The Philosophers' Cocoon

Writing cover letters when submitting?

In our thread the other day discussing whether it is okay to submit a radically different version of a paper to a journal that already rejected it, several commenters suggested writing a 'cover letter' to the editor explaining the situation. One reader wrote, 'this might be a good occasion to use the barely-used "cover letter" feature for submissions', which manuscript central submission portals normally have. This got me thinking: in what other types of cases might it be a good idea to submit with a cover letter?

Earlier this week, I noted that I have a longish reply paper, and that the problem I'm facing is that most journals don't accept replies to papers in other journals. Might this be a good case to submit with a cover letter--explaining for example that while the paper replies to a particular argument by a single author, the paper nevertheless has broader implications that warrants considering it as a standalone paper?

I vaguely recall that, back in the day, before online manuscript portals were used, cover letters for journal submissions were basically the norm. For example, Thom Brooks' Publishing Advice for Graduate Students (2008) states, "When sending off your submission, always include a cover letter..." (p. 18). I also vaguely remember being instructed by mentors that cover letters should provide a very brief explanation what the paper is about and why it is a good fit for the journal.

So, anyway, I'm wondering: when is it a good idea to include a cover letter with a submission? Do journal editors, in particular, think the practice ever helps authors. If so, in which kinds of cases?

Journal format(ting) requirements?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Confused writes:

Some journals (e.g Philosophical Studies) state on their websites that submissions should be in Word (doc/docx files). Others (e.g. Synthese) explicitly say "Word or pdf". Do the former journals really not accept pdf submissions?

I've always been a bit puzzled by these kinds of requirements myself, and think it might be good to hear from some readers with an inside view on things (i.e. journal editors). Why do journals have these kinds of requirements? Do you automatically reject a paper that doesn't conform to them? And what about formatting requirements (such as requiring endnotes rather than footnotes)? Do you automatically reject papers that don't conform to those?

Submitting a different version of a paper?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Damian writes:

Around a year ago a paper of mine was desk rejected by a few of the top 20 philosophy journals. Since then I have completely revised the paper, to the degree that only the topic (broadly construed) remains the same and some expository parts remain the same. The paper now has a completely different title, a completely different argumentative structure, and a completely different conclusion than the reject version.

Since I still believe that some of the journals that desk rejected the old version are a good fit for this paper, my question is, whether it's fine if I resend the new version to them?

This is a good question, and one that I faced earlier in my career. I think the answer is 'no.' Even if the paper is 'completely revised', my sense is that the journal is likely to consider it a newer version of the original paper that was desk-rejected. Although I suppose it's possible that you might get away with it, I suspect an editor is probably likely to realize that it's a paper that was already submitted. They might not only see the old one in their system when they log in (if they briefly review your previous submissions); they might also read the paper to see if it's worth sending out to reviewers and recall the earlier version--and I imagine this could really irritate them, particularly if you changed the title (which they might find intentionally deceptive).

To be clear, I'm not sure about any of this. However, the longer I've gone in my career, the more it's seemed to me that it's not worth taking risks like this. If a journal rejected an earlier version of my paper, I won't consider that journal an option for it. There are other good journals, after all. But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?

All dressed up and nowhere to submit?

I recently wrote a longish paper replying to an article in a good journal that was itself a longish reply to an earlier article in the journal. Alas, my article ended up getting rejected from the journal and now I find myself in a bit of a quandary: namely, what to do with the paper now? As I'm sure many readers know, most philosophy journals don't consider replies to articles in other journals. This has always seemed to me a bit unfortunate, as it seems like a real barrier to philosophical debate. But regardless, I'm at a bit of a loss what to do with the paper now.

Any readers have any tips/suggestions? Have you ever been in a similar situation? If so, what did you do and how did it work? It could be good to hear from journal editors too, as they obviously have inside insight. Many thanks in advance to everyone who chimes in!

Best practices for research support at SLACs?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Josh writes:

I would be very grateful to get some hive-mind wisdom on the topic of research policy at SLACs. I'm at a small, mission-driven university that is doing its best to take research seriously. We often "punch above our weight," as it were, but we don't have much in the way of clear policy that might offer needed (in my view) structural incentives for faculty research.

I'm wondering about "best practices" when it comes to such structural incentives, e.g., policies on course and/or administrative release for grant-holders, grant applicants, course buyouts, non-grant-holding researchers, sabbatical policies, etc. I'd be especially grateful for ideas from those at SLACs, but definitely all ideas welcome.

