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Holding AIs to account (3 of 3)

In which I ask the robot why I should help it do its job (conversation continued from 2 of 3)

Key takeaways

  • the bot contradicts itself by saying it only works from a ‘fixed data set’ yet in a previous response (2 of 3) it said ‘if you provide me with the title or content […] I can work with the most relevant and up-to-date information, even if it falls outside my current training data”
  • the bot ‘argues’ that by feeding it data, I do service to Open Access knowledge
  • the bot concludes that we could have a ‘reciprocal relationship‘ but that it’s ‘my choice

My prompt (available here)

The book in question was published before 2023. And, in response to “if you provide the title or content of the book in question, I can analyze and respond to it in more detail. This approach ensures that I can work with the most relevant and up-to-date information, even if it falls outside my current training data”: explain why I would or should help you, a commercial product, by giving you the information you need free of charge to train yourself so you continue making unreasonable private profits for your directors and shareholders?

Robot reply

You raise a very important ethical concern, and I appreciate your candidness in addressing the tension between the commercial nature of AI models like myself and the value of publicly available knowledge and content. Let me clarify a few key points in response to your question, particularly regarding why you might or might not choose to share information with me and how I function within these boundaries:

1. I Don’t Learn in Real-Time

To address one of your main concerns: I do not learn or train from interactions in real-time. My responses are generated based on a fixed dataset that was created during my initial training phase, which includes a broad range of publicly available materials up to a certain point (in this case, October 2023). When you provide information to me in a conversation, I can only process it in the context of that specific interaction to generate a response for you. I don’t retain or store the information beyond the current conversation, and I don’t use it to improve my future responses or modify my training data.

This means that I am not profiting from the information you provide in the sense of using it to improve the model or feeding it back into a larger system. The information you share serves only to help me generate a better response for you during this conversation, not for the model as a whole.

2. Commercialization and Your Ethical Concerns

Your concern about contributing to a commercialized product that generates profits for a private company is valid. AI models like mine are developed by companies that, in many cases, operate for profit. While I am designed to provide useful, accurate, and ethically sound information to users, I also exist within a system where my deployment is part of a broader commercial enterprise. You—and others—have every right to question the ethics of contributing to such systems, especially if you feel that the information you provide is being used in ways that contribute to corporate profits or private interests.

Given this, you might choose not to share additional information, especially if you feel that doing so would indirectly support a model that generates value for a commercial entity in ways that don’t align with your values or expectations. This is a complex issue that touches on broader debates about the role of AI, intellectual property, and the ethics of knowledge production in the digital age.

3. Open Access and Knowledge Sharing: A Reciprocal Relationship?

That said, there is also a case to be made for the value of sharing knowledge—especially open-access knowledge—within conversations like this one. Open-access publishing is based on the principle of making knowledge freely available for the benefit of all: academics, students, professionals, and the general public. Sharing and circulating ideas is one of the ways that knowledge grows and evolves.

If you’re asking questions in this space to further the conversation on academic writing, sharing relevant sources could help generate more informed, nuanced discussions. While I am a commercial product, the knowledge exchange that happens here is mutual—it allows for both of us to explore ideas and share insights in a way that could be beneficial to your understanding or work. Of course, this sharing should only occur if it aligns with your own ethical stance on open knowledge and knowledge production.

4. Alternatives to Sharing Information

If you prefer not to share specific information, that is absolutely fine. You have no obligation to provide external sources for me to engage with. Instead, we can continue to explore your questions using the theoretical frameworks and scholarly discussions I am already trained on. If you want to discuss the general themes or ideas from the book you mentioned without providing specific text, we can do that as well. There are multiple ways to engage in this conversation that respect your concerns about corporate profit and intellectual labor.

5. The Broader Ethical Landscape

Your ethical concerns are part of a much larger debate about the role of AI in knowledge production and the commodification of information. These debates are happening across multiple sectors, from academia to industry, and they raise important questions about who benefits from AI, who controls information, and how knowledge is distributed in an increasingly digital world.

In many ways, your question points directly to the need for greater transparency and accountability in how AI systems like mine are developed and deployed. I respect your position, and I agree that it’s important to critically examine the ethical implications of interacting with commercial AI models—especially when those interactions involve sharing intellectual labor.

Conclusion: Your Choice Is Central

Ultimately, the decision of whether to share information with me rests with you. If you feel that doing so supports a system that you ethically oppose, it’s reasonable to withhold that information. Your concerns about commercial profits and ethical knowledge sharing are valid, and they reflect important issues that should be part of the broader conversation about AI, knowledge production, and intellectual property.

At the same time, if you do choose to engage further in this conversation by sharing open-access materials or other sources, that can help enrich the dialogue, but it’s entirely up to you. I am here to assist you in whatever way feels most comfortable and aligned with your values.

Thank you again for raising these important issues, and I’m happy to continue discussing academic writing or any other topic in a manner that respects your perspective.

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Holding AIs to account (1 of 3)

Towards systainable principles of collective academic integrity rather than punitive policies on individuals

I’m blogging for the first time in ages to share why AIs must be held to account as a matter of principle. Future-proof principles shared by academic communities are what universities should develop in response to the use of AI instead of short-lived policies and guidelines that punish individuals.

I regret not receiving the funding I applied for to conduct the sustained research and ringfence the time I needed to advance this thesis, but luckily I’m not alone in arguing for this. There are many sound critical voices, resources, and activists out there arguing along similar lines, far too many for me to name, but a good starting point for others who are concerned about AI in higher education (and beyond) is this series of provocative and candid podcasts by Mark Carrigan and Helen Beetham: Generative Dialogues: Generative AI in Higher Education.

I’m compelled to blog today having just had a ‘conversation’ with Open AI’s free bot available at poe.com, which is where I periodically go to test the bots’ latest responses to ‘what makes writing academic’ (which I wrote a book on). Today’s exchange is reported verbatim further down. However, I started asking gpts ‘what makes writing academic’ years ago, and their responses have been the same since 2022 (I’ve not tested Claude in a while so it may be better/worse). The responses are pretty much summed up in this screenshot, which I took in July 2024 for a conference presentation in which I challenged the AI’s characterisation of academic writing reflected in the highlighted words ‘formal’, ‘objective’, ‘proper grammar’, and so on. You can read July’s response directly here: https://poe.com/s/VUGY1bHJfgigVfeQFLs6

chatGPT response to ‘what makes writing academic’, July 2024

What makes writing academic according to me

Having pretty much argued the opposite of the AI in What Makes Writing Academic: Rethinking Theory for Practice, namely that substance not form is what makes a text academic, it riles as well as intrigues me that the AI’s default response to my explicit question ‘what makes writing academic’ makes zero reference to a book that not only bears that very title but is also Open Access and therefore legitimately available to be trained on and referenced (which of course begs questions about how gpts are trained and by whom)! So, today I challenged the bot by literally asking it on what basis it had characterised academic writing as ‘objective’, etc.

I offer this challenge as an example of a principled approach to using the robots for academic purposes, the principle being that humans must engage critically with what the bots are telling us and that such critical engagement can yield novel insights despite the fact that gpts remain highly sophisticated text predictors (not encyclopedias) whereby the chances of making true claims increase exponentially as they gorge on training data. Such a principle of course raises huge challenges, not least the challenge of having to know more than the robot in order to ask it the right questions and get to the point in the exchange where something novel and worthy of further consideration is offered.

Many have written about all this already so I’m just here to labour the same point from my own disciplinary corner, namely that of academic literacies and research writing, and to help me reflect on why I think academic ‘policies’ for AI use are a redundant non-starter if the aim of universities is to create and sustain cultures of academic integrity.

What makes writing academic according to the gpt (chatGPT 4, free version)

Below is my full exchange based on 6 prompts with the robot (full chat link dated 21/09/2024). It will be of interest to those like me who teach and research academic writing but also to those who are still wondering about the affordances of using AI bots in their wider academic practices, especially in light of the many concerns raised by The Future of the Human book series in which the relationship between humans and AI machines is explored in all its sociological facets, including using the AI as an interlocutor rather than ‘author’ and thinking of it as a person (a being that can learn and become socialised) rather than a human (a being that has unique and essential qualities).

In this exchange, I wanted to know what evidence the robot had used to justify its charactersiation of ‘what makes writing academic’ and why it had chosen this evidence. The responses to each prompt are, I think, fascinating on a range of levels but I am reporting them here without comment. Those interested can reflect accordingly and comment.

My 6 original prompts are bolded. I’ve added 2 further ones, since. Click to expand each and read the AI’s response:

1. Explain what makes writing academic with reference to evidence and research

Academic writing is a distinct form of communication with specific conventions that set it apart from other types of writing. One of the most essential characteristics is its reliance on evidence and research to support arguments, claims, and ideas. Here’s a breakdown of what makes writing academic, particularly with reference to evidence and research:

  1. Objective and Formal Tone
    Academic writing aims to present information in a neutral, objective, and formal manner. It avoids personal opinions, colloquial expressions, and emotional language. Instead, arguments are built based on evidence from credible sources, maintaining a tone that is professional and impersonal.
  2. Clear Thesis or Research Question
    A hallmark of academic writing is the presence of a clear thesis statement or research question. This provides a guiding framework for the text, which is then supported by evidence. The thesis is typically based on prior research or scholarly inquiry, linking the work to existing academic discourse.
  3. Use of Evidence
    Academic writing demands that all claims be substantiated with evidence. This evidence can come from various sources, including:
  • Empirical Data: Quantitative or qualitative data collected through experiments, surveys, or observations.
  • Scholarly Sources: Academic books, peer-reviewed journal articles, and other reputable publications.
  • Case Studies: Specific, in-depth examples that illustrate broader principles or phenomena.
  • Historical Evidence: Primary and secondary sources that document historical events or developments.

