I'm always on the lookout for people writing about blogging professionally. Recently, I've lucked out and found some great posts. Professor Piderit writes about a conference on how to raise your online professional profile.
Similarly, Belle Lettre offers her thoughts on blogging as networking in On Mentors and Mentoring.

It is curious that I can speak so candidly to virtual strangers, whereas I have not told anyone (well, except one) at my old law school about this blog. Perhaps it is because we have a prior relationship of professor-student and mentor-mentee that I have already abused too much. I know this professor cares enough about my career to give me a few reading tips and a (very valuable) letter of recommendation--but it's not quite the level of intimacy (which I ironically have with virtual strangers) I have with these avuncular, rather protective of their blawgee protege professors at other schools.

Of course, we all know that not everbody understands or approves of professionals or academics blogging. Still, it really hits home to read about conversations like the following. Pilgrim/heretic let a friend guest post about a recent "rather chilling conversation" with a collegue.

For some reason, I was not prepared for: "You might want to consider how wise this is and whether it presents you in the best professional light." Or, "It might make people doubt whether you're happy here or whether you're committed to this job." Why wasn't I prepared for this? Maybe I thought that I was such a paragon of blogging that no one could possibly object to the professionalism of anything I'd written. (Ha.) Maybe I thought that people like Ivan Tribble only existed in the pages of the Chronicle.

Kaijsa Calkins blogs about life and librarianship at Jag saker job.

Wanda Ball shares things she wrote in the margins of her notebook while at a writing conference.

Ancrene Wiseass talks about good blogs gone missing and coins a great term, "the Jack Kerouac approach to writing." She also points us in the direction of some good advice on procrastination from the Academic Coach.

Kathleen passes on advice for writing an academic book people might like to read, referencing an excellent post by AuntB. This might be the best quote I've read in a long time:

Also, let's talk about outside sources. Here is the unbreakable rule about outside sources (Don't even start with the "But my discipline is different" bullshit. If your discipline is different, they are forcing you to write unreadable books and therefore, they deserve to be relegated to the trash heap of history--meaning "the past" not the discipline. I don't know where History departments keep their trash heaps.): Either they prove you right or you prove them wrong or they don't get to be in your book.

For another think-y post, I must point you toward Oso Raro's post, The Devil Reads Butler. The comparison between the struggles for success in fashion and academia is fascinating. I re-read the whole essay a couple of times so I wouldn't miss any of the detail.

But why, I wondered, was I so fascinated by Miranda/Wintour and not so much by the academic glitterati that she so resembled? Was it because academics are always badly dressed (although the true PoMo crowd could give the fashionistas a run for their money)? Or was it because the material rewards of the fashionistas seemed so much more attractive than mere ideas, than the talented regurgitation of theoretical complexities and nuance that now, in our post-theory world, seem as quaint and archaic as the ability to speak Sanskrit

Kaijsa Calkins blogs about life and librarianship at Jag saker job.

I also found something that I utterly didn't expect. The first google hit containing the reference was the author's page on his university department's website. Nothing unusual in that, except that along with the usual list of publications, contact details etc., the author wrote a paragraph about his inspiration for his research (which has spanned a long and very successful career). I haven't seen any academics do this before (certainly not in Law), but that wasn't why it affected me. It was the inspiration itself.

Kathleen of Planned Obsolescence admits she hated doing research, but seems to have found her own inspiration recently.

And it occurred to me this morning, for the first time, that I’m seriously enjoying the research, in and of itself. Reading new stuff. Putting ideas together. Figuring out what other stuff I need to read in order to deepen the point I think I might be trying to make.

And I’m beginning to suspect that the point I might be trying to make will extend across several articles. And might, in fact, turn into something book-like.

It ain’t over yet—in fact, it’s barely begun—but I’m getting the slightest little glimmer that I might make it out of the sophomore slump. That I might be in the right profession after all.

