When
Tuesday 4th Feb, 11:00 am

Where
Room B2

Hashtag
#T10

Category
Insight

Presenter
Sarah Keenihan

Abstract

Although science blogs are popular amongst scientists and non-scientists, their value for professional career development remains a source of conjecture. Here I present a case study of a year-long science blogging project entitled ScienceforLife.365. Each day for 365 days between Australia’s National Science Week in 2012 and 2013, I published a post and accompanying image to a wordpress site (scienceforlife365.wordpress.com) and a Facebook community (facebook.com/scienceforlife365) and shared through my personal twitter and Facebook accounts. Across the year, the blog had approximately 20,000 views across both platforms, with interest varying considerably between platforms and according to the subject of each post.

Positive outcomes from the ScienceforLife.365 blogging project include:

• Developing a daily habit and discipline to write;
• Refining writing style and ‘finding a voice’;
• Seeing and working with nuances in audience preferences;
• Using social media to attract readership and market professional capabilities;
• Connecting with online writing and science communities;
• Demonstrating passion for subject matter and providing a portfolio for attracting paid work.

In summary, this case study shows that blogging can offer many benefits to the developing science writer.