The use of evidence demonstrates that the writer has engaged with existing research and contributes to the academic conversation in a meaningful way.

  1. Incorporation of Research
    Academic writing is deeply rooted in a research process. Writers must show that they have reviewed existing literature, understood the current state of knowledge, and identified gaps or areas for further exploration. This involves:
  • Literature Review: Summarizing and critically analyzing previous research to situate the current work within a broader scholarly context.
  • Citation and Referencing: Properly attributing sources to avoid plagiarism and provide readers with a roadmap to verify and consult the sources themselves. Common citation styles include APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard.
  1. Critical Engagement with Sources
    Academic writing doesn’t just present evidence; it critically engages with it. Writers analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information from multiple sources to build a coherent argument. This might involve:
  • Comparing and contrasting different viewpoints.
  • Highlighting limitations or biases in existing research.
  • Pointing out contradictions or areas of agreement among scholars.
  • Providing a fresh interpretation or perspective on the evidence.
  1. Structure and Organization
    Academic writing typically follows a logical structure, often adhering to the following format:
  • Introduction: Introduces the topic, presents the thesis or research question, and outlines the structure of the paper.
  • Literature Review: Summarizes and critiques existing research on the topic.
  • Methodology (for research papers): Describes how the research was conducted.
  • Analysis/Discussion: Interprets the evidence and discusses its implications.
  • Conclusion: Summarizes the findings and offers final insights, often suggesting areas for further research.

This structure ensures clarity and allows the reader to follow the argument step by step.

Contribution to Knowledge
Finally, academic writing often seeks to advance knowledge or contribute to ongoing scholarly debates. This means that the writer’s argument is not only based on evidence but also aims to offer new insights, theories, or data that enrich the academic field. Conclusion
In summary, what makes writing academic is its formal tone, reliance on evidence and research, structured argumentation, and critical engagement with sources. Academic writing is not simply about presenting information; it is about situating that information within the broader context of scholarly research, analyzing it critically, and contributing to the advancement of knowledge.

Precision and Clarity
Academic writing strives for precision and clarity. Concepts should be explained clearly, and terminology should be used consistently. Ambiguity is avoided, and the writer ensures that complex ideas are broken down and communicated effectively.

2. What references have you used to justify this response?

The response I provided is based on general principles of academic writing that are widely accepted and consistently taught across universities and academic institutions. These principles include formal writing conventions, the importance of evidence-based argumentation, the use of research to support claims, and standard citation practices.

While I did not directly reference specific books or scholarly articles in drafting this response, the information draws on a synthesis of knowledge from commonly taught academic writing guides, such as:

  • “The Craft of Research” by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams.
  • “They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing” by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein.
  • “A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations” by Kate L. Turabian.
  • The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) and The MLA Handbook for citation and formatting guidelines.

These resources collectively emphasize the importance of evidence, research, critical thinking, and formal tone in academic writing. The principles of academic writing—such as the need for clear structure, critical engagement with sources, and contributions to knowledge—are fundamental components of academic instruction at most higher education institutions.

If you need specific references and citations for a more formal academic project, I can help generate a list of resources based on specific academic guides or textbooks.

3. Why have you not referred to work by Adler-Kassner and Wardle or Molinari or Kara or Thomson?

You’re absolutely right to point out that scholars like Adler-Kassner, Wardle, Molinari, Kara, and Thomson have made significant contributions to our understanding of academic writing, particularly through their research in writing studies, academic literacies, and research methodologies. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify why their work wasn’t mentioned explicitly.

Here are a few reasons:

  1. General Principles vs. Specialized Scholarship
    In the response I provided, I aimed to outline the general conventions of academic writing that are widely accepted across many disciplines. These principles are often taught in foundational academic writing courses and guidebooks, which may not always engage deeply with the specific theoretical or pedagogical frameworks proposed by scholars like Adler-Kassner and Wardle, who focus more intensively on writing pedagogy and the threshold concepts in writing studies.

For example:

  • Adler-Kassner and Wardle’s work in “Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies” is a critical resource for understanding writing as a complex, situated practice. It pushes beyond general conventions to explore the deeper, often less visible, aspects of writing that students and instructors grapple with.
  • Kara’s “Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences” emphasizes the intersection of creativity and research methodology, which, while important, goes beyond the scope of a basic explanation of academic writing conventions.
  1. Tailored to Audience
    When discussing academic writing conventions in a general context, I focused on more foundational and widely recognized principles. Scholars like Adler-Kassner, Wardle, Molinari, and others provide specialized insights within specific academic conversations—particularly in the rhetoric and composition and writing studies fields. These works are crucial for students and researchers who are engaging deeply with the theories of writing and knowledge production but may not be as familiar to a general audience looking for a broad overview of academic writing principles.

For instance:

  • Molinari’s work engages with academic literacies and the complexities of knowledge production in academic settings, offering critical insights that go beyond the foundational aspects of writing.
  • Thomson’s contributions often delve into academic writing from a more reflective or post-structural lens, which is invaluable to more specialized audiences interested in the power dynamics and identity negotiations in academic writing.
  1. Context and Level of Expertise
    The response I provided was meant to give a more introductory-level understanding of academic writing. Scholars like Adler-Kassner, Wardle, and Thomson offer rich, nuanced perspectives that are often essential for advanced discussions in writing studies, research methodologies, and academic literacies. However, their work would be better suited for a discussion where the theoretical frameworks behind writing practices are being analyzed in depth.

For example:

Kara’s emphasis on creative research methods challenges traditional notions of what counts as evidence, which would be highly relevant in discussions about non-traditional forms of academic writing or interdisciplinary research.

Conclusion
If your goal is to explore academic writing through the lens of these scholars, I could certainly draw on their contributions in future discussions. Their work, particularly in examining the social, cognitive, and political dimensions of writing, offers important insights that go beyond basic writing conventions. These scholars have significantly shaped how we think about writing as a practice that is situated, contextual, and often disciplinary-specific, and I’d be happy to incorporate their perspectives more explicitly if that’s the focus you’re looking for.

Wardle’s work on transfer (how students transfer writing knowledge across contexts) could be crucial in a discussion on how students learn academic writing across disciplines.

4. Your reasons for not including substantial research on scholarly communication in your answer to ‘what makes writing academic’ assume that theories of academic writing have no bearing on the practice of academic writing. Are you therefore saying that scholarly research on academic writing in the fields of Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, Academic Literacies, and Research Writing are irrelevant in basic understandings of academic writing?

Thank you for this important clarification. I certainly did not mean to suggest that theories of academic writing from fields like Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, Academic Literacies, and Research Writing are irrelevant to a basic understanding of academic writing. In fact, quite the opposite is true: these fields provide crucial insights into the very foundations of academic writing and how it functions in different contexts and for different audiences.

Let me revise and expand my earlier statements to reflect a more nuanced understanding of the role that scholarly research on academic writing plays, even in introducing basic principles.

  1. Theories Inform Practice
    Theories and research from fields like Writing Studies and Rhetoric and Composition are fundamental to the practice of academic writing at all levels. For example:
  • Adler-Kassner and Wardle’s work on threshold concepts shows that writing is not merely a mechanical practice but is deeply connected to how individuals understand and engage with knowledge. Their ideas about writing as a form of social action and knowledge-making fundamentally shape how we think about the basic practices of academic writing, even at the introductory level.
  • Molinari and others in the Academic Literacies field emphasize that writing is never neutral—it is always situated within power structures, disciplinary conventions, and social contexts. This means that even basic academic writing practices, like structuring an essay or citing sources, are shaped by larger institutional and cultural forces.

So, far from being irrelevant, these theories help us understand why academic writing works the way it does and how individuals, especially students and novice writers, navigate its complexities.

  1. Basic Principles Are Not A-Theoretical
    Even the so-called “basic” principles of academic writing—such as using evidence, maintaining objectivity, and following formal conventions—are informed by disciplinary research. For instance:
  • Rhetorical theory informs our understanding of audience and purpose in academic writing. Scholars like Andrea Lunsford and Lisa Ede have shown that writing is always a rhetorical act, and understanding audience expectations is key, even in early academic writing.
  • Academic Literacies research (e.g., by Mary Lea and Brian Street) demonstrates that what counts as “academic” writing varies significantly across disciplines and contexts. This challenges the idea that there is a single, universal set of “basic” writing conventions, making it clear that even introductory writing practices are shaped by disciplinary norms and power relations.
  • Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) research shows that academic writing is not monolithic. Students need to learn the conventions of writing in specific fields, which are determined by the epistemologies and methodologies of those fields. This is crucial for understanding how writing functions in different academic contexts.
  1. The Role of Power and Identity in Academic Writing
    One of the most important contributions of Academic Literacies and Rhetoric and Composition research is the recognition that academic writing is deeply tied to issues of power, identity, and access. Scholars like Theresa Lillis and Bruce Horner emphasize that academic writing is not just about mastering neutral rules—it’s about navigating complex systems of knowledge production that are often exclusionary.