Last week I linked to StyleyGeek's post on Fumbling Towards Geekdom asking if there's a Carnival for grad students. Well, she posted about starting one herself and I admire her DIY spirit. Check out the Carnival of GRADual Progress site.

On a slightly different topic, Dr. Crazy's "Reading for Pleasure Wednesdays" is really taking off. I should have pointed to it last week, but didn't. It's really fun and I should jump on that bandwagon myself. This week, she writes "Kids Books about Pests," about some of her childhood favorites. Continuing the Wednesday theme over at The Paper Chase, Lisa reviews "An Unsatisfying Read."

I'm tired of effortlessly gamine heroines with usual eyes, for Chrissakes. Give me a ballbuster with plain old brown or blue eyes for a bloody change. Hint to fiction writers: if the clueless Dr. Chaser has noticed, then the piercing eyes routine has become, officially, trite. Every hero and heroine has "piercing eyes, of a color somewhere between brown and yellow" or "piercing eyes, of a shocking blue." Stop it, already. It's like all of modern fiction is populated by people who look like those creepy-ass kids in Village of the Damned.

Check out more excellent posts in the theme from PhD Me, New Kid On the Hallway, and Another Damned Medievalist.

Despite being a regular Chronicle reader, or maybe because I'm a regular Chronicle reader, I always enjoy posts criticising it. The Little Professor offers the funny-because-it's-true How to Write a CoHE "First Person" Essay: A Handy Multiple Choice Guide. My favorite is #6. At The Paper Chase, Lisa responds and adds a couple of points of her own. Finally, Jason at Pattern Recognition points out the recent Chronicle article about the future of scholarly communication is "woefully behind the times."

Dr. Crazy has a great idea for blog posts. Check it out.

And then I thought to myself, "Hey, and wouldn't it be great if we chose a day - sort of like Poetry Friday, but instead something like Reading for Pleasure Wednesdays or something - and on that day people would post about a book that they've read recently that's NOT RELATED TO WORK. AT ALL.

Research is supposed to be my beat, but I always appreciate good writing about teaching. In her thoughtful way, Ancarett points out the problem of conflating history with a modern parallel.

When you go to history with the express purpose of justifying your own or others actions and viewpoints in the present, that should raise a red flag. You’re not doing history, you’re using history and while that use may be educational and helpful in the present, it often ends up hopelessly skewing any understanding of the original society.

Over at Fumbling Towards Geekdom, StyleyGeek wants to know if there is a blog carnival for graduate students? Anybody?

How's this for unusual? Russian Violets recently found a dissertation in which the author thanks her pets.

The other day, I ran into a colleague with a huge stack of novels in her hands. Mine were full of articles, and I was jealous that she seemed to be planning a more entertaining weekend than I was. I remember a time when summer meant getting lost in stories, not accumulating references for an article I'm hoping to add to somebody else's "to-read" pile.

Contemplating my own writing put me in the perfect mood for this post from MaggieMay.

Verbatim email from my editor this morning:

"Maggie, the marketing department thinks your subtitle is a clunker. Can we change it?"

Nobody ever likes my titles, either!

La Lecturess points out sexist language in lit crit from years past.

And here's the thing: this book was reissued by the publisher just a few years ago, in a new edition (properly speaking, the only thing new about it is the introduction--the rest of the volume looks as though it was set by simply photographing the original pages), and I'm sure it's still a good seller. Without an electronic file, going back and eliminating those titles would be expensive and time-consuming for the publisher, I know--but leaving them in dates the work in really unattractive ways.

She also made me laugh out loud in my office by asking if she's the only person to write snarky marginalia in journal articles? I know I do the same thing, and judging from the comments on the post, we're not alone.

Happy reading!

If you're having trouble finishing a paper or book, check out HistGrad's two-part post, How to Finish a Dissertation in Two Easy Centuries, part I and part II. It's a detailed and interesting read.