Great questions! I'm curious to hear from readers who work at SLACs both on what their university's policies are like, as well as what people think 'best practices' are. I think my university does some nice things to support research for full-time faculty. Although I may be forgetting some things (I don't know whether grant-holders can get course releases), I do know that we have the following:

1. Annual merit raises: for full-time faculty, which depend on teaching, research, and service performance, though one can choose to have research weighted up to 40% in one's annual score.
2. Internal grants: which are competitive, but which any full-time faculty can apply for annually.
3. Post pre-tenure review course releases: a one-time, one course offload that tenure-track faculty get after successfully passing their 3rd-year pre-tenure review.
4. Sabbaticals: which tenured faculty can apply for after 6 years, either for one semester at full pay or for one year at half-pay.
5. Travel funding: which one must apply for prior to every conference, but can enable one to travel to from between 1-3 conferences per year.

If you work at a SLAC, what are your university's research-related policies and incentives? And what do you think 'best practices' are?

Elitism in graduate program admissions?

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

Inspired by the thread on letters of recommendation, I have a question about elitism and graduate admissions. I recently saw a current PhD student say that institutional prestige (including fame of letter writers) is the most important component of one's application, whether one has a great sample or not.

I am now curious--for those in PhD-granting departments, does it seem like the institutional prestige plays a bigger role simply because of unrecognized/unmanaged ignorance related to elitism, or is it that the adcom members are simply more likely to respect and know the letter writers, thereby giving more weight to their letters? Further, does this matter depending on the ranking and reputation of the institution?

Depending on those answers, I am curious as to how someone coming from a low-ranked or unranked PGR program that is still an R1 university with famous faculty fit into the picture. If they have one or more famous letter writers, does institutional prestige begin to matter much less? A little less? Or is there something else about prestige that will end up penalizing even someone with a famous letter writer from an R1 university (e.g., grade inflation)?

I know Eric Schwitzgebel has posted about this, and my own scouring of current PhD students on department websites leads me to believe that elitism plays a role in admissions to Ivy league programs and PGR top-ranked private schools (e.g., Georgetown). However, when you get below a certain rank you begin to see institutional prestige matter far less or perhaps not at all (e.g., UC Boulder seems to have many PhD students from small/unranked schools).

All of this leads me to hypothesize that even ignoring fame of the letter writers and the skills you get from higher-ranked schools, the simple fact that you went to a highly-ranked school can bolster your application in the eyes of adcom members who consider their programs to be "elite" (aka, upholding the literal definition of elitism), but not as much for programs who consider themselves not-elite, or who have made efforts to mitigate the effects of what Kristie Dotson would call pernicious ignorance.

note: I did not seriously consider the idea that elitism is recognized and endorsed by elite institutions to try and be charitable, but if someone haves reason to believe otherwise let me know

I think it would be good to hear from admissions committee members about this. I will say that I have heard, at least anecdotally, that a few highly ranked programs have taken active steps to combat elitism in grad admissions. However, all other indications are that elitism still plays a large role in philosophy, and indeed, in academia more generally. For example:

• Eric Schwitzgebel found in 2019 that elite philosophy PhD programs mostly admit students from elite undergrad institutions, and that only 11% of students in the elite PhD programs he studied were from institutions not nationally ranked in US News & World Report.
• Helen De Cruz found in 2018 that philosophy PhDs from low-ranked departments rarely secure employment in high-ranked departments.
• This 2015 study found steeply hierarchical inequality in faculty hiring across three disciplines, with just a quarter of all universities accounting for 71 to 86 percent of all tenure-track faculty in the U.S. and Canada. The study also found that "18 elite universities produce half of all computer science professors, 16 schools produce half of all business professors, and eight schools account for half of all history professors."

Whatever the cause, it seems that elitism is a big thing in academia. But still, it might be good to hear from readers, particularly those who have served on grad admissions committees. How would you answer the OP's questions:

1. Does it seem like the institutional prestige plays a bigger role simply because of unrecognized/unmanaged ignorance related to elitism, or is it that the adcom members are simply more likely to respect and know the letter writers, thereby giving more weight to their letters?
2. Does this depend on the rank and reputation of the institution?
3. If [someone coming from a low-ranked or unranked program] has one or more famous letter writers, does institutional prestige begin to matter much less in grad admissions?

On why reviewers and authors should remain mutually anonymous

This year, I have reviewed 12 papers (and more if you include revise and resubmits) for various journals. As I was reflecting on my work as a reviewer (for my end-of-year report of teaching, service, and research), I saw this interesting question on Twitter. Gui Sanches de Oliveira asked: 

Is it always bad to ID oneself as reviewer? I like the paper! BUT it overlooks discussion about X that's crucial for their argument on Y. I dealt with X in detail, so I'll bring up my paper, but it's hard to pretend I didn't write it. What can go wrong if I'm open about who I am?

Is it OK to reveal one's identity to an author as a reviewer to their paper?

