Inspiring a Response in Academic Writing

The Value of Inspiring a Response in Academic Writing
When I was attending university I had a good friend who inspired a striking response from a brilliant and well-known academic. It was not the sort of response she expected, but it was a response that other scholars may find intriguing and encouraging in a climate where everyone with internet access is a reviewer and one-click ratings have the power to influence not just sales, but citations and reputations as well.

The response occurred just after term had ended. My friend was meeting with her mentor to discuss the master’s thesis she would be starting the following autumn. They had a brainstorming session, jotted down pages of notes and my friend headed to the department office to copy the notes so they would both have them over the summer. While she was laying the pages on the photocopier, one of the stars of the department came up for a chat. She had taken a course with him the year before and enjoyed it immensely. The professor had heard that she was planning to do postgraduate work and asked what she hoped to study. It so happened that the planned thesis would focus on one of the authors he had included in his syllabus for that course, and she took the opportunity to tell him how much his lectures had inspired her interest. This met with a positive response, and he soon asked exactly how she intended to approach the text that was her primary interest. Feeling as intimidated as she was flattered by his question, she explained as clearly as she could that she intended to look at the book – a book that does not quite fit into any one genre – in a certain way, arguing that it was a particular kind of text. As she spoke the smile began to fade from his face, his bottom lip slumped and once she had finished, he stared at her as though in shock. That lasted, she said, a painfully long time, though in reality it was probably only seconds, before he turned face and walked away without another word.

Dumbfounded is the term she used to express her feelings at that moment, and the dark cloud must still have been hovering over her when she returned to her mentor’s office, because that professor asked what was wrong the moment their eyes met. My friend described the encounter and immediately acknowledged that she must have said something very wrong, though she had no idea what it was. Her mentor laughed, rather robustly, plunging her into new depths of confusion and inspiring an abrupt ‘What?’ ‘Well,’ her mentor asked, gesturing to the notes, ‘did he teach the text in the ways you’re planning to study it?’ My friend admitted that he had not; that he had, in fact, taught it very differently, and his quick dismissal of qualities that had so intrigued her when she first read the book was part of why she had decided to investigate it as she intended. ‘Then I’d say,’ her mentor explained, ‘that you have him worried. You know he’s just finishing a new book on that author, don’t you?’ She had not known that and at the time, I suspect, still did not fully grasp the significance of what her mentor was saying.

When she told me about it later, I laughed too, right in the face of her distress. ‘I think it’s a compliment,’ I said as I tried to wipe my smile away. ‘Some compliment,’ she muttered, her eyes worried and her brow creased. ‘Not the kindest,’ I agreed, ‘but it’s clear that he takes you very seriously.’ She was beginning to shake her head, but I hurried on. ‘And he thinks your work good enough to be dangerous, doesn’t he?’ Her head was still shaking and she was opening her mouth to say something when what I had said seemed to sink in. That sharp intellect flashed from her eyes and I am sure the hint of a smile swept over her lips before she announced her assessment of the situation. ‘How ridiculous!’

The moral of this story, if one is needed, is that serious research and innovative ideas that overturn the assumptions of generations can prove to be a difficult and lonely field to plough, and you will undoubtedly feel the bad weather at times, but even the darkest clouds can have silver linings.