And I do mean "whatever it takes." Don't be afraid to be silly and to reward yourself with whatever little rewards work for you. Sometimes I would bring up a pile of grapes or nuts or whatever and eat one after each task. I actually had a package of shiny star stickers (the kind your grade school teacher gave you) and I would give myself a star for each task. When I completed a pyramid of stars, I would earn something else, etc.

Also take a look at Academic Coach'spost, Focus on Finishing. She offers some good suggestions for breaking tasks down into manageable chunks.

Instead of trying to revise a paper for resubmission, you could first try to address two reviewer criticisms.
Instead of trying to send out your entire book proposal to publishing houses, you could first aim to write one chapter summary.

What Now? writes about the difficulty she's having getting a cultural studies paper published.

Now, perhaps my problem is that I wasn't even trying to "intervene into the issues of contemporary scholarship." I'm not even really sure what that means. What I was doing was examining a non-canonical but increasingly-read author's response to a cultural phenomenon, an interaction that I think helps us read both the author's work and this phenomenon in more interesting and complex ways. And I thought I did a good job of this.

Ianqui reports getting royalties from people buying her dissertation from ProQuest.

Suckaz. If only they (or their libraries) knew that the diss was available online at no charge at my graduate institution.

I hope that as more institutions make their theses and dissertations available online, researchers will get in the habit of looking for free access before unnecessarily paying for it. We librarians need to market our services better, honestly. However, I don't begrudge Ianqui her royalties!

The topic of online access reminds me to highlight Amanda Robertson's discussion on the fragility of data, something librarians and archivists struggle with, but that also affects researchers in every discipline.

A number of our reports at work from the early 1990s were put on electronic format at some point - but they weren’t made into TIFF files or even PDFs, they were archived with another company’s proprietary format, and we pay about $90 a year for “maintenance.� Beyond what I feel is an unnecessary expense there, the format is practically unusable, and is only installed on one very slow computer in the information center.

Will the open access movement and the shift toward web-based access keep today's scholarship accessable for future users?

Contributing Editor Kaijsa Calkins also blogs at Jag söker job. and ZA3075.

A recent post called Hurrah for independent scholars at What Now? is about this very topic.

And in the meantime -- hurrah for independent scholars! What dedication, to be so devoted to an author or an issue or an event to spend hours and hours and no doubt lots of money (for travel and membership to university libraries, at least) solely for the love of knowledge and not for professional gain. Quite an inspiration.

That kind of dedication is truly admirable, and in this case really helped out a fellow researcher. How many of us are doing this kind of awesome research but are keeping it private and out of reach of others? As a librarian, I geek out when I find in-depth research out on the web for the benefit of anybody who happens upon it.

Open access means a lot of things, including institutional repositories. I try to keep an eye on what the team at OA Librarian are up to. Recently, they've been reporting on some ideas to entice faculty to deposit in institutional repositories. A taste:

John Willinsky (UBC professor, and author of "The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship") believes the key is to appeal to their ego. Faculty love to see their work widely disseminated, read, praised and cited. It feeds their ego, they're human. But what's the hook?

Discipline faculty, is ego a hook for you? Would more recognition entice you to use your institutions' repositories?

Kaijsa Calkins blogs about life and librarianship at Jag saker job.

On one of the newer sites on the Research and Academia blogroll, the weblog repository, Genevieve posts Academic Blogging Time is Now, says McConville, a response to a well-reasoned article about blogging as potential for, rather than a distraction from, scholarship.

I think we're already seeing realization of some of that potential by people like Laura at blogical construction, whose latest post, Pockets of Disciplinarity, discusses the lack of understanding that exists between disciplines.

These misunderstandings and gaps and deliberate ignorance of other disciplines seem to be a direct call for multidisciplinary work. True multidisciplinary work. I think I'm attempting to accomplish that somewhat, except that I'm aware that comp/rhet is the lens through which I'm viewing educational technology and network theory, etc. Or is it the other way around! It's far more interesting to be thinking in these ways, though I'm finding myself having to be constantly vigilant for those missteps that might cause someone from the other side of the fence to dismiss my work.

