The Philosophers' Cocoon

Good idea or bad idea?

A while back, someone asked in a comment thread here at the Cocoon whether it might be a good idea to note in a job-market cover letter that they personally know someone at the university they were applying to. Over the years, job-candidates have asked a lot of questions like this, such as whether it's a good or bad idea to change the order of their CV for research and teaching schools; whether it is a good idea or bad idea to list papers under review on their CV; and so on. Looking back on my own time on the job-market, there were a lot of things like this: things I was uncertain were a good idea or a bad idea.

Anyway, it occurred to me the other day that insofar as we've had questions of this sort in the past--and insofar as I routinely ran into puzzles like this as a job-candidate--it might be good to devote a thread to questions like these. So, then, is there something job-market related that you're wondering whether it is a good idea or bad idea to do? If so, then ask away in the comments section below! Your question can deal with any part of the job market: dossier materials, Skype interviews, on-campus interviews, contract negotiations, and so on. Other readers should feel free to answer - but I may select some particularly good questions and devote separate threads to discussing them (in much the same vein as our "how can we help you?" series).

It will be interesting to see the kinds of questions people have - and hopefully we will be able to provide some good answers!

Concerns about recommendation letters?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, James W. Quinn writes:

Would it be possible to discuss the letter-of-recommendation system and its moral, practical justification? I have been enduring horrible situations—from plagiarism and unpaid labor to sexual harassment—in order to be able to apply for some jobs that require three, if not five, letters.

I've long had concerns about letters of recommendation, and Michael Huemer (University of Colorado) wrote a piece a while back summing up a lot of them. There was some really good discussion of Huemer's piece at Daily Nous. However, James Quinn's comment above reveals another (much darker) side to the letter of recommendation issue that I have not seen discussed as much: the manner in which requiring letters of recommendation may empower bad actors in the profession to abuse their power over graduate students and job-marketeers.

I'm curious how wide-spread these kinds of cases are, as well as to hear what our early-career readers think of the letter of recommendation system in applying for jobs. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences they are willing to share?

Why I chose an NTT job over the tenure track

By Jake Wright (University of Minnesota Rochester)

There’s an expectation, often unstated, that when one is weighing competing job offers where one is tenure-track and the other is not, the tenure-track job should win out every time.  When I was on the job market five years ago and faced exactly this choice, I chose the NTT job. 

When this came out in a comment thread here on the Cocoon the other day, some commenters, including Marcus, expressed a mixture of surprise and curiosity.  Why, they wondered, would someone choose an NTT job over the tenure track?  What factors might go into such a decision?  What pressures did I face, and how did I weigh competing considerations?  It was suggested that I might write a post discussing some of these questions, and thus, here I am.

Feminist Philosophers is closing down - reflections on blogging as service to the profession

Feminist Philosophers is closing down. I'm sad to see yet another blog go. It played such an important role for me when I was an early career scholar, a postdoc with little job security navigating an uncertain environment. For me as for many other people, Feminist Philosophers was an authoritative and distinct voice in the profession, providing a valuable service.

As I wrote in a blogpost for the Daily Nous on philosophy blogs, I see the main value of philosophy blogs as service to the profession, and perhaps also as service on a broader scale, to people who are interested in philosophy and want to learn about it in a low-threshold, friendly and open environment, away from paywalls, specialist terminology, and pleasing referees.  

Have philosophy blogs run their course? I want to briefly respond to a few points by Jennifer Saul in her farewell post on FP, not in a way to contest or criticize their decision, as I think the blog's existence was already supererogatory and I'm very grateful for the service the bloggers did over the many years of its existence. I want to just briefly look at these points to see to what extent they might apply to blogging in general, particularly blogging conceived of as service to the profession.

On rejections for journal submissions

This is a guest post by Jon Robson, University of Nottingham for our series How to Write Philosophy.

Rejection is a big part of academic life. By far the most likely response to any job application, funding bid or journal submission is rejection. Here, I offer some thoughts on a very narrow aspect of this phenomenon: journal rejections (a very common phenomenon given that many of the most prestigious philosophy journals have an acceptance rate that’s well below 10%). Specifically, I will focus on the broadly professional aspects of responding to such rejections. Rejections from journals – especially those accompanied by ‘uncharitable’ comments – can also have negative effects on, for example, your psychological wellbeing. Advice for how best to deal with this is far beyond my limited area of competence. What I am competent (or at least experienced) in is thinking about the future of a recently rejected paper.

