Hiding Your Scholarship
posted by Corey Yung
Before I started my career as a legal academic, I, as I expect a lot of new professors do, went to the AALS New Law Teachers Workshop. I definitely recommend going there as I learned a lot from more experienced academics. Some of what I learned seemed trivial, but was very important (i.e., how much reading you should assign per class). Other advice has really made me a better scholar (i.e, when you are angry or riled up about something, start writing). There was one piece of advice, however, that left me a little baffled.
One of the leaders of my subject-specific breakout sessions cautioned us new academics against ever sharing drafts of scholarship with any members of the senior faculty at our respective schools. This meant that we shouldn’t ever show written drafts to tenured professors and we definitely should not present works-in-progress to faculty. The chief reasons for the warning were that only bad things could emerge from faculty seeing your work before it was in a polished state. Primarily, your fellow faculty would form an image in their minds based upon the flaws in early editions of your work and that impression would not dissipate upon completion of your writing. I was flabbergasted by the advice. As someone who had published a couple of things before being hired, one of the things I was most looking forward to was having senior people actually read my work. As a practitioner, it had been almost impossible to get anyone to seriously scrutinize my writing.
So, when I heard this cautionary advice, it went against my strong intuitions about academia. I have to admit that so far I have completely ignored it. Last week, I just gave my second works-in-progress presentation which was open to the entire faculty at my school. That presentation concerned an early-stage empirical project that represents a new direction in my scholarship. Because it was based upon early data and was in an area which is outside of my normal area of expertise, the dangers should have been highest. However, as has been the case with all of my interactions with my faculty, I found the response to be incredibly supportive and helpful. Afterward, I scheduled yet another presentation for later this semester on another article that is still in progress.
Now that academics often post very early works on SSRN, the fears of my section leader seem even more strange to me. Am I missing something? Or are some law school environments more dangerous for junior scholars? Should this note of caution continue to be propagated or is it a relic of a different era?
March 9, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Posted in: Law School (Scholarship)
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Responses (9)
William McGeveran - March 9, 2009 at 5:04 pm
That strikes me as colossally terrible advice. At my school, I think faculty would view refusal to seek early input from more experienced colleagues as a bad sign. And I have received great comments that way, improving my work, which I’d miss out on if I followed that advice.
Both junior and senior scholars do sometimes circulate drafts too early, before they have done enough thinking to make responsive comments useful. But that is a different issue.
A.W. - March 9, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Seems like a bad idea. If you won’t let anyone review it, then it won’t be as good. its that simple.
Now if they penalize it, then think of it this way. when you decide to leave those stunted minds behind, the high-quality work will help you go somewhere more enlightened.
Deleted - March 9, 2009 at 5:49 pm
[CRY - The comment was deleted because it was off-topic. David Hoffman has a new post on the topic where such comments would be appropriate.]
krs - March 9, 2009 at 7:14 pm
5:49, this “truth” you speak of is just as available to today’s law students as it is to junior professors.
Law school is a calculated risk undertaken by adults, and the relevant data is out there.
PresumablyYung - March 9, 2009 at 11:01 pm
“Deleted” at 549p: Your characterization of my earlier comment as “CRY” perfectly proves the point of my earlier writing. Thanks kindly for stepping right into that, Yung.
Purely as a rhetorical device (for I am uninterested in your next insult): don’t you think there’s something wrong with that? PARTICULARLY AS A PROFESSOR AT A FOURTH TIER LAW SCHOOL. Both Professors Hoffman and Desai indicated they would make a gesture towards the concerns that were voiced (and is not plaintive as much as it is vocalizing a very real problem in the industry, and one you as a law professor play a pivotal role in).
It is my sincere hope that just one of your students has viewed your treatment of this issue today. And you did it all so publicly … without, frankly, that much goading from me. What a model law professor and idealistic man.
Corey Rayburn Yung - March 9, 2009 at 11:14 pm
PresumablyYung,
My initials are “CRY.” There is only one person here who has been insulting.
You posted your same off-topic comment to three different posts. Since Hoffman started a thread on the subject, I redirected you to that. As for my students, I’m sure several them are reading my comments here since they read and are posting on my Sex Crimes Blog as part of my Sex Crimes seminar (and know I’m blogging here as well for this month). Regarding the economy and jobs for law students, I don’t have too much to say – it is a sad reality right now. Instead, I try to spend time working with my students to help them find the best possible jobs for them. If I had anything to say in a blog post about the subject, I would. However, I really don’t have anything to add to the topic that hasn’t been said before.
If you have further comments to me, feel free to email me rather than continuing this off-topic comment thread.
Orin Kerr - March 9, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Corey,
I’ve heard the same advice, and I’ve had the same reaction as you.
Joe - March 10, 2009 at 2:12 am
Can’t this easily enough be a case of “everybody is right”? Bill’s point, basically — share your drafts, but not until you’ve put enough work into them to make feedback worthwhile.
Sam Baumgartner - March 10, 2009 at 9:17 am
Corey,
A couple additional thougths. First, I think it depends on your faculty’s culture. There are indeed faculties where the advice you received would be spot on. Most of us, fortunately, work at places where that is not the case. Second, it depends on what one means by a draft. If someone’s draft is too shoddily written or not really thought through, some might question the writer’s intellectual capacity.
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