A hadn’t been publishing. He wrote regularly despite a full teaching load. But he wasn’t getting things finished. And he wasn’t submitting them. Writing was an intellectually satisfying process for A. In thinking about why he didn’t finish he realized that he wasn’t motivated by the product — an article or a book — but […]
Read More »Developing a Practice
Your academic life is more than a string of articles published, classes taught, and meetings attended. You write because this is how you articulate and develop your ideas. You publish to communicate those ideas to others. Posts in this category help you develop the practices you need to do the work you love well without burning out or compromising your values.
You Need a Writing Practice is a good place to start to investigate the Writing subcategory.
Juggling 101: Elements of a good plan is a good place to start investigating the Planning subcategory.
Permission to think big thoughts
If you don’t make and protect time for thinking big thoughts, writing, and other research tasks no one else will.
Research doesn’t always look like real work, especially to outsiders, but it is. In this post, I give you some tips on valuing that work for yourself and on finding time to do it regularly.
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Permission to refuse service/admin requests
One difference between an academic career and other forms of employment is that you are often left to manage your workload yourself. The basics are decided by someone else, but you are always “free” to take on more.
Saying “no” is hard. Are you saying yes just to avoid the discomfort?
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Are you waiting for permission?
One of the attractions of an academic career is the autonomy it affords. That means no one is going to give you permission. Or, perhaps more accurately, they already have.
Trusting your judgement is hard. You risk criticism. Disapproval. Perhaps even attack. Even though criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, many academics struggle with it.
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You can take your time
Your dissertation is not an end. It is a beginning.
Getting a tenure track job (or equivalent academic appointment) is not an end. It is a beginning.
And even if your ultimate goal is “Be a full-professor, with an international reputation in my field.” (and it’s okay if that isn’t your goal), you aren’t going to get there in 3-5 years.
Read More »Diagnosing student feedback
Students think the textbook is boring. They come to class unprepared. They haven’t done the reading and/or they don’t have anything meaningful to add to discussion. Then they complain about their grades. It’s easy to complain about the state of young people today and how they seem to think that what you assume are basic […]
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A class provides structure
Now that so much information is available on the internet, this question arises more and more frequently. Why go to university? Why pay all that money to learn things you could learn on your own using resources available on the internet and in public libraries. Couldn’t you just do this stuff yourself? Perhaps with the […]
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You can ignore the grading, reprise
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide ยท You can ignore the grading, reprise This post refers to the break between the first and second semesters of an academic year, which in the Northern Hemisphere tends to incorporate the Christmas holidays. Often the exams and assignments that come in at the end of the semester need to […]
Read More »Writing essays is not a generic skill
Chris Atherton‘s most recent blog post makes a great contribution to debates about assessment, and essay writing in particular. Getting Students to Build Things Out of Concrete (Examples, that is) Go read it and come back. This post started as a comment that got out of hand. I’ll wait. Tum te dum te dum. Hi, […]
Read More »Are you letting gremlins ruin your job?
No one will fund that research. Find a sexier topic. One there’s a bit of buzz about. And make it something useful. You’re really behind the times. There’s all kinds of educational technology out there. Why aren’t you using it? Get innovative. Update that course. No one reads academic journals. What are you even bothering […]
Read More »misunderstanding copyright
Copyright has been in the news recently thanks to an incident in which a profit-making magazine reprinted an article they found on the internet without the authors permission. (No, I’m not linking. They’ve had enough publicity for their nefarious deeds.) When the author challenged the editor, the response included what seems to be a common […]
Read More »Confession: I find mind mapping difficult
The trouble is that they have their own aesthetic. Not a linear one but … You see, the examples I see all look good. They use colour. They group similar things together. And when I set out to get all the ideas out of my head onto paper, I worry about where on the page to put them.
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