First, it’s important to remind yourself that a rejection merely represents the view of an exceptionally small number of your colleagues (often only a single colleague). To run the risk of comical understatement, philosophers don’t always agree. That one editor or a few referees judge your paper to be unworthy of publication is very poor evidence that this view will be the consensus amongst scholars in your area (indeed, I’d very be surprised if we could identify a single paper which every philosopher thinks ought to have been published). Yet, it’s similarly important to remember that the referee is a professional colleague and – at least when things go well – one with a reasonable level of relevant expertise. Often, they will have put a lot of work into their comments, ensuring that – again, all being well – the rejection is accompanied by useful feedback. It’s easy to be critical of referees (fun too), but many of them do an awful lot of diligent work for no real recognition.

So, what’s the best way to respond to rejections? Let’s deal with the easy cases first.

 

The costs of getting a tenure-track job

In a recent post at Daily Nous, L.A. Paul and John Quiggin suggest that when it comes to rationally deliberating about whether to enter a PhD program in philosophy,

The crucial question is whether students can prospectively assess how much they’ll disvalue not getting that tenure track job when the training is done (or, put differently, how much they’ll disvalue the life they’ll find themselves living as an unsuccessful job candidate). 

Paul & Quiggin's post very much resonated with me. I entered graduate school naively optimistic, thinking everything would go according to plan: that I would finish the PhD quickly, get a tenure-track job without a problem, and get tenure. Oh how different the reality was. I struggled to finish my degree, getting stuck at the dissertation stage (like all too many grad students do), and then after I finally finished the degree I grappled with the job-market for seven years. There were so many times--both in grad school and beyond--that I wished I could go back in time and knock some sense into my earlier self, convincing him to stay the heck away from entering a philosophy PhD program.

However, are Paul and Quiggan correct that 'the crucial question' is whether students can prospectively assess how much they'll disvalue not getting a tenure-track job? Some recent experiences have led me to think the crucial question is much more complex--and in some ways much more disturbing--than this. Allow me to explain, by way of two stories.

Dissertations: monographs or three articles?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Busqueda writes:

I wonder what folks think about monograph dissertations in comparison to three-article model dissertations.

I wonder because it seems as if having three articles are more likely to increase once’s chances on the job market in comparison to a monograph.

I think this is a really interesting query, and I'm curious to hear what people have to say. Allow me to share a few thoughts.

Balancing frequent assignments with workload

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Michel writes:

It seems clear to me that students benefit a great deal from having many chances to apply what they've learned through frequent assignments, scaffolded essays, etc. I'd be curious to know how Cocooners with hefty teaching loads balance the desire to do all that with the demands of teaching three to five courses or sections a term. Do you stagger assignments between your courses and sections? Do you use a lot of peer-grading? What else?

Great questions, and I'm curious to hear what readers have to say! Here are a few of my own thoughts.

Earlier in my career (during my non-TT years and before tenure), I gave my students many frequent assignments while having a hefty teaching load. Students responded really positively--often saying in my course reviews that my courses were super challenging and full of work, but that it was worth it and they learned a lot. Unfortunately, doing that basically required me to work myself into the ground and wasn't very sustainable, at least not if I wanted (as I do) to maintain a modicum of personal well-being. So, ever since getting tenure, I have changed things a bit.

First, I've increasingly staggered types of assignments across courses, based on reflection on what I'd like students in different kinds of courses to learn. For example, some of my courses (lower-level courses for non-majors) tend to me more exam based, along with many frequent smaller assignments (e.g. 5 sentence reading responses and in-glass group assignments). The basic rationale is that my primary pedagogical aims in these courses are to expose non-majors--people who may never take another philosophy courses--to philosophical material, help them to understand it, and get them to think critically about it (both as individuals and in groups) on a daily basis. Conversely, in my courses in the major I want to focus less on exams and more on longer (1-page) reading responses, term-papers, and final presentations. In brief, this is because I think it's vital for majors in particular to learn how to think more deeply about the material, and to develop their ability to write about and present complex material and original arguments of their own. Long story short, I've found that staggering different kinds of assignments across courses (doing different assignment-types and lengths in different levels of courses) can be helpful for ensuring that students in all of my courses receive frequent assignments and feedback without working myself into the ground.

