This author, Jenny Davis, sets out to tackle the complexities of whether or not academics should cite blog posts in their formal academic writing. Davis discusses the pros and cons. Pros include the speed of publication and free accessibility, is not limited to recognised or upcoming academics working within existing frameworks (compared to peer-refereed journals), and can therefore promote the potential for ‘open discursive boundaries’. She notes:
[…] traditional journals rely on existing experts to decide what can/should be published. If an idea or methodology does not fit within an existing framework, its chances of acceptance diminish. Blogs are less susceptible this type of censorship, providing a wider breadth of theoretical building blocks and facilitating new theoretical directions.
(Davis, J., April 23, 2013)
Cons include the lack of peer review and its ‘standards’, creating a crowded discourse without a clear way to determine rigour. Davis also notes the tendency for bloggers to write in a ‘piecemeal fashion’, and the impermanence of blog posts.
Davis then responds in detail to three orienting questions:
- When is it okay to cite blogs in a formal academic paper?
- Which blogs are okay to cite, and how do we know?
- Who can cite blogs?
The final section is headed … “And the Final Answer is:…” – you’ll just have to read the article to find out (and cite it of course!) Note also, there are 27 interesting comments including further references on the topic.
Note too, there are many other posts, opinions and advice concerning this question so clearly students need to check with their advisors, and advisors (teachers/tutors etc), you need to make it clear to your students what is appropriate to their/your context!
APA 7th Edition Referencing
A very good and up-to-date guide to APA7 referencing from JCU (James Cook University) can be found here at https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/apa/socialmedia It covers the following:
Lee’s ‘better question’ relates to asking about the ‘reference type’, rather than the ‘retrieval method’. The author explains that online and print references are treated largely the same, with each reference being broken down into its four components: author, date, title and source.
This and other articles on the APA blog site are actually surprisingly interesting and informative!
A brief guide covering examples of Harvard, MLA, Chicago and APA referencing for blogs. Note, the author calls himself “Craig O” – this could refer to either his first or last name being Craig, it could be his online name/moniker, but for someone writing a post about citing blogs online, he doesn’t seem to have noticed that his guide gives no reference to how his name/title might be cited*.
This alerted me to the fact that although this post came up on a google search for such topics, and it seemed fit for purpose at first glance, further investigation found it is linked to a site on pretty shaky grounds. The site is titled “Top Universities: Worldwide University Rankings, Guides and Events”. The logo is QS – at the bottom of the page we see the registered company: © QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited 1994 – 2021. All rights reserved. On their homepage, they say:
Home of the QS World University Rankings, TopUniversities.com is one of the leading sources of information for prospective students from around the world. Whether you’re hoping to learn more about a particular study destination, or want to compare the reputation of different universities, we can help you take the next step on your educational journey.
https://www.topuniversities.com/
Most of their linked posts carry a banner saying ‘sponsored’. (see my Afterword… at this end of this post – and don’t fall for every post or link that catches your attention!)
*Note, the above JCU guide does this explicitly for blog posts:
| Format | Author, A. [Screen name if applicable]. (Date). Post title – not italicised. Blog name. http://www.xxxxx NOTES: If the author’s full name is not listed, just use their screen name without brackets. If the author is a group or a company, do not us a full stop between the author’s name and the screen name |
Conclusion
Overall however, it seems there is still disagreement on the ‘correct’ way to cite informal posts and other online material. APA7 now removes the necessity to include ‘date accessed’. Sites change, posts are updated, and this information is not always easily available. The main reason for references and citations being used are to give attribution to the the writer/producer. This information is not always available. Does this mean that these materials are then not appropriate as sources for academic work? Or does it mean that their ephemeral nature should be acknowledged, and a publicly accessible URL should be used at a minimum?
After trying to provide correctly cited references for this post, I think I am going to be even more forgiving to my students for their referencing. BTW, how to I format this with hanging indents – ie correct APA style? No idea!!!
Afterword…
One aspect I looked at in my PhD Thesis (Leve, 2011) was the matter of ‘grey literature’. In discussing the construction, marketing and mediation of international education as a highly valued commodity, ‘grey literature’ became the only available source of information (beyond anecdote) and I decided to make this a part of my thesis overall.
In terms of this study that involves texts from a broad range of sources, the differences in tone or ‘shades of grey’ are not always clear. ‘Grey’ denotes an ‘in-between’ measure, not black or white but grey, somewhere in between good/bad, reliable/undependable, clear/obscured – in the case of this study, it is a type of text that lies somewhere in between promotional texts and conventionally published scholarly research, a distinction which will be further examined throughout this chapter. However, in a cultural studies framework that highlights the meaning-making potential of any form of text, the credibility of these sources may be seen as less important than the exposure and ‘work’ they undertake in constructing and mediating understandings of the phenomenon in question.
(Leve, A., 2011, p116)
It is only now that I see how this resonates with online and ‘informal’ sources, which have hugely grown in proliferation since I wrote this content. I ended up relying on this ‘grey literature’ for my data, because via a screen shot, it keeps on existing and cannot be changed. It is a reflection of a context – a time, a place, and probably, a message of and for that moment.
But, through this post, another one grows a seed – stay posted!
References
(Trying out the advice above!)
Craig O, (March 16, 2021), How to Properly Cite a Blog In Your Essay, QS Top Universities.com, https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/how-properly-cite-blog-your-essay
Davis, J. (April 23, 2013), The Place of Blogs in Academic Writing, Cyborgology, https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/04/23/citing-blogs-in-formal-academic-writing/
James Cook University, (updated Apr 23, 2021) Social Media, APA (7th Edition) Referencing Guide, https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/apa/socialmedia
Lee, C., (Mar 8, 2021), “I found it online”: Citing online works in APA Style, APA Style Blog, https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/citing-online-works
Leve, A (2011), Constructing the ‘Study in Australia experience’ Full fee paying overseas students in state government schools ~a small but integral player~ [PhD Thesis, Monash University] https://www.academia.edu/757410/Constructing_the_Study_in_Australia_experience_Full_fee_paying_overseas_students_in_state_government_schools_a_small_but_integral_player_