Blogging revolutionized scientific discourses in a fast and less formal manner. It serves as a platform to spread scholarly information throughout the web. The objective of science blogging is to share the contents of scholarly information with ease to people who are inside and outside the ambits of the scientific community. Aside from informing the public about science in general, bloggers are also are able to express their views and improve their writing skills in a more creative way (Shema, Bar-Ilan and Thelwall, 2012). Science blogs are able to increase the transparency of scientific process through reviews and discussions of science culture and research.
Not all blogs are reliable. However, there are some blogs that can serve a role in research. A good science blog like any other good essay adheres to a certain criteria. Criteria that are seemingly cliché but every writer must know. Good writing considers: focus, development, audience awareness, organization, correctness and research and citation. Focus demonstrates a central theme or topic which does not stray. A well-developed blog article shows that every claim is supported by evidence. It also considers the need of the audience. That is, a writer respects his audience and does not use a language that may be difficult to comprehend. Organization on the other hand deals with the logical flow of every paragraph when conveying information while correctness ensures that the article is free of grammatical errors. Perhaps the most important factor that merits a good science blog is citation. Citing sources and avoiding plagiarism is a testament that the writer takes the initiative to enhance and deepen his ideas by consulting to the ideas of previous writers. It also implies the maturity of a writer as a thinker as well as his affinity to the scientific community.
An example of a good science blog is demonstrated in the article of Ricki Lewis’ Dan Brown’s”Inferno”: Good Plot, Bad Science (http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/). The blog critiques Dan Brown’s the misuse of scientific concepts. These are concepts that every biologist know by heart: deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) vis-à-vis polymerase chain reaction (PCR), plant cell wall (i.e. confused as “human cell wall” in the novel), germ (i.e. germ line and not pathogen), vector and genetic codes.
References
Lewis, R. (9 January 2014). Dan Brown’s Inferno: Good Plot, Bad Science. The Public Library of Science – Science Blog Network. Retrieved from: http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/.
Shema, H., Bar-Ilan, J. and Thelwall, M. (2012). Research Blogs and the Discussion of Scholarly Information. PLoS ONE, 7(5): e35869. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035869.
