Here's a tough question for you lot. PhD students are always encouraged, it seems, to blog. Now only doe it help them establish a consistent schedule of always writing, but allows them to get stuff off their stuff and disseminate small parts of their research.

Here's the question: If a PhD student, say in political science, write a blog on their research, could they also include political opinions (based in their research)?

I think it depends on a few factors.
a) Is this a personal blog or a contribution to something like 'The Conversation'? If it's something like the latter then unless other contributors are overtly political I'd avoid it.
b) Are your views likely to be viewed as extreme? If so, would you be happy for potential future employers to be able to read the blog posts? And if you are currently teaching or will in the future, would you be happy for students to know your views?
c) Especially if you are female, unless comments are disabled / moderated, are you resilient about any online abuse you might get?

Thank you for this response.

a) Either or. I am tempted to run a personal blog purely to ensure that I write something every day. That's why I would like to share personal opinions that employ research relevant to my field.

Here are two examples from a blog that was posted on another forum I use:


http://www.theconversative.com/commentary/the-counterintuitivity-of-voting-for-the-green-party/


http://www.theconversative.com/commentary/plastic-bag-taxes/


In both examples, research from different fields is brought together in a personal - rather than necessarily academic - argument. Although, I would avoid the "vote X party" at the end of the first blog post and leave it somewhat more open ended.

b) Extreme? No. Would I object to people knowing my views? Not really. Many are quite vanilla.

c) Never been bothered by hateful speech. Got enough of it growing up for it to no longer phase me in the slightest.