”an op-ed piece written by Robert Schwartz, addresses a similar issue. Its author questions the ability of so-called constructionist judges to stringently adhere to (and apply) the laws outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The problem? According to Schwartz, judges, like umpires in a baseball game, must interpret laws prior to applying them. He writes,

Even though the rule book is clear in its definition of a strike, some umpires presume a pitch to be a strike unless there is a reason to call it a ball; others presume the pitch to be a ball unless they deem it to be a strike; and some appear to have no regular approach at all to making ball-strike decisions.

In other words, judgments are never free of the paradigmatic beliefs that inform them. As Schwartz so eloquently notes,

The myth of the neutral umpire is no more tenable than that of the neutral justice.

So what do we do with all of this? Does positivism represent one set of lenses through which problems can be seen and understood? Does it deserve to be more (or less) privileged than another paradigm? As an individual reared in Western society, it is difficult for me to argue against the prowess of science. I am, after all, a product of the environment in which I was raised. At the same time, however, I consider myself an open-minded adult, one who embraces the notion of relativity. As such, I have to question the legitimacy of my beliefs. In the end, they are representative of a particular way of knowing. I suppose that the issues I am wrestling with constitute a part of being human. Oh, that it were easier.

For One Brief, Shining Moment?

I’ve been scanning the newspapers all night looking for an article about which to write, but to no avail. It would appear that I am the victim of “Blogger’s Block,” a particularly insidious ailment. If anyone knows of a cure, I’d appreciate hearing about it.

As of this evening the Boston Red Sox have fallen to 0-2 in the American League Division Series, a fact that I suppose should not surprise me, but does. As a life long fan, I had grown accustomed to the inevitable collapses that accompanied the end of each baseball season. When the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004, their first since 1918, I couldn’t have been happier. For a moment, I dared to believe that things would be different. Apparently I was wrong. Still, I can't complain. I had the opportunity to witness one title. That’s more than I can say for most fans. To borrow from the 1960 musical Camelot:

Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief, shining moment that
was known as Camelot.

He's Constant As the Northern Star

As an English teacher, I often read Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar with my sophomore students. In Act III, sc. i of the play, the conspirators approached Caesar at the Capitol to ask that he rescind his decision to banish Publius Cimber. Caesar replied:

I could be well moved, if I were as you;
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me;
But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament...
Let me a little show it, even in this—
That I was constant Cimber should be banished,
And constant do remain to keep him so.

Whenever I have discussed this passage with students, they have inevitably steered the conversation toward the issue of leadership. In doing so, they have pointed to Caesar’s stubbornness as a flaw, one that they felt was dangerous, particularly in the character of a leader. Rather than adhering to a fixed set of beliefs, the students have felt that a good leader is one who remains flexible, particularly because unexpected events can necessitate changes in policy. Oh, that our nation’s leadership shared such wisdom.

According to an on-line article published by the MSNBC News Service, President Bush used the bulk of a news conference this morning to defend his nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Assuring pundits that Miers, unlike Justice David Souter (appointed by Bush’s father), would be true to her conservative views, Bush explained:

“I’ve known her long enough to know she’s not going to change, that 20 years from now she will be the same person with the same judicial philosophy she has today.”

It certainly is comforting to know that, in a time of myriad problems, a rigid adherence to ideology, rather than a willingness to evolve in response to change, remains the gold standard toward which our leaders aim.

The Trouble With Tribble's (Argument)

As I have noted in the past, it was not until I had enrolled in a course of study designed to consider the blog as a rhetorical form that I was introduced to the genre. Since that class first began, we have explored a number of issues related to blogging, including the consequences that arise when efforts are made to institutionalize the form, and the questions that are raised where issues of privacy are concerned. I was therefore surprised to learn that a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education had indirectly addressed these issues, and, in doing so, had generated a series of equally interesting questions.

Entitled “Bloggers Need Not Apply,” the article cautioned graduate students to be wary of the pitfalls that can accompany the keeping of blogs by academics. According to the article’s author, the pseudonymous “Professor Ivan Tribble,” blogs, depending on their content, are capable of undermining a candidate’s credibility, and of hindering his or her ability to find employment within the academy. Referring to his own experiences as a member of various search committees, Professor Tribble wrote:

A candidate's blog is more accessible to the search committee than most forms of scholarly output. It can be hard to lay your hands on an obscure journal or book chapter, but the applicant's blog comes up on any computer. Several members of our search committee found the sheer volume of blog entries daunting enough to quit after reading a few. Others persisted into what turned out, in some cases, to be the dank, dark depths of the blogger's tormented soul; in other cases, the far limits of techno-geekdom; and in one case, a cat better off left in the bag.

Although he did recognize that blogs were capable of serving a number of useful scholarly ends, Tribble was troubled (the pun is intended) by blogs whose writers indulged in rants and, in doing so, created “an open diary or confessional booth, where inward thoughts are publicly aired.” According to Tribble, there were occasions when candidates for academic positions brought their blogs to the attention of the hiring committees in front of whom they appeared, a fact that would seem to render their thoughts and ideas fair game. In other instances, however, the search committee only learned about an individual's blog when they performed a web search, a fact that raises several questions.

Are the opinions and musings that appear in a “personal” blog a part of the public record? Should blogs be subjected to the same standards and expectations assigned texts published in a more traditional manner? Even more interesting is the following question: If blogging does, in fact, constitute a form of identity construction, whose identity is at stake when blogs are brought into a job search? Is the identity of the author who published a personal blog synonymous with that of the author whose work has appeared in a professional scholarly journal? Are they two different authors writing for two different purposes and audiences? If the latter is, in fact, the case, then questions that pertain to the nature of the audience for whom blogs are (and are not) written are raised. Answers to questions of this sort are not found easily. This topic may provide the subject matter of future posts. For now, however, I must leave it behind. The time has come to retire for the evening.