Ligeramente defraudado

I feel vaguely uneasy or lightly cheated when I publish something for which I have never received any substantial feedback. What I write is good, I will cop to that, but not that good. It's nice that people are putting their confidence in me, and all, but even if my work were twice as good I would still benefit from suggestions of some kind.

I guess this complaint will provoke envy rather than sympathy from scholars who are still having a hard time getting accepted at all. Not only do I get accepted and published, but some of my work is published exactly as I submit it, with only a few copy-editing changes, and by invitation at that, so I don't even have to decide where to send it in the first place. You don't need to feel sorry for me, but I would still like a little more comments on what I write.

Special Issue

I've been in several special issues of journals recently in which I have had access to my own article, electronically or through offprints, but not to the entire issue of which my article forms a part. In some cases, we don't have that particular journal in my library. I've already read my article, thank you very much, but I'd like to read those of the other collaborators.

"I Don't Like Literary Criticism"

My colleague told me this the other day. My first response was "Well, then you chose the right profession." In other words, someone's who writes literary criticism, teaches others to write it, edits a journal of literary criticism, etc... My second reaction was something along the lines of "I, too, dislike it." (Marianne Moore). The obligation to got through novels and plays and what-not, analyzing them, when what we are really interested in, often, is elsewhere, leads to tedium. We all know that, if a book or article is not good, we can always say that the analyses are perceptive, even if they point out things in a routine way that just about any reader might notice. It's damning with faint praise (Alexander Pope). Really, I don't need even a prominent literary critic, like Helen Vendler, to point out things about a poem I wouldn't have noticed on my own. Even if (when) she is very good, the thrill is gone (B.B. King).

I'm not suggesting that we should be doing something other the literary criticism, but that we shouldn't hold on to patterns that just don't serve our needs any more.

Deceptively Easy or Deceptively Difficult?

See an interesting LL post here.

Pomodoro

I tried out Pomodoro, a tomato-like application that is basically a timer for your computer desktop. It times work sessions in 25-minute increments (you can adjust to 30 or 35 too), then gives you a five-minute break. Today, in an 8-hour day on campus (8-4), I did 8 25-minute sessions and finished grading a set of compositions, finished reading a book ms. and writing a report on it, read over a chapter in a grammar book for class tomorrow, and read over part of a tenure file. Off the pomodoro clock, I also met with three students and had lunch with the Department chair, where we discussed some business. So I pretty much did a full day's work, without working on any of my own research! (That's great except for the last part.) I did some blog posts and surfed the web a bit, but otherwise was disciplined enough for a day I don't teach. I've cleared my desk of all but teaching and research tasks.

Pomodoro also keeps track of your work sessions. You can create different labels for tasks and chart your work like that. If you don't need productivity tools like that, by all means don't bother. I could do without it, but I find it fun to try. Any change can be motivating, so I can imagine that NOT using it after a while might be a good change as well.

Taking Scholarship Seriously

A prevalent attitude is that the quality of scholarship does not really matter. Just go through the motions, get your publications, be easy on the younger people, etc... Don't worry about how well it's written. "It's just a dissertation, not a book."

The problem is that when I am the reader for work like that, I get seriously pissed off. Two world views collide.

Pullum on the Passive (Again)

In case you missed all of Pullum's previous writing on the passive voice here is yet another piece.

It is fine to use the passive voice. That being said, a book manuscript I am reviewing right now contains far too much passive voice. The dumb prejudice against the passive will persist because some bad writers love using the passive voice as much as they can.