Harmonic convergence of academic events:
1. Yesterday I read the current issue of a top-notch academic journal, in which EVERY article features a thesis worded something like this: "This essay will argue..." or "The purpose of this essay is...." I hate hate hate this thesis because it shows a profound disrespect for readers, who are presumably so clueless that they won't be able to discern the purpose of an essay unless they encounter a sentence stating "The purpose of this essay is..."
2. Yesterday I read the Chronicle essay "We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research," in which Mark Bauerlein and his co-authors assert that "While brilliant and progressive research continues apace here and there, the amount of redundant, inconsequential, and outright poor research has swelled in recent decades, filling countless pages in journals and monographs." This emphasis on quantity over quality creates an "avalanche of ignored research" that clogs up the academic publishing system. While the essay focuses primarily on scientific research, I've certainly seen plenty of poorly written and eminently ignorable scholarly essays in my field.
3. Yesterday my brilliant proposal to present a paper at an international conference this fall was brutally rejected.
The solution to the avalanche of poor-quality research is obvious: everyone should just publish what I like and ignore everything else. That would open up plenty of space for articles by me and my bestest buddies while driving out the drivel. Likewise, academic conferences would focus on my work and the work of people I find interesting. Imagine the power! I could be the Academic Writing Tsar. It would be a tremendous amount of work for me, but I would be willing to make the sacrifice. (Especially if the job comes with a tiara.)
Nuts. Now it's back to the drawing board.
3 comments:
Yep, there's a lot of research out there, for sure. But that's the model we've worked out between ourselves and administrations.
I was in the library yesterday, in the shelves for lit theory, and it was sad to see all the "modern theory" texts from the 70s that are just sitting there, not very useful to anyone now, though probably useful to the 70s students.
Bev,
Pardon the French, but %$#&@ them (the conference folks). I have read your work and your scholarship is top-notch. Keep at it. I know you will. Just felt like saying it anyways In any case, I'm sure it was just a matter of numbers that kept you of the panel, not a reflection on your work.
Bev
1. My colleague in Anthropology has often made it clear to us in Comp that in HER discipline, the declarative/forecasting thesis rules (In this essay I will argue this,that and the other thing). Since most of us in Comp have great distaste for such a McThesis, and discourage our students from making use of what becomes in the hands of first year students a 5-paragraph essay, this is a source of concern. So now, I discuss the uses of that thesis in certain disciplines, the pros/cons of such a thesis, etc. in comp classes.
I, too, have started to see it in Comp/Lit academic writing, so we've obviously lost that battle.
2. I'm sorry that the planners of that international conference were blinded by your brilliance! My advice: let's start our own conference!
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