Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Writing and academia

Critical Contexts for Writing : a reading list

0bvious — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 06:55:05 -0800

I've been asked to put together a longish reading list for a BA Art/Literature module, and I'd love some ideas for texts outside my current knowledge. The list should cover a series of genres and contexts, with writing from, and about, the history and theory of art, journalism, academia, design, architecture and film. Writing on design and architecture are particularly outside my knowledge. What innovative and critically significant writings can you recommend across any of these subject areas? A few ideas so far to show where I'm coming from:

Susan Stewart - On Longing
David Lodge - Consciousness and the Novel
Christopher Vogler - The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
Aldous Huxley - Ape and Essence
Jonathan Lethem - The Ecstasy of Influence
Charles Bernstein - Content's Dream
Roland Barthes - Mythologies / Barthes on Barthes
Henry Lefebvre - Critique of Everyday
Early Dada and/or Futurist writings, and perhaps some poetry by Kurt Schwitters, concrete poets and/or fluxus artists
Some Oulipo writings (ideas welcome!)
Cabinet Magazine (essays/articles)

Keep in mind this is for 1st/2nd year Bachelor of Art students.

Thanks in advance!

what tools and models do we have for collaboration in the humanities?

idlethink — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 07:11:10 -0800

what tools and platforms exist right now which humanists can use to do collaborative research? what models exist of successful humanities collaboration? I'm curious to hear, from librarians or other academics or anyone with experience working on collaborative research projects, what specific tools you've used for doing so and what's worked (or hasn't!) for you. I know there's much more collaboration in the sciences and I'm open to hearing about this too. I'm interested in any part of the collaborative process, from gathering research all the way to joint writing. Here are some very basic ones I can think of off the top of my head:
- Google documents for joint writing and notes
- Participad, a wordpress plugin allowing real-time editing and editorial conflict resolution
- Emailed word documents & track changes; Dropbox or similar for file-sharing
- Wikis to gather research e.g. PBWiki, MediaWiki
- Group blogging
- CUNY's very new Commons in a Box - I've no first-hand experience of this, but it looks promising, and I'd be interested to find more of this sort of thing.

I'd also be interested in hearing about existing (successful) examples of research collaboration on digital platforms and particularly co-authorship: any discipline, although the more applicable to the humanities, the better. Some I can think of:
- 22 authors writing a book together
- an open-access collaboratively-written book on the digital humanities [pdf] (scroll to to the end for "production notes")
- Timothy Gowers' experiment into "massively collaborative mathematics"
- in the more "conventional" category, the Modern Girl Around the World research group at University of Washington; this was not on any sustained digital platform but was fairly uniquely centered around a cross-disciplinary transnational research agenda and produced a co-written book and articles.

Thanks in advance!

What are non-clinical, location-independent jobs that advance (or could advance) the cause of reproductive health?

c'mon sea legs — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:06:15 -0800

What are non-clinical, location-independent jobs that advance (or could advance) the cause of reproductive health? How do you get the skills for those jobs? Do they exist? A friend is a Masters-level engineer and can work from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. I think this is amazing, but I know I want my life's work to be in reproductive justice. Can I reconcile these two desires?

I'm looking at masters programs in public health right now, with the eventual hope of doing PhD-level reproductive health research, but would love to pick up skills along the way that a) allow me to travel and b) are marketable. I'm hopeful that being able to work from a variety of circumstances would inform and develop my research and advocacy, so this isn't *just* wanting to travel.

Given:
-I do not want to be a clinical provider
-I'm reasonably clever and self-directed, organized, a good writer, and like managing projects to completion
-I have some clinical background and some grant program management (I'm 25, so all work experience is only "some")
-To clarify with examples, "location independent" to me means laptop in a cafe, not teaching sex ed. In the former, you can decide your own location; in the latter, you're locationally bound for an amount of time, even if you can then leave and go wherever

So far I've thought of:
Grant writer
...

My mentors and coworkers are all either in large academic environments or clinical environments, so I'm turning to Metafilter. Thank you in advance! I'll be around to clarify, and hope you can give me some ideas that I can pursue in graduate school or via internship!

Make me less of an academic island!

