Why write a blog?

Developing communication skills

What reason is there for me to write (or attempt to write) a blog?

I recognize the need to improve my communication skills, as it does little to engineer a solution and leave the world ignorant of it. Yet this is what many struggle with:

Deficient communication skills is a rampant scientific disease: even lifelong scholars fail to communicate enough to verify their studies, leading to the replication crisis.

I'm simply trying to be proactive in avoiding this all-too-common fate, for good communication is necessary for someone to derive value from your life's work.

Blogs are here to help, as writing consistently helps to improve ones writing ability.

First consider my three rules of blogging:

1. It is okay if nobody reads what you write.

The writing exercises are for personal development. Outside engagement (that's you!) is a nice bonus.

2. Your initial work will probably be terrible.

Publishing your written work publically is an incentive for not making it terrible. I apologize if this article is terrible, but I know that I'll improve in the long run, one poorly-written piece at a time.

3. Blogs are best written informally.

Although I want to get better at all types of writing--formal and casual--blogs are better in casual form.

This is to avoid the trap of infinite revision. You're not giving expert advice, it doesn't matter if it's imperfect. Trying to resist these facts will result in nothing being posted at all.

But how do you write a blog?

The hardest part is overcoming the mental barrier to begin. This must be done regardless of skill: we know that our first works will be terrible--there's no way around it. Write and the skill will follow.

Louis Rossman puts this rather elegantly:

"You are going to suck when you first start at anything. ... You have to get out the suck before you can get to the part that's good."

You can also minimize the ideation barrier with Matt Might's technique of harnessing material that you're already writing for some other purpose (e.g. class assignment, personal project, email).

Tangent: With great communication comes great responsibility

Good communication does a lot for humanity: think of engaging popular scientists like Bill Nye or critical updates during a natural disaster! However, good communication should not be used to make up for poor scientific merit.

With self-proclaimed experts surrounded by a laxer burden of proof among laypeople, "cargo cult science" (wonderful read) can thrive--work that looks like science, but falls apart under scrutiny.

For a good example of empty science presented as groundbreaking, look to former MIT Media Lab member Neri Oxman (who produced little but a cool-looking marble for Jeffrey Epstein) or UPenn psychologist Angela Duckworth (who wrote extensively about "grit" as some breakthrough despite its dubious predictive ability). (I'm actually halfway through reading Grit out of curiousity.)

In short, endeavor to let your communications make valuable information accessible instead of polluting the meme pool.