Goodbye, blog

So, this is it—the last post on this blog. As introduced in the beginning, this blog was part of a module in the MA programme I study at the University of Limerick. The blog accompanied me throughout the semester, and I used it to reflect on my learning as well as to cover technical communication topics like reviews & opinions on tools or methods or surveys etc. My topics also touched the domain of API documentation, as this currently is my main focus.

Throughout the last weeks and months, I already started to prepare my upcoming research semester, which will complete the MA programme for me. With my dissertation, I aim to find out what the best practices for API documentation are—based on studies or other research that has been done in the last years. My research method will be a systematic literature review, and I documented the reasons for that decision (and also the struggle with it) in a blog post, too.

When I set up the blog, I was not aware of where this would go, and I had seen myself journaling alongside my dissertation. But this blog was never intended to be a reflective journal. Plus, the semester was packed with other things so that my blog did not end up being a pure API documentation blog.

However, the URL and the title of the blog always reminded me of what would come next. Or, from today’s perspective: what is about to happen now. The semester with its last assignments will be over soon, and then I’ll finally start to deep dive into the API usability and API documentation literature. Looking forward to it!

And looking back—at the blogging experience—those are my views about it:

Good

It was a valuable exercise.

With the continuous delivery model, I ended up with 18 blog posts that (in total) are of reasonable quality. I wonder if this level could also have been achieved by just one big piece of writing to be delivered at the end of the semester. What I observed here is that:

Continuous efforts add up to something valuable.
(I hope I’ll keep this in mind for my dissertation.)

A side-effect was to get a chance to look into a website builder such as WordPress. I never used one before, but those static site generators intend to leave them behind (see also my blog post on MkDocs, a static site generator). The rationale is that maintaining dynamic websites constitutes too much of an overhead for certain types of websites, for example, for portfolios or for documentation. Therefore, static sites built with static site generators might be a better option for such use cases.

Okay

When I came to know that this blog would be a reflective writing exercise, at first, I mistook it for a critical thinking exercise. Recently, I had visited the University’s bookstore on campus where I started to read (and eventually bought) a book named “Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing for Postgraduates”. So, when I familiarised myself with the blog assignment, at first, I expected something similar to what I had read in the book. However, there was no theory, no critical thinking guidance. The only advice given for our reflective writing was the “What? So what? Now what?” approach. Once I understood that this was not “reflective” as in critical thinking theory but “reflective” regarding my learning experiences etc., I started to see the value in that simple yet effective reflective writing approach. It allows you to easily dismantle your learning experiences and, simultaneously, assists you in crafting a reader-oriented text.

I would have loved to see everybody else’s blogs (and being able to like, comment, be inspired). But maybe the purpose of this rather closed assignment design was a) to offer protection to those who would feel more comfortable to reflect in private rather than out in the open, b) due to ethical/ privacy reasons, c) to let us experience this nothingness after having written a new post, which probably would happen anyway if you started a new blog. Anyhow, there was still a way to show and share your blog through the accompanying Twitter conversation. So, the design allowed liking, commenting and being inspired after all.

Argh.

A blog post takes its time to come into being. To me, the compensation (credit-wise) does not seem balanced at all.

Reinforced

Another thing I observed and experienced was something that we have been told and taught again and again over the course of our studies. After writing, put your text aside and sleep on it. Then edit your writing. For this blog, I could not find the time to stick to that guideline. So, the writing and editing happened at once. (And I paid much attention to the editing process.) Nevertheless: Although I had considered each and every post “ready” before publishing it, I still found myself editing posts weeks later when I happened to reread them. So, may I keep this in mind for further projects:

It is good practice to distance yourself from your writing for a while to be able to see, assess, and edit it with a fresh eye.