Traditionally, academic writing was considered at its most credible when it came from a reputable journal or other scientific publication. Scholars were faced with the challenge of creating articles from their research that would meet and exceed the tough standards required of these coveted publishers, and libraries around the world would keep subscriptions paid and copies of each journal on hand, no matter how old or obsolete the information was to become.

With the advent of the digital era, this traditional method of gaining an audience for your academic writing has slowly faded as publishers realize the need to attract a wider net of readers. The preferred medium of reading has moved from paper journals and books to e-publications that can be spread over an extensive range of subscribers.

One of the more controversial arenas has been the advent of academic blogging. Blogs are able to divulge information to a vast audience in a short time, but there are also those who disapprove of this form of medium as a legitimate source of information. However, once you learn how to incorporate blogging into your academic writing, it may quickly become your go-to source to release your publications.

Benefits of Blogging in Academics

Aside from the obvious benefit of reaching a wider audience, blogging has become an accepted standard practice in academic writing for many other reasons as well. Writers who turn to blogging regularly to publish or communicate their findings notice that this form of publication has advantages like: 

●      It encourages academic writers to make a habit of communicating their work and practicing the art of writing daily. Even if you don’t submit a daily blog post, you can work on creating, revising, and publishing on a schedule, such as once a week.

●      It limits your text to help you focus on conciseness. Unlike a scholarly article, which often has a minimum amount of words required, blogging tends to have a maximum length to keep the reader’s attention. Writers must learn to condense their ideas, relaying the pertinent information without digressing into other, less relevant, topics.

●      You can adjust your writing style in ways that a journal or other scientific publication may not allow. Blogging allows the writer to become more informal while still relaying information to their audience. Since you’re writing for your own publication, you can set the rules and standards and relax your voice. 

●      The metrics allow you to gauge your impact and drive your work to your audience. To begin with, you’ll have a limited market of readers coming to your page. As your blogs become more well known, you can use the metrics features to see what type of reader is coming to your page, if they are reading what you wrote or leaving because it was not interesting, and the kind of traffic that your work is bringing to your page.

●      You can try different approaches to writing. If one post doesn’t work, you can take it down or leave it and move forward. This allows academic writers to combine creativity with their knowledge and become more comfortable with their own natural style.

Although blogging and academic writing together do promote more authorship choice, there are some basic rules for writers to use when incorporating scholarly blogging into their writing habits.

Rules to Keep in Mind as You Enter Academic Blogging

Your blog is your choice. You can decide to write for yourself or to attempt to garner a wide audience by adjusting your style to their preferences.

However, as you begin to enter the world of academic blogging, keep these basic rules in mind: 

●      Be cautious of which platforms you choose to use. There are lots of free sites out there, but you want one that will grow with you. Take some time to research the various options that you have and don’t be afraid to invest what you are comfortable with to get a platform that is reputable and has customer service to help you learn it.

●      Write your blog to get your point across first. Once you’ve done that, you can tweak it for SEO purposes if you decide to use that strategy to gain an audience and rank on Google’s algorithms.

●      Remember that anything you post on your blog is visible and permanent. Even if you remove a post, it’s possible that someone, somewhere, has seen it and kept a record of it. Because of this permanency, it’s important to ensure what you post will be beneficial to your scholarly reputation, not harmful.

If you’re new to blogging and it seems intimidating, there are many resources out there to help you get started. You mastered an entire graduate degree; you can conquer the basics of blogging to get your academic writing to a wide audience!

Use Impactio to Help You Get Your Work Out There

Impactio is an all-in-one platform used by expert scholars around the world. It’s a means for researchers and academic writers to publish their work professionally, but it’s also an extensive network of your peers.

When you create a profile on Impactio, you can link your blogs, share them with others, and open up your audience to the community of researchers that also use this program to enhance their successful impact on the academic world and society.