Categories

I'm becoming increasingly interested in the "category" function of blogs. I've noticed that as this blog evolves I have had to keep adding categories, which in turn have helped point me in new directions for further research.

This has been particularly true in my Ph.D blog which at the moment is all about exploring the key terms of my research and finding an appropriate typology and framework.

The gradual emergence of key categories is a major tenet of grounded research methodology and in thinking about blogging as a research method it would be interesting to look at the connections between blogging and grounded research. The notion of a category in grounded theory method is much more rigorously produced than blog categories but I think there is certainly value in using some of the thinking about categoires that grounded theorists have done to help us understand better the function of categories in research and academic blogging.

Honoria Madelyn Starbuck for her disertation on internet correspondence art develops a model that links grounded theory research method with the artistic practice of collage. She writes:

In both grounded theory and collage techniques there are a number of things happening simultaneously. Pieces of the whole are moved around and put next to each other and moved away from each other to find their final relationship in terms of the composition.

Interestingly Blogger doesn't seem to easily provide categories as part of its set-up and this is a major disadvantage of using this free system for student blogs.

Comments

[lynn]

If UTS did as the University of Minnesota has done, and provided access to Moveable Type to all faculty members, students, and alumni, we also could have categories!

see: UThink

(which is only a third and a little bit towards a new and Ufabulous UTS slogan - UThink, UChange, UDo)

[lynn]

Hey! I've worked out a way for people who use Blogger to allow readers to search by category - it's a bit convoluted, but I think it will work.

Basically at the top of a Blogger page is a thin bar with a search box in it. This search box only searches the blog that it's on. So, if I put keywords/tags/categories into each of my posts, then put a list of those tags at the side of my blog (for example) along with instructions for people to put them into the search box, then say if a person put in "politics" then they'd get all of the posts I'd tagged with "politics".

As I say - it's convoluted - but I'll start using it as it'd be a good way for me to be able to find my own stuff.

[Peter]

Want a simple, easy-to-understand way to do categories for Blogger? Hop over to Blogger Tricks and Tips. This is actually a revised post of the original post at Blogger for Dummies where you can just copy-paste and modify the hyperlinks for your categories. Do have a look and let me know what you think of it.

[Peter]

Want a simple, easy-to-understand way to do categories for Blogger? Hop over to Blogger Tricks and Tips. This is actually a revised post of the original post at Blogger for Dummies where you can just copy-paste and modify the hyperlinks for your categories. Do have a look and let me know what you think of it.

[Air Jordan shoes]

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.