This post was originally written during a time when many universities and workplaces had shifted to remote work in response to the COVID pandemic. Although circumstances have now changed for many people, much of what I say in this post still applies. Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Managing your energy The academic year varies […]
Read More »Academic Context
How things work in academic institutions, academic disciplines, and other spaces where you find yourself. The unwritten rules, assumptions, and ways of being that make the difference in everyday academic life.
This category has been somewhat neglected. Older posts in this category will be edited and possibly recategorized beginning in July 2015.
The value of intellectual engagement
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Valuing Intellectual Engagement Burnout and stress are not just about the quantity of work you have to do. Lack of control and a sense of meaninglessness are major contributors to burnout. It has become very clear that your difficulty managing your workload is not a personal failing. You are […]
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Email overwhelm as a collective problem
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Email Overwhelm as a Collective Problem. This post was prompted by the renowned classicist, Mary Beard, stoking up the embers of email stress recently over on Twitter. for all you guys (women and men) recommending 'delay delivery',. do you know what that means? It means that at 9.00 my […]
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Optimism in the face of uncertainty
This post was originally written during a time when many universities and workplaces had shifted to remote work in response to the COVID pandemic. Although circumstances have now changed for many people, much of what I say in this post still applies. Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Optimism in the face of uncertainty There […]
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Peer review supports academic writing!
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Peer review supports academic writing This post is an excerpt from the 4th book in my Short Guides series, Peer Review (A Short Guide), was published on 15 November 2019. I also offer a class called Dealing With Reviewer Comments which is based on the principles elaborated in this book. […]
Read More »The value of voluntary peer review labour
What follows is a excerpt from my most recent Short Guide to Peer Review. I approach peer review as primarily editorial labour, with the goal of improving scholarship. I question the use of “gate keeping” as a metaphor for the role of peer reviewers in making recommendations to editors regarding publishing decisions, while recognising that […]
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Accountability vs Community
I’ve been reading Rowena Murray‘s Writing in Social Spaces, and it has helped me articulate something that underpins a lot of my work. Community is important to your ability to do this work. This got long, if what you really want are suggestions for creating writing community, jump here. When I talk about A Meeting […]
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Thoughts on “Untangling Academic Publishing”
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Thoughts on “Untangling Academic Publishing” I have written before about communication and validation in your publishing decisions, and encouraged you to prioritize communication in your decision making process. In this post, I want to extend that argument using a recently published scholarly report as a jumping off point. (you […]
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Do you need to be excellent?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Do you need to be excellent? I have written before about “doing your best” being a distraction and instead encouraged you to focus on doing good work. In this post, I want to extend that argument using a recently published scholarly article as a jumping off point. (You can […]
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What is “administration” anyway?
I find the use of “administration” and “administrators” in academic circles increasingly problematic. In particular, there is a lack of precision in the use of the term. The term “administration” seems to be applied to everything from clerical work to running the institution. It has become a catch-all category for any work done in the […]
Read More »Maternity leave & your publication record
Note: The information in this post is relevant to those evaluating the scholarship of others (for hiring, promotion, funding, etc) as well as to those having their scholarship evaluated. It also applies to other kinds of leave in which you would not reasonably be expected to keep publishing including longer sick leaves, disability leave, and […]
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What it means to make a contribution to knowledge
The primary purpose of academic publishing is to communicate with other scholars. This form of communication is rather formal. The bar for acceptance into the conversation is high. This conversation is asynchronous and takes place over very long time periods. What happens once you’ve published your article? By publishing your article in a scholarly journal […]
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