Second, I've begun staggering the timing of assignments within and across classes. For example, in my human rights seminar this Spring, I had students do 1-page reading responses each class for the first 11 weeks of the semester. However, the last four weeks of the semester they no longer have reading-responses due. Instead, they have term-paper workshops that require them to do some work at home (e.g. a paper outline, drafting their introduction, drafting their summary) and then bring that material to class for peer-feedback and submit to me for instructor feedback. I've found this incredibly helpful, as removing the reading responses frees up time for providing them feedback on their workshop assignments--and devoting the second hour of class to workshops lessens the amount of prep I need to put into my daily lectures. In other words, I "make room" for an increase in grading load (e.g. giving daily feedback on partial-drafts of term-papers) by lessening my workload elsewhere (no more reading responses to grade and shorter lectures). Similarly, because in my upper-division applied ethics courses I think it is pedagogically valuable to end courses with student presentations (followed by short group assignments discussing each presentation), I am able to end one course (say, Biomedical Ethics) with no lecture prep the last two weeks, thus again freeing up time for other things (grading final presentations, etc.).

In short, although I still do a lot of grading and have frequent assignments, I've been increasingly looking for creative ways to lessen my workload in one area (e.g. lecture prep, grading reading responses) whenever my workload increases in another area (term-paper workshops, final presentations, etc.)--so that I'm able to keep my students engaged with frequent assignments without working myself into the ground as much as I used to. In full disclosure, I think there are some pedagogical costs to some of the choices I've experimented with (viz. having lower-division courses more exam- and short-reading response based, instead of, say, having term-papers). Fortunately, though, as someone who is always looking for better ways to do things, the costs I've perceived here have led me to think about other approaches that I hope to experiment with moving forward--ones that I'm excited to try out! Indeed, if I've learned anything about teaching at all, it's that its often precisely these kinds of challenges--viz. balancing various pedagogical goals with workload, etc.--that inspire one to continually rethink and refine one's methods and keep things "new", both for oneself and one's students.

But these are just some of my thoughts. What are yours?

Reader Query on Transfer Desks

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, LM writes:

I recently received a rejection from a top 10-20 journal after an R&R. I then received notice that my manuscript had been sent to the Transfer Desk. I had never heard of this before. So my question is, is it a good thing for it to be sent to the transfer desk? Should I take advantage of this given that I could send it to a top specialty journal in my field? Or should I revise it in light of my rejection comments and resubmit to another generalist journal with a great reputation?

Amanda then added:

I will be curious to hear what others say about the transfer thing. I recently got something like this for the first time too. From what I could tell, it is just a way for journal publishers to try and get papers published in journals that don't have that many submissions, or to otherwise keep the paper with the same publisher. I do not think it is a good thing, and I would just submit it to whatever journal you think would be best.

Apparently I've been living under a rock or something, because I've never heard of Transfer Desks before and have no idea what in the world they are! Anyone care to fill those of us in who don't know what this is all about? And, for those of you who are more in the know, how would you answer LM's questions? Is going the Transfer Desk route a good idea, or (as Amanda's comment suggests) something to avoid?

The Future of Publishing @ Pacific APA

If any of you are heading to the Pacific APA this week and are interested in meeting up, feel free to email me at [email protected] or fb message me. In fact, if there's any interest, perhaps we can even do a Cocoon meetup of sorts!

In any case, I hope to see some of you there, and hope some of you choose to check out the panel I'm serving on Wednesday (tomorrow) evening at 6:00pm:

The PhilPapers Foundation
Topic: The Future of Publishing and Peer Review in Philosophy
Chair: David Bourget (University of Western Ontario)
Panelists:

Marcus Arvan (University of Tampa)
Liam Kofi Bright (London School of Economics)
Catarina Dutilh Novaes (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
David Velleman (New York University)

We'll be discussing a randomized survey on publishing David Bourget recently carried out on PhilPeople, as well as ways that publishing and peer-review might be improved. Hopefully it will be good and interesting discussion!

Reader query on coaching ethics bowl

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes in: Has anyone coached an Ethics Bowl team before? I just found out I will be next year, and I have no idea how to do it well.

I began coaching Ethics Bowl teams in my first job (a VAP at UBC), and have coached a team each of the past nine years at my current institution (a few of which have done quite well!). Let me begin by saying that it really has been one of the more rewarding parts of my job. The students tend to be really into it, it leads to good philosophical discussions that students learn from and challenge you to learn from as well--and when your team does well, it can be really gratifying to see your students shine (especially if, as is often the case, you've seen your students grow over several years). Finally, even in cases where your team doesn't do well, it can be a positive experience--provided you and your team members approach it as a learning opportunity.

Anyway, I don't want to give all of my team's "secrets" away (as my teams have worked hard experimenting with a lot of different things, some of which may not have worked for us but might work for other teams). So let me instead just outline how we prepare in general.

Transitioning to one's first TT job

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Eddie writes:

I would be grateful to read a post on how one coming out of grad school or a post doc should prepare for starting their new tenure-track assistant professorship in the states, with an eye toward getting off on the right foot for securing tenure painlessly.

