While at the annual conference for the Anthropology Association of America and the Canadian Anthropology Association, I was fortunate to be able to take part in an Article Editing Workshop. I brought a research paper I had written for a class and has been hoping to polish it for journal submission.
Overall, this was a great workshop, I would highly recommend Dr. Jaida Samudra.
What I ended up learning at the workshop was both invaluable and infuriating. I have had five years of grad school, six if you count the current year. Yet, I learnt more about academic writing in an eight-hour workshop than I ever had in grad school. I understand that the professors are there to teach their specific discipline, which does not usually specialize in academic writing. Therefore, universities should be providing this training to grad students.
As I began editing according to her process, I soon discovered a glaring fundamental flaw in my work. Dr. Samudra lays out a template that leaves a spot for discussing theory and methodology. Each section of ‘data’ (which can be number or paragraphs of writing, or objects) are followed by your personal analysis. Then one can enter the discussion where you frame that analysis in terms of the theory, thereby relating your analysis to the greater discipline discussion at large.
Several of my courses have had discussion relating to theories. My Roman Gender and Sexuality class discussed feminist theory (where many of the articles we read discusses how the writers didn’t see themselves as feminist researchers). My class on Roman Britain discussed postcolonial theories. My class on Elegy discussed Lacanianism. I’ve had the terms taught to me with no real explanation of what I was meant to do with that knowledge. They just became background facts that I needed to know in order to understand the articles we were reading.
Looking back, I can see where I could have made the connection that if I needed to understand the theory to understand the article, that the theory was used in the writing of that article. But it was never explained how I was meant to integrate that theory.
The feedback I received from professors over the years usually focused on spelling or grammar issues, or a basic sentence like ‘This is not up to graduate standards”. Nothing that really helped me develop my writing.
There is a growing movement to talk about the ‘Hidden Curriculum’. Throughout grad school, I was told that it was a solo journey. That I was responsible for learning on my own and then applying that in class. I think this is an incredibly harmful lie that we tell students. My professors spoke at length about the mentors that they had in grad school and that they continue to work with to this day. Our current grad school system prioritizes those who are able to either coast on their own, or have the social skills to cultivate mentorship. It fails the others.
