{"id":906,"date":"2016-01-13T11:39:50","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T11:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/?p=906"},"modified":"2016-01-13T11:54:32","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T11:54:32","slug":"blogging-totally-worth-a-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/2016\/01\/13\/blogging-totally-worth-a-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogging; totally worth a go"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is my first post to Occam’s Irregulars and when I was planning out what I wanted to write, I though that I needed something that was going to have a splash and get plenty of clicks. But that sounded hard and possibly requiring of either talent or some kind of Buzzfeed-esq list format. So instead, I\u2019m going for the much easier option of increasing the competition to the point where I can claim that the 10 views I get is totally understandable what with all those new science blogs that just started up.\"ErrantScience.com\"<\/a>I\u2019ve been blogging now for 2 years, pretty solidly. I think I\u2019ve only missed my weekly schedule once or twice, and even then I think it was because I managed to lock myself out by forgetting my password. I blog because I enjoy it and hopefully, that passion shows through in more than just my insane update schedule. Reading other bloggers such as Hapsci’s Notes<\/a>, <\/strong>Deathsplanation<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>and There’s a Spider In\u00a0The Bath<\/a>,\u00a0their posts always read like passionate treatise – either on something in the media for which they have expertise, or simply their own research. If you look at all the posts I\u2019ve linked, it doesn\u2019t feel like an exercise in \u2018putting something up for something\u2019s sake\u2019.<\/p>\n

But I had no idea I would actually be that passionate about doing it before I started. I started blogging for a variety of reasons, but \u201cbecause it sounds fun\u201d was actually a pretty long way down the list. And it wasn\u2019t something that just instantly clicked in. I wasn\u2019t 100 words in to my first post and suddenly had an eureka moment, leaning back and saying \u201cgadzooks, this is a ripping good laugh!\u201d. It\u2019s something I realised after a few weeks – that I was looking forward to writing my blog posts, and even more, looking forward to talking to people online about it.<\/p>\n

I should be clear though – I\u2019m not suggesting that everyone is made to have a go at blogging. One of the many, many things I’m meant to be doing right now is working on my PGCert qualification. As part of that course, the class were very strongly encouraged to all start blogs to chronicle our journey through a part-time short course we do 5 days of work on. Some of my peers did create blogs and without exception, they all stopped shortly after their first few posts. Similarly, a friend on a non-science MSc was told that as part of her coursework she (in a group) has to start and run a blog for a year. As you might expect, most of the posts fit squarely in the mould \u201cbecause it was due\u201d and are about as insightful and inspiring as you\u2019d expect from mandatory MSc coursework that is ungraded.<\/p>\n

Blogging, like all outreach, is really only successful when the person doing it has a drive and a passion to do it. Not everyone starts with a burning desire to stand up and shout about their work but most of us have no idea if we will ever have that passion. All I\u2019d suggest is – go try it. Set up a blog on WordPress or tumblr; start tweeting more; share photos of your experiments on Instagram. If you find it rewarding, then keep doing it! If you don\u2019t, then at the very least you\u2019ve added your voice\/social media to explaining your science a little better.<\/p>\n

But whatever you end up doing, please tell me about it – I love hearing about other people\u2019s research and I\u2019m always happy to give someone starting out a bit of help getting noticed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is my first post to Occam’s Irregulars and when I was planning out what I wanted to write, I though that I needed something that was going to have a splash and get plenty of clicks. But that sounded … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[313,314,316,315],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guestposts","tag-blogging","tag-sciblogs","tag-scicomms","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/irregulars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}