'Excited new prof' then added:

My request relates to Eddie's. I was wondering if anyone would have advice about what (not) to do during your first year as an Assistant professor on a tenure-track. I'm starting this fall at a regional comprehensive in the U.S.

Great questions - and there has already been some good advice given, particularly Old Prof's:

What NOT to do in your first year: do not agree to do all sorts of committee work, and then not deliver on what you said you would do (be realistic); do not hide problems with your teaching until they are so big the dean hears about it (get help early); do not assume that your new institution works like the ones you have been at in the past (ask questions); do not stop researching (show that you can balance research with full time teaching ... it is also the only way to get out of a bad place if you need to leave); do not go out drinking with your students or say inappropriate things to them; do not trash your colleagues to other people on campus (wait at least a year for that ;).

But let me add a few more things before opening things up for discussion...

Query on SEP & Phil Compass articles

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, 'possibly unlucky' writes:

Sorry if this has already been addressed, but I would love a discussion of the way in which SEP/PhilCompass articles are handled. I think most view a publication in SEP or PhilCompass quite favorably (I'm always impressed by such publications) and these publications allow the author to exert a fair amount of influence over the subfield (unlike traditional journal articles, these reference articles can be read by hundreds, if not thousands). Yet the process by which credit and influence are distributed is, to me at least, extraordinarily opaque. I've only had experience with PhilCompass, but my sense is that the subeditors have a tremendous amount of autonomy and so there is no standard practice. There's no review system or procedure in place, so those who don't personally know the subeditor may not be guaranteed serious consideration. In my own case, I had to just cold email the editors. In one case the editors told me to come back in a year (a year!) if I hadn't published my article and they *may* reconsider it. In another case, the editor just ignored me. Have people had similar experiences or am I just unlucky?

There was quite a bit of discussion about this query in that thread already, but let me say a few brief things. In reply to 'possibly unlucky', Amanda wrote:

My experience is that invited publications count for a lot, as much as peer-reviewed journals for lots of research places. It is all about proving you are a member of an elite club, not some impassioned judgement of who is objectively best.

I have to confess that I found this very surprising. As someone who doesn't work at a R1 institution, I would have thought that Phil Compass and SEP entries would not count as positively in a candidate's favor as traditional non-invited publications featuring original research. Indeed, my own experience (having served on four search committees) is that some search committees really want to see whether a candidate can publish original research consistently through traditional, anonymized review - and that if a candidate only has a few publications, most of which are either invited or literature overviews (viz. SEP or Phil Compass), then that could even count against a candidate.

But, like others, I am merely speaking anecdotally here. Any search committee members care to weigh in? How do you (or committees you've served on) tend to treat Phil Compass or SEP publications?

Doing better for our graduate students, making a PhD in philosophy worth it

This story, by Rachel Williams, is simply entitled "A PhD in philosophy was not worth it".  The title reflects the contents well. The story's familiar, but that does not make it less sad:  Rachel Williams writes about the disillusionment, lost opportunities, low wages, and a profession that looks increasingly hostile and unattractive.  She lists the problems that plague the profession: the obsession with brilliance, the editorial buddy circles, publish or perish culture, the slim chances of getting a tenure track job out of grad school, or at all (after years of precarious employment), and the lack of support from peers or mentors. 

Suppose you make it in the profession. By 'make it', we will typically mean that someone is in their mid or late thirties by the time they land a tenure track job in a geographical area they will often not have chosen to live in, working on a 3/3 or even 4/4 course load, and earning a starting salary of anywhere between 49 and 76k (often the lower part of this range), which only slowly inches up over the years. While that is still a decent salary, you have to take into account the years of lower earnings and the risk in the market. 

What if you do not make it? Did you then just waste at least six years (at least, in the US) on graduate school that could have been spent better elsewhere? "You don’t really know what academic philosophy is really like before it’s too late." - Williams writes, regretting her lack of opportunities and lack of money in her retirement fund at age 32. 

The solution, some might argue, is to just have fewer PhDs in philosophy. But I'm not at all sure that is a good idea. If we restrict the number of PhDs, the barriers to entry to the profession will shift to earlier on in the process, and it will be more difficult for people without the cultural, economic and social capital (middle class, white, etc) to do a PhD in philosophy. Moreover, I think that a PhD in philosophy has value. I've interviewed people who went to grad school in philosophy who are successful writers of novels and have produced and co-written TV series,  as well as career coaches, statisticians, computer programmers, and  I was recently filmed for television series on science and religion by someone who studied (but did not complete) a Philosophy PhD. A Philosophy PhD is currently running for Member of the European Parliament (see here for an article in Dutch).  

