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Academia from the outside

What should we do with academia? Here’s my view from the outside.

Put it in the bin

Take all of your academia. And put it in the bin.




Ok I’m just kidding. But you can understand why though? It’s a straight-white-male-dominated world obsessed with intellectualism. The whole ‘paper process’ saps out all the fun and feeling, devoiding your work of any emotion. “All we need is rational thought and reason” making no room for expression and empathy. No wonder it’s so cold.

Some people reading this will be thinking “What’s so bad about that?” which is… uh nevermind

Academ-ish

So maybe we should try to find a halfway house.

Ink & Switch speaks with an ‘academ-ish’ voice. Its papers aren’t actually papers. They have too much branding and too much character. I like them a lot!

They’re still very long and slow and considered. But I dunno.

Hey reader, what do you think? Do you think this academ-ish approach is good? Yes or no? And why? Let me know. But first,

Why academia

Why would you want to be academic anyway? What’s the point?

Well……….

Jonathan Edwards recently wrote a blog post (not a paper) (a blog post) (not a paper) encouraging researchers to publish a paper (not a blog post) (a paper) (not a blog post) to Onward!.

In the blog post (not a paper) (a blog post) (not a paper) he tells researchers that “publishing a paper” (not a blog post) (a paper) (not a blog post) “is the only proven way to engage with other researchers over the long term.”

The thing is, I would have found it more convincing if he’d written it as a paper (not a blog post) (a paper) (not a blog post).

Good intentions

No but really. I do appreciate the blog post (blog post) (not paper). Jonathan Edwards puts out a message of encouragement and inclusivity, which is immensely valuable. And I have a soft spot for Jonathan because he said nice things about me twice.

His blog post (not his paper) (his blog post) has successfully encouraged me to submit paper(s) (not blog post(s)) to Onward!.

Ironically, this disproves his point by demonstrating the influential power that blog posts (not papers) can have on fellow researchers (not papers) (blog posts) (not papers).


Only blog posts (not papers) express the mundane humour, the comedic rigour, the surrealist heart, of humanity.

Papers (not blog posts) don’t stand a chance.


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