Blog or be damned?

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?

In return for this sharp, snappy, relevant writing, which blogging demands and facilitates, the reward is that many more people are likely to read what academics have to say. Many academic blogs in the US attract over 20,000 readers day. At a time when universities are moving towards research quality frameworks and impact ratings, this has to be a good thing.

It is said that the average law review article in Australia is read from start to finish by three people. That’s right, months of intense scholarship is devoted to enriching the minds of three people - these inevitably being academics, students and the occasional practitioner.

So government funding is being pumped in to a system which is based on an “interpretive community” of academics competing for the article with the largest number of footnotes and most sophisticated use of prose. Why not reallocate that funding towards academics prepared to reach out to the world through effective blogging?

If Australian academics really are serious about being progressive, relevant and dynamic, how can blogging be resisted any longer?

As another US law professor, Geoff Manne, blogged recently: “The real question is why we are still encouraged to spend so much time flogging the cadaver of traditional scholarship.”