Back in late January and early February, Rohan Maitzen published a few very thoughtful posts about what counts are research, the apparent conflict between research and teaching, and related issues. The title of one of these posts was “When is Reading Research?” a question that really highlights some of the underlying issues. When we talk [...]
Are you treating your research like a hobby?
Posted on January 31, 2012 by
Most academics are paid to do research. Research is part of your job description. Research figures prominently in the criteria for hiring, tenure/confirmation, and promotion. This can feel out of sync with the reality of your daily life in the university. You teach. You attend meetings. You do the work necessary to do those 2 [...]
Open Access & Knowledge Mobilization
Posted on September 22, 2011 by
I fear that for some in the academic community, Open Access publishing is acting as a crutch, albeit one they don’t have yet. Open Access publishing is a good thing. We should have more of it. There are lots of reasons for this, all of which are well known. But … How many of you [...]
Writing bios, etc
Posted on August 15, 2011 by
Aimée Morrison, writing at Hook & Eye, raises an interesting point about writing academic bios: One thing that’s increasingly becoming clear to me is that the bios that accompany Serious Scholarly Writing, like a peer-reviewed article, don’t mention teaching. Better more words devoted to where you’ve published and who funded your work, than to describe [...]
How scholarship is evaluated
Posted on February 23, 2011 by
The quality and impact of your research is usually evaluated based on where you publish. The advent of new outlets for your scholarly work has raised some interesting issues about how this is done. A recent blog exchange about Melville scholarship (read the comments, and also see this discussion of that post) highlights the particular [...]
