Some bite-sized thoughts and reflections on the items I’ve been reading, listening to, or watching this month.
Note: The following post contains spoilers for The Witcher (Netflix series), Selling Sunset (Netflix series), Selling Tampa (Netflix series), and Doom Patrol (HBO Max series).
This past summer, I was very privileged to be asked to become a co-editor-in-chief of Communications in Information Literacy, the same journal where I published one of my first peer reviewed articles back in the day and where I’ve been serving as a peer reviewer for the past five years or so. One of the first things I’ve had to learn in my new role is how to think like an editor rather than, say, a peer reviewer or an interested reader. This has been a challenge, but luckily I have a lot of great support from my fellow editors as I get my feet under me.
Learning to think like an editor is important because, at least at CIL, all of the research articles submitted to the journal are reviewed by us editors-in-chief before being sent for the next step of the process. And what I mean by “reviewed” is that we all read the article submitted and weigh in on whether we think the article is within the scope of our journal and whether the quality and originality of the writing and research is high enough to be considered for publication. If it is, we send the article on for peer review. Hurray!
A lot of times, though, the article is not sent for peer review. There are a lot of reasons this can happen, seemingly. Sometimes it’s because an article is simply not within the journal’s scope. Other times, the article may be within scope and generally well-written but there’s something about it that’s just…lacking somehow.
This the area where I’ve really had to practice thinking like an editor. In doing so, I’ve learned that for me, at least, the missing piece in many of this “almost-but-not-quite” articles is a sense of why the research the author did is important or what it adds to the larger conversation around information literacy and any subtopics it might cover. In other words, what problem is the author’s research trying to solve?
I’m off for the holidays and won’t be posting any new content until January but I thought I’d pin a thing here highlighting some favorite posts from the second half of the year, in case you missed them. (Favorite posts from the first half of the year can be found here.)
Thanks for reading and see you in the new year!
Thinking about Hamilton and Creative License
Leonardo da Vinci was the King of Creative Research, Apparently
On 10(ish) Years of Information Literacy Instruction
Hannibal and Criminal Minds are Secretly the Same Show
Who I Was as a Student Researcher
Some bite-sized thoughts and reflections on the items I’ve been reading, listening to, or watching this month.
Also: Did you read, watch, listen to, play something this month that you particularly enjoyed? Feel free to share in the comments! I’m always looking for recommendations.
Note: The following post contains spoilers for American Dirt (novel by Jeanine Cummins), Days Gone (video game), Dune (2021 version), Joe Pera Talks With You (if it’s even possible to spoil that show), and some dumb holiday movies on Netflix.
Eternals: As a longtime MCU fan who also runs an MCU Rewatch Discussion Group online (come join us!), Eternals is a movie that I’ve been especially excited about ever since hearing some of the early casting announcements a couple of years ago. I knew absolutely nothing about the comic book characters the movie would be based on or any of their associated relationships or storylines. All I cared about was that: a) I might finally have proof that Sebastian Stan and Richard Madden are not the same person(1) and b) Robb Stark and Jon Snow would finally be reunited. Alas, I ended up only getting about half of one of those things.(2) But weirdly enough, I still enjoyed the movie–much more than I thought I would after reading so many tepid and occasionally hostile reviews of it in the weeks leading up to its release. Is it the most exciting Marvel movie ever? No. Does it somehow manage to make actors as magnetic as Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie fade into the background? Yes. Does everyone in the movie look kind of dumb in their superhero costumes? Yeah, kinda. But what you have to understand about me is this: I love it when characters talk about their feelings and relationships. Seriously. If the third Captain America movie had been nothing but Steve and Bucky hanging out at Avengers Tower, talking about their feelings for three hours, I would have liked it soooo much better than Civil War. So. Much. Better. I especially like when characters talk about their feelings within a “found family” type of context. It’s always interesting to me to see what they’re willing to say about what’s going on in their heads and who they’re willing to say it to. So though not all of the characters felt as distinct as they could have, I did enjoy watching them navigate their various relationships with one another. I also liked that there were some genuinely unexpected revelations and reversals and that the movie makes it clear pretty early on that plot armor is not going to be a thing for these characters. There was a moment near the end where I genuinely started to think that I was watching the MCU equivalent of that Star Wars movie where everyone dies at the end. It was kind of exciting! I get why the critics are basically over MCU movies in general though I think their apparent disappointment that Chloe Zhao didn’t somehow manage to make the first truly “Oscar worthy” MCU movie is a bit much. First, because it’s Black Panther erasure. Second, because who really wants the MCU version of an Oscar movie? Probably no one. Eternals isn’t the best MCU movie ever, but I think it manages to be relatively distinct and I’m looking forward to seeing future installments featuring these characters. Even if those installments include Harry Styles, a former boy band star who I am young enough to know was in a boy band but too old to find particularly interesting.