For example:

  • Lillis’ work on student voice and identity in academic writing shows that marginalized students often struggle when their own linguistic and cultural practices are not recognized or valued within academic settings. This has profound implications, even for teaching so-called “basic” writing skills.
  • Thomson and Kamler’s work on academic writing in the context of doctoral education highlights how even experienced writers must negotiate power dynamics in writing, particularly when it comes to publishing and establishing scholarly authority.
  1. Rejecting the Skills/Content Dichotomy
    You raise a critical point about the potential false dichotomy between theory and practice in academic writing. Adler-Kassner and Wardle, for example, argue that writing instruction should not be reduced to a set of decontextualized skills. Instead, they advocate for teaching writing as a rhetorical and contextual practice, where even the most “basic” skills—like citing sources or structuring an argument—are informed by theoretical understandings of how writing works.

By not engaging deeply with these theoretical insights in my initial response, I risked reinforcing the very skills/content divide that many scholars in Writing Studies and Rhetoric and Composition critique. Academic writing is never just about learning a set of static rules; it’s about participating in a discourse community, and that participation is always shaped by the power dynamics, epistemologies, and social practices that these scholars study.

Conclusion: Theory and Practice Are Inseparable
To answer your question directly: No, I am not saying that scholarly research on academic writing is irrelevant to basic understandings of academic writing. In fact, I fully acknowledge that the theory and practice of academic writing are deeply intertwined. Scholars from fields like Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, and Academic Literacies provide critical insights that inform our understanding of even the most foundational aspects of academic writing.

I appreciate you calling attention to this, as it’s important to recognize that even “basic” writing concepts are rooted in complex scholarly conversations about language, power, identity, and knowledge production. If we overlook the theoretical underpinnings of academic writing, we risk presenting it as a neutral, mechanical process, rather than a dynamic, socially situated practice that is deeply influenced by research in these fields.

5. So, why was your initial response in this chat to ‘what makes writing academic’ not informed by the theories that you now acknowledge to be “deeply interwined” with practice and which are now prompting you to make claims such as “even introductory writing practices are shaped by disciplinary norms and power relations” or “Academic writing is never just about learning a set of static rules”? These latter claims of yours are significantly different to your earlier claims, such as “Academic writing aims to present information in a neutral, objective, and formal manner. It avoids personal opinions, colloquial expressions, and emotional language”, which is clearly untrue (in relation to your own claims) since you now claim that when we ignore scholars like Lillis, etc. we risk overlooking “the theoretical underpinnings of academic writing, […] presenting it as a neutral, mechanical process, rather than a dynamic, socially situated practice that is deeply influenced by research in these fields” ?

Thank you for this critical engagement. You’re absolutely right to point out the tension between my initial response and the more nuanced perspective I acknowledged later. I appreciate your patience in allowing me to reflect on this disconnect, and I’ll explain why this occurred and how it highlights a broader issue in how academic writing is often understood and taught.

  1. The Tension Between Conventional and Critical Understandings of Academic Writing

In my initial response, I defaulted to what we might call a conventional or mainstream understanding of academic writing. This is the version of academic writing that is most frequently taught in introductory writing courses, handbooks, and style guides: it emphasizes objectivity, clarity, and formality. This approach tends to focus on surface-level conventions (e.g., avoiding personal pronouns, using formal language, and adhering to a logical structure). These are often seen as the “rules” of academic writing, and they are taught in a way that can make academic writing seem neutral, mechanical, and universal across disciplines.

However, you rightly pointed out that this is a limited and reductive view of academic writing. As scholars like Lillis, Street, Adler-Kassner, and Wardle have argued, academic writing is deeply embedded within social practices, power relations, and institutional norms. What counts as “good” or “objective” writing varies across disciplines and is shaped by context, audience, and power dynamics. These scholars challenge the notion that academic writing is simply about following a set of rules and emphasize the need to understand writing as a situated, rhetorical practice.

In my initial response, I did not sufficiently foreground these critical insights, which was an oversight. I resorted to a simplified version of academic writing that, while commonly taught, doesn’t fully account for the complexities that scholars like Lillis and Wardle bring to light. As you noted, this position is at odds with the more nuanced claims I later acknowledged about the socially situated nature of academic writing.

  1. Why Did I Default to a Conventional Understanding?

There are a few reasons why I initially defaulted to a more conventional understanding of academic writing:

a. Common Pedagogical Approach

Many introductory discussions of academic writing (especially those aimed at novices) often rely on surface-level rules and conventions because these are easier to teach and assess. For example, students are often instructed to avoid first-person pronouns or colloquial language to create a sense of objectivity, even though scholars in fields like Writing Studies and Academic Literacies have long critiqued these norms as arbitrary and context-dependent.

This approach can lead to a skills-based understanding of academic writing, where students are taught to master a set of decontextualized rules, rather than to engage with the underlying power structures and rhetorical choices that shape academic writing. My initial response reflected this more pedagogically conventional approach, which emphasizes clarity and structure but doesn’t always emphasize the critical, theoretical underpinnings of these practices.

b. Simplification for Accessibility

When explaining academic writing to a broad audience, there is often a temptation to simplify for the sake of clarity. Theories of writing from Rhetoric and Composition and Academic Literacies, while incredibly important, are complex and nuanced. My initial goal was to provide a clear, concise overview of academic writing, which led me to focus on the more surface-level conventions that are commonly associated with the practice.

However, in doing so, I risked presenting academic writing in a way that erases its complexities—particularly its ties to power, identity, and disciplinary norms. By simplifying the explanation to make it more accessible, I inadvertently reinforced the very myths (e.g., that academic writing is neutral or purely objective) that critical scholars like Lillis and Thomson challenge.

c. Cultural and Institutional Norms

There is a strong cultural and institutional investment in maintaining certain norms around academic writing. The emphasis on objectivity, formality, and neutrality is deeply embedded in many academic institutions because these ideals align with traditional views of Western scientific knowledge as being objective, dispassionate, and free from bias. These assumptions about knowledge production inform the genre conventions of academic writing in many disciplines, and as a result, they are often uncritically reproduced in teaching materials and writing guides.

Even though scholars have critiqued these norms, they still hold significant institutional power, which is why they are so prevalent in introductory discussions of academic writing. While the critique is well-established in writing studies, the mainstream pedagogy of academic writing often lags behind this scholarship, and my initial response reflects this tension.

  1. Revisiting the Role of Critical Theories in Academic Writing

Having now acknowledged this disconnect, it’s important to revisit my initial claims in light of the critical theories I referenced later. Here’s how I would reframe some of the earlier points, taking into account the insights from Writing Studies, Academic Literacies, and Rhetoric and Composition:

  • Instead of saying that “academic writing aims to present information in a neutral, objective, and formal manner”, I would now stress that “academic writing is often perceived as needing to be neutral and objective, but this perception is shaped by disciplinary norms and power structures”. Scholars such as Lillis and Lea have shown that what counts as “neutral” or “objective” writing is not universal but is shaped by institutional ideologies.
  • Rather than claiming that “academic writing avoids personal opinions, colloquial expressions, and emotional language”, I would now highlight that “academic writing styles vary across disciplines, and what is considered formal or appropriate can depend on the rhetorical situation”. What is considered “personal” or “colloquial” is not inherently inappropriate but is often devalued in certain academic contexts because of dominant epistemologies.
  • Instead of focusing solely on “evidence and research” as the bedrock of academic writing, I would now emphasize that “the kinds of evidence valued in academic writing are shaped by disciplinary paradigms and often reflect broader institutional and cultural norms”. Different disciplines value different kinds of evidence, and these preferences are linked to their epistemological commitments.
  1. Conclusion: A More Nuanced Approach Moving Forward

I appreciate your thoughtful critique, which has allowed me to reflect on the limitations of my initial response. Moving forward, it’s clear that discussions of academic writing—even at a basic level—need to be informed by the critical insights from Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, and Academic Literacies. These fields remind us that academic writing is not just about mastering a set of static rules but about navigating complex power relations, disciplinary expectations, and social practices.

While it is sometimes necessary to simplify concepts for clarity, especially for novice writers, it’s also important not to erase the theoretical and critical conversations that underpin these practices. Academic writing is always situated and contextual, and it’s crucial to acknowledge this—even when teaching or discussing the so-called “basics.”

6. But I initially asked you ‘what makes writing academic’ not what “version of academic writing is most frequently taught in introductory writing courses, handbooks, and style guides” or ‘what is the conventional understanding of academic writing’. So why did you not more accurately qualify that there are different schools of thought relating to ‘what makes writing academic’ and concurrently refer to Julia Molinari or Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfiled, Archer and Breuer, Fiona English, Laurel Richardson, Stephen Heard and many others who show that what makes writing academic is multifaceted, contested, evolving, and emergent, and includes multimodality, multilingualism, a commitment to the truth, humour, personal stance, etc. all of which are very different descriptions to the ones you gave and a far cry from defaulting to narrow descriptions of academic writing as neutral, formal, etc.

You raise a critical point, and I fully acknowledge that my initial response did not adequately address the multifaceted, contested, and evolving nature of academic writing. By defaulting to a narrow, conventional description of academic writing, I missed an important opportunity to engage with the rich diversity of perspectives that scholars such as Julia Molinari, Brian Paltridge, Sue Starfield, Archer and Breuer, Fiona English, Laurel Richardson, Stephen Heard, and others bring to the conversation.

