In my years of writing in this space and others, relevant academics will ask me for advice on how to move beyond their niche audiences and into the wider realm of public writing.
I could be as helpful as I knew how, but most of my advice was just “Just write stuff and write stuff until someone tells you for sure to keep writing stuff.” It worked for me, but it’s not the best program in terms of practical advice.
Fortunately, I now have a place to send people: David Perry’s The Social Scientist: A Practical Handbooka book full of experiential wisdom and practical advice for making the transition from academic to general audiences with your writing.
I wanted to talk to David about not just the book, but the journey of writing and publishing a book, a journey that shows what it takes to be a public scholar.
David M. Perry is associate director of undergraduate studies in history at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He is the author of Sacred Spoils: Venice and the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade and author of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe again Oaths: The Civil War That Shattered Empires and Shaped Ancient Europe.
JW: I’ve always believed that it’s important for academics to write for the public—and I’m not just talking about places like this. THERE or The Chroniclebut people in the world. I don’t know that I would say it’s a burden, but at least it’s an opportunity available to almost anyone. What is your opinion of being an academic who writes for the public?
DP: I think it’s a public service for experts to find whatever ways they can insert themselves into the public discourse, but I also think that that argument has been made over and over and made by much smarter and more successful and powerful people in the institution than I am, so I want to put that aside (in my book, it’s reserved for the last two or three pages. Spoiler alert, I think!).
Here are two reasons: First, there are these times when our technology connects to issues, clearly or implicitly, but people find it wrong, missing context, misunderstanding evidence, etc. In those times, it is very possible, often satisfying and sometimes really important for us to try and bring our expertise to the widest possible audience.
Second: Grad school teaches us to narrow down (often correctly) our idea of who we are and what we do. But we are always perfect people. We tell our students that the training we provide is not about content, but mental habits to enable lifelong learning. The truth! And public writing is a place where we can put that to use, working outside of our narrowly considered disciplinary and subject boundaries. For me, that was having a son with Down syndrome, going deep into Medicaid and education policy, and wanting to explain to people why it’s important. But I’ve worked with academics who wanted to write about family history, travel, art, teaching—anything really.
Q: This is organized as a “how-to book,” which is a guide or set of instructions, but it’s also an essay about you being a community writer. This is the story of your experience. I wonder how you look at this plan, the big picture, now that I’ve written the book and have a chance to reflect on it all.
A: The joy of writing is something that came to me late. I have dyslexia. All my report cards and permanent records and such mean the repetition of “bright but lazy.” I have told all the stories in the book many times, but writing them down, organizing them, trying to think of processes and plans, finally made me feel really lucky. I hope this book will show what the path of others can look like.
QUESTION: As I say in the introduction, sometimes I get people asking me for advice about breaking into public documents, but because I started as a public writer who went into writing about education and policy, I don’t always appreciate the obstacles they face in terms of experience, skills, mentality, etc. … What things do you see that hinder people who fulfill these new-born desires?
A: Two things –
Focusing on the speed of the news cycle often scares people, and it’s true that writing quickly can be important. But if you care about something, something you think is important, you can write about it anytime and hold until the news comes back again. It will do.
Second, and this is more technical, experts tend to send themselves to the media as experts who are ready to present opinions. That’s fine for a journalist reporting on a topic, but essays are sold on arguments. It’s not enough to just say, “This is interesting” or “I know a lot about…” And that’s normal for any of us who teach undergraduate writing and try to help students understand the role of the thesis.
Third, people are afraid of obstacles, but I see obstacles as a gift to the writer. They take certain choices off the table, clarifying the remaining choices. Maybe this is me as an illiterate writer talking, but I like to work within the constraints of limited word choice, accessible vocabulary, only room for a few proof points, the need to draw readers into your piece with compelling opening prose, etc.
QUESTION: I think institutions would benefit if more of their faculty wrote publicly, but this type of writing is not really appreciated in institutions. I remember filling out a professional report one year when my weekly column in Chicago Tribune they have the same institutional weight as a single short story published in a literary journal. (Not that it even mattered—I was a fixed faculty.) What other things should institutions do if they want to encourage their faculty to write publicly?
A: One answer is – count it! There are many good models for finding meaningful ways to calculate social work, and while they differ in terms of instruction, institutions should begin a deliberate process (sorry, I may sound like a high-minded person here) in making standards that reflect their values. But then they have to live with them. For me, I’d like to see ongoing social engagement (like your column) as a core part of a scholar’s portfolio, with clearly defined models for tenure and promotion. Instead, we often find vague statements about the work facing the community is important, sometimes sent to the service, but not really counted. Until there are situations where public service is burdened, at least to some extent, we are still stuck.
But the emphasis on math takes the intellectual labor market away from many fields and, with the explosion of American STEM, falls into new ones. So my arguments make a lot of sense—I’ve had communication teams that know how to share work and protect writers from backlash, resist bad-faith attacks from the outside (bad-faith attacks from the inside are a different problem), and generally push to change norms so that public service is understood as the core of our work, especially at public universities.
Q: I think we both have a core belief that writers should be paid for their writing. You have advice on this in the book, but what should academics who go into writing expect publicly and be willing to ask / demand for their writing?
A: One of my theories is that academics don’t talk enough about money, making a living, paying bills. I wrote a lot early because I needed a little money to pay for childcare for two children. Writing is work. Work must be compensated. A typical short social essay pays $100–$400, and that’s been stable for a decade (while inflation is, you know, unstable).
The good news is that most shops are very transparent, and, if a piece is accepted, the editor tells you their estimate. Some people in the op-ed space argue about interviews, but to me that’s something that happens on the street rather than at the first auction; to me, quality is usually quality. But if you haven’t been offered money, that’s also the time to ask. I write a free piece from time to time, and it’s great if others do, too, but you should always ask.
In fact, I think this is true of academic journal articles, too.
Q: In closing, I wonder if it might be a good idea to talk about the similarities and differences in the nature of rejection between public and academic writing. It’s not the same as education without rejection, but I wonder if there is a difference between the stakes or the times to risk rejection in these different situations. What is your advice?
A: Get used to it! I often say that anyone who has done anything in academia should learn to handle rejection, but yes, it happens at a speed and scale with a completely different public short writing (as opposed to business letters, feature writing, etc.). This is not bad news. A quick no can be as useful as a yes, because it allows you to quickly search for other areas. An editor who repeatedly rejects your pitch is probably not doing anything personal, and I’ve had editors encourage me to keep putting out even if they rejected everything for months. Also, a couple rejections on a piece is usually a sign that it’s not a good piece, it’s not right yet, it’s not convincingly edited.
Basically, in contrast to academic writing, where one can work for months or years without clear signs about acceptance, public writing exists in a framework with continuous, sometimes contradictory signs about what works and what doesn’t. Over time, I think I’ve gotten pretty good at reading signals and finding out if I need to change what I’m doing or somehow change the context in which I’m doing it.