Anonymous — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:49:26 -0800

I'm a PhD student, and I'd like to do more academic networking over email. How does this work, and what should the emails sound like? As an introvert, I hate the idea of networking; but I'm also coming to realize that this is something people do, and that in fact my research/job prospects could be a lot better if I did more work building professional connections. Unfortunately, most of these would have to be email connections, and it feels so inherently weird to me to randomly contact some barely-known person that my draft emails end up collapsing under the sheer weight of all the apologetic boilerplate ("I'm so sorry to write out of the blue like this... you're doubtless very busy, but... I got your email from the website; haven't been stalking you, honest...").

Since obviously my own very limited social instincts don't suffice here, I was wondering whether anybody might be willing to clue me in on (a) what these emails are really supposed to sound like when normal people write them, and (b) when it is or isn't OK to send messages of this sort.

In particular, I'd love some hints for approaching the following situations:

-- Senior scholar I don't know, some 3rd party says, "Oh, you should email X."
-- Someone I spoke with briefly at a conference or talk, never formally exchanged info.
-- Someone whose awesome book or article I have read and admire, but who doesn't know me from Adam and has no common connections whatsoever.

Additional research directions (Books? forums?) would also be most welcome. Thanks so much!
(Yes, I know I should be able to ask my advisor about this. That's a whole other AskMe. :( )

I want to write-up, but Academic Research has re-wired my brain!

0bvious — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:35:59 -0800

The way I research (academic or otherwise) is increasingly incompatible with the tools I have. Reams of handwritten notebooks, and hundreds of word docs vs a highly tagged website only add to my self-created confusion. I'm drawn to Tinderbox software as a possible solution, but as an adamant PC user I'm locked out. How do you order your research? / How to write-up my PhD now my brain is fried? I'm over halfway through a PhD and finding the writing up difficult, mainly because I have to store so many disparate notes and references in my head (having located them in said notebooks, word docs and all throughout my website).

My PhD is kind of experimental, in that the thesis component of my work will also be submitted as the portfolio (practice-based research).

It means I not only have to write up research, but write into my research, if that makes sense.

I say this, not downplaying the enormous amount of creativity and effort all types of PhDs require. I just think I'm at the stage where my research notes are killing my thinking.

Basically, I feel like hyper-connected culture has rewired my brain to such an extent, that 'traditional' gathering-up-research methods are failing me.

Please advise!

Innovative websites as template/model for MFA research community

0bvious — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 06:26:18 -0800

I'm looking for examples of websites that have successfully enhanced a research community (academic or artistic) with a dynamic online/social/mutual-portfolio presence. Blog and social media based hubs, perhaps, that showcase the possibilities of web portfolio/research integration for academic and creative purposes. I've been asked to help implement a website/blogging platform for a community of 20 MFA students.

Basically I'd like to gather up some examples of dynamic websites attached to academia (or similar i.e. the arts). These examples will be then passed on to my superiors with an eye to developing our own platform that takes the best approaches we discover and adds/mutates them to our needs. The cream of the crop in terms of design, content and implementation.

The perfect fit would (perhaps) give each student their own (blog) space from day one, and have the content they choose to share dynamically interface with the other students as the course unfolds. We might use it as a portfolio format (the students are studying art and writing) or we might integrate it with the theoretical components of the course, use it to share tutorial feedback, or even open the reading we do to the wider world.

Ideally we will do this cheaply, with open-source software.

Send me some impressive and inspiring examples!

Cheers in advance

Help me prune the academic wankery

lollusc — Sat, 28 May 2011 17:48:33 -0800

What are unnecessarily formal "academic jargon" type words that I should seek and destroy in my papers? I've started keeping a list of words that are unnecessarily formal/show-offy and that I overuse in my academic prose. I recently did a nearly-final stylistic revision of a paper just by systematically searching for these words and examining each sentence that contained them to see if it could be reworded. I was happy with the result.

My papers up until now have tended towards the very formal end of the prose spectrum, and in my discipline, that is not necessary. The papers I most enjoy reading are written much more conversationally.

I'm thinking there are probably other words like this that have got in under my radar. Can anyone give me similar examples I should be examining?

