jill/txt

Friday: June 06, 2003

not documenting, doing

Yesterday I agreed with Lilia that most researchers' blogs don't document research. Today while reading a post on David Weinberger's blog I realised that that's completely beside the point: research happens in blogs, and in the conversations between blogs. Blogs aren't about documentation, they're about doing, thinking and discussing. And they're about catching fleeting thoughts and making them explicit: if I hadn't blogged my response to Lilia yesterday I probably wouldn't have thought about David's post today as research and wanted to rethink yesterday's ideas as I'm doing now.

Of course blogs can be used as documentation as well, they can be used for almost anything I suspect, but I don't think documentation is the most interesting aspect of blogs in research.

Posted by Jill at June 6, 2003 03:17 PM.

Trackbacks

On June 7, 2003 10:53 AM, the entry "Research collaboration through blogs" at Imaginary magnitude linked to this entry.

Excerpt: "I realised that that's completely beside the point: research happens in blogs, and in the conversations between blogs. Blogs aren't... [read more]

On November 29, 2003 11:26 AM, the entry "Hidden agenda" at Mathemagenic linked to this entry.

Excerpt: It's true that weblogs make idea development visible , but there are other interesting things that are not blogged.... [read more]

On May 16, 2004 10:46 PM, the entry "PhD: experiential research and everyday grounded theory " at Mathemagenic linked to this entry.

Excerpt: [This text was drafted a... [read more]

If your blogging software doesn't do trackbacks, you can send one manually using Kalsey's SimpleTracks. The Trackback URL for this post is http://huminf.uib.no/~jill/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/377.

Comments

On June 6, 2003 03:22 PM Andyed wrote:

Linked to my name is a "project blog" where I'm documenting an exploration of prior art and an implementation of new technology in browser based adaptivity and personalization.

I agree, the gory details of research are rarely sufficient to capture the interest of an audience other than a dedicated research group.

On June 6, 2003 03:57 PM Mark wrote:

I have to say that my blog has been invaluable as my own reference point. Particularly trying to rewrite my MA proposal at uni, whilst not having my notebook with me(fool that I am). And it's great for jotting notes down at work and reading from home later, which I guess is the networked aspect of blogging covered. It certainly beats emailing things to myself.

On June 7, 2003 01:14 PM Jill wrote:

I hardly use notes any more. Handwritten notes, I mean. I write them, sometimes, but then I either pull out the good bits and blog them or pull out the good bits and put them into an essay or I ignore them and leave them round for weeks unread. In all cases I end up throwing them out after a while. It's incredibly liberating, throwing out notes. Last months I threw out boxes and boxes of notes from when I was a student and it was absolutely wonderful.

One glorious thing about blogging is that it takes no room but is searchable from anywhere. Well, anywhere connected to the internet.