My interdisciplinary background certainly biases me in favor of Laura's position, but it's hard to argue against a little understanding between disparate disciplines.

On a related note, Ms. PhD of YoungFemaleScientist
offers an an interesting comparison between graduate studies in the humanities and sciences. A lot of what I read about this difference comes from the humanities camp, so it's great to see how somebody in the sciences sees the disciplines and their cultures. Don't skip the comments on this post; they're thoughtful and have some additional info.

Kaijsa Calkins blogs about life and librarianship at Jag saker job.

Now, down to business. Here's a roundup of truly engaging posts about literature.

Jill of jill/txt considers new kinds of literature. Check out the comments, too. They're as thought-provoking as the post itself.

At Quod She, Dr. Virago wrote a fascinating post called, Calling Margery Kempe crazy--and why it matters.

They speak gently of how she's out of her wits; continuously suffering from her bout with post-partum depression; suffering from depression in general, etc. Or, they deride her as a nutcase, a freak, an annoying pain, and so forth.

To all of these responses I have replied, kindly, that such responses don't really help us analyze Kempe's text or to understand Margery herself as a text, as "good communication" (her own words), as a performance of affective piety that's not completely out there in the context of her own times. What I've really wanted to say to the students who say she's "just a freak" is this: "Not at all helpful - anyone else want to say something more thoughtful?"

The post is as much about teaching as it is about literature, which might be why I like it so much.

Jenny of Light Reading points to an essay in the Times on Jane Austin's rival, Mary Brunton.

The Little professor writes about the use and purpose of footnotes in Victorian literature.

One of the simultaneous fascinations and frustrations of working on nineteenth-century religious controversial literature, especially of the more low-rent variety, is how authors deploy their footnotes. (Bear in mind that Victorian footnotes frequently lead to tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth: you get authors with no titles, titles with no authors, an author's last name with no other identifying information...)

For something fun, check out Maryanne at Queen of West Procrastination. She offers the a humerous observation about herself as a reader.

Heather of AO Librarian offers a suggestion for authors who want to contribute to institutional repositories.

What Now? shares her experience of having an article rejected for publication. Her determination to move forward is inspiring.

So, dadgumit, I just submitted my article to a new journal! How's that for turnaround -- one hour between receiving the rejection and submitting the article elsewhere! I thought about swallowing my pride and sending the article to those couple of grad school friends, but I decided, for good or ill, not to and just to submit it right to another journal.

Laura at Blogical Construction wrote an a fascinating entry on writing for an audience. I admire the way Laura asks questions I've never even considered.

First, there's the issue of why have a real audience at all. That's addressed on many fronts, most interestingly from the cognitive-develomental perspective of seeing how students conceive audience in a typical writing assignment. Second, if you buy into the first proposition that a real flesh-and-blood audience is a good idea, then you have to confront all the issues that audience brings with it.

Wanda Ball plugs the literary magazinesshe picked up at the AWP Bookfair. Lists like these always compel me to read at least one item.

Yvette Perry of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast discusses the value of memo writing while coding data for her dissertation, something I'd never had to consider before reading her description.

After a couple of transcripts, memory begins to blur and fail. It is difficult to recall if that classic example of Theme B came from this transcript or that one. I might have excerpted a particular piece of text to take to a meeting with my advisor, only to arrive and sit there like a fool trying to remember why I thought that was such a good quote. While coding, I found myself salivating over hot epiphanies that further tasting revealed to be merely warmed over insights left over from four transcripts ago.

The very language in this passage shows how writing becomes part of the research process, another place to consider the data and implications. She continues:

Some memos might be just "brainstorming on paper," but others may become developed well enough to export as whole sections of the dissertation. (Oh, how I hope and pray for that happy turn of events!) In addition, I am planning to use my memos as part of my "quality assurance" process. I aim to keep a careful trail of my thinking, decisions, and steps that can be easily analyzed by me and by others. Carefully documented memos will help in this process, making all of this transparent.

