The measure of blogging: the use of different media in academic publishing

When I joined the Guardian's live chat on how to get ahead in academic publishing, I didn't anticipate that the conversation there would turn to blogging, but I should have. Blogging, after all, is a form of academic publishing, and I was wrong to imply otherwise in the heat of the moment.

I said in the chat that I don't read blogs because I don't have time for them. I should qualify that: I mostly don't read blogs. I'm reading this one right now, and I'm even posting to it. I sometimes look at others too, but I don't read any blogs regularly. But Rohan Maitzen's response to my comments suggests that I should elaborate further upon my motives.

My cautions about blogging break down into two related categories: authority and visibility.

First, authority. Writing can gain authority in all kinds of ways, but all of them involve some kind of external vetting and approval. That vetting can be ultra-formal (as in academic peer review), or it can be conveyed through popular approval – as with blogposts that go viral, or recent cases of self-published authors getting lush book contracts. There is also a myriad of possibilities in between. My point is that for writing to gain the greatest authority, others need to be involved. The most important of those others, to my mind, are editors.

Dr Maitzen makes my point about the need for editors rather forcefully on her own. In accusing me of "lurking hypocrisy," she writes:

"The Guardian feature opens with a link to a 'blog post' by Cassuto himself at the Chronicle of Higher Education. Now, I don't know the mechanics of publishing in the CHE. Perhaps there's a careful gatekeeping process there, determining which pieces deserve to appear under that illustrious banner, or perhaps there's at least an editor who mediates between Cassuto's unfiltered thoughts and his posts, which he calls 'columns'. (I hope so, else by his own logic, why should we read them?) Perhaps the gatekeeping process begins and ends with the invitation to write for the Chronicle, which gives you a general stamp of approval. In that case I'm sure Cassuto scrupulously edits his posts/columns himself, after writing them and before posting/publishing them: he's an experienced professional writer, after all, and well qualified to do so."

I would edit this for tone, to begin with – it's kind of snarky. But more importantly, there's a critical error of fact. My writing for the Chronicle is in fact a column, not a blog. It appears in the paper edition of the newspaper, and online in a different part of the website (and in a different format) from the Chronicle blogs. The error in identifying my work as a blogpost was not my own, but Dr Maitzen eagerly buys into it without checking facts.

The world does not turn on the question of what to name my essays, but Dr Maitzen's mistake here points to the value, not to say the need, for editors. Writing, we tell our students over and over, is collaborative, and I believe in that credo. Blogging is a conversation between poster(s) and commentators, but the writing itself isn't collaborative by design – each participant in the conversation works solo. I collaborate with my editors and I value their input, even when I disagree with it. (And it's worth mentioning that I've received some of my most astute and challenging editing at the Chronicle. Dr Maitzen conflates editing with peer review elsewhere in her post, but they're not the same thing.) Editing almost always improves the product, and that's why I (who have a limited amount of time to read) prefer to read published work that has been edited. And fact-checking is part of editing.

Second, there's visibility. Broadly speaking, writers write in order to make a difference of some kind to their readers. A private journal would seem the exception, but even that presumably makes a difference to the person who's keeping it, or else why bother? Writers publish in order to reach as many readers as possible from the audience – whether specialised or general. Dr Maitzen writes: "Blogging has also given me an outlet (some might say, an excuse!) to write about a wider array of books and topics, which has helped keep me intellectually alert and also led to some unexpected new directions and connections for my 'official' research."

Who could cavil with that? Dr Maitzen here gives voice to part of the reason why I write for general audiences too. But if Dr Maitzen's blogging is "unofficial," then it doesn't deserve the same kind of attention that her "official" publication does. And reading blogs can demand a fair amount of attention. Even following this thread requires several sittings as the issues gradually sort themselves out. In "official" writing, a lot of that sorting out takes place before publication.

Just putting a blog out there doesn't mean that it (or a given book or article) will get the audience that the writer seeks – or that a young academic particularly needs. Not for nothing did John MacDonald compare writing to "dropping feathers down a well" in the hope of an echo. Readers make the echo – but a brand surely helps. I'm taking the time to write this because it will appear under the banner of the Guardian, which I know will bring me readers. If I were Stephen King (who is his own brand), I could put my words up on my own website and trust that they would find a large audience. But even Stephen King wrote to the New York Times when he wanted to reach their readers.

Dr Maitzen mounts a passionate defence of blogging in her post but she's tenured and established. Graduate students and junior faculty need to make room for themselves in specific kinds of conversations. If a graduate student asks me, "Should I blog?" my answer, at least right now, would still be, "Probably not."

That answer might change in time. Oscar Wilde famously declared: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about", so I can hardly complain about an argument over something I said. But for me to take this any further reminds me of Monty Python's take on Wilde: I fear that it would become a stream of bat's piss. Blogs are clearly here to stay, and they have their place. They're affecting the market every day, and in a few beats we may wonder what this kerfuffle was all about.

Leonard Cassuto is a professor of English at Fordham University and the author of "The Graduate Adviser" column for the Chronicle of Higher Education

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