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In my investigation into the role of research in creative writing, I’m stumbled across an interesting wrinkle. Writers don’t talk about the research they might do as part of their work as much as you might think (at least in the sources I’ve read), but when they do, they often talk more about research as a way to cultivate curiosity and inspiration rather than research that is used to fill a gap in their knowledge. When it comes to conducting research for inspiration, their advice is usually to read widely and/or deeply and seek out experience that may be useful for a story or poem idea later.
I think cultivating curiosity is a necessary part of any creative endeavor but I’m having trouble deciding if this type of research counts as research.
Normally, I try not to be a snob about what counts as research and what doesn’t. There may have been a time when “real” research involved the use of the library and the citation of sources, but that time has passed. Now everyone with access to an internet connection conducts research in one form or another on a daily, if not hourly basis.
Not everyone will agree that the average Google search counts as research. Some might prefer to call it “information-seeking” which, among scholars, tends to be the preferred term for any type of research that happens to not be academic, scholarly, or scientific in nature. Personally, I think having two different terms for what’s essentially the same thing is kind of elitist. I prefer to think of research as any formal or informal process that’s undertaken to fill a gap in knowledge, build on existing knowledge, or create new knowledge.
That’s why I’m a bit stuck when it comes to whether cultivating curiosity/searching for inspiration counts as research.
Some bite-sized thoughts and reflections on the items I’ve been reading, listening to, or watching this month.
Also: Did you read, watch, listen to, play something this month that you particularly enjoyed? Feel free to share in the comments! I’m always looking for recommendations.
Some bite-sized thoughts and reflections on the items I’ve been reading, listening to, or watching this month.
Also: Did you read, watch, listen to, play something this month that you particularly enjoyed? Feel free to share in the comments! I’m always looking for recommendations.
Note: The following post contains spoilers for Dr. Death (the podcast and probably the TV series), Glow Up, and Humans. Also I talk about The Most Amazing Vacation Rentals on Netflix in some detail. I don’t think it’s possible to spoil a travel reality show but I’m mentioning it just in case. Also: no reality show catch phrases (e.g. “What a life!,” “Ding dong!” or “Bring on the models!” were harmed in the writing of this blog post.)
So I’ve been spending some time lately trying to write up the findings of my study on creative writing pedagogy. In making a case for why it’s important for creative writing students to learn about creative research, I started talking a lot about the mismatch between students expectations about what they will learn as part of a creative writing program and what the actual learning goals of creative writing programs are, at least at the undergraduate level. Evidence suggests that students come to these programs expecting to learn how to hone their talents and identities as writers. But according to the AWP’s guidelines, what these programs are actually meant to teach is critical reading. Basically, an undergraduate creative writing major is learning to “read like a writer” in order to better appreciate literature “from the inside.”
As a former creative writing student, when I first read this, it felt like a bit of a bait and switch to me. Like, what do you mean all that learning I did was about becoming a better reader instead of a better writer? What do you mean the AWP considers it basically a waste of time to teach undergraduates about actual writing because, statistically speaking, so few of them possess the talent or persistence necessary to actually become professional writers? I want my money back!
Studying Research 