If you enjoy reading writing about writing, check out the archives. Good stuff.

Laura of Blogical Construction is also wrestling with coding. She's possibly the first researcher to contemplate coding her blog.

The second, and perhaps more important, issue is the rest of the data. I have tons of it. I wanted to somehow analyze the blog itself. But I have no idea how to approach that. Also, I have survey results and class evaluations. What do I do with that?

At The Neurosis Factory, CUKate shares the experience of submitting her first article for publication.

I thought it might be scary, but actually now I wish I had a bunch of other stuff ready to submit. It's exciting! I guess it kind of reminded me of a very long ago past life when I did some freelance writing, so now I feel I should be submitting lots of articles in the hope that at least something will be accepted somewhere.

I think many of us can relate to the feeling she describes. While the sentiments aren't exactly the same, the post reminds me of the William Zinsser quote from On Writing Well, "Like many writers, I don't like to write; I like to have written."

At Blogical Construction, Laura Blankenship blogs the process of writing her dissertation about using blogging to teach writing. She includes drafts of her dissertation and encourages feedback. This is a very cool, original idea. I look forward to reading the archives and keeping up with Laura's progress on her dissertation and the classes she's teaching.

Amanda Watson at Household Opera wrote a three-part series on the difficulties of research in the humanities, "Why Research is Hard." Links: , Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Discussing this post at Moot Thoughts and Musings Amanda says,

That "I'm missing something" feeling Jeannette describes? Completely familiar from my own grad-student days. Now that I'm on the other side of the reference desk, I'm much more aware of the factors that make academic research hard to do. It's gotten me thinking about which factors might be intrinsic to the research process and which have to do with the design of the tools we make available to researchers.

This resonates with me as a librarian. We really do think about the ways our patrons use research tools and try to find ways to make resources more accessible and usable. Often, we just need to admit research is hard before we can get down to the business of working through stops and gaps in the process. In Part 3, Amanda says,

Grad students, unless they're unusually well-adjusted, are often prone to "impostor syndrome": they secretly think they're the admissions committee's mistake, and sooner or later they'll be discovered and booted out of academia.

I like that she goes on to say that librarians suffer from this syndrome, too. Some librarians are subject experts with graduate degrees in a discipline, but many--like me--don't have a subject master's or PhD. I actually think that's kind of cool because I get to rely on the domain knowledge of students while I'm helping them negotiate the literature. It's more of a partnership that way, and we each learn from the other.

Did he do a search, did he ask a librarian? He even complains about how unrealistic it is to expect him to drive to a local university to gain access to the literature. Hello? That field is littered with e-prints and self-archiving. Ever heard of google or citeseer? Doesn't his company have a librarian? ew... maybe not?

It looks like she's referring to a forum post by Dvorak, after some readers pointed out the fact that researchers are working on these topics. Dvorak said,

Man, there are a lot of contradictory posts on this topic!! That said I'd love to go to the Google Scholar and see what's what. I can decode most of the BS having taken a lot of sociology in college myself. The problem is that almost everything in Google Scholar is locked down to everyone unless they are a professor from a school subscribing to the service. And I'm adverse to spending a lot of money to look through the library. I suppose I could go over to Berkeley and go on the system on campus, but that's a hassle. I'd love to read some of this research. Anyone with contacts or suggestions as to how I can get into these closed "stacks" send me an email at john@dvorak.org

This makes me wonder what people outside of the academy think we're doing and why this widely published columnist doesn't know how to use the public library and the electronic content they offer. At Arguing with Signpostsagrees:

So Dvorak thinks there's "very little research" done by academics on the computer basically because he's a) too lazy, and b) too cheap to go and find out that there's been some work done? Not only that, but the "I can decode what's b.s. because I took a lot of sociology in undergrad" line is a classic ROFLMAO statement coming from Dvorak.

The funniest/saddest part of this mess of an article is that Dvorak wants "real" research about social networking software so people won't trivialize it or dismiss it out of ignorance, but he's writing from a place of ignorance.