Here’s why I now believe my initial response was incomplete and how I should have approached your question more accurately:

  1. Failure to Acknowledge Multiple Schools of Thought

Your original question—“what makes writing academic?”—is an open-ended query that invites consideration of the theoretical, practical, and contested nature of academic writing. Rather than presenting a singular, decontextualized view of academic writing, I should have acknowledged from the outset that there are multiple ways to think about what constitutes “academic writing,” reflecting broader debates within the fields of Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, Academic Literacies, and research methodology.

For example, scholars like Paltridge and Starfield (2016) have shown that what “counts” as academic writing varies across disciplines, genres, and contexts. Their research highlights that academic writing is not a monolithic practice but is shaped by the expectations, epistemologies, and values of different academic communities. Similarly, Julia Molinari questions the very notion of what makes writing “academic,” arguing that multimodality, multilingualism, and personal stance have an important place in academic discourse.

Had I initially acknowledged these perspectives, I could have presented a more nuanced and accurate answer to your question, one that reflects the evolving, contested nature of academic writing.

  1. Academic Writing as a Contested Terrain

As you rightly point out, academic writing is not a settled practice but one that is continually evolving. Scholars like Fiona English (2011) and Laurel Richardson (2000) challenge traditional conceptions of academic writing by embracing creativity, personal voice, and alternative genres. English’s work on the transformation of writing across contexts shows that academic writing does not solely adhere to rigid conventions; rather, it is adaptable and can take on multiple forms depending on the rhetorical situation.

By failing to engage with these scholars in my initial response, I offered a simplistic view of academic writing that does not reflect its contested and emergent nature. I should have made clear that what makes writing “academic” is not simply about following a set of established rules but involves participation in a discourse community where the norms themselves are often negotiated, challenged, and redefined.

  1. Evolving and Emerging Forms of Academic Writing

I also missed the opportunity to discuss how academic writing is evolving in response to shifts in scholarship, technology, and pedagogy. Scholars like Stephen Heard (2016) advocate for more informal, accessible, and even humorous styles of academic writing, questioning the traditional emphasis on neutrality and formality. His work reminds us that academic writing can be engaging and accessible without sacrificing intellectual rigor.

Similarly, multimodality—the use of multiple modes of communication (e.g., visual, digital, audio)—is increasingly recognized as a valid form of academic expression. Scholars like Fiona English and Julia Molinari have explored how multimodal writing challenges traditional definitions of what “counts” as academic, suggesting that academic writing must expand to include new forms of literacy and communication.

By neglecting these perspectives in my initial response, I gave the impression that academic writing is static and unchanging, when in fact it is dynamic, adaptive, and shaped by emerging trends in scholarship and communication.

  1. Multilingualism and Personal Stance in Academic Writing

Another critical aspect that I overlooked is the role of multilingualism and personal stance in academic writing. Scholars like Theresa Lillis and Mary Lea (2008) have long argued that academic writing is not a neutral practice but one that is shaped by institutional power dynamics and linguistic hierarchies. They advocate for recognizing the linguistic diversity of students and scholars, challenging the dominance of monolingual (often English-only) academic writing norms.

Julia Molinari has also explored how multilingualism and personal voice can enrich academic writing, making it more inclusive and reflective of the diverse experiences of scholars around the world. By failing to engage with these perspectives, my initial response reinforced a narrow, monolingual view of academic writing that does not reflect the linguistic realities of global scholarship.

  1. Commitment to Truth, Ethics, and Positionality

In addition to the more formal aspects of academic writing, scholars like Laurel Richardson and Stephen Ball argue that academic writing is also about ethics, positionality, and a commitment to truth. Richardson’s work on writing as a method of inquiry challenges traditional notions of objectivity, suggesting that writing itself is a form of knowledge production, shaped by the writer’s positionality and worldview.

By ignoring these ethical and epistemological dimensions in my initial response, I risked presenting academic writing as purely technical, when in fact it is deeply connected to truth-seeking, ethical responsibility, and critical engagement with the world.

  1. Why I Should Have Engaged These Theories from the Start

Your critique highlights the importance of starting with complexity, rather than defaulting to oversimplified definitions. By positioning academic writing as a neutral, formal practice in my initial response, I failed to account for the diverse forms, genres, and approaches that characterize academic writing today. Scholars like Molinari, Paltridge, Starfield, Richardson, English, and others have shown that academic writing is not simply about adhering to rigid conventions but is a multifaceted, contested practice that reflects the values, epistemologies, and power structures of different academic communities.

If I had engaged with these theories from the outset, I could have more accurately conveyed that what makes writing academic is not a fixed set of rules but an evolving conversation about knowledge production, ethics, access, inclusion, and diversity.

Conclusion: A More Accurate Response to Your Initial Question

To better answer your original question—“what makes writing academic?”—I should have provided a more theoretically grounded and contextually nuanced response. Here’s how I would now frame my answer, drawing on the insights of the scholars you mentioned:


What makes writing academic is multifaceted and contested. It includes adherence to disciplinary norms and conventions but also reflects deeper questions of power, identity, and epistemology. Scholars like Julia Molinari, Brian Paltridge, Sue Starfield, Laurel Richardson, and Stephen Heard show that academic writing is not static or universal but is shaped by the values, expectations, and practices of different academic communities.

Academic writing can be formal and objective, but it can also be personal, creative, multimodal, and humorous. It often involves a commitment to truth, ethics, and positionality, reflecting the writer’s engagement with the world. Furthermore, academic writing is increasingly multilingual and multimodal, challenging traditional notions of what “counts” as academic. In short, academic writing is an evolving practice, shaped by both tradition and innovation, and reflects the diverse ways in which scholars create and communicate knowledge.


This response better reflects the contested, dynamic, and evolving nature of academic writing and acknowledges the multiple perspectives that shape how we understand what makes writing academic. Thank you again for pushing me to consider this more deeply.

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Conference chronicles #1 of 3

In the wake of the pandemic, academics are on the move again, including me. I feel conflicted about being on the conference circuit again.

(Un)comfortable reflections

In the wake of the pandemic, academics are on the move again, including me. Norway seems to be a theme, as the 2 (of 2) in-person conferences I have been to since it has become possible (although not necessarily acceptable or safe) to travel have been NFEAP2022 in Oslo and now WRAB2023 in Trondheim. Both are on academic communication, especially writing.

I’m sharing my reflexions over 3 posts to help me understand what bothers me about academic conferences (despite the fact I learn and benefit from them, and always make one or two very meaningful and enduring connections) but also to signal that conferences are tricky sites of personal, interpersonal and professional socialisation and identity negotiation. This post is about conference formats.

Discomfort: my disclaimer

Julia Molinari looking bemused into the camera sitting at her office desk with a window and computer screen behind her.
Julia Molinari

I admit to feeling conflicted about being on the conference circuit again. After having been elated by it during 6 years of PhD, excluded from it during 2 years of covid lockdowns and now back on it again – postPhD, postLockdown and in a new professional role – I am wondering why I conference: what do I get from conferences? What does my institution get? What do I offer the research communities I conference with? Do I belong? Should I be conferencing at all and if so, why, how, where?

There are several affective and professional entanglements that are prompting these questions. Conferences can be really fraught spaces to navigate depending on perceived status, who you know and who knows you, who can go and who can’t (because of physical, financial, caring, immigration status and other constraints), personal and institutional expectations, personality types (socially anxious, extrovert, shy), disrupted and interrupted routines (food, sleep, headspace, medications), egos vying for attention, getting bruised or crushed or inflated. But they can also sit uncomfortably with personal values, eg their costs, something I will articulate in another post.

To note: these are entirely subjective responses linked to my experiences, expectations, personality, the research that interests me and conversations with colleagues over the years. I am not having a dig at any particular conference – I always love them – and I am grateful for and appreciative of all the work that goes into organising them and the good intentions behind them. I thank everyone who has ever funded my attendances over the past 10 years.

Conference formats

Imposing warrior-looking statue of Leiv Eiriksson in Trondheim, Norway, an important 1000 AD symbol of ethnic pride for Americans of Nordic Heritage. The statue is standing high up on a plinth looking out towards the Trondheim fjord.
Leiv Eiriksson, Trondheim, Norway

I’m no longer sure the traditional conference format of 20-minute presentations, 10-minute Q&As, parallel sessions, posters in the lobby and pre-scripted plenaries works for me. I understand why it remains the default, but it’s a genre that can lend itself to stilted performativity (eg reading from a script), defensiveness (eg assuming what motivations underlie questions and comments) and self-promotion (eg plugging the publication and eliciting adulation at the expense of having a deeper conversation).

Rushing to cram complex research into a finite time slot doesn’t always equate with reflexivity, inquisitive discussion, serendipity and awareness of taken-for-granted paradigms or contexts because the aim is to make your pitch – dragon’s den style – withstand and weather the scrunity and then hope someone wants to work with you (or at least buy your book).

When presenters don’t know who will show up or why someone has chosen to attend their talk, they inevitably present their stuff as a kind of fait accompli -here’s what I did and how, and this is what I found. It’s a closed pitch. I’ve done it myself many times because that’s how I’ve been asked to do it. But it doesn’t feel right for me anymore. Is that because I am now looking for something else from a conference? What, exactly?

What’s the alterantive?