The words I already have in my list are hence, thus, notwithstanding, inasmuch, insofar and the humble yet. I'm also searching for all sentences containing a semi-colon, and for any longer than 50 words, so other non-word searches like that would be good suggestions too.

As-it-happens research updates: can't write with 'em, can't write without 'em?

taramosalata — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:03:49 -0800

How to concentrate on a research-driven book project when the subject matter is periodically changing / being updated by other writers? My little brother is working on a history of a contemporary cultural idea sort of book. He's getting paralysed between sifting through daily Google Alerts and/or running random Google searches (with new search term combinations) on the topic and actually immersing himself in the research and just ploughing ahead. I've always encouraged him to do the latter, keeping blinders on for now, but he argues, persuasively enough, that he needs to be 1/ vigilant against being scooped, in which case he can still tweak his argument in time, and 2/ attentive to new information that could come up at any time and enhance his material. The problem as I see it is that he ends up being fascinated by only tenuously relevant factoids that spin off into their own smaller-project ideas -- keeping the project of his heart's desire from going forward. Never having attempted a long writing project, though, I feel ill-equipped to advise him in a way more robust / specific than variations on hey-you-trust-yourself. He's a bit of a loner; left grad studies in history and doesn't have a writerly / academic community he can go to for this advice (or the personality to consult widely). He is brilliant, though (in my humble kith/kin opinion), and has the brains and willpower to do this -- but at the moment may be both too conscientious and thereby, paradoxically, distractible.

Ye writers / long-form journalists / scholars out there must encounter this sort of challenge all the time. And surely there have been plenty of times when some smart and diligent person emerges from years of isolated toil with a finished book manuscript, only to discover that another book has just been published on the same thing? Is it just a gamble you have to make, believing that your own work, even if not singular in subject, is untrumpably original in its treatment? (But surely uniqueness of voice / perspective isn't always enough to save a project when someone else got to its topic first?) In the age of Google Alerts, how do you fight the sense that anyone could be doing what you're doing, and finish doing it faster, while you're obliviously toiling away, perhaps for (nearly) nought? (Sorry for wordiness, though typing it out like this I really do feel his quandary....)

Many thanks in advance!

Help a non-academic develop research skills for a wonky in-depth project

croutonsupafreak — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:00:21 -0800

I'm not an academic, not trained in the art of research, and I could use some guidance. I need advice on how to identify and track down sources for a multi-year exploration of a topic. I'm embarking on an effort to understand an evolution of one aspect of American culture, from the colonial era to today, and I suspect my research may take me several years.

So far I'm on step one:
1. I've checked out pretty much every book I could find at the local public library that covers these topics. These books are written for a general audience and tend not to approach the topic quite from the angle I'm interested in, but they're a good start.

I suspect that steps two and three should be:
2. Go to the primary source documents cited by the popular books I'm reading.
3. Identify academic scholarship that has touched on the areas I'm interested in, read that, and seek out more primary sources as identified there.

I don't know how to go about either of these steps.

How do I track down primary sources that aren't available through my public library? Will the librarians at a community library be able to help with this? Should I try to affiliate myself with an academic library? (And how can I do this, given that I'm not a student or faculty member?)

And how do I identify academic scholarship that might be of interest to me? I don't want to limit myself to a specific academic sphere - I imagine history, sociology, women's studies, religious studies, business, economics and other fields are likely to have interesting things to say. So how do I figure out who has done research on this stuff before, and where it's been published?

Finally, do I have the right general idea about how to approach this in-depth research project, or am I missing something?

Bonus question: How should I best track my research for when I eventually write up my conclusions and try to get them published? Are there processes and procedures I should follow? Software that's invaluable?

I see what you did there.

monocultured — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 11:07:17 -0800

We're two people collaborating on a large academic text at a distance, and can't find a service or app which fulfills our requirements. Please advise. The simpler solution the better, but what we want is basically an efficient way of working with largish academic essays. It's within humanities, so no need for math equation support, but footnotes and references abound. We're both on Mac.

Requirements:

Version rollback

Compare changes / Highlight changes

Comments which don't export with document (which could be easily missed when sending drafts to critics)

Footnote support

Export to Word format

Keeping track of and inserting references.

