All entries for December 2018

Article Focus On: Critical reflections – what’s their value?

In my last post I talked about interviews, or the Conversations with, series of articles that we publish in Exchanges. In today’s post, I’m going to talk about the other kind of article which stands alongside the more research intensive pieces in the journal: critical reflections. According to our author guide a critical reflection article comprises:

Focussed, critical appraisals typically covering an area of emerging research, a key event or a crucial new text. (1,000-3,000 words).

That’s not a long explanation for what are actually highly readable and insightful articles, so let me expand a little here. When people approach us with a critical appraisal article, most commonly they want to write about an event they have recently attended. This is a great start, as we are all interested in reading about conferences, workshops, seminars and symposia others have attended which (for whatever reasons) we didn’t have the chance to. However, so far, so much a blog post. Where the critical reflection article differs is that they are not intended to be a simple narrative of what was said and/or who spoke. Yes, this sort of contextual information is still an important part of the content, but where the critical reflection article takes a step forward towards being a more academic piece of writing is right there in the title.

Context - What are they?

In short, these pieces are supposed to entail a critical reflection about an event that is to say for example, what was it about the context, content and theme, which was of value or importance? Did the author agree with everything which was said or, from their own scholarly perspective, were there aspects that they wanted to take issue with or even wholesale challenge? Ideally too, there needs to be an element of how the event changed the author’s perspectives, thinking or knowledge. Essentially, how did it have an impact upon or affected them. Incorporating these evaluative and self-reflective elements is what changes an ‘event report’ from a tasty but ultimately unsatisfying intellectual snack, into a gourmet and rewarding scholarly treat. In short, this is what makes the paper a critical reflection.

Now, in the prior paragraph I’ve been writing about critical reflections of events. However, you will have noticed Exchanges is not only interested in critical reflections on events, but on essentially any reflections on aspect of scholarship. Typically, what should stimulate the writing of a critical reflection is an intellectual intervention or encounter of any kind. I’ll acknowledge events are the most common or perhaps most prominent such circumstances. Yet, other artefacts or circumstances can move us as much, if not more sometimes. For example, you might have spoken with a particular author, or read a lot of their work lately, which has stimulated your thinking in new directions. Alternatively, you might have read a particularly challenging paper, report or monograph which has caused you to reconsider your own research practice. Writing a critical reflection concerning these ‘events’ can be therefore as valuable and timely a piece of written scholarship as writing about a literal event. Personally, with our engaged, broad and interdisciplinary readership in mind, I’d like to see far more critical reflections about non-conference type events appearing in our pages.

The last kind of critical reflection is perhaps less easy to predefine, at least structurally, and that’s the opinion piece. For example, as a scholar there might not be a singular specific event or work you’re looking to critique. What you want to offer instead is your own, unique insight into an aspect of your discipline. In this respect, here is where Exchanges can be a most valuable publication destination especially for those scholars in the STEM subjects, where opinion pieces are less commonly accepted in major journals. Certainly, many major journals may perceive early career researchers have more ‘limited’ disciplinary experience and insight to offer, and may decline to publish such submissions as a matter of course. Here at Exchanges, we’d respectfully disagree with this stance, as per our mission, we strongly believe that new, original and insightful thought which critically reflects on a field can emerge from scholars at any stage in their career. Hence, as Editor-in-Chief I’d strongly encourage anyone who’d like to ‘make a scholarly statement’ about their field, to consider writing it as a critical reflection for us.

Criticial Reflection Advantages

One advantage of the critical reflection piece by the way, is that they are mercifully brief pieces of work, which means they can be written, edited and ready for publication quite rapidly. They can be almost as brief as this blog post in length, in fact! Naturally, the manuscript should include the context and set the scene, as with all our articles, remember you are writing for a readership which doesn’t automatically have a deep familiarity with your field. Nevertheless, this should not diminish the depth or breadth of scholarship which can be included. Have a look at these recent examples, for an idea of the sort of things you might write about.

Eden, A.A., 2018. Enchanted Community: Reflections on Art, the Humanities and Public Engagement. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v6i1.252

Mulcahy, S., 2018. Dissents and Dispositions. Reflections on the Conference of the Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v5i2.247

Crealock-Ashurst, B., et al., 2018. A Critical Reflection on the 28th International Biology Olympiad. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v5i1.221

Messin, L.J., & Meadows, J.C., 2018. Science for All. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v4i1.153

Incidentally, a critical reflection can also act as a promotional piece. Not only for the author, but for institutions, research groups and projects, looking to raise their profiles. I really do believe these are exactly the sort of article which can really help to get a scholar noted. Hence, critically appraising some work you are intimately involved in, not only helps to develop your own career, but can serve as a valuable adjunct to other ongoing efforts.

In Conclusion

So, there you go. The critical appraisal, a valuable and relatively easy article type you can publish with Exchanges. And if you’re reading this and thinking you’ve got a great idea for one, either speak to myself or any of the Editorial Board about it. Or better yet, get writing and submitting – there’s every possibility critical reflections submitted in the first few months of 2019 can see publication in our spring issue of Exchanges! (possibly!)

Finally, on a personal note, I’m signing off as the Managing Editor-in-Chief for the Christmas break today. So can I wish all our readers, reviewers and authors (old and new) a most festive, relaxing and perhaps critically reflective break!