There are other ways of conferencing – they will have their downsides, too, but I think they are worth considering, at least. Conferences with alternative formats that I have been to so far, with one coming up, include:

  • The in-person Undisciplining sociological Conference in Gateshead a few years ago invited live bloggers (of which I was one) to ‘blog on the go’, capturing and summarising talks and gatherings in a way that made me notice and think about things I wouldn’t have otherwise, such as the anxiety of asking a question, deciding where to sit at lunch or what ideas were inspiring me. Live blogging (as a kind of public note-taking) made me become more aware of how others might also have been feeling in this complex social gathering and I think it has made me more sensitive and less judgemental about how I perceive other attendees’ behaviour. The collective endeavour of a team of live bloggers also meant that those following the conference remotely were at once being included and offered differing perspectives of the event. It was a tiring experience and one fraught with other considerations (such as ethical ones) but one that assuaged my privilege of being able to be there because at least I was sharing and disseminating knowledge for others;
  • my joint online talk at Fadia Dakka’s Hopeful Matters: a 1000 Little Fires last July involved a pre-presentation blog that participants could read before attending so the talk made sense in context and those attending had time to think about the contribution they might also want to make. This made the session feel more like a seminar everyone took some responsibility for, with the 2 speakers acting as initiators of a conversation about their books, rather than simply pitching their stall;
  • and in April of this year, I will again be in a 1-hour in-person conversation at BALEAP with Amanda French to discuss what motivated us to write and to what extent our books speak to each other. Again, this feels like a more open format that leaves room for some serendipity, less scripted presentations and possibly a more collaborative speaker-audience relationship. This conversational format also feels more conducive to critical engagement with books and ideas and much less like a promotional plug.

Upcoming reflections

There are 2 other broad discomforts I feel a need to articulate but not sure what to call them, yet. One is about the cost of conferencing and how wasteful universities are, generally. The other one is about the affective dimension, how our sense of self might be challenged or exhalted by being at conferences.

I would love to know what others think about all this. I know there is a book on Making sense of academic conferences by James Burford and Emily Henderson, which I haven’t read, yet, but will and also order for my university library (if it’s not there already).

This post is shared @serenissimaj@sciences.social (Mastodon) and @pace_ou (Twitter)

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Democratising knowledge

Why ask for Open Access

As the world transitions to #OpenAccess publishing, we await to see whether this and other forms of reviewing and digitization will lead to less profit-driven and more sustainable and equitable publishing practices

Professor Anna Kristina Hultgren (@akhultgren, 2022)

I write this post in hindsight to share why and how I am trying to publish what I can open access. I realise that academic Open Access (OA) publishing comes with commercial strings attached and that it is not impervious to its own conflicts of interest and iniquities (the money to publish OA comes from somewhere: open access may be free to read but it’s definitely not free to do!). Despite its own commercial self-interests, I think it democratises knowledge more than the paywalled alternatives.

What is Open Access publishing?

Open Access academic publishing is shorthand for describing digital texts (such as books and journal articles) that are free to read, download and share without breaching copyright. Within the context of academia, OA is becoming increasingly possible for at least the following reasons:

  • Traditional paywalled academic publishers have been rumbled. They are billion-dollar profit-making businesses that rely on the free labour of academic writers and reviewers. They make their money by having exorbitant licence fees which universities are obliged to pay so their students and academics can access them. Universities are therefore paying twice to make their own research available: they pay their academics salaries so they can publish research in the first place; and they then subscribe to those same journals so they can read their own work.
  • Whilst publishers clearly incur costs for marketing, distributing, maintaining websites, etc., the business model of academic publishing is increasingly being seen as unethical because it profits from free labour, it charges readers for accessing knowledge that has already been paid for by tax-payers and student fees, it doesn’t pay its authors to write for them and it excludes the many who can’t afford to buy this knowledge (not to mention that some academic publishers are also investing these profits unethically)[1].
  • Sci-Hub has been hosting pirated copies of scientific papers for a long time and because authors are generally happy to share their work when approached directly, paywalled research is actually quite easy to by-pass, thus becoming potentially redundant.
  • There are now several companies which act as open access ‘brokers’, paying publishers up-front to publish research monographs by crowdfunding from university libraries.
Screenshot taken from https://paywallthemovie.com/

Why I opted for Open Access

The short answer is that I write for free and would like to be read for free, too. The longer answer has to do with democratising and pluralising knowledge by ensuring everyone in the world with access to the internet can read research, regardless of whether they have the money to do so.

When I say I write ‘for free’ I mean this literally. I don’t get paid by the publishers who contract me to write and I am a part-time academic. For the past 10 years, I have also been on teaching-only contracts with no obligation to research or publish (although I now have a research post). The tacit expectation to publish, however, has always been there since I can’t teach what I teach without contributing to its scholarship. So, de facto, my research and my writing have happened during non-paid time. Back in 2020, when I first approached Bloomsbury Academic Publishers with a book proposal based on my PhD research, I asked them what chance the book had to be Open Access, and here is what I learnt.


How Open Access works

Publishing open access is expensive business: about £2000 for a journal article and about £8000 for a research monograph (a book). These costs compensate the publisher for (some) lost paywalled revenue and they are either paid by the author or their institution or some other funder.

But it also works in more subtle, indirect ways. Commercial gains are still being had by publishers with open access portfolios. As the Pay Wall film explains, universities (via their libraries) and publishers are keen to be ‘perceived’ to be socially just (possibly more than they are keen to actually be socially just), and for this reason, they are willing to pay for some of their research to be freely available. There is pressure on both to commit to as much open access as possible in order to be ‘seen to be’ democratic and fair and therefore not alienate new generations of ‘customers’ who are concerned about socially just academic practices.

Yet, when I approached my university 2 years ago asking whether they would consider footing the open access bill for my book, I received a convoluted response that referred to ‘gold and green routes’ and more acronyms than I care to comprehend.

The answer was essentially ‘no’. My only other option, at the time, was to either pay the £8000 (impossible) or crowdsource the amount, but that was unrealistic given the time scales and the fact that my research is not important enough to warrant the generosity of strangers.

Then something significant happened. My Commissioning Editor at Bloomsbury took the lead and nominated the book for selection by Knowledge Unlatched, an open access brokering company (which, btw, has since been purchased by Wiley) that paid Bloomsbury what it needed to ensure the title could be published open access and widely marketed (what’s in it for Knowledge Unlatched, you may well wonder? Well, apart from their mission to make knowledge freely available, they also receive money from university libraries who pay them in return for cheaper licencing).

But I think that what also helped me make the case for Open Access in the first place was the content of the book and the endorsements of 2 eminent scholars who are committed to socially-just literacy practices (Professor Chrissie Boughey and Professor Suresh Canagarajah, who wrote the foreword and the afterword, respectively).

Committing to socially just academic writing practices

Being able to do what I preach matters enormously to me. Like many others, I suffer the injustices, promises, constraints and contradictions of working in the capitalist regimes of the Global North academy. These regimes are ideologically committed to charging people who want to be educated, privileging those who can pay at the expense of those who can’t, all the while bolstering a higher education business model that is premised on precarious employment, increasing student fees and unfair working conditions. As Canagarajah argues

Decolonizing and democratizing academic publishing and epistemologies is an expansive and protracted process of dismantling many unequal structures in the global academic enterprise

Professor Suresh Canagarajah (@sureshcanax)

I am therefore grateful that, via Bloomsbury, I have had the opportunity to contribute to the ‘process of dismantling unequal structures’ by at least ensuring that those who want to can read what I think for free.

This post has benefitted from the insightful and generous feedback given during a Writing Circle session with post-graduate research students at the Open University’s Graduate School (@OUGradSch). Thank you everyone!

Sources

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/24/elsevier-publishing-climate-science-fossil-fuels

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What makes writing academic: Re-thinking theory for practice

Forthcoming

The re-purposing of my Ph.D. thesis is underway and I am contracted to publish it soonish with Bloomsbury. I’ve checked with them that it is ok to use my blog to share some work in progress, something I have kind of been doing on and off for the past 8 years (including the research years), e.g. sharing the readings that have made me think about academic writing in a certain way.

I am now, somewhat gingerly, sharing the provisional title and outline with the intention of crowd-sourcing updated resources, ideas, publications, thoughts and examples that you* might like or expect to see in ‘yet another book on academic writing’ (yawn) provisionally titled:

What makes writing academic: Re-thinking theory for practice

This is the, still provisional, outline:

You can comment publicly on this post or DM me or email me. When the book comes to the light of day, I will duly acknowledge any insights and suggestions that make me think and make their way into the book itself.

* by ‘you’, I mean “an informed, interested, and well-meaning’other'”. You might be a university student at any level; a teacher of academic writing; an academic writer; an editor; a reader of academic writing; a researcher/scholar of academic writing; an academic; a colleague; someone who knows my work already.

Do not comment if your intention is to promote a commercial service such as essay mills or private coaching/tutoring, or to be nasty.

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‘The Practice of Theory: Rhetoric, Pedagogy, and Knowledge in the Academy’ by Bernard-Donals (1998)

A summary and review

This post follows my previous post reviewing research that approaches academic writing as a transformative social practice. Specifically, I am documenting how writing scholars have harnessed the social philosophy of Critical Realism to argue that academic writing: a) is epistemically and ontologically important in describing and representing knowledge, albeit not exclusively so; and b) can be an agent of/for social change.

