Is blogging a cure for dull writing? Some people seem to think so, according to The UCL Practitioner, a law blog. It links to and quotes from a journal article (written by a law professor) entitled "Blogs are liberating the profession from dull writing." Its claims seem easily generalized from writing about legal things (the sort of stuff one finds in law review articles and legal documents) to writing about church things (the sort of stuff one finds in manuals and other correlated discourse):
The growing respect for blogging among legal professionals stems in part from the medium's tendency to resist the worst excesses of the traditional forms of legal writing and publication. ... For legal writers and legal readers, it is liberating and refreshing to have thought-provoking ideas about the law expressed in only a few paragraphs or even a few sentences.
I have seen many comments from both regulars and visitors that express the same sort of "librating and refreshing" reaction to the informative posts and friendly discussion that describes the Bloggernacle at its best. What think ye?
It seems to me that what blogs are doing is opening up discussion. That is blogs are more like being in a study room or faculty lounge when a good discussion is going on. But I don't think it is typically like papers. Rather the format is much more like regular talk (with all the misspeaking we regularly do)
I think that's what's refreshing. That one can find short and pithy comments. Of course bloggers don't always get the short and pithy part down. Partially because brevity usually takes a lot of work. When I write a paper it usually is about 3x as big as the final paper will be. Most of my editing and rewriting is putting my thoughts in a more simple form. But of course in a blog I can't do that. (Well, at least not with the time I have)
Posted by: Clark Goble | Sep 26, 2006 at 10:54 PM