institutional discourse; university website; science and research blog; knowledge dissemination; knowledge construction; communicating science

The article focuses on blogs related to research activities of the academic community, addressing both this community and the general public. Research-related blogs as components of university websites have developed into an array of sub-genres shaped by specific foci, their authors and the desired audiences. The data set analysed consists of fifty posts from ten blogs: popular scientific blogs, blogs on scholarly communication, research blogs presenting local research and commenting on relevant research elsewhere, and student blogs reflecting the research-informed tuition they experience and discussing their own research projects. Drawing upon Swales?s methodology of genre analysis, the study aims to explore the generic structure of the blog posts, identify significant linguistic features they share and reveal the functions they can fulfil within the landscape of university presentations on the web, focussing in particular on the role the blogs may serve in communicating science to the diverse audiences they potentially address.