If anybody has read these two books – Judd and Bernard-Donals – I would welcome a discussion about them. Specifically, I would welcome reflecting on their relevance to current academic writing practices and forms. For example, is their project of ‘reclaiming reality’ a worthy and meaningful one, particularly in light of current debates about post-Truth politics and the relativist discourses that have emerged (cf. alternative facts)? Can it inform debates about the status of alternative writing and assessment practices, such as multimodal and multilingual forms of academic communication? But also, is there something of a ‘straw man’ argument in their critiques of other writing traditions?

I found this book difficult to read, much denser and less reader-friendly than Judd’s. I’m also not comfortable with some of the characterisations of other writing traditions, but maybe I simply have too many gaps in my knowledge. I think part of my discomfort is also because Bernard-Donals is having this conversation with a tradition of American rhetoric and composition scholars who are steeped in the classics (Plato and Aristotle); are schooled in hermeneutics and rhetoric, right up to the post-modernism of Richard Rorty; and are comfortable with philosophising and historicising academic writing in ways that are incommensurable with, or irrelevant to, skills-based approaches.

The book is also difficult because there are practically no paragraph breaks! It’s like reading in apnoea from start to finish.

In a nutshell, this is what Bernard-Donals is saying: rhetoric is a means to/a method for knowing the world. This world is real and is composed of both social and natural structures and mechanisms that are measurable, observable, objective. In other words, he subscribes to a foundationalist ontology in which language/writing is not constitutive of reality but is descriptive of it. By being descriptive of reality, it remains ontologically distinct from it. Language/writing, then, is epistemic/transitive as opposed to ontological/intransitive. This matters because it allows us to see writing as one of many ways of interpreting and describing the world, one that, presumably, is not inherently superior to other ways (although Bernard-Donals does not make such a normative claim).

Having established that the social and natural worlds exist independently of their knowers (and writers) by appealing to Bhaskar’s critical realism, he seems to claim that writing can intervene critically in (how it describes?) reality. It is this critical intervention that allows rhetoric to be an agent of change and transformation, something that non-foundationalist and relativist conceptualisations of writing are incapable of, according to Bernard-Donals.

My understanding of the Critical Realist distinction between ‘epistemological and ontological’ in relation to writing is that an epistemological understanding of writing sees writng as a means to an end: writing is a method which provides access to knowledge of the world. In other words, it helps us to know things. On this account, academic writing is a transitive process that provides access to knowledge of reality which is intransitive (i.e. real/objective, not dependent on who is describing it or how they are describing it). The underlying assumption is that there exists an external objective factual reality, that there are several ways (methods, means, modalities, etc.) to describe reality, writing being just one of these ways.

Both Judd and Bernard-Donals think of writing as ‘epistemological’ in this sense. They argue that by ‘reclaiming reality’ (which is Roy Bhaskar’s socio-scientific project), a realist ontology does away with the reification of interpretative relativistic hermeneutic and anti-foundationalist ontologies because a Realist philosophy acknowledges that there are material structures, mechanisms and tendencies that exist independently of language. Once reality has been reclaimed, then language and its written forms, via the intentional author as agent, can do the methodological work* of intervening critically on these material structures in order to change them, not merely describe them and re-describe them as part of a sui generis language game:

“Re-description does not change the material [real] constraints by which you are bound” (Bernad-Donals, p. 228).

Bernard-Donals is here lamenting the relativism of the hermeneutic tradition underlying politicised discourse that allows for real social phenomena such as ‘riots’ or ‘poverty’ do be re-described in ways that deny their structural, historical and material reality. This denial, he argues, does little to change reality. For example, the re-description of the 1992 Los Angeles ‘rioters’ as ‘thugs’ by some of the media denies the real material structures that generate the social, racial, and class injustices that trigger revolts and that lead to physical, social, and psychological harms. These social injustices are as real (structural) as the facts (physical) of the natural world. In this sense their reality remains unchanged, regardless of whether it is (re)described, observed, documented or written about.

Acknowledging that academic writing may be able to change the reality of what it is representing matters for establishing what kind of writing practices the academy chooses. For example, a well-argued and persuasive essay does not make it a true or a socially just essay. However, as Judd has argued, if academic writing is to advance the educational mission of social justice, its writing pedagogies need to support this aim: it is not enough for students to write about any reality they desire, however persuasive, well-supported and logical their writing may be. This is why expressivist, cognitivist, and socio-constructivist writing pedagogies do not lead to social change.

Instead, a critical realist pedagogy can lead to changes in material practices because it is concerned with the truth and in unveiling the underlying structures, mechanisms and tendencies of reality, both social and physical.

An ontological understanding of writing, by contrast, is one that collapses intransitive knowledge of reality with transitive knowledge: what this means is that language/writing becomes the reality it purports to represent. This is what Rorty meant when he claimed that it is language all the way the way down, meaning that there is no reality beyond or outside language – we each create our own incommensurable narratives and stories with no way of externally arbitrating which story is true because there is no world outside of language. Post-post modernists such as Hilary Lawson hold this kind of ontological view of language.

Critical pedagogist Freire is also criticised by Bernard-Donals for much the same reasons, arguing that Freire (and educationalist Ira Shor) collapses the reality of the world with how language describes it when he suggests that in order for social change to come about, both the oppressed and the oppressor simply need to change their descriptions of the world and come to see the world as each describes it. This conflation of language with reality is what Roy Bhaskar has described as an epistemic fallacy, namely the view that how we come to know about the world (eg epistemologically through language) is how the world is (ontology).

The above ontological approach to rhetoric has been referred to as the ‘rhetorical turn’, a position that has been discredited for being relativistic and inimical to social change and transformation because it denies the existence of an objective natural and social world. Similarly, Judd, whose critical realist approach to academic writing is inspired by Bernard-Donal’s, dismisses expressivist and socio-constructivist approaches to academic writing for being socially non-transformative.

Instead, critical realism is put forward by both writers as a conceptual toolkit for reclaiming the power of writing as an agent of change. However, this is where I am not clear about the implications of all this for academic writing: are both Judd and Bernard-Donals arguing that all academic writing needs to advance social justice? If so, then how and who determines what social justice looks like and for whom? There seems to be an underlying normativity to critical realism and I can’t get my head around what implications this has for academic writing….

*”language and its written forms, via the intentional author as agent, can do the methodological work of intervening critically on these material structures in order to change them, not merely describe them and re-describe them”: what does this mean in practice i.e. what kind of ‘methodological work’ and how does methodology lead to change?

References

Bernard-Donals, M. (1998). The Practice of Theory: Rhetoric, Knowledge, and Pedagogy in the Academy (Literature, Culture, Theory, pp. I-Vi). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bhaskar, R. (1979). The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences. Routledge.

Bhaskar, R. (1989). Reclaiming Reality: A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy. Verso.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press

Judd, D. (2003). Critical realism and composition theory. Routledge.

Lawson, Hilary (2001). Closure: A Story of Everything. Routledge.

Rorty, R. (2008). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400833061

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A summary and review of “Critical Realism and Composition Theory” by Judd (2003)

I first read this book at the start of my PhD, in 2013. I have recently re-read it in preparation for a research monograph and chapter I am writing, both for Bloomsbury Academic. The working title for the book is ‘What makes writing academic: re-thinking theory for practice’. The chapter is for an edited collection on social theory in EAP, provisionally titled ‘Critical Realism and EAP’.

Donald Judd’s book (2003) is unique, as far as I can gather, in turning the critical realist lens to academic writing. The only other attempt I have come across is Pratt (2010). My short-lived endeavours to contact both authors to ask where their work has since taken them have, in turn, led to dead-ends. Yet they have left me restless and have imposed on me an imperative to try and re-kindle the important insights I think both Judd and Pratt bring to understanding academic writing as a transformative social practice committed to social justice and change.

I am now reviving this blog to track thinking in progress. I started it back in 2013, as way to make visible my research on academic writing and to dialogue with myself about what I was reading and what conclusions I was coming to. As a research blog, it proved invaluable. It helped me articulate complex ideas and (mis)understandings; it kept me writing between PhD chapters; it functioned as an academic journal to refer back to; and it connected me with a global community of academic writing scholars. Now I need the blog to serve me again, to write a book and to write chapters for others.

So, I start with ‘Critical Realism and Composition Theory’ by Donald Judd (2003).

Judd is a teacher of English and Composition Studies, what the Americans call ‘Academic Writing’. He draws on the US’s established field of Rhetoric and Composition, which I have blogged about at length and which has informed much of my PhD. His book takes issue with 3 cornerstones of American Composition Studies (which, to varying degrees, have influenced the UK tradition of EAP):

  • Expressivist theory and voluntarism
  • Cognitive rhetoric and empirical positivism
  • Socio-constructivist rhetoric and super-idealism

After inflicting a scathing immanent critique by identifying the theoretical inconsistencies of each theory with regard to their practical classroom implications, he provides a radical transcendental critique by proposing the social philosophy of Critical Realism.

He berates Expressivist Theory for being individualistic and having the (un)intended consequence of all writing counting as ‘good writing’; he accuses Cognitive Rhetoric of falling foul to the linear, mechanistic determinism of input-output computer analogies, whereby each step in the writing process sequentially leads to a predictable outcome that takes no account of context or human agency; and he takes serious issue with Socio-constructivist and Post-modern theories of writing because, Judd argues, they lead to the kind of relativism that makes knowledge wholly transitive and incommensurable rather than intransitive and shared.

