Blogging vs Academic Writing

             I have maintained a blog on Tumblr for about three years now - it is generally for personal matters and issues that are important to me, specifically human and animal rights and anything under the umbrella of social justice. I find it to be a good release for me as I find support and like minded people through my interactions. When I make the occasional personal post about my struggles, I receive condolences or concerns that I might not be comfortable receiving from people I'm close to in real life.
Tumblr has been a great outlet for me to discover new people, art, music, and form opinions on issues important to me. However, that is the purpose that blogging serves for me: Leisure and learning outside of academia. In contrast to the New York Times article, I staunchly believe that blogging has no place in academia.
           Academic writing, that which is thesis-driven, makes an argument, and convinces audiences (even if that audience is just one professor) of our claim is an art form in and of itself that is entirely separate from the introspective world of blogging. It allows us to evaluate our own positions and bring them into conversation with other pieces of work in order to make a convincing argument that hopefully no one else in the world has made. I find that incredibly liberating and powerful and although many of my peers would most likely disagree with my fondness for the academic paper, I find it to be the most valuable form of writing. Granted, I have no talent for creative writing and therefore find much more freedom in structure, and I understand that I differ in this way from many of my classmates. I believe that a blog can be helpful in hashing out thoughts and if the academic world believes it is beneficial to use in conjunction with academic writing, so be it. I, however, do not want to be a part of an education system that uses a blog as a basis for actual grading. I don't believe that it's a fair representation of true writing ability, as blogging is a form of social media, a platform through which I personally feel comfortable using lazy sentence structure and omitting a few punctuation marks.
If blogging is the future of neo-liberal hippie dippie academia, I believe that the quality of writing in students will go down significantly. It already shocks me that 80% of high school students never had to write a 15 page paper. All of a sudden I am very grateful for my high school forcing me to practice these strict writing regiments.

Thanks, Winchester. 

            I really don't mean to sound like a pretentious student against any kind of progressivism in the realm of academic writing. I am simply a firm defender of the academic paper, as I believe it teaches a kind of writing that is different and more easily and fairly grade-able than a blog. Blogs are too subjective, to open ended, too right brained, and I don't think that grades based on blogging will be accurate reflections of a students writing ability, nor that they will encourage or challenge students to improve their caliber of writing. If blogs are to be employed in tandem with academic writing, fine, although I'm still against it as I already maintain a blog and find posting blogs on specific academic topics at will kind of grating. In fact, I would actually argue that blogging for school doesn't make academic writing more fun, it just makes blogging less fun. I mean, I would hated it if I was expected to tweet on demand about a certain topic, so required blogging just sort of makes me less interested in blogging, which I previously just thought of as a therapeutic and somewhat frivolous hobby.