On Friday afternoon, I will be leading a session at the Reaching a Popular Audience Writing Workshop at UBC about blogging and online self-publishing. Historians and academics have been blogging for many years now, but it is still a generally uncommon practice in academia. However, online publishing through academic blogging can be an incredibly useful medium for disseminating ideas, research findings, and opinions that are not necessarily suited to monograph or journal publication (the dominant forms of academic publishing for historians). It can also serve a very important public history function, providing historians with a means to communicate to readers outside of academia.
Having run this blog for several months now, I can attest to the utility of this medium, but I am no expert. If you have any comments or suggestions that you would like to add to this topic of historians and academic blogging, please post them as comments here and I’ll pass them along during the session on Friday.
Here are some of the additional resources we’ll be consulting as part of this session at the writing workshop:
CNET Real Deal Podcast Episode 198: Beginner’s Guide to Blogging
http://www.cnet.com/8301-17920_1-10456185-84.html
Academic blogs: Connecting People and Ideas
From the Career Corner at Congress 2009 in Ottawa
http://www.universityaffairs.ca/academic-blogs-connecting-people-and-ideas.aspx
Cliopatria’s History Blog Roll
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/9665.html
Dan Cohen, “Professors, Start Your Blogs” Digital Humanities Blog 21 August 2006
http://www.dancohen.org/blog/posts/professors_start_your_blogs