I will be placement officer next year, so I'm thinking about ways to help support our grad students. Absolutely, if our graduate students see academia as their plan A, we should support them in that and help them to achieve this goal. We should be realistic about the range of jobs on offer (not every job is a job at a research-intensive, prestigious university; most aren't and that is fine) and we should help them to prepare and tailor their CV and materials for the places they want to land jobs at. 

But if our graduate students feel some hesitation at academia over time, it is important to recognize that and to support them in alternative career choices. Typically, in the humanities (though I am not aware of any empirical work on this and would like to hear about it), it seems to me people mostly start graduate school wanting to have an academic career. But over time, some grad students start doubting that teaching is for them, or that writing papers is for them, or that the combination of teaching and research really suits them. And then we should also support them in that. Maybe it is prudent to talk about non-academic placement in any case, just as a sensible plan B. 

How can we help you? (April 2019)

It's a pretty busy time of the semester, and we haven't had one of these threads in a while, so I figured now might be a good time for one.

For those of you unfamiliar with this series, this is a chance for you to post openly or anonymously in the comments section below on anything you could use help with related to the profession. After you post your query in the comments section, I will then post new threads for readers to discuss your query.

Please feel free to ask questions on anything (within the Cocoon's mission) that you could use help with, including but not limited to:

• The job-market (applying for jobs, etc.)
• Graduate school
• Publishing
• Teaching
• Issues in the profession
• Work-life balance
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Fire away - we're here to help!

The “job market" doesn't start post-PhD

This is a guest post by John Protevi, Louisiana State University

This post has two sections. In the first, I take a wide view at employment practices in philosophy departments in American higher education. In the second, taking that analysis in hand, I offer some advice to people considering entering graduate school in philosophy.

When philosophers talk about "the job market," they presuppose that the job market in philosophy begins post-PhD, that it’s all about people looking for a TT job. 

I suggest that we change our frame of reference on these matters, and specify that when we talk about "the job market" in this way we are discussing only a small segment of the complete system of employment for philosophy instruction in institutions of higher education. So I'd like to suggest we call the analysis of the complete system "the political economy of philosophy instruction." 

When we change the frame of reference like that, we see the context for the (post-PhD) job market includes post-BA labor of graduate assistants (either as TAs in charge of sections, or in charge of discussion groups, or as graders of essays) as well as part-time and full-time instructors with BA, MA, or PhD, and post-docs with teaching duties. 

To put it in a formula that retains “job market”: the *real* job market for philosophy teachers begins post-BA, so that PhDs are not just competing against other PhDs but also against anyone else who teaches philosophy, holders of the BA and MA included. 

When we talk about the "political economy of philosophy instruction" we can then explicitly talk about several factors that are only implicit in the discussion of the (post-PhD) "job market."

First, we can see the role of university administrators, who are, after all, largely responsible for the shifts in employment patterns in philosophy instruction. 

To an administrator, a section of Logic or Intro to Phil or Intro to Ethics or ... taught by a BA or MA is a section taught, and taught at low cost. This focus on administrators enables us to connect "job market" discourse with the analyses of the "corporate university," the "privatization of the university," and like matters.

APA seeks to connect with philosophers interested in Asian Philosophies

Are you interested in one or more Asian Philosophy?  Would you like help integrating Asian Philosophies into your teaching, reading, or research plans? Would you like to hear more talks by specialists? Would you like to know about events and opportunities to chair/comment? 

If you are a graduate student or faculty member and you answer yes to any of these questions, the APA Committee on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies wants to hear from you!

We want to help people like you gain access to opportunities, resources, and useful information.  Please click on the appropriate link below to fill out a short Google forms survey.  It should only take a few minutes.

Graduate Student Interested in Asian Philosophies (https://forms.gle/RbG51qQS1KimPoTHA)

Faculty Member Interested in Asian Philosophies (https://forms.gle/GWxRjacLNDmRCdY18)

If you have comments or questions feel free to contact Brad Cokelet: bradcokelet[at]ku.edu

How to write a philosophy book - the monograph as laboratory

This is a guest post by Donovan Schaefer, University of Pennsylvania

I’ve always thought writing was strange, and writing a book is the strangest of all. A book project is like building a little planet of words from scratch. It’s disorienting and exhilarating at once.

