The Process Of Skeptical Blogging – Vote For A Post!

I was alerted to the following comment on a blog site – a person I didn’t meet, but they also attended Dragon*Con – from Watching the Wheels:

Personally I thought it was just as applicable to those of us either officially in journalism or riding the fence somewhere between journalism and entertainment (we know who we are): the choices we make on what to include and/or not include in our writing help our readers understand how we make choices and what is involved with the decision. Maybe for every dozen or so articles or blogs you write, also write a “behind the scenes” look at the process. Where did you get information? How did you put together data to make your case? I think these things are very relevant to our role as thought leaders.

While I doubt that this person would readily recognise me in the skeptical crowd (yes, I have the immediate response of ‘I think you might have me confused for Dr Rachie / Dr Karen / Dave the Happy Singer‘ on the tip of my tongue whenever I’m at a conference), the questions they raise are excellent ones for a blogger who contributes to ’skepticism online’.

So, in short – I’m asking you to vote for one of my posts to be deconstructed! Vote For a Podblack Post here! I’ll ‘dissect’, ‘decipher’ or ‘deconstruct’ it in more detail over the weekend and post it for you on Monday.

The choices I made were: ‘Tis the Season For Superstition or The Specialness Of Species or Smart Bitches, Not Meerly Sex or The Sarah Silverman Of Skepticism.

If you’re particularly invested in another blog post of mine, pop in a comment at the end.

Digital Cuttlefish, a published and recognised as an ‘Order of the Molly’-winning blogger, recently wrote about the process behind how he writes (poetry, rather than prose):

Some day, they’ll do a PET scan, and they’ll peek inside my brain,
And discover things that even Ramachandran can’t explain,
Like connections from my liver to my left prefrontal cortex
Or cascades of hippocampal volleys, spinning in a vortex,
My gyri and my sulci spelling out, as plain as day
(Just as aliens leave circle-shapes in fields of un-mown hay),
In a hieroglyphic pattern that you’ve never seen before:
“Don’t look at us, you moron; we don’t work here any more!”
Yes, my brain is on vacation when I write the things I write;
I pity all the people who can only dream at night.

Naturally, they have a slightly more extensive and explanatory breakdown, but that’s the poem they wrote about it! If you haven’t read Digital Cuttlefish’s work, I’d suggest checking both the blog and the Digital Cuttlefish book (particularly ‘A Modest Proposal (Jennifer, Jennifer)’, which very much taps into a concern that I’ve seen expressed by teenage girls in schools I’ve worked at – maybe that’s a post for another time though).

One of the goals I had for this blog was for it to get published in the Open Laboratory – The Best in Science Writing in Blogs, which I achieved last year. Since then, the Skeptical Blog Anthology has begun too, which you can find on the Young Australian Skeptics site (I’ll be updating the next lot of entries there today).

The main reason I write? Disciplining myself to write extensively at least four to five times a week on the research topics I’m doing for either work or my thesis. It may seem a little blunt to say ‘this is my way of working on my writing skills’, but that’s what it boils down to. I know that there are some sites which are more ‘news aggregates’ and some have daily opinions and adventures, but in general, if you find a week that is mostly ‘YouTube videos not made by me’ on this site, then you’ll know that my work has become more hectic than usual or living the life has become more lively than usual. But I can talk more about ‘good reasons to write’ later.

So – Vote For a Podblack Post here, and I’ll get back to you with a breakdown for those who are interested in how I research, plan and generally get all those lovely blog-hits that make me think that writing for you as an audience is an additional bonus to getting those thoughts out of my head and onto the screen.

Tagged as: Digital cuttlefish, Dragon*con, Kylie Sturgess, Open Laboratory, podblack, process, Science, science writing, skeptic, skeptic blogger, skeptical activism, skeptical blogging, Skepticism, vote, writing