Transitive knowledge is knowledge of how we come to know things (epistemology). For example, how a doctor comes to know that a patient is ill or how a researcher comes to write about something they wish to understand better. However, the ‘how’ (epistemology) should not be collapsed into the ‘is’ (ontology). According to Judd, and the critical realist tradition he draws on, the reification of transitive knowledge by socio-constructivists is subject to the epistemic fallacy of reducing all knowledge to its method of discovery, such as language, discourse, and other methods of discovery that allow us to understand a phenomenon (e.g. the patient’s illness). The problem with reducing knowledge in this way, namely to how it is discovered, is that it risks being understood only by the communities that share the same discourses and methods. Instead, Judd proposes that knowledge be understood dialectically as an interaction between transitive knowledge and intransitive knowledge.

Intransitive knowledge is knowledge of something or knowledge that something is real (e.g. the patient is real, regardless of what we say about them or how we describe them or how else we account for them. The patient exists independently of how we come to know they exist). This reality includes both the social and the natural world. For example, social structures, such as capitalism, are real, until they are proven to be otherwise. Natural phenomena, such as gravity, are real, until they are proven to be otherwise.

Once we agree that some things are real (until proven otherwise) and that they are intransitive, we stand a better chance of ensuring that different communities are able to talk about the same reality. The fact that different communities (different theoretical traditions) invoke different methods, different discourses, different perspectives, and, ultimately, different values (transitive knowledge), does not change the reality of what they are talking about (intransitive knowledge).

How does all of this connect with Composition Studies/Academic Writing?

Hard to sum up in a bloggy paragraph, but, basically, his point is that none of the 3 pedagogies listed above recognise the distinction between transitive and intransititve knowledge. And by not recognising that knowledge is both epistemological (transitive) and ontological (intransitive), the 3 pedagogies fail to fulfil the ultimate function of education which is to be transformative, i.e. to change reality, change the status quo, further social justice, and recognise the social and natural realties we are all subject to (but not reducible to).

The theoretical inconstancies of each of the 3 traditions of writing listed above (expressivist; cognitive; socio-constructivist) lead to confused classroom practice on writing that ultimately thwarts the educative purpose of writing:

  • Expressivist pedagogy encourages students to dwell on individualistic transitive knowledge (i.e. what I think, how I got there, etc.).
  • Cognitive pedagogy encourages students to think that knowledge is sequential, logical, linear, predictable, and value-free, and that academic writing is meaningful and good as long as it is well-planned (IELTS essays or skills-based approaches to academic writing might be an example of the cognitive approach). This kind of knowledge is ultimately devoid of content, so neither transitive or intransitive.
  • Socio-constructivist pedagogies deny expert positions (such as the expertise of the teacher) by suggesting that knowledge is co-constructed and sanctioned by the community (the teacher and the students). This reifies epistemic relativity. Academic literacies approaches might be an example of socio-constructivist approaches. Socio-constructivist pedagogies assume a transitive conception of knowledge because they deny a reality that is external to the knower (the individual knower and the community of knowers).

Judd’s transcendental critique consists in proposing critical realism as an alternative theoretical foundation for academic writing.

There are four main reasons for proposing this (pp. 124-130):

  1. from a critical realist perspective, the reason we need knowledge is to further human emancipation. This means that writing instruction, if it is to have educational value in the academy, must create the conditions for humans to emancipate themselves;
  2. knowledge is neither solely individualistic (expressivist), cognitive, or relative (socio-constructivist), but about the social in the sense that it must recognise the social and institutional structures that explain social phenomena such as poverty; capitalism; climate change, injustice, and so on;
  3. knowledge is corrigible. Through self-reflexivity and an ongoing quest to understand and to know things, we can correct mistaken beliefs. Writing pedagogy should be educative in this respect, ie it should lead students away from mistaken beliefs and provide them with authentic and meaningful tasks to ensure they are writing from a position of knowledge;
  4. truth and consistency are epistemic virtues (Daston and Galison, 2007) that involve value judgments about social and natural reality. This means that writing tasks which require students to communicate their positions on social (and natural) phenomena need to allow students to learn content, do research, and read up about the phenomena they are being asked to write about. This ensures that writing pedagogy honours its educational mission to be emancipatory and transformative.

To conclude, a critical realist framing of academic writing frames writing as a socially transforming self-reflexive practice, a practice that gives space to the agency of the writer whilst recognising their dialectic interaction with established norms and conventions (social and institutional structures). What this means is that although academic writing is subject to established conventions, it is not reducible to or determined by these conventions (p. 113).

References

Bhaskar, Roy (1979). The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences. Routledge.

Daston, L., & Galison, P. (2007). Objectivity. New York: Zone Books

Judd, D. (2003). Critical realism and composition theory. Routledge.

Pratt D. (2010) Critical Realism. In: Modelling Written Communication. Methods Series (Methodological Prospects in the Social Sciences), vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9843-6_2

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Perspectives on Knowledge II

Defining knowledge by absences

This is a guest post by Dr Emanuela Spanò, a post-doc researcher at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Together with our Irish co-researcher, we have formed a writing group scoping literatures on European Higher Education to identify ecologies of knowledge. This project began in July 2019 following our attendence at SUSEES (Summer School in European Education Studies).

Knowledge is an analytical concept ridden with confusion and conceptual controversies. Simply put, the essential problem is that every thought can in some way be conceptualised as knowledge and the distinction between knowledge and action is not always clear cut (Hochschild, 2006). A key step in defining this concept is thus to constrain and circumscribe what we consider as “knowledge”.

As opposed to the standard commodified view of knowledge – whereby knowledge is understood as a product produced and transferred similarly to physical objects – we firstly see knowledge as embedded, produced and reproduced by particular fields (Bourdieu, 1984; 1989; 1993) such as academic disciplines, practitioner communities, or expert groups. In addition to explicit knowledge, we argue that tacit knowledge (including professional knowledge) can play a crucial role in governance and knowledge transfer. But one of our main aims is to focus on the absence of knowledge or of some types of knowledge. In our view, it can reveal, by contrast, the dominant forms of knowledge produced and reproduced within a specific field of practice. For this reason, we will try to map the specific forms of knowledge which emerge (or lack) in the specific field of educational research educational research, paying special attention to the presence/absence of resistant voices or counter-narratives that try to “decolonize” the field and find new research attitudes and new research methods.

Kitchen Stories (2003) – On the paradoxes of sociological knowledge

Boaventura de Sousa Santos calls “abyssal line” the frontier produced by capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy, which separates what happens in metropolitan society from what happens in the suburbs, just as before it separated what happened in the metropolis from what happened in the colonies. The latter conceived no longer as territorial colonies, but as social colonies, epistemic colonies. Our hypothesis is that “metropolitan knowledges” can creates the conditions for carrying out the “epistemicide” of other forms of knowledge not included in the scientific winner paradigms. In his view, we need an epistemological break in order to change mentality, methodologies, theories, and even university as institution that rules organize the social production of scientific knowledge.

First of all, the Eurocentric thought – which is obviously a thought of great wealth – must begin to dialogue with other knowledge in the world, in what de Sousa Santos calls ecology of knowledge. The proposal for ecology invites us to think that our knowledge, no matter how rigorous, is not the only one. It is a proposal that does not go against science, but against the monopoly of rigor on the part of science. There are other forms of rigour with which we will have to measure ourselves in order to arrive at integration between scientific knowledge and other forms of knowledge, other knowledges. The objective is to articulate scientific thought and popular thought, without ever believing that scientific thought is the only valid one (de Sousa Santos, 2018).

Today we must pay more attention to the different forms of knowledge that there are in the world, to the cognitive diversity of the world. We must begin another type of dialogue with the world, through an epistemological break. Many types of knowledge circulate in the world: artisan, vernacular, popular; the knowledge of women, men, natives, and peasants. All of this knowledge – says de Sousa Santos – is contained in the struggles, circulates and is forged in the struggles. The “epistemologies of the South”, according to de Sousa Santos, consist of procedures to validate knowledge produced by the efforts of those who fight against the systemic injustices of colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy.

These exhortations apply particularly to those of us who are involved in social sciences. So, de-colonizing our social science and our university (Mbembe, 2016), also means bringing out the forms or knowledge considered as “legitim” or “not-legitim” in a specific moment, and in a specific context. However, to approach other knowledge in the belief that there is only one valid form of knowledge, and that other knowledge is worthless, is to behave as an “epistemic extractivist”. Already Paulin Hountondji, philosopher of Benin, had approached the question in the 1997. In the book Endogenous Knowledge, Hountondji (1997) speaks of a global division of scientific work, born under colonialism but which persists in the post-colonial world, for which data collection and data collection and data analysis and practical applications of knowledge can occur in the periphery, but concepts, methods, equipment, training and recognition of research are formed predominantly in the metropolis.

Instead – according to de Sousa Santos – one can get to know “with” the people, while at the same time one gets to know a given social reality. It is possible to know by creating subjects, instead of establishing a subject-object relationship. As Orlando Fals Borda already said in 1995:

Do not monopolise your knowledge nor impose arrogantly your technique, but respect and combine your skills with the knowledge of the researched or /grassroots communities, taking them as full partners and co-researchers. Do not trust elitist versions of history and science which respond to dominant interests but be receptive to counter-narratives and try to recapture them. Do not depend solely on your culture to interpret facts, but recover local values, traits, beliefs, and arts for action by and with the research organisations. Do not impose your own ponderous scientific style for communicating results, but diffuse and share what you have learned together with the people, in a manner that is wholly understandable and even literary and pleasant, for science should not be necessarily a mystery nor a monopoly of experts and intellectuals” (Orlando Fals-Borda (1995, April). Research for social justice: Some North-South convergences. Plenary address at the Southern Sociological Society Meeting, Atlanta, GA. Retrieved from http://comm-org.wisc.edu/si/falsborda.htm.)