Common sense says that writing is a transcription of what’s in our heads. But that’s wrong. We write to figure out what we think. It’s a laboratory, not data entry. The intuitions that we have in mind about how pieces of information fit together look different when they’ve taken form in a document. Or, put another way, when we write we realize that our watery sense of how an argument will play out has to be given more definition and structure once it actually hits the page. In this sense, writing is problem-solving.

This is strange enough with an article, but book-length writing takes the dizzying self-surveying of one’s own mind and draws it out in extremis. The book spools out, folds back in on itself, becomes a sort of organism, with the different parts and components demanding to be connected and synced up just so.

This is part of the reason why rewriting existing material (from articles or book chapters) can be a mixed bag. On the one hand, the work is there and done. On the other hand, the milieu of the book changes how the material needs to be oriented. This shift is likely to be subtle rather than major, with each paragraph needing to be brought into alignment with the project of the book (which can’t not be different from the project of the article). I find the re-alignment work of bringing an existing piece of writing into the system of the book is always more than I expect it to be. That isn’t to say it isn’t worth it, but it takes a certain kind of headspace that’s different from writing or even ordinary editing. And the further I am from that initial piece of writing, the more likely I find the reworking taking up a disproportionate amount of time and energy.

As Max Weber writes, “[i]deas occur to us when they please, not when it pleases us. The best ideas do indeed occur to one’s mind in the way in which Ihering describes it: when smoking a cigar on the sofa; or as Helmholtz states of himself with scientific exactitude: when taking a walk on a slowly ascending street; or in a similar way.”

This haunting by one’s own thoughts seems to be proportionate to one’s level of immersion in writing. You feel it with an article, but it goes overboard with a book. Coming up with a system for catching these ideas when they fly by is indispensable for me. I have notepads everywhere I go (including by my bedside). Even if it seems so obvious that I don’t see how I could possibly forget it, I force myself to write it down anyway.

One of the strangest parts of writing a book is that the concentrated writing changes you as a writer even as you’re writing. I find I get a stronger feel for my own style (in that moment), my own limitations, and my own methods as I work. Besides, so much of style is about systematization. A stylistic device used once is a tic, used twice is a motif, and used three times is a statement. Writing long-form lets you build that interior in a way that you can’t with an article.

Moving from renewable lecturer to one-year VAP?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

Is there is a situation in which it makes sense to leave a potentially renewable lecturer position with pretty bad pay for a better VAP position with much better pay?

Is the renewability factor too important to give up for the one year, non-renewable position that pays much better?

I'd be curious to hear what everyone else thinks, but here's my answer. Absent extenuating circumstances (e.g. the lecturer salary being too low to live a decent lifestyle, adequately support one's family, etc.), the renewable lecturer position seems the better bet. I spent seven years on the academic job-market, and for me time made all of the difference. I was lucky to be in a renewable non-TT position that I could stay in that entire time. Had I been in a one or two-year position, I doubt I would have been able to stay on the market as long as I did--which again, was as long as I ended up needing to get a tenure-track job. On the other hand, if the lecturer salary is really low (and one really cannot fathom remaining in that kind of situation long-term), then maybe rolling the dice with the VAP makes sense.

What do you all think? It might be helpful to hear more detail from the relevant reader to orient the discussion, as well.

Taking time away from research

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Ash writes:

I'm not sure if you've covered this already, but.... When do you think a person is "allowed" to take time away from research? My list of papers-in-progress is long and so I more or less always think I should be working on one of them, whenever I have a spare moment (i.e. a moment not devoted to fulfilling other obligations). But right now I have a couple of hours to kill and yet I'm not doing research. I'm tired. I have a young child. I had 4 campus visits this semester and each one was fatiguing to prepare for and to go through. I'm teaching (albeit with a light load). 
How do you decide when to rest and when to push through?

These are great questions, ones I have asked myself from time to time. In fact, I would be very interested to hear answers to them, as I haven't been able to answer them well myself.

Writing a philosophy book

This is a guest post by Fiona Ellis, University of Roehampton, London

There’s no one way of planning and writing a book (whether philosophy or otherwise), and much of it has to do with temperament. Some people like to map everything out in advance (Iris Murdoch), others make it up as they go along (Haruki Murakami), and most people probably do a bit of both of these things. The first important thing is the big idea – this is the book’s main selling point, and it makes the project worth doing in the first place. In my 2014 book God, Value, and Nature (OUP), the big idea was that there are expansive (i.e. non-scientistic) conceptions of nature which can be pushed in a theistic direction, and that predictable ways of resisting this move involve a contestable conception of God.

