For many years I wrote a weekly blog. In fact, between 2011 and 2021 I accumulated a catalogue of more than 450 blogs. But then I hit a wall. I simply ran out of energy and time. Consequently, 2022 wasn’t a great year for PEPRN. Following a modernization of the blog by Philte (thanks), and recognising my enduring desire that this break be a blip and not an end, I’m back with a new format and renewed ambition.
During 2022 I acknowledged that I needed to run PEPRN differently and over time the idea of a “Twenty 20 vision” blog emerged. This was, in part, in tribute to T20 cricket (which I love) and 20/20 vision (which I used to have) and in part due to the recognition that PEPRN needed to be easier to write and therefore sustain.
The idea of the Twenty 20 vision blog is for me to read a paper in no more than twenty minutes using an approach I often recommend to students but have never actually done myself. For each paper I will do a shallow dive, reading only (a) the abstract and section headings, (b) the introduction and conclusion, and (c) the tables and diagrams. All other writing will be ignored. With this information to hand, I will then write the blog in no more than 20 minutes (thus the “twenty 20 vision” blog) using eight headers: (i) Reference; (ii) The abstract and section headings; (iii) Introduction and conclusion; (iv) Tables and diagrams; (v) The point of the paper; (vi) The main arguments; (vii) The importance of this paper; (viii) The paper’s contribution to my knowledge; and a (ix) Summary of the paper in one or two sentences. Whatever emerges will then be published (after a little editing because I make a lot of grammatical errors typing that fast). The aim is to make paper reading and blog writing manageable once again whilst maintaining the integrity and usefulness of PEPRN. My plan is to publish a blog every two weeks and provide an opportunity for the authors to respond to the blog (an aspect of publishing that I’d like to see more of in this type of endeavour).
I hope I will achieve these aims, but feedback is welcomed and invited. Please let me know how I can get better at this and how the blog can better serve the community.