Rates of writing

Posted on | November 18, 2007 | 6 Comments

There’s been quite a bit of discussion going on in the comments of this post, which I’d urge people to take a look at if they haven’t for a while. I can’t help but read the various responses as themselves symptomatic of the difficulties junior scholars have at getting mobilised for a big cause. Lots of pessimism outweighing the optimism, lots of anxiety about wasted time and unrewarded labour, lots of earnest concern ultimately tempered by resignation.

Yes these are completely unfair generalizations, but I’ve been mulling over similar issues in the “proper” writing I’ve been doing this past week, so please forgive me for being a bit stuck in that mode.

I say “proper” because in the same conversation at the CRN AGM Emily and I were discussing the pressure on postdocs to produce twice as much writing as teaching staff to “prove” our status as research-only. She joked that she felt as though she needed to be writing an article a week, which I maintained was ridiculous, but then as if to prove it to myself, last Monday I decided to see if I could.

I did write over 8000 words, from Monday to Friday, but a lot of it I had already written or presented in conference format before. And it’s not finished yet: I’ve had some help with editing and my learned reader has helped me define the argument more clearly. Even still, it needs a few more days to rest and let me get some sort of perspective back on what it’s trying to do. As Stephen King puts it in his book On Writing, I’m past the stage of writing ‘with the door shut’. The next draft will be less defensive because I’ll be thinking of the readers that I’m trying to keep interested rather than the criticisms I imagine they’ll want to level at it.

It’s the same paper I was planning to write before about academic blogging, but which various circumstances seemed to be conspiring to prevent me from finishing. Now finally feels the right time to try to publish it – particularly since the moment of hype for blogs seems to have passed, and platforms like Facebook and Twitter are reminding some of us what was valuable about blogging for a particular moment.

Because I waited to write the paper, I now have a lot more anecdotal material to draw on in making the arguments, and I feel like the topic has a use beyond simply adding more zeitgeisty hype to a new media format. But the trajectory this paper has taken is exactly why I find it important to resist the very real pressure to publish quickly as a young researcher. While the number of publications we have is one measure of how well we write and how good our ideas are, what also seems important is whether or not the ideas will still be good in five or ten years’ time. Does the current employment climate suggest to you that this important? As the paper will indicate, I have my doubts.

Category: Academia, Research, Web(log) Stuff

Comments

6 Responses to “Rates of writing”

  1. M-H
    November 18th, 2007 @ 9:06 pm

    I would say you are presently ‘composting’ your efforts. You will return to them to find they have taken another, better form. Looking forward to reading the results.

  2. jean
    November 19th, 2007 @ 9:25 pm

    an article a week!!? Given incurable protestant guilt, this is not what I need to hear, even in jest.

    Actually, it’s totally doable. You’d just have to give up the research part. and the job part, really (at least the kind of research job that’s common at my place) ;)

    BTW I think there’s still heaps of value in the blogging article (not that you seemed doubtful) – perhaps even more so now that the flouro hype-light has moved on…

    And certainly academic blogging is still a hot issue around the US tenure debate. Looking forward to reading it once it’s fully cooked!

  3. Emily
    November 20th, 2007 @ 7:55 pm

    I agree, Mel – we surely got into this for quality, not quantity. The pressure to publish ignores the fact that we think as we write, that ideas come together slowly, through testing out arguments and bringing threads together. And we forget where we’re going, need to track back, and then begin our wandering again. For me writing is the part of the process of research; I don’t know what exactly I will find or say when I start typing. Imagine not having the time for this?

    But ARC applications expect the same kind thing: that we know what we’re going to find before we start the research. Process is not valued as a rich source of knowledge. It’s only the product that matters, and we’re meant to get to this in the most expedient fashion possible.

    But even though I express anxiety about the pressure to publish, maybe it is (for me at least – but what do others experience?) a looming phantom, a rhetorical force, rather than something actually transforming my work. Today I wrote as I always do, getting to where I’m going at a usual pace – I didn’t finish anything, I didn’t sign off. And tomorrow I’ll pick it up and find my way again.

  4. home cooked theory » Blog Archive » Done
    November 23rd, 2007 @ 3:25 pm

    [...] So it actually took two weeks, but now it’s submitted. I’m looking forward to some feedback, because it’s one of the biggest things I’ve written since my book. I cite a bunch of you guys in it too, so best that you take a look at it at this stage. I really hope I’ve done justice both to the topic and the amount I have learned from other bloggers while figuring it to this point. Here’s the abstract to help you decide if you wanna download the draft: While academic blogging has emerged as a distinct genre in the past few years (Walker 2006), a generation gap exists between those who blog from secure positions within the profession and PhD and junior faculty bloggers whose employment status is more marginal. This paper draws on subcultural theory to discuss the unique features of these two latter types and the functions they serve for their authors. The analysis demonstrates that blogs are important sites of support for those who aspire to and currently work in academia at the same time as they are a powerful indictment of the job conditions experienced therein. The paper therefore concludes by suggesting that the positive aspects of collegiality and solace taking place online for a new generation of scholars risk remaining disconnected from an effective labour politics – one that could change the very nature of the grievances blogs appear so well designed to express. [...]

  5. Laura
    December 2nd, 2007 @ 1:56 pm

    Hi Mel, I have fallen profoundly out of the loop lately (and am finding it most unsettling) so do I correctly gather you wrote this in two weeks….?

    I’m very interested in this side of your research so when I get a chance I will print it off and read it through properly. And do you actually want feedback from a casual reader or did you mean feedback from an anonymous reviewer?

  6. melgregg
    December 3rd, 2007 @ 10:52 am

    Hi Laura – The actual writing was spread over two weeks, yes, but I wasn’t starting from scratch, I had few conference paper versions already (which you featured in, remember?! There is a note in the text about that).

    I would really value your thoughts, because oh dear, I don’t feel optimistic about peer review at all.

    Hope you are enjoying post-conference life!

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