I like to have a fairly clear sense of where I’m going, and once I have the basic idea I set out a provisional chapter structure. This was easy to do for God, Value, and Nature because I was following a particular line of argument and reproducing its structure at different levels of content. I knew where I wanted to go, and it was mostly a matter of spelling out the relevant arguments. There were surprises along the way, but nothing too shocking. Things are trickier with the book I’m planning at present, for the argument is more complex, and there are murky depths which will surface only when the writing process begins. I usually aim at 7 or 8 chapters, and squeeze the initial plan into a couple of pages. It took about 2 years (including a term of sabbatical leave) to produce a complete draft of God, Value, and Nature. I wrote most of it before getting in touch with a publisher because I didn’t want to be constrained by a particular plan or timeline, and it meant that the submission was in the best possible shape.

I write each chapter as if it’s the finished product, and try to avoid having a series of incomplete drafts. Loose ends and gaps mess up the developing argument, and my books tend to have a fairly tight structure. The downside is that I can end up spending an inordinate amount of time on one chapter, but things can go really smoothly too. Once I’m happy with a chapter I’ll share it with one or two friends; I’ll then revise it in response to feedback before moving on. I work best when there’s an uninterrupted stretch of time – ideally a few weeks or more where I can go for total immersion. If the weather’s half decent I’ll start and end each day with a swim, but apart from that I’ll be mostly at my desk. This is my idea of paradise, and the second best is when I can organise a few days along these lines.

Writing papers - in lieu of a guide

This is a guest post by Neil Levy, Senior research fellow at the University of Oxford

I’ve published a lot of articles – more than 200. So it seems like I should have some tips worth sharing on how to write them. I’m not sure I do. I thought of calling this post How to write a philosophy article, but I’m not sure I know how. I also thought of calling it How I write a philosophy article, but I’m not even sure I know how I do it. What follows is a description of how I tend to generate ideas and turn them into papers. Perhaps something in what I laughingly call my process will help others. Or perhaps the lesson is that you have to find your own.

Most people (I gather) generate the argument, more or less, before they sit down to write. Writing is a craft for them. The thinking happens in conversation with others, in the shower, in teaching, while running, or whatever. This sometimes happens for me too (though usually when reading). That’s nice when that happens. But it doesn’t happen all that often for me. I don’t tend to sit down with a clear idea of what I want to say.

Rather than a craft for me, writing is thinking. When I sit down, any idea I have is incredibly vague and very fragile. I really don’t know whether it will amount to anything. I try to sneak up on it, rather than express it. I often begin by describing the problem I’m concerned with, rather than jumping straight into it. I will often write (what I hope will become) a first section, describing the terrain of the debate as it stands. Only then do I really try to develop my idea. I try things out, on paper (well, on the screen). I write the ideas as they come, as fully and carefully as possible.

The advantage of doing things this way is that by the time I get to trying out the ideas, I have a fairly good idea of the lay of the land in the debate. The disadvantage, of course, is that doing your thinking on paper is labor-intensive. When I try to make my vague thought a little clearer, I sometimes find that it melts away. Vague thoughts are often confused thoughts. Because I write on a lot of topics, at the germ of an idea stage I often don’t the debate well enough to know if the idea is novel, or whether there are obvious objections to it. The result is a lot of abandoned papers. I have lots of paper fragments floating around on hard drive. Sometimes, they’re not unsalvageable. I abandon the paper because the idea evaporates, but I come back to it months later (maybe after reading something that suggests a different way of approaching it). Sometimes, they’re complete dead ends.

Evening the playing field

In the comments section of Helen's recent post in praise of ordinary academics, Derek Bowman wrote:

The problem is that even positions like these now require one to be - or at least to present oneself as - exceptional. How many of the many job market threads here at the Cocoon are about how to *stand out* rather than simply how to be a good teacher or a good philosopher?

NK then added:

To add to Derek's comment: It's long bothered me that so much of the discussion here is about how to stand out. To an extent, I get it. But telling everyone how to stand out arguably just intensifies the competition (and reinforces the background assumption of meritocracy) that's already making so many of us so miserable. I'm actually inclined to think that giving job-seekers advice about how to get a job is a lot like encouraging athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs (setting aside the fact that the latter are against the rules): if you give the advice to a few, and they take it, it will likely help them; but if you give it to everyone, and most of them take it, the result is that everyone is working harder (suffering, or taking the risk of suffering, the side-effects of the drugs) for basically the same chances of success. So the whole exercise seems pointless (irrational, even).

Helen then responded by saying, "The way I see my mission on The Cocoon and other forums is to help level the playing field...[by providing] free information...[that] helps to make it clearer what [kind of] candidate you are." However, NK wasn't persuaded that what we do helps to level the playing field.