Live update of changes if we're working at the same time

I'd settle for something which handles references separately and insert them afterwards — those are not directly necessary for writing and editing the thing.

We've tried Google docs and that's our fallback option, but there's something wonky going on with the footnotes where they don't show up properly in Word. (Which, unfortunately, we can't get away from) Also, there's no simple way of highlighting the changes. The live editing and version tracking is excellent though.

Writeboard from Basecamp has nice compare edits & highlight but no doc export and no footnote support.

Mendeley Desktop is mostly for collborating on sets of data, not the text itself, if I understand it correctly?

There are plenty of apps and services out there, I just haven't found the one. I figure plenty of others have come up with brilliant solutions to this un-original dilemma. Let's have at it!

How do I do a good literature review?

superiorchicken — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:20:07 -0800

How do I do a good literature review for a research paper in philosophy? I have access to good resources, but I really want to make sure that I cover everything that's been written on the topic. How can I put myself at ease while making sure I don't miss a beat? I'm a 2nd-year philosophy undergrad, and I'd really like to start doing research before I get anywhere near graduate school. But I've been struggling to get started, since I have no idea when I can say I've read enough to say something substantial about a topic.

My interest lies mainly in the history of philosophy. Right now, I'd love to do a paper on Kierkegaard. I've scoured SEP, JSTOR, the Philosopher's Index, and the academic library at my institution. I've found and indexed all of the papers/books I have free access to. But how do I make sure that I'm covering all my bases? I simply can't tell whether or not, even if I read much of this material in a guided fashion, I will yet be able to write a good paper on anything in specific. I understand that I can't possibly read or find everything, but how do I alleviate these fears?

I'm especially worried that I'm missing books that have been written on the topic, for example. I don't mind not having a paper or something, as long as I know information about it that an index like Philosopher's Index can tell me. But such resources don't generally index books, and I know that my academic library doesn't have nearly all of the books there are to be found. Interlibrary loan takes a long time, and I'm not sure what assurance WebCat can give me about my field of research. So a second question: how do I make sure I'm covering all of my bases when I dont' have access to a specialized library on a thinker or a topic?

All of these concerns are generally the same, though. So to put it bluntly: when I do research in philosophy, what kind of wrangling is required with my resources before I can be confident enough to write something about my topic?

Any advice on writing research papers in philosophy is welcome. Thanks!

Search, cross-link references in PDF articles?

samac — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:44:01 -0800

Perhaps this is just a fantasy, but is there any application or online tool that could search through the references of an article I have saved as a PDF, in order to check whether I have those cited articles in my larger PDF library? It would be perfect if it would highlight, link, or somehow display cross-referenced relationships between all my articles. I am already familiar with many referencing/PDF organization software such as Papers (Mekentosj), Sente, and Devonthink. I suppose what I have in mind is a similar tool, but with the additional power of something like ISI Indexes. I have a fairly large library (about 300 references that I'm actively using, and more than 2000 total) and I'm just trying to get some "big-picture" grasp of how all these sources relate to one another.

Can I be a good parent and successful creatively?

theantikitty — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:32:02 -0800

Artists, creative types, and scholars: What are your experiences with parenthood in the arts and academia? Have you been able to find success in your career as a parent? I'm a 29 year-old woman working on a PhD in the humanities. At my university, I work on both scholarly and creative projects, though I'm here primarily in a creative role. I'm happy with this life. I'm having both academic and some (small) publishing success, and I feel like I can continue this as I develop as a writer and scholar. I also want to have a child.

I've been married for 5 years, and I feel my husband and I have built a very happy, stable marriage together. Combined, we easily make enough to afford to raise a child (my husband works in the private sector). We both would like to be parents someday.

Lately, I've found myself wanting a child more and more, but I'm terrified that having one would mean that I'd forfeit many of my career aspirations. Specifically, I'm worried about my creative work suffering as a parent. I'm afraid that I won't have the time, energy, or inclination to continue the work that is so important to me right now. I've worked really hard at this, and I still feel very ambitious career-wise. However, I know that, once I am a parent, I'd probably be willing to sacrifice any ambition if I felt it would be better for my child. Complicating this issue is the fact that I expect some possible fertility issues due to personal/family medical history. So, I don't feel as though I can wait forever to try to do this.

