GOGSoc Episode VI: The GoG, the Bad and the Ugly

Sounds like a good strategy. Only peer reviewed articles in good journals, or academic books/chapters count as the kind of publication that would help an early career CV. But there's no harm in putting your ideas out there on blogs, so long as you don't give it all away. Put enough in to spark interest, but save the really good specifics of your ideas for the PhD. A new area is obviously very promising from the point of view for getting funding. The thing with blogs is that they're time limited. People will share and notice them for a short period of time and then other things take their attention. So it makes sense to align presence online and at conferences with the kind of times you wanting to be getting opportunities related to them. Its no good if you put a blog up and someone contacts you asking you to speak/write a chapter etc. and you're no way ready.

Staying in contact with academics is obviously a good idea. Working and fine tuning is also a good idea. Just be careful of using a PhD as a way to judge academia. I think PhDs are a very unique and specific space within a regular academic trajectory. And they can vary wildly according to different factors. Just like it would be wrong to judge all postgraduate studies according to the one bad experience you had at KCL. If you do go for the PhD, make sure you have good enough reasons to provide you with strong motivation. You can judge for yourself what those are, but I think if I wasn't very determined to get mine and I couldn't see the clear relevance of the qualification to my options later on in life, it would become much more appealing to give up on it, as a good many students do!

Hopefully that feedback will mean you can revise it into a kick ass publication for another journal.

I disagree with Craghyax about the publishing thing. The timescales involved in traditional publishing can be ridiculous at times so it is nice to have something tangible to show for your work (i.e. a blog post). For instance, the Guardian contacted me to write something last month. That came about because they had seen some of my comments on their website.

While it will depend upon your field, I know the research institute I am affiliated with likes this sort of public engagement and are likely to reward it when I apply for more funding. Ditto with other internal funding at my university.

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I disagree with Craghyax about the publishing thing. The timescales involved in traditional publishing can be ridiculous at times so it is nice to have something tangible to show for your work (i.e. a blog post). For instance, the Guardian contacted me to write something last month. That came about because they had seen some of my comments on their website.

While it will depend upon your field, I know the research institute I am affiliated with likes this sort of public engagement and are likely to reward it when I apply for more funding. Ditto with other internal funding at my university.

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I know I'm not PhDing just yet but I agree, getting stuff in the media does looks good, especially for scientists given the huge push on'public understanding of science' at the moment. Also media interest can actually help with the publication process.

Publishing takes forever finished my masters in September and the paper still isn't out. Bleugh.

What I got from that was that blogs were useful, but at the end of the day, something you've put online a year ago will not be seen as much as something much more recent. I didn't get the feeling that Craggy was condemning blogs at all, but merely arguing the fact that it was a tool to be used with caution and that to make the best use of it, you should post/publish while keeping in mind the academic context at the time, ie. a conference, CFP, whatever else.

They are time-dependent after all, content can become completely useless and irrelevant overnight on the Internet, the same way you can end up with server problems, blogs that haven't been updated in months, posts with dead links, etc, so whilst they are useful - and no-one said they weren't - I understood from Craggy that they should be used with care, not that they shouldn't be used at all.

There is also a big difference between writing your own blog and publishing in an edited and hosted blog, either by a university or a newspaper.


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I disagree with Craghyax about the publishing thing. The timescales involved in traditional publishing can be ridiculous at times so it is nice to have something tangible to show for your work (i.e. a blog post). For instance, the Guardian contacted me to write something last month. That came about because they had seen some of my comments on their website.

While it will depend upon your field, I know the research institute I am affiliated with likes this sort of public engagement and are likely to reward it when I apply for more funding. Ditto with other internal funding at my university.

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That's reminded me to update the ol' CV - did a blog post for my collab partner the other week

We are more affected by the other portfolio. But obviously surprised by the move and interested to see what was going where!


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Ah no sorry, the brief that went to the other minister in the end!


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As Anatheme suggests, you've misread my post. Indeed if you look again, it was implicit in what I wrote that blog posts can offer a lot of important and good opportunities. What I suggested, though, was that if you only have enough knowledge/opinions to write a blog post, but are still very much in a stage of working out where you want to go, then you, or rather Anatheme (based on everything she's said about her situation) actually would not want to suddenly be asked to write things in the Guardian or submit a chapter to a book or speak at a seminar. These are the kinds of opportunities that visibility online offers, but if you don't feel that you're ready to take up those offers, then its better to hold back until you want to begin engaging.
It very much depends on what content you are exposing, but for the majority of my doctoral work, the theoretical positions I am honing are both complex and controversial. I am reluctant to tie my flag to the mast in a format that can be searched and dug up again and again by possible academic employers and the like for decades into my career before I am 100% happy with its quality. So there are some more simple things I don't mind spinning into blog posts, but the more interesting and experimental stuff I save for conferences and proper publication.
Anatheme would be writing something that is potentially cutting edge. It would be very unfortunate if she shared too good an idea, years before being able to go forward with it, and meanwhile allowed others to take advantage of it. Similarly, if research did move forward very fast, she might not want it publically visible that she took the view towards the issue that she did prior to the emergence of other research.

I have seen an academic post I would be able to apply for but I don't know what to do. I don't know if I am tempted because I want to go into research or because I just want to get out of where I am now. It'd be out of London but would be quite a big pay cut and wouldn't be any closer to home, but then they've suspended any promotions for us at work so my career is effectively dead anyway.

I don't know how to make the decision on applying!

What are people's view on The Conversation? I had not heard of it until someone I work with was published in it. Seems very accessible.

I have seen an academic post I would be able to apply for but I don't know what to do. I don't know if I am tempted because I want to go into research or because I just want to get out of where I am now. It'd be out of London but would be quite a big pay cut and wouldn't be any closer to home, but then they've suspended any promotions for us at work so my career is effectively dead anyway.

I don't know how to make the decision on applying!