"Back in 2005 and 2006, a lot of law-professor bloggers wondered whether blog posts could and would serve as ways to advance scholarly ideas about law. At the time, I was very skeptical... and I now think my old self was wrong.... In the past five years, legal blogs have become an acknowledged and accepted part of the world of legal scholarship.... It might be because more law professors are blogging. It might be because our experience has been that what profs say on their blogs is usually the same as what they say in their articles.... [T]here seems to be more of a convergence between scholarly blogging and 'traditional' law review articles today than existed 4 or 5 years ago. That convergence encourages more scholarly blogging and recognizes its value."
All that may be true, but I still maintain, as I did back then, that blogs are a distinct form that offers the opportunity to write in new, challenging, artistic ways. Reading Orin's post reminds me to think of myself as a true blogger, not a professor taking advantage of a device to push out scholarship. Of course, I want credit and regard for my writing here, but because it is different, not because it is the same.
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