Most of the women who are my mentors do not have children. I'm interested in hearing from anyone who manages to do both creative and/or scholarly work as a parent successfully. How have you made this balance work? Did you wait until a specific point in your life/career? I'm especially keen to hear from women who feel they have managed to continue working creatively as a parent, though responses from anyone would be helpful. Thank you! You can email me privately here: potuxulexyxecoga@tempomail.fr

A pub[lishing] quiz

crazylegs — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:38:14 -0800

I am looking for journals and periodicals that would be appropriate for submitting interdisciplinary articles in the humanities. I have a PhD in Art History. My dissertation, however, was only nominally in this field. It actually involved bits of philosophy, French literature, Buddhism, comparative religion, and smatterings of other fields, while being largely focused on Surrealism and French modernism.
As a result of this training, and my natural inclinations and interests, I'm realizing that the writing that I want to do really can't be called "Art History" at all anymore. I'm at the very beginning stages of working out a project that is broadly going to be about the historical shift from an integrated and constricting art/society framework towards a more fractured and individualist culture. Without going word-crazy here, suffice to say it's probably going to involve a whole lotta stuff, from medieval history to William Morris to Borges to Duchamp (and will probably never be finished). Also, I would like to write it in a style that would probably be called more visionary and poetic than academic. It may even end up in the form of a pedagogical novel.
I would like to publish bits and pieces of this project as articles along the way. What suggestions would you have for journals, magazines, or periodicals, peer reviewed, popular, or otherwise, that might be interested in publishing such things? Also, suggestions for book publishers who might be interested in the final project are welcomed.
Thank you!

How to write a scientific literature review?

doctor.dan — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:18:25 -0800

I'm at that point in my PhD where my experiment is (almost) up and running, so I have more free time to do other stuff. I've decided that writing a general introduction to my thesis will be less beneficial than trying to get a review article published. How do I go about writing a review article, from the perspective of an unpublished graduate student? I'll be getting help from my advisers, both of whom are well respected in their individual fields. I'm looking at a number of different areas and trying to tie them together, which hasn't been done in any previous review (that should buy me enough originality, right?). I've done the obligatory Google search, but all the advice out on the intertubes is pretty generic, and usually aimed at small reviews instead of reviews aimed at publication.

I have more articles on the topics than I need, I just need to start writing something now. What do you guys do to streamline writing reviews (not just scientific, any kind)? Any tips on reducing the pain and increasing the fun? How do I go about planning this thing? Tips for writing it without drowning in information?

Help me design a writing guide for undergraduates

philosophygeek — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:10:02 -0800

I'm putting together a writing guide for my undergraduate philosophy course. What information should I put in the guide? My goal is to give students a useful reference for writing papers in philosophy, since this course is likely the first course they have had in this field. I would like to do something more than a grammar cheat sheet or style guide. For instance, I am including discipline-specific examples of how to reconstruct an argument, how to effectively use a quotation, and how to adequately explain a central claim. But, I also want to cover at least some of the major grammar issues my students have: e.g. vs. i.e. vs. viz., its vs. it's, and so forth.

In addition to what I should include, I would also appreciate feedback on how much is too much. The guide will definitely be at least two pages, but it could be substantially more. At what point does it become overwhelming rather than helpful? I don't want to create my own book, but I could imagine a 10-page guide. Is that size intimidating rather than helpful?

AHRC Funding for PhD - How to ensure it!?

0bvious — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:16:50 -0800

Applying for AHRC funding for an Art PhD. Any advice? I am very much at the end of a very long, and arduous, PhD application procedure. I am applying to do Art Practice, with heavy emphasis on practice-based research. I got the place at the university, now I need to get the funding!

I have one very good reference already finalised and am waiting to hear back from my proposed supervisor on the other (required) reference.

What are the most imperative aspects of my 500 words proposal for funding?

I realise that this subject is rather contextual, but any advice would be appreciated.

Help me become a higher-output writer!

