Luzon(2008), Scholarly Hyperwriting: The Function of Links in Academic Weblogs

1. Link is used for bloggers to position themselves in a blogging community; to build relationships.
2. Link is used for distribution of information.
3. Link is used for collaborative construction of knowledge.
4. Link is used for creation of identity of blog's or blogger's.
5. Link is used for engagement in (hypertext) conversation.
6. Link is used for to organize information.
7. Link is used for to publicize their research.
8. Link is used for  to enhance the blog's visibility.

Findings

1) Entry link:
Link to comments, Link to the permalink URL, Link to categories, Trackback links, Link to audio files/translation for the post
 
2) Sidebar link: tend to include links to some type of information about themselves
Link to other sites of interest, Link to chronologically ordered archive, Feed links or links to email forms, Link to information on the blogger, Link to posts under different categories, Link to ranking and popularity sites, Link to recent comments, Advertising link, Link to the publishing platform, Link to recent post, Link to awards for the blog, Link to other pages within the site, Link to calender

"Catch!" :
-The connection to a community is essential for the success of a blog.
- Links provide the background information and context for the blogger's comments.
- Blog Rhetoric relies on links for new collaborative writing practices.



References

Mortensen and Walker(2002) Blogging thoughts: Personal publication as an online research tool.
-> links is vital to the genre(blogging)

Vuorinen(2005) Using weblogs for discussion. distinguishes two functions of linking to other blogs:

1) Establishing and maintaining relationships in the blogosphere(by showing the blogger's affiliations and helping readers find other interesting blog)
2) Referencing, that is, linking to a post in another blog in order to write a commentary.

Ali-Hasan & Adamic (2007) Expressing social releationships on the blog through links and comments. distinguish different forms of ties that express relationships between blogs:

1) Blogroll link, located in the blog's sidebar, point to other blogs that the blogger wants to in clude in the main page 
2) Citation link, which occur within the posts and are links to an entire blog or a particular post on that blog
3) Comment link, which occur when a weblog's reader, possibly a blogger him/herself, adds a comment to another blogger's post. Trackbacks lead to a blog citing a poat and thus allow readers to follow conversations across several blogs.