Yeah, that’s right. Big conference talks are only 12 minutes or so…if you want to report new data, findings, interpretations you need to skip a lot of context and assume your talking to other experts. And you also end up using a lot of jargon for efficiency.

For communicating to the general public, jargon usage should be very little or none at all…it can be tough if these words are “common” to you…I try and read and re-read my posts to make sure, but I still use terminology that people probably don’t know all the time.

I like the Arizona Geology site as well…that’s a good one.

I especially enjoy when people blog about topics in their specialty in language that I can understand. Most GSA talks that I have attended - even in a topic that might be a specialty of mine - the content generally gets over my head by the second sentence. Maybe the blogger realizes that anyone could find their way into the blog and the GSA presenter is geared up to communicate at a higher level.

One of my favorites is Lee Allison’s “Arizona Geology” at http://arizonageology.blogspot.com/

There you have a State Geologist talking about the sides of geology that you don’t hear much about in academic or industry circles. Budgets, politics, bills in the legislature. These are the things that most geologists give very little thought to but that can have an enormous impact on our profession. I think that every state geologist should have a blog and that every geologist who does work in that state should read it.

Secondly, what I think is great about the blog medium is that those who are just getting into the field like yourself can start to interact with a community with such a broad range of experiences and training. We have faculty, students, professionals, and the general public all mingling and talking about stuff. I love it.

I don’t know if I can rightfully call myself any sort of scientist right now, even if I’m taking classes and attending lectures and reading as much as I can find time to read (which isn’t much right now). At this particular point in time, I’m snorkling in the depths that are music comprehensive exams, prose thesis, and composition thesis, all of which feel like huge hurdles before I can hope to get down to more serious science - and I still haven’t received a letter saying either way about my admission to the geophysics program! I’m not sure whether I’m even on base in qualifying what I can call myself based on the degree on which I’m currently working, but that’s where my mind is sitting right now.

So I’ve been trying to blog about science as I pick things up, but I have this feeling that anything I write at the time being is stuff that’s pretty elementary knowledge to the rest of the geoblogosphere. I again don’t know if that’s an on base thought to have, but it’s there.

But despite any insecurities and uncertainties I have, I started blogging about it and intend to keep blogging about it because I enjoy doing so, and I enjoy reading what everyone else has to say. And, indeed, that gives me something to aspire to. I don’t know what category I’d be in right now, but I hope that in a few years, I can choose to blog-about-science or be-a-scientist-blogger on an entry to entry basis.

(Gah, didn’t mean to write a whole essay in your comment box. Sorry!)

I think a blog that reposts stuff from Science Daily or Eurekalert without any more commentary than “look at this” isn’t a “science blog” worth mentioning. There’s no juice there.

I think blogging only about peer-reviewed research is certainly science blogging, but it can be pretty dry. (Steve Drury’s Earth Pages is not dry, but then it’s not a true blog.)

What I mean is there are blogs by scientist that include posts about the topics that working scientists relate to (e.g., discussing tenure process, how to give a good job talk, whether or not you need a post-doc in your field, etc.) and then every now and then posts completely unrelated to science. There are plenty of examples.

Other times these exact same blogs have posts that do what you are talking about above.

Instead me calling the “types” perhaps I should’ve termed them “roles” or “style” … I don’t know. So, I’m not labeling any single blog Type I or Type II. Let’s not lose the message, I don’t want to focus on terms and classification structure…it’s not about applying this classification…it’s just a tool for discussion.

Are there blogs by scientists that don’t include science? That’s where I think the Type I/II thing fails. Scientist-bloggers simply can go deeper than the rest of us, and more power to them.

Although in the post above I am certainly classifying people, I also state that the categorization is fluid…I’m not rigorously placing a “person” into a category per se, rather talking about the role we as bloggers play from post to post.

And to reiterate…classifications are inherently oversimplified, but do play a role in investigation (and hopefully understanding).

Ole says: “I am one of the kind of people in the world that don’t divide the world into two kinds of people.”

I was hoping someone would follow that…if you don’t divide people then how can you place yourself in that category? Paradoxes are fun