Transcript Slides - LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Constructing a narrative: Telling academic
and professional stories
Gavin Fairbairn
Professor of Ethics and Language
Leeds Metropolitan University
Human life is conducted through story.
Many of our social institutions are comprised
almost entirely of opportunities for telling and
re-telling stories, for sharing the narratives that
constitute our lives.
How was the holiday?
How is the data collection going?
What kind of day have you had?
How did your paper go at the conference?
We learn about and make sense of our lives by telling
the stories that we live, and we come to know
something about other people and their lives by
listening to the stories they tell.
Communicating information through stories helps
them to remember what they have heard, because
stories are an ideal way of relating what is learned
to what is already known and hence of integrating
it with the body of knowledge that we already
possess.
Academic writing
as storytelling.
It is because story comes so naturally to us, and
because it is so powerful as a way of communicating
ideas, that I try to persuade my students and my
colleagues always to view their academic and
professional writing as an exercise in storytelling.
Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Neil
Postman and Charles Weingartner (1969)
Crap detection: the transferable skill of discerning
value, or perhaps more importantly its absence, in
the barrage of information that impinges on us
every day.
Diamond detection: the transferable skill of
discerning value, clarity and sparkle, of seeking out
what engages and attracts attention, in the barrage of
information that impinges on us every day.
Many academics (in some disciplines at least it
seems most) write in a style that makes it difficult
for any but the most gymnastic and generous of
thinkers to work out what on earth they are talking
about.
Indeed many seem to take pride in making their
work difficult to the point at which it is almost
(and sometimes actually) devoid of meaning.
Even those who, in their everyday lives, manage to
talk in quite ordinary ways - who, like the rest of us
share stories every day about their research and the
development of their ideas, seem actively to cultivate
a new and less understandable way of speaking, and
to adopt a new language when they are writing.
Writing in a dense and difficult style seems, indeed,
to be part of the adopted identity of many
academics.
It is almost as if they believe that the academic
enterprise is about confusing, rather than
illuminating - and aimed at obfuscation, rather
than clarity.
Many academic journals are full to the brim of
pseudo intellectual gibberish, and academics whose
bread and butter depends upon publishing in such
journals often end up embracing the myth that such
writing is not only what is required, but that it is
actually worthwhile.
Many academic authors choose their words carefully,
using big words where small ones would do, and
difficult words where possible, rather than where
necessary.
Cultivating the habit of using as much citation as
possible, rather than where necessary, helps to create
the illusion that academic work is underpinned by
serious scholarship, because it suggests familiarity,
not only with work by others that has actually had an
influence on their ideas, but with a wider range of
sources.
Which of these is the real you?
Words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic
sounding words, , difficult sounding hard, trendy words, words, words, big words, hard words
hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic sounding words, words, words, big words
hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic sounding words, words,
words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic soundi
words,words, big trendy academic sounding, words, words, big words, hard words, big hard w
difficult words, trendy words, academic sounding words, difficult academic technical sounding
words, words, technical words, words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult
words, trendy words, academic sounding words, technical words, foreign sounding words, wo
words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic soundi
words, Words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, word, words, big words, hard w
big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic sounding words, , difficult sounding h
trendy words, words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy w
academic sounding words, words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult wor
trendy words, academic sounding words, words, words, big words, hard words, big hard word
difficult words, trendy words, academic sounding words,words, big trendy academic sounding
words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic
sounding words, difficult academic technical sounding words, words, technical words, words,
words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic soundi
words, technical words, foreign sounding words, words, words, big words, hard words, big ha
words, difficult words, trendy words, academic sounding words, , words, big words, hard word
big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic sounding words, , difficult sounding h
trendy words, words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy w
academic sounding words, words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult wor
trendy words, academic sounding words, words, words, big words, hard words, big hard word
difficult words, trendy words, academic sounding words,words, big trendy academic sounding
words, words, big words, hard words, big hard words, difficult words, trendy words, academic
sounding words, difficult academic technical sounding words, words, technical words, words,
Academic writing
as storytelling.
Thinking of their writing as a kind of storytelling
is, I have found, useful for most academic writers
in developing both their writing style and their
approach to the creation of text. This is true,
regardless of their level of experience or the
research approaches they have adopted.
All academics have
stories to tell.
