Why Grad Schools Should Require Students to Blog. By Maria Konnikova.
Why grad schools should require students to blog. By Maria Konnikova. Literally Psyched. Scientific American, April 12, 2013.
Konnikova:
Whether
I’m trying to come up with a new blog post for “Literally Psyched” or a pitch
for a magazine or a section in a longer piece of writing, I have to read
widely, in multiple areas and multiple sub-disciplines. In popular writing (I
don’t love the term, but I’m going to use it here for the sake of clarity, to
contrast with academic writing—even though I realize that the two can overlap),
there are no rules about what is and is not relevant. I don’t care if something
is in “my” area, if it’s truly academic or applied or whatnot. I don’t care
about its politics. The only thing I care about when I consider a source is its
credibility and the quality of its arguments.
I have
to distill multiple sources from multiple areas into a compelling, clear
narrative. I have to build a case quickly and persuasively and learn to
incorporate disparate voices into a coherent argument or conversation. I have
to learn to get the gist of an argument quickly and be able to distill papers
in a way that will be understandable even to someone who is totally unfamiliar
with a topic. Most importantly, I need to create a quality end product: a piece
of writing that someone will want to read. Otherwise, not only do I not get
paid, but I will have failed at my job. And I have to do this over and over and
over again, week after week and piece after piece.
What am
I doing but honing my ability to think, research, analyze, and write—the core
skills required to complete a dissertation? And I’m doing so, I would argue, in
a far more effective fashion than I would ever be able to do were I to keep to
a more traditional academia-only route.
If I
just stay in a narrowly-defined academic niche, my writing will be confined to
papers for scholarly publication and grants. Those take time and, at least in
areas like psychology, research results. You can’t just run one off every few
days. Absent those specific outlets, there’s no regular mechanism for
developing your thoughts, working out new ideas, thinking about interesting
questions that may not be directly related to your field of research, taking
the time to wonder about other areas, or having the flexibility to pursue other
interests just because they stimulate your imagination. It’s papers for
publication, grants for submission, or bust.
If, on
the other hand, I turn to blogging or other forms of popular writing, not only
must I write quickly, coherently, and—and this is really the
kicker—consistently, but the way in which I do it forces me to learn to work
faster, come up with new ideas more frequently, be less afraid of “foreign”
fields, and be comfortable asking constant questions about everything I read.
I’m more aware of other disciplines and other literatures than I ever have
been. I’m able to digest the academia-speak of disciplines that are not my own
far more effectively. Over and over, I use these skills to help me tell a
better story—the end game of both a piece of popular writing and an academic
one. And because I am forced to write (and think) often, I improve. Constantly.
. . . .
To me,
as a blogger, cross-citation is standard practice. I have to do it every day
when I research a new blog topic or look at the background for a new piece. It’s
natural to include anything that may potentially be helpful—and to put areas in
dialogue even if they don’t normally cross over. I don’t feel compelled to stay
within any arbitrary academic boundaries; I just use what seems most, well,
useful.
I’ve
been lucky in my academic career. I have a graduate adviser who fully supports
my non-academic pursuits—indeed, who encourages them and has, for the last five
years, consistently and enthusiastically encouraged me to cultivate outside
interests and maintain my intellectual curiosity, wherever it may lead. I had
an undergraduate adviser who felt the same way, and encouraged me to continue
my studies—and continue my writing, whether or not it had anything to do with
academia or psychology.
But
that sort of attitude is increasingly rare. My advisers are among the select
few who maintain that line of thinking (one of the reasons I chose to work with
them to begin with). On the whole, academia is quite anti-popular writing—or
anything that is not, strictly speaking, in the academic job description. And
though I’ve been quite fortunate personally, I’ve experienced this attitude
indirectly in multiple ways.
I’ve
always been open about my external pursuits and interests—and over the last few
years, six fellow graduate students have, at various points, reached out to me
for advice. They have mostly said the same thing: I’m unhappy. I think I may not want to stay in academia. What can I do?
How did you decide that you could work on non-academic writing—and get away
with it? Is it something you think I might be able to try, too?
Each
one had the same story. Each one asked me in advance to maintain his anonymity,
to promise that I wouldn’t mention this to any advisers or anyone in the
department, or, really, anyone at all. Each one looked frightened lest someone
less receptive find them spouting such sacrilege. The whole thing made me
incredibly sad. These were exceptional students, and they didn’t have anyone
with whom to discuss important life decisions. They felt trapped, like they
couldn’t say what they really wanted or express how they really felt. And
because of that, they had lost their appetite for research that had before been
stimulating. They had gone from incredibly excited to ready-to-quit.
It made
me sad—but believe me, I know exactly why they did it. It’s the same reason why
we have so many anonymous bloggers, who would rather publish under a pseudonym
than risk the wrath of the establishment – or make even more tenuous the
already tenuous possibility of ever getting considered for a tenure-track job.
Academia
as a whole is still quite skeptical of popular writing and anything that takes
time from serious academic pursuits. These include reading articles in your
discipline, reading publications and books by your field leaders and
co-workers, working on writing up your own studies for publication (the more
and the faster, the better), and networking and presenting your work at
academic conferences. Having a blog? Freelancing on the side? Working on pieces
for the non-academic, a.k.a, popular, press? Not very high on the list. In
fact, in direct opposition to the list, as each of these pursuits takes time
away from what you should be doing.
It’s a
shame—and it’s counterproductive. Instead of frowning upon blogging, popular
writing, any intellectual pursuits that don’t seem immediately and narrowly
academic, wouldn’t it make sense for academia to embrace it all – and embrace
it enthusiastically?
I would
argue that the best thing academia can do for its students is to encourage such
pursuits to the greatest extent possible. In fact, I’d go a step further:
incentivize students to blog and to write for a popular audience on topics that
go beyond their immediate area of interest. At Columbia, for instance, we can
write a grant for one of our comprehensive exams. Why not let a series of
published blog posts count as well? It gets the student thinking and
writing–and gets him a byline in the process.
In
following this strategy, you will be teaching your students skills that will
make the process of dissertation writing—the point where many students drop out
of their programs (according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of students will
quit their doctoral programs; Chris Golde, the research director of the
Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate at the Carnegie Foundation, estimates that
1/3 of that attrition will happen at the dissertation-writing stage—although
the numbers vary by discipline, demographics, and other factors)—seem far less
daunting and stressful, far more manageable and approachable, than it otherwise
would. What’s more, it will make not only that dissertation but any piece of
academic writing that much better, clearer, and more solid. Clear writing is
the product of clear thought. When you write for the purpose of explaining,
when clarity is your goal, you learn to hone your thinking and work through the
complexities of arguments in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise be forced to do.
When you write every day, you improve, and you keep improving.
People
with good writing and research skills are rare. People who cross disciplines
and read widely are rare. But don’t we need these people for academia to
thrive? After all, many times, the greatest innovators are those who bring in
fresh eyes and the perspectives of fresh disciplines: they are less likely to
be myopic and be constrained by lines of thinking that are area-specific—and
more likely to see patterns and connections that are invisible to the insiders.
The
single best training and preparation I could have possibly had for writing my
dissertation was the exact training and preparation I received in my career as
a blogger and a writer. I just hope that others can have that same experience,
and that in the future, my path will be the rule rather than the exception.
Humanities aren’t a science. Stop treating them like one. By Maria Konnikova. Literally Psyched. Scientific American, August 10, 2012.
The Humanities and Common Sense. By Roger Berkowitz. NJBR, February 20, 2013.
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| Maria Konnikova |
