Reach

Which ulti­mately does more good—an arti­cle or mono­graph that is read by 20 or 30 peo­ple in a very nar­row field, or a blog post on a topic of inter­est to many (such as grad­ing stan­dards or tenure require­ments) that is read by 200,000?

What if the post spurs hun­dreds of com­ments, is debated pub­licly in fac­ulty lounges and class­rooms, and gets picked up by news­pa­pers and Web sites across the country—in other words, it helps to shape the national debate over some hot-button issue? What is it worth then?”