Gareth Johnson : 12 Dec 2018 17:44 |  Tags: Articles Conferences Critical Events Exchanges Publicity Reflections Submissions |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Article Focus On: Interviews – why do they matter?

One of my favourite kinds of articles frequently submitted to Exchanges are interviews, also known as ‘Conversations with…’, with key disciplinary figures. Since the first issue where Walsh interviewed Oliver Sacks [1] through to Kremers and Eggert’s efforts in the most recently published volume [2, 3], these have been perennially popular articles for authors and readers alike. Personally, I love the idea that through being an author of one of these pieces provides the author with a great excuse to talk directly with the great and the good within their field. You see, it can be challenging when you’re trying to network at conferences and other academic events, to think of a good topic to break the ice with an ‘academic celebrity’. I’ll admit it, I’ve been tongue tied myself when meeting notable names in my own field, and gushing ‘Oh I just love your books!’, isn’t quite the professional demeanour you might want to project. Nevertheless, asking someone if you can interview them for a publication is a great starter to at least a good chat, and who knows what else.

In terms of what we expect from an interview, the outline on our author guidance page is quite brief:

A dialogue with significant research figures in any field, with a particular focus on their interdisciplinary contributions (3,000-5,000 words).

Although, it does go on to note that authors considering writing one of these ‘are strongly encouraged to discuss the proposed content with the Senior Editor or a member of the Editorial Board, prior to submission. This will allow us to scope if the proposed piece will be suitable for Exchange’s diverse readership.’ [4]. As a result, I’ve realised it’s probably worth talking briefly about the type of content we’re looking for, to help guide future authors.

Content

In terms of the content, what the best of these articles do is initially to provide some context about the interviewee themselves. While we have had some considerable public intellectuals interviewed in past issues, there’s no guarantee a figure who is a giant in your field will always have instant recognition among our diverse readership. Hence, providing a potted biography at the start of an interview article really helps set the scene for readers and draws them in to why this person is important and worth their time reading about. For me, the best revcent example of how to approach this section of the article was provided by Roca-Lizarazu and Vince [5] who not only take the time to introduce their interviewee, Stef Craps, but also a rather neat introduction the field within which he has been so crucial. Aspiring Exchanges authors could do a lot worse than by following their approach.

Questions & Answers

One thing we don’t demand of our interview articles, is that interviewers make use of a pre-defined set of questions. We want the authors themselves to put their own particular spin on things and have an effective presence within the article. Certainly, as an experienced research interviewer myself, I know some of the best and most revelatory conversations can be rather freewheeling ones, rather than ones slavishly sticking to the script. That said, given our interdisciplinary nature as a journal, I would hope to see every interview develop conversations around each interviewees’ career, their influences and especially how/where they see the relevance of their work to the wider domain. We often also see interviewees holding forth on the ‘state of the art’ within their discipline, and sometimes looking towards the future. Alongside this, there is often some useful discussions around the authors and works they’ve been influenced by themselves. Given their expertise, what has piqued their interest, is generally something aspiring or new scholars within a field are likely to be very interested in reading about.

Benefits

As a result, this means interviews serve rather neatly as mini-review articles, exploring the field as guided by a noted expert. I believe this provides a reason why these types of articles are some of our most downloaded ones. That is because for scholars new to a field, they provide a wonderful guided entrance point through which to explore and expand their own knowledge. The other reasons I think they are popular are firstly partly due to the name recognition of the interviewees, big names are always a draw for scholarly journals as authors or subjects of discussion. Hence, as an editor, ever mindful of increasing our readership and visibility across the academy, I find them very useful.

That said, the other key reason is generally the sheer readability and accessibility these conversation articles offer. Even as an interdisciplinary journal, we cannot claim that every paper will be accessible to all readers, there is just no escaping from the specialised lexicon of most fields at times. Nevertheless, within interviews scholars are generally speaking in more naturalistic tones than you would find, say, in one of their articles or books. Similar to a lecture, this permits readers from outside their immediate field to more readily access their expert thought, insight and knowledge. Hence, I strongly believe this demonstrates why interviews are very much at the heart of Exchanges’ mission to propagate and support interdisciplinary research discourse.

Setting Up Interviews

Now, how do you go about setting up an interview for the purposes of publishing with Exchanges? Well, you’ll have to wait until my a future post for a discussion of that.

[1] Walsh, J., 2013. Oliver Sacks. Exchanges: The Warwick Research Journal, 1(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v1i1.69

[2] Kremers, R., 2018. Conversation with…Wendy Larner. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Journal, 6(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v6i1.243

[3] Eggert, J.P., 2018. Researching Terrorism and Political Violence: An Interview with Louise Richardson. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Journal, 6(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v6i1.266

[4] Exchanges, 2018. Author Guidelines. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Journal. Available at: https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/guidance

[5] Roca-Lizarazu & Vince, R., 2018. Memory Studies Goes Planetary: An Interview with Stef Craps. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Journal, 5(2). Available at: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v5i2.245

Gareth Johnson : 03 Dec 2018 17:46 |  Tags: Articles Guide Intellectuals Interviews Public Scholars Style Submissions |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem