I recently found a fascinating blog by someone in the US, Sterling Fluharty of New Mexico, who is a PhD historian writing his own blog about challenges faced in academic life and it got me thinking about blogging itself as a way of communicating and the benefits to those who might be looking for work.
Sterling blogs, like I do, about general issues facing the academic community, such as salary decline and the emigration out of academia of the brightest minds often because of salary issues but also because of lack of support. He also comments on the use of part time teachers as well. On one level his blog is fascinating because it shows how similar the predicament for scholars in the humanaties is on both sides of the Atlantic.
However, he also uses his blog to publicise his own scholarship and this is what I want to think about today. In one section Sterling posts the full transcript of a paper he gave at a recent conference. For those of you who are academic job seekers this sort of self-publicity is a great idea. It widens the audience for your work and allows people to comment on your work on your blog or to contact you privately to discuss it.
Of course most universities allow their faculty members to have their own web page to promote their own research, but often these pages are poorly updated and poorly optimized for search engines. And if you are a PhD student then many departments simply don’t have the online space available for you. So, why not get your own blog instead? There are many ways of doing this, one of the easiest is using WordPress which has the added benefit of being free! Come on, join me in the world of blogging, it might help you raise your profile, always a benefit when jobseeking.
There is of course a big debate among academic bloggers about whether this sort of activity is seen as `trivial’ or a distraction from real scholarship. I think it will only ultimately tell in your favour if it doesn’t look as if it’s taking anything else from your work.
Would it have been too difficult to link to Mr Fluharty’s blog, by the way?
Thanks for your comment Jonathan, totally agree. Just for information, I did link to Sterling Fluharty’s blog in my original post: the link is in the word ‘blog’ on line 2. Apologies if that was not clear.
Catherine
My apologies, I must have tried everywhere but there!