There are already quite a few Australian phd students blogging, partly about their research, partly about life or what's left of it while researching. There's no reason to think they'll stop once their research is done, so the academic blog is already a reality.

Some are researching blogs and blogging, and blogging about it.

Some universities are setting up blog facilities for students and most already have busy discussion forums.

Academics have already realised the need to account for themselves and it's not difficult to find quite a lot of work on the net. The trick is to know what's reputable and trustworthy, and what's not.

Sorry, much as I enjoy blogs and blogging, I cannot agree they should become this important.

With so many voices competing for attention, populism will start to creep in at an early stage, ensuring that the rigour with which it is necessary to refine and polish an argument or a position will become an unaffordable luxury.

I'm also a bit concerned by this observation -

"The added beauty of blogging is that academics are not burdened by having to pad their contribution with references to articles and books written by others - who says they have a more enlightened opinion anyway?"

Surely the point of references is to illustrate the path along which the author's thought processes have travelled. To ask readers to do their own background checking of potential sources is pretty arrogant, I would have thought.

What the writer is asking us to accept is that the very concept of the carefully researched, cross-referenced and tightly argued paper is out of date, and should give way to the stream of top-of-the-head ideas and observations that populates the average blog.

Just because the technology exists doesn't necessarily mean that it should obsolete all previous delivery mechanisms. People still listen to radio long after the invention of television, and will continue to read printed newspapers and magazines well into the future.

There is also a physical limit to the amount of time people can devote to reading blogs. Our understanding of the dynamics of internet behaviours is in its infancy, and it could well turn out that blogs are a passing phenomenon, blown away by their own weight of numbers... seen one, seen 'em all.

Mr McConville's own blog gives a clue too, being simply a vehicle for self-promotion...

"Nothing of interest in the book shop... Well that’s about to change. In late April, my latest book “The Pursuit of Truth: Opinions on Law, Life and Contemporary Affairs”, will be released."

One can only tremble at the concept of academia jumping on the same self-serving bandwagon, and the subsequent elimination of academic rigour in favour of individual chest-beating.

In my previous post I questioned McConvill's claim that EVERY academic should blog.

I certainly was not suggesting that NO academic should blog. I suspect that being an effective blogger is like being an effective op-ed columnist for The New York Times. Some academics cut the mustard. Others shine in other ways. (Maybe some shine in no way at all, but we won't go into that here.)

Paul Krugman is a professor of economics at Princeton, and an influential, twice weekly columnist on the Times. (It is lucrative: 1400 words a week attracts half a professor's salary.) His columns regularly feature among the top 25 most emailed articles in the paper. But there are thousands of economics professors who could not succeed in this job.

Brad DeLong is a professor of economics at Berkeley. His blog, http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/ is widely read and influential. An important reason is that he distills quotations from formal news media that he thinks are important and often comments on them.

Even so, while his blog has an economic basis, it is mainly about American politics. His typical catchcry?

"Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach Richard Cheney. Do it now."

Many may agree with him, but this is not exactly the core of his discipline.

What, exactly, is McConvill advocating?

blogging does provide an opportunity for us, as academics and practitioners, to engage in regular and rapid discussion with each other. that very immediacy can become a trap.

blogging is no more a replacement for more deliberate scholarship than email or conference chats. but it could be at least as important as either to the community of scholarship.

equally, just like email and conferences, blogging cannot, must not, become a demand on our time that is presumed to have a higher priority than all the other things we're expected to juggle. classloads, research, consulting, clients, personal lives.

blogging will work for some, and be unworkable for others. indeed, that is what we can already see.

I agree with the original article. I agree with many of the comments. Some of the points where I disagree have already been raised by other posters.

And there, ladeez and gemmun, you have it. This is the benefit of blogging for me. An idea is raised, discussed, analysed; some of it refuted, some of it endorsed; new ideas are developed and pursued.

This is not what most of us get round the weekend barbecue or in the pub or at the dinner-table. That's usually singing to the choir. The sort of detailed exchange we're having here, with supporters and opponents and those not convinced either way, is increasingly hard for an ordinary person to find. Newspapers try, talkback radio tries (I suppose), but ideas don't get kicked around. A TV newsbite or a short column is not enough to take the shine off something that's superficially attractive but doesn't stand up to examination.

But shove a shaky idea -- academic or not -- out here and it gets pushed off its pedestal fast. Or the shover recognises where the weaknesses are and goes back to do the work needed to shore it up.

So, yeah, academics and all 'ideas' people should blog. It's just another way of doing what's been done for centuries. No, it shouldn't replace research or teaching or all the rest; no, it shouldn't even be accorded equal status with those necessary activities. But, now that the technology for it exists, failing to blog a new idea is a discourtesy equivalent to failing to do a Spellcheck when you know you're an awful speller.

another issue with blogging is the problem of sensitive employers.

you cannot really be free to write what you think, you have to be sensistive to being fired or sued. or both.

otherwise, blogging can be fun, and illuminating.