Comments on: Clarifications (?) on “Slow Blogging” and “Fast Reading”

By: Jabiz Raisdana

Jabiz Raisdana — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:45:08 +0000

Sorry couldn't stay long enough to comment, because I have 77 other blogs to skim today. I did catch some of what you and the other commenters said, as I read every other line of your work. Seriously, sometimes it is all too much and we have to decided how to adjust accordingly. I am still try to find a happy medium. Thanks for a great post. Seriously I want to get my reader down to zero so I can rest. This behavior can't not be productive. Jabiz Raisdanas last blog post..Parrots on the Sill

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 02:55:04 +0000

I know I just posted on this over where I am, but to restate …

“Uh-huh.” “Yep.” “What he said.” “You’re right.” “She makes a good point.”

To jump on Kate’s comment, my reply is “as long as you think it needs to be.” I’d rather murder the essay AFTER it’s written

Toms last blog post..Insert size matters joke here

By: Kate Tabor

Kate Tabor — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:02:30 +0000

the dreaded page length question:
“How long should it be Ms. Tabor?”
“Long enough to explain your thinking.”
“Is that three pages?”
“I won’t know until I read it.”
Okay, that’s simplistic, but I always tell students that I don’t weigh their papers before I read them. Nor do I decide to read or not read a blog post based on length.
As a blog writer, I have started to post about events in my teaching life when I am still in the middle of synthesizing my understanding of the event, but still the posts come out long. Long enough to “cover the subject” – at least for me.

Kate Tabors last blog post..Putting all the pieces together

By: Morgante Pell

Morgante Pell — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:47:43 +0000

Clearly, some ideas (particularly large ones) are best developed through cohesive books.

However, I would actually disagree with your frame: I think any piece which is built around chronology (however distant) can work well on a “blog.” Indeed, this format might even add to the air of discovery: the “story” must reveal itself over time, just as it originally was.

I’m sure we agree that not all books worth reading are “classics.”

By: Clay Burell

Clay Burell — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:37:38 +0000

Hm. If I said anything suggesting my push for “books” was a push for “classics,” my mistake. While there’s nothing like a grounding in the real Homer and Plato (both very readable and enjoyable in the right translations) and Bible and so forth for actual knowledge of what they’re about (otherwise, you’re at the mercy of professors or preachers, god save you), I’m thinking as much of simply long books period. Histories of the Renaissance, of the Scientific Revolution. Theories of statecraft or biographies of Darwin or Jefferson. Whatever. Just more big picture arguments and meditations than are afforded by even the best blog posts or online articles.

Somehow related to all of this is my own recent attempt to “slow blog” my thoughts on what Gilgamesh tells us about our past and present. The task was not well-served by serial posts. It slammed me to the limits (my limits, I guess) of blogging – and it showed me that some ideas are so slow, so big, so long they belong in books.

Hm. Can you imagine Howard Zinn writing a People’s History of the United States online to the same effect? And can you imagine getting the coherent perspective of that epic history by reading all the ideas as short posts from different bloggers or wikipediers around the web?

Is this frame even valid? You tell me. It’s almost 4 a.m., so I’m suspect.

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:23:13 +0000

I’m going to paraphrase something I heard from a TED talk that succinctly exppresses my view, and that is that a blog should be like a dress, short enough to keep interest, but long enough to cover the subject.

By: Jonathan Chambers

Jonathan Chambers — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:45:15 +0000

There are two basic types of blogging: the relayers and the synthesizers. The relayers manage to bounce information into our consciousness so that we can digest it, and the synthesizers manage to creatively process the information so that we can process the information at a new, deeper level so that we can act on information at a new creative level. Both are useful.

The act of “slow blogging” is encouraging deeper synthesis, although without the surface level of relay of basic ideas, we may not reach some of the synthesis that may be possible if we don’t continue to offer some of the “raw materials” as ideas in our blogging.

It’s up to each of us to judge how we manage information, and if we should manage to slowly distill concepts to the point of “slow blogging” then that’s a catalytic convertor that may or may not be borne out in the process of transmission.

It all boils down to choice – a choice to listen, to read, to convert, to process, to synthesize, to make an idea more relevant, or whether we choose to simply log ideas and accrue knowledge until we can connect a series in a beautiful, intricate pattern that will be recognized as eloquence.