Q: What Is A Research Blog?

A: A research blog is what you are going to make and maintain as part of MSTU2000 from Week 8 onwards.

You can use your own research blog as a forum to discuss the course and post material relevant to your chosen subcultural activity (for the final paper). In regard to assessment you must provide at least three serious research-based entries. These can take the form of an analysis of a website that you have found, a discussion of a web ring, a survey of related blogs, some first person 'ethnographic' reportage (eg. your own observations from a live gig or related event; a complete transcript of an interview you conducted that you may or may not include excerpts from in your essays), your own review of a related documentary/DVD/CD, etc.

You can provide links to other sources or sites of interest, but remember that a link alone is not enough to be counted for assessment.

and theorectically...

A research weblog is quite a few things

• a Content Management System (CMS)
• a collection of annotated resources
• a discourse community
• a reflective critical space
• a public writing and thinking

What makes up a blog?

• regular writing
• noting (through commentary and links) other online resources
• noting (through commentary and links) other weblogs
• writing ‘out’ of ideas, problems, solutions, and questions

What a blog isn’t

A blog is not the same as a diary or a journal.

It is

• public
• networked (interlinked)
• dynamic (constantly updated)
• internally and externally reflective i.e. not (only) argumentative or factual
• informal but critical in style, i.e. midway between academic discourse (as in your essay) and interpersonal discourse (as in chatting with/emailing friends)

Of course, the best way to learn what an effective research blog is all about is to visit some
(this is a link to last year's blog HQ - the student blogs are listed to the right under the title 'Your Blogs'). Now go develop your own.

Why use a blog?

Different people blog for quite different reasons. A research blog documents your research, your ideas and activities. It is informal, but by writing out your ideas you give them more purchase. It also helps you to connect and engage in reflective dialogue with people thinking and writing about similar topics and issues (i.e. your colleagues in the course, and quite possibly far beyond the course)

This post courtesy of Jean Burgess.
N.B. Some of the material used in this section has been adapted from Adrian Miles' introduction to research blogging, available here. Thanks, Adrian.