Of course academic authors tell stories of different
kinds, and have different ways of telling them,
depending on their areas of interest, and it is important
that they should adopt narrative forms that are
appropriate to the material about which they are writing.
The stories researchers tell are thus told in different
forms and in different languages, or in different
dialects of the same language.
However, all will be stories of a kind.
What makes
academic
storytelling
successful?
A good narrative writer engages her audience and holds
its attention by making her plot sufficiently interesting
to seduce us into reading further, and by ensuring that
the characters who inhabit the world she is creating
motivate us to read on to find out what happens to
them.
Good academic storytellers do similar things, though
the characters with whom they populate their texts
are not people, but ideas, arguments, hypotheses,
theories, methods, results, conclusions and so on
Conceiving of their writing in terms of story makes it
easier for them to develop a sound structure, because it
helps to focus attention on the people with whom they
are attempting to communicate, and their needs.
At every stage in constructing her narrative, the writer
needs to ask whether it is obvious what the relationship
is between adjacent paragraphs and between adjacent
sentences.
If they are to be successful in telling their tales
academic storytellers need to weave the various
elements together in coherent, interesting and
easily understandable ways.
We should not expect of readers that they will be
willing to engage in intellectual gymnastics,
contorting their minds and exerting themselves
beyond comprehension, simply to work out what
we are saying.
Like storytellers of other kinds, I think we should
strive to tell our academic and professional stories
as clearly and as carefully as we can, and to make
them as accessible and engaging as possible.
How can we
construct academic
stories that
communicate what
we want as clearly as
possible? Wh
Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to
consider your article for the journal. I enjoyed it very
much. It was well written and thought provoking and
raised important issues in an interesting way. All three
referees shared this view. Unfortunately they do not
consider it suitable for the journal as it stands, because it
is not really academic enough. They suggest that you
should be invited to resubmit it after strengthening it by
adding more scholarly references.….
Apes can be taught to use sign language, so they
should be given the same rights as humans.
(Williams, 1990)
There is a great deal of disagreement about the
best way of addressing the problems of bullying in
the workplace. (Biggs, 1987; Cunningham, 1998).
We have no way of telling on which side of the fence
Biggs and Cunningham sit, in the debate about
workplace bullying; about whether, for example, they
have carried out research on different approaches to the
problem, or have perhaps simply commented on it.
People find it hard to agree about how best to
address the problems of bullying in the workplace.
For example, while Biggs (1987) argues that it is best
to deal with complaints in a low key way, bringing the
individuals together in an informal discussion,
Cunningham (1998) is less convinced. Though he
agrees that, in mild cases, Biggs’ approach will be
helpful, Cunningham counsels caution where the
person alleging the bullying shows signs of extreme
distress.
Citation is most effective when it is obvious why
each source is being cited. Often this will involve
saying a little about, for example, what the cited
author has done or has found; argues or suggests;
draws attention to, or has demonstrated
It is usually even better when the writer goes on
to do something with the citation - for example,
relating the ideas of the cited author to another
or others, or using it as a springboard for his own
ideas
The most successful academic stories manage to
draw together diverse threads, including ideas drawn
from and developed by interacting with material from
cited sources, in a way that engages, informs and
challenges.
Engage our audience, that is ‘hook’ them or grab
their attention.
Inform them, that is tell them something they didn’t
already know, or help them to reconstrue what they
did already know.
Challenge them, by which I mean that we should
somehow shake or ‘shoogle’ them, to use a Scots
word, so that we leave them with work to do.
So how can we develop as
writers who engage, inform
and challenge?
Though I have focused mainly on research storiesm
much of what I have said is relevant for academic
stories of all kinds, including those by which we seek
to persuade students that they want to study our
courses and those that are used in the attempt to
persuade funding bodies to part with their money.
I find that entering into a kind of partnership with
students and colleagues, in exploring and working a
little on their texts, is the least threatening way to
help them to become more careful writers.
In working one to one with students or colleagues
on the development of their texts, the best way to
do so is to work with text ‘live’ on screen rather
than wasting time reading and marking it up like a
copy editor, writing comments and suggestions in
the margins.
I want to persuade participants of the value of
working with others in the careful reading and
interrogation of what is already written in order to
develop and improve it.
I aim to encourage them to play with possibilities
on screen, until eventually after successive
modifications, they come up with a version that
satisfies them (or at any rate, that satisfies them for
the moment).
[email protected]
07824 482 533
[email protected]
07824 482 533