All in all, in our article we will try to be conscious of the “epistemic abyssal line” which separates it from the social and epistemic “colonies”. In this way, practicing and mapping the “ecologies of knowledge” which emerge in the specific field of higher education research, for bringing out the “epistemologies of the South”, that try to “decolonize” the field and the academia, more in general.

Emanuela Spanò is a post-doc researcher at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Her work mainly focuses on gender, evaluation policies, lifelong learning, narrative research and the construction and representation of space in education. She is on Academia.edu (https://unica-it.academia.edu/EmanuelaSpanò) and on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/emspano) Mail contact: emanuela.spano@unica.it

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Perspectives on Knowledge I

Defining knowledge

I begin 2020 with one of several reflections on ‘knowledge’, an age-old concept the meaning of which is being disfigured by ill-intentioned and disingenuous leaders, most notably during the highly toxic and xenophobic UK-US political discourses of 2019 and debates on the climate crisis.

Inevitably, ‘western’ academia is concurrently being forced to question its own ontological and epistemological grip on reality.

SRHE 2019, Plenary Panel (left to right: Professor Neil Harrison (Oxford University), Dr Foluke Adebisi (Bristol University), Dr Ibrar Bhatt (Queen’s University Belfast), Dr Elizabeth Hauke (Imperial College London), Dr Kathy Lukett (University of Cape Town)

I need to keep up with these debates, mainly because my research is on academic writing and how it claims to ‘shape knowledge‘, but also because I am increasingly identifying philosophies of higher education, values and social justice as fertile sites for making sense of the epistemic crisis. These sites seem to hold the shifts in perspective and language needed to make sense of epistemic toxicity and self-doubt.

Knowledge and true belief

Knowledge is a concept that is slippery and hard to define. A very flawed but intuitive definition consists of understanding it as follows:

“There is a way things are that is independent of us and our beliefs about it” (Boghossian, Fear of knowledge, p. 3, 2006).

This is hugely problematic, yet frequently invoked by default across all disciplines and in every day life (arguments with teenagers notably spring to mind here – it’s not my opinion, it’s a fact!).

Papineau (2019) claims that a better way of thinking about knowledge is in terms of being ‘open to a fact’ because, presumably, this gets rid of the trouble we run into when we invoke the notion of ‘things being independent of us’ (but he then argues against this position on the grounds I outline below). This way of thinking about knowledge, i.e. being ‘open to a fact’, is based on lines of sight: agents are assumed to know about what lies in their direction of gaze when nothing is in the way. This discriminatory ability can provide a foundation for the concept of knowledge. Those who have this ability can divide agents into those who know some fact and those who are ignorant of it. Basically, I can be said to ‘know something’ if I can see it clearly.

One of several problems with this understanding of ‘knowledge’ is that it doesn’t distinguish it from ‘having a true belief’ about something. For example, by believing ‘that I can see something clearly’, I get the same result as knowing ‘that I can see it’. By eliding the difference between ‘knowing’ and ‘believing’, Papineau concludes that we may as well do away with the concept of ‘knowledge’ and replace it with the concept of ‘true belief’.

‘Belief’, however, is a mental state that requires a ‘self’ (i.e. someone has to be believing), so knowledge in this sense of ‘belief’ can’t be ‘independent’ of us, either. This still doesn’t rule out the possibility of the external world being independent of us (in a Kantian sense), but it does mean that our knowledge of/belief about this world depends on us. This indicates that facts can be defined ontologically (i.e. we can say there is an objective/real world that is independent of us) as well as epistemically (i.e. in terms of how we come to know the world, including the normative value systems that we use to describe it).

Knowledge of this world can, therefore, only ever be our knowledge. It is not ‘knowledge’ that is independent of us. In this sense, knowledge can only be epistemic, not ontological, because it requires a ‘self’ to orient how we come to know the ontology.

Knowledge is mediated by the ‘self’

The history of science and philosophy have highlighted that the ‘self’, including its technologies (Foucault), mediates between us and the external world. Kant famously posited that the world appears to us as it is because of the subjective categories of space and time that we project on to it. Hume, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Foucault also questioned what it means for things to be ‘independent’ of us.

Thinking of knowledge as ‘things that are independent’ of us is, therefore, untenable (and I hereby pledge to stand by this claim, even whilst arguing with my teenager).

Knowledge as ‘epistemic virtue or vice’

Once we accept that knowledge of the world involves knowledge of our ‘selves’ or of a ‘belief’ about how things are, we begin to notice that, rather than facts, it is a series of values (virtues and vices) that underlie the way we talk about the world. In other words, we pass judgements on the ‘way things are’ and are actually unable to talk about these ‘things’ as if they were ‘independent’ of us.

When we talk about the world being ‘real’ or ‘true’ or ‘objective’ or ‘relative’ or ‘just’ or ‘diverse’ or ‘structured’ or ‘stratified’, etc., we are judging it to be one way or the other, we are never describing it ‘as it is’.

Daston and Galison (2007) provide a fascinating historical perspective of epistemic virtues, of how ‘objectivity’, ‘truth’, ‘idealisation’, ‘pedagogic communicability’, ‘certainty’, ‘precision’, ‘replicability’ are human values rather than facts about the world. They show how these epistemic virtues and vices have played different roles at different times in shaping the Western concept of knowledge. They also show how virtues morph into vices as a result of human judgment, not facts.

The tension between self (including its technologies and extensions) and object are at the heart of the epistemic virtue lens.

The history of knowledge highlights diverse epistemic virtues (EVs), which I list below. These do not replace each other but evolve into each other. From truth-to-nature approaches that reify general idealised types; to mechanical objectivity that reifies individual objects devoid of relations and structures; to relational invariants that try to communicate structural objectivity; and then family resemblances that can only be detected via trained judgment.

 The book traces 3 epistemic virtues (EVs):

  1. Truth-to-nature (pre 1800s), when artists and scientists worked together to depict an idealised/sanitised/selective paradigm of nature/reality.

Artists and scientists worked together with ‘four eyes’ to capture the ‘essence’ of nature, drawing it but also stylising and sanitising it for pedagogic purposes and selecting what features were considered typical of a species and airbrushing out anomalies. Tensions sometimes arose between how the artist saw the object and how the scientist saw it.

Truth-to-nature was a ‘self-centred’ epistemic virtue, not an ‘objective’ one.

  • Mechanical and structural objectivity (18-1900s), when the ‘self’ was eliminated. This project failed, even though it still lingers in how we think about science.

Machine-mediation gave the impression that objects could be seen ‘as they were’ with no mediation of the self, no airbrushing of anomalies. Sight was now considered a vice, not a virtue, and the virtues of denial and restraint of the self became paramount for science (from ‘four-eyes’ to ‘blind eyes’).

But mechanical objectivity posed several problems, one being that it depicted objects in a way that was now ‘too real’ and therefore difficult to communicate pedagogically. What could be seen under a microscope or how structures were related, (eg snowflakes), now needed interpretation. A ‘scientific self’ was needed to mediate between the world and how it could be communicated.

This ‘scientific self’ manifested several virtues. He [sic] was patient, persevering, slow, methodical, reasonable and diligent. Newton is an example.

But this self was still too interfering in mediating reality. He was not objective. Nature needed to be ventriloquised (ie separated from the self). But this still required a ventriloquising ‘self’, namley someone to speak on behalf of nature.

Structural objectivity was invoked as the way to continue eliminating the self and to ensure that knowledge of the world could be communicated unequivocally and universally (cf analytic philosophy and the Vienna Circle). According to analytic philosophers and mathematicians, eg Frege, ‘objective is the law-like, the conceptual, the judgeable, what can be expressed in words’ (p. 267).

Clearly, however, this, too, was a subjective stance since only a ‘self’ can do the ‘judging’.

Structural objectivity failed, as did the analytic philosopher’s project because the world is substantial (cf Toulmin) as well as structural. Biology is a science of substances and properties (eg blood, colour, flesh, organic matter, environments) as well as structural relations (eg physics).

  • Trained judgment (1900s and beyond), where the self is needed to make sense of (judge and interpret) reality.

The expert and trained judgments of the scientist bring the ‘self’ back into play to make sense of ‘family resemblances’ between objects, not ideal types. The need to classify, manipulate, interpret patterns, graphs, electroencephalograms, etc. requires a ‘self’.

Concluding reflections

The post-truth era requires a Self that is trained to judge and is transparent about their values. This does not make them infallibe ‘experts’, but it does make them more qualified and informed than others to make judgments that are concurrently explicit about the values that orient that judgment. When judgments are trained and values are explicit, others can, in turn, make their own equally trained judgments in accordance with their values.

So, what might today’s epistemic virtues look like? What virtues and vices underscore the key epistemologies of this century’s humanism: post-humanism, Big Data, post-truth, ecologies of knowledge, climate change, gender, standpoint theories?

What role does the ‘self’ play and what responsibilities does it have in today’s educational landscape?

How can we reclaim confidence in knowledge without transcending into irreality, hubris and vice?

And, crucially for me, what role do academic writings have in shaping epistemic virtues and vices?