Because these kinds of concerns have come up before (and I do understand where they are coming from) I'd like to try to clarify why I am still hopeful that the tips and information we've provided may help to level the playing field in good ways.

A theory of writer's block

Guest post by Anna Welpinghus, Technical University Dortmund

Over the last years, I have occasionally been struggling with writer’s block. It looks like this: I have an unfinished manuscript that I cannot bring myself to complete. When I work on it, I look at one of the many unfinished sections, write half a paragraph – maybe half a sentence, and that is all. I do not know how to proceed. At some point this condition stirred my intellectual curiosity. I was puzzled by the question, which ability I am lacking when I experience writer’s block. After all, I do know the language of my paper and I know how papers in my discipline are supposed to look like. I know the subject matter of my paper well enough. I am sufficiently motivated to get to my desk and start working on the manuscript. Why is it that I cannot write?

In this blog post, I will present my tentative answer to this question. In other words, I propose a theory of writer’s block. While its vantage point is deeply personal, namely my own experience, I think that the theory resonates with many others. I won’t claim that this holds for all writer’s blocks, however. Most probably there are other kinds of writer’s block. I leave open how widely applicable my theory is. The theory is in its early stages of development and I welcome feedback.

Other treatments of writer’s block that focus on academic writing often deal with fairly course-grained dysfunctions concerning writing: for instance, disenabling habits (e.g. Silvia 2007) or paralyzing attitudes towards oneself as an academic (e.g. Valian 1977). Although Valian and Silvia take different vantage points, some of the remedies they suggest are similar: namely to schedule regular time for writing and stick to that schedule. Silvia has detailed suggestions on how to do so. Valian also suggests to get rid of paralyzing attitudes towards oneself and one’s work. In contrast, Silvia does not recommend any soul-searching. I recommend both texts, especially for anyone who finds it hard to find time for writing. But following their advise only helped me so far. The reason, I think, is that their advice does not tackle dysfunctions during the writing process itself.

Start with an observation about writing: it involves a lot of decisions all the time. We have to decide how to structure a paper. We have to decide how to write a paragraph or how to formulate a sentence. In writer’s block this decision making process does not work. When I experience writer’s block, I am painfully aware of the myriad of possibilities of how to say things. I know that not all of them are equally good. I have to find formulations that are good enough to get the paper published (usually my goal), and I do not know how to do that. Since this is a truly painful state, I sometimes end up avoiding the situation. Blocks like these can stick with me for months, even years. Fortunately, they are also somewhat local. I am blocked with regard to one paper or a few of them. I am usually not blocked when I write emails and I am never blocked when I write notes to myself.

Reminder: it only takes one

Shay Logan (Macalester) writes in:

I have a job! Yay. But that’s not exactly why I’m writing. Mostly I’m writing because I think there’s something about my experience in four years on the market that might be valuable for your readers to know.

I’ve seen the “if you’re doing things right you’ll get a load of interviews” thing mentioned on your blog and heard it a ton elsewhere as well. But I think it’s wrong. It was definitely wrong for me. Chatting with other folks in niche fields, I get the following sense: if you’re not (a) working in moral/political or (b) from someplace fancy, then you will probably get very few interviews even if you’re doing everything right. 

Example: I never once had more than three interviews in a job season. Chatting with other folks in niche subfields leads me to believe this is a common experience. And, in case it matters, I (and many of the folks I chatted with) did the things you’re supposed to do (lots of outside vetting, hired a job consultant, went to career centers, published more, taught more, etc) and still never got more than three interviews in a season. This despite applying very broadly, to anything that I/they qualified for (sometimes 80+ jobs). 

This season, I had exactly one interview. They hired me. 

The moral of the story *isn’t* “don’t give up if you’re not getting many interviews”. By all means, give up when it makes sense to give up. Failing to get many interviews may be evidence to add to your “when does it make sense to give up” calculation. The moral is just that failing to get many interviews doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with your application. It’s just how things are out there for some (many?) of us. 

Thanks to Shay for writing in with this. I think it is a very good reminder that different subfields can be very different (in terms of interview numbers), and that it only takes one interview to work out! That being said, I still think it may make sense to evaluate whether to stay on the market depending on how many interviews one gets. For example, if you've been on the market for 5+ years but you are still getting one interview each season, it may make sense to consider how long one should keep at it given the chances (and other opportunity costs) involved. Still, Shay's comment seems to me very helpful, and I thank him for sharing it. And of course I congratulate you, Shay, on getting the job! :)