Bardolph — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:55:20 -0800

Academic writing filter: I am a painfully slow writer. How might I go about developing a composition process that's higher-output, requires less concentration, and is more revision-friendly? I've never been the kind of person for whom words just spill out onto the page. When I'm able to write anything at all, I usually manage it by pacing and thinking through things until sentences shape themselves spontaneously in my head, at which point I transcribe and move on. What emerges is (I'm told) fairly high-quality, but to get into "writing mode" at all requires hours of unbroken concentration-- and once I'm in the zone, I generally have to write the paper more or less continuously for the next few days, without doing anything else (including social interaction) that might break my focus. At my best, I can squeeze out an average of about four pages per 24 hours, assuming I do nothing but write.

Now that I'm staring down the barrel of some serious writing, I'm realizing I really need to overhaul my composition process. If I'm ever going to tackle book-length projects, I'll need (a) to be able to work in reasonable stretches-- say, five hours at a time instead of 96-- and (b) to find a way to write with only a reasonable investment of concentration and effort, as opposed to the torturous, childbirth-worthy levels of focus I currently require.

I suspect the answer might be to aim for lower-quality, higher-quantity prose, and to revise as necessary. Thing is, I have
no idea how to do this. I'm not some crazy perfectionist saddled with debilitatingly high standards; at this point, I'd be perfectly happy to pour out dreck, given that I suspect my advisors won't read half of what I write anyway. It's just that my mind doesn't really allow me the option of producing high-volume, bad writing. In the throes of composition, it doesn't come down to a bad sentence in five minutes vs. a good one in 15; it's the good sentence, or else a blank page. If there IS some time-consuming process of mental revision at work, it's taking place way below the surface of my consciousness, at some level where I can't presently access it. (An additional guilty secret: I've never really revised an academic essay. All the sentences end up being so bound together by rhythm, logic, sound, shape, etc. that I can't really amend much without just taking everything apart and starting over from the beginning.)

Any advice, suggestions or inspirational stories would be very very welcome, particularly if there's anyone out there who's successfully turned this corner. Useless advice thus far: "Just relax, don't worry, and do it!" (I'm not worried, but I can't), and "Just sit down and type anything, without thinking!" (I've tried; nothing comes out, which is my problem in the first place). Any ideas?

Academic writer's block.

RogerB — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:45:03 -0800

Academic writer's block: tips, strategies, experiences, psychology for dealing with it? I am working on writing a Ph.D. dissertation, and my writing is going haltingly at best; there seems to be a constant threat of becoming stuck, blocked. So, I'd love to hear any tips or strategies for dealing with academic writer's block. (I'm in a humanities field in which the dissertation will be more about having interesting and original ideas, and writing a compelling argument about well-known texts, than about reporting new findings based on research. So this dissertation is, primarily, a large writing project, unlike in many other fields where the research being reported is at least as important as the writing.)

My writing style up to this point doesn't seem to be a good model going forward. I've usually written to deadline, in spurts of intense activity, after incubating an idea for a while beforehand. And I am not afflicted with logorrhea, like some academics I envy; I tend to write too little and too densely, not to overwrite and have to edit down to a page count. Still, I've produced short papers that I'm happy with, and published; and I am excited about my dissertation idea, so self-confidence would not seem to be the problem so much as procrastination and blocking.

More generally, I'd like to hear suggestions about becoming a productive scholarly writer. It seems like there's a big transition at the ABD stage, where a student who's used to writing smaller papers to given assignments and deadlines is faced with the requirement to produce longer works, write relatively constantly, and work with much less supervision for the rest of his or her career. Suddenly, becoming a productive academic seems a lot like becoming a productive writer of any other kind. How do people make this transition without getting stuck?

Let's assume that the rest of my specifics (topic, advisors, teaching and other responsibilities, institutional arrangements) are outside the discussion; I'm more interested in tips on becoming a productive scholarly writer than in getting therapy for my specific case. I've read a lot of books on this topic, and found most of them not very helpful (beyond delivering the welcome reminder that you need to sit down and try to write every day), but recommendations are still welcome.

Roehampton Creative Writing Masters

0bvious — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 14:44:00 -0800

What do you know/think about the University of Roehampton, London? Most especially I am interested in its School of Arts, and its MA in Creative and Professional Writing.... Good uni? Did you attend there? What are your experiences of the Roehampton area?

Any info gratefully appreciated