Types of Blog Articles Well Suited to Academic Writing

Types of Blog Articles Well Suited to Academic Writing
There are many types of blog posts that have proved successful for their authors, and some of those are especially well suited to sharing the procedures and results of advanced research. Most academics and scientists will quickly find a fitting niche for blogging about their work, but for those who are just beginning or those who may from time to time be seeking fresh approaches, the following list of article types that tend to work well for scholarly material may prove helpful.

• Lists are particularly effective in an online context where everyone seems to want the most interesting and significant information as quickly as possible. A list is usually preceded by an introductory paragraph that explains the purpose and value of the list, as this list is, and sometimes also includes a summary or concluding paragraph.
• Images, charts, maps, tables – anything that presents information in an effective visual form – are particularly suitable for sharing complex material quickly and clearly for the wide variety of readers who may find your articles online. Remember that many people learn more effectively through visual than through textual presentations, but that clear and accurate labelling is always essential.
• Information presented through audio and video as aspects of online articles can interest readers who may not pause to read your text or even scan down through the images that accompany your words. Posting an audio or video track at the top of an article can catch their attention and draw them into the text, and it can also share aspects of your research that cannot be effectively communicated through written words and static images.

• A behind-the-scenes peak at your research in progress can produce an intriguing article that just might hook some readers in the ongoing process of a large research project. It can be followed with updates, progress reports, the latest images from your laboratory trials or journal entries about recent discoveries and surprises and even failures and disappointments – anything that continues to tell the story of your research.
• A problem article can allow you to explain the background and importance of your research, as well as what you hope to discover and achieve. Questions, hypotheses, theories, speculation, hard evidence, challenges, implications, recommendations and many other aspects of scholarly writing can be neatly tucked into a problem article. Many readers love to read about unsolved problems even if they are not specialists in the field, so this approach may win you new readers.
• Focussing on the types of methodology that you use in your research can be a good strategy, perhaps with a new article for each type. If you have done case studies, for instance, you could focus on these in one post; another post could discuss surveys or questionnaires you designed and used in your research; another could focus on the interdisciplinary nature of your procedures and so on.
• An article written primarily for the purpose of responding or reacting to other content can be closely associated with your research. What have you been reading and how has it contributed to the progress of your work? Share both with your readers, perhaps even writing a full review on a particularly useful source. Responding to comments offered by your readers can usually be informal, but if an interesting trend begins, you may want to take advantage of the opportunity and expand on what has proven to be engaging content by writing an entire article on the topic.