I am inclined to say "no," especially if one does not habitually sign one's name to papers, but I think no in most cases. 

I don't deny there aren't goods to be obtained from more transparency in review. Reviewing is something of a collaborative venture, with often significant input from reviewers in the final product, and knowing identities mutually could further help to build fruitful collaborations. Moreover, it can be heartening to hear someone say they liked your paper if one is early-career. I recall as a grad student when I had my first paper accepted to a journal (this was not a philosophy paper, but a theoretical cognitive science paper), I was at a conference about a year after, and one of the founding people in evolutionary psychology told me they had reviewed my paper and really liked it. It felt so wonderful to hear this endorsement of my work at this stage. 

But I think on the whole the negatives outweigh the positives. In the case of the question on Twitter, I think it's perfectly fine to write "Discussion of topic X by Author Y (date) is crucial for this part of the argument" without specifying that you are Author Y. In fact, I often recommend that authors look into papers by other people and in some cases one might think the reviewer was one of those people. One cannot just assume that if a reviewer recommends to look into the literature to a specific paper, that that paper is written by the person who authored the referee report. 

My biggest problem with outing oneself as the author of a referee report is power relations.  Journal publications are high-stakes zero-sum games particularly for early-career people for whom it can make the difference to get a tenure track job, a postdoc, or tenure. In some cases, there is a large disparity in seniority between the author and reviewer. The author might be a grad student, the reviewer a tenured professor, or vice versa. In both of those situations knowing identities (mutually or one-way) creates peculiar dynamics that I don't think help to make the review process better. A more senior author might feel resentful about some suggestions for changes made by someone with less experience. Or a more junior author might feel more deferential, less willing to push back against some suggestions, if it turns out the reviewer is someone really eminent or someone she admires. I'm not saying these sorts of dynamics are common or exhaustive, they are just examples where I think the veil of mutual ignorance is really better for both parties. 

A second worry I have is that signing one's name to a review report makes it hard to be honest. As a reviewer, I try my best to be respectful and constructive. I do not think it is my job to be a quiet co-author, so my reports tend to be brief and tend to focus on what I think the biggest issues are. Obviously, authors won't always agree with my judgments (particularly if the Editor's final verdict is rejection), but they might be unhappy or begrudge those well-meaning criticisms. Sometimes, a paper is really terrible and I think a reviewer's comments should convey that the reviewer thought the paper was weak (without being snarky or horrible) and specifying why it is weak.  I am just not sure if I could be that forthright if I signed my name to reviews. I know some people have no problem doing this, but if signing one's name to referee reports became the norm then people who would not like to risk grudges and ires would simply stop reviewing. 

Suppose I would only sign my name to positive referee reports. Would that be better? I don't think so. Revealing one's identity  can create an undesirable sense of indebtedness. Suppose, for instance, I see a really wonderful paper appear in print that I remember reviewing earlier and I write to the author "I loved your paper! I was the reviewer who recommended accept". What motivation could one have for writing this and not just "I read your paper on XX that just came out in Journal Y and I really loved it" when it appears in print? Recommending Accept or Minor/Major Revisions (or even Reject but with useful feedback) is helpful for the author, but one does not do the author a favor by recommending Accept! One only does the author a favor insofar as reviewing is an act of altruism. Reviewing is an altruistic endeavor (that for-profit journals take advantage of) that we engage in to make sure that journal publishing as an institution can survive. We do our fair part in the process, trying to be fair, impartial, and dispassionate, judging papers on merit and how much they would be of interest to readers in the relevant subject area. That institution requires the veil of anonymity to work well (I am still very enthusiastic about anonymous reviewing, though this is a separate issue from the topic at hand here). Any sort of attempt to build connection with the author of a paper you reviewed by letting them know you're the author does not benefit that institution.

I am all for more collaboration, more interaction, more engagement. But there are better ways of doing this than to out oneself as a reviewer. I think it's great, for instance, to contact people about their work and to engage in conversation about it but it doesn't need to be at the review stage. We can do this connection building earlier, for instance, when we send a paper to some friends, colleagues and other peers for friendly feedback before we send it to a journal. Or we can do it later, once the paper is in print. But I think the review process itself is best done unencumbered by knowing identities, both as a reviewer and as an author. 

Staying competitive in philosophy in a non-philosophy postdoc?

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

Question on doing interdisciplinary work. I've done empirically inspired philosophical work before, but am now taking on a postdoc in a non-philosophy project. This leads me to wondering how to ensure that I remain a competitive candidate within Philosophy. I assume I need to make sure I also publish my own, solo, philosophical work -- but I can't realistically do as much of it as someone doing a philosophy postdoc. Are there ways to help make the non-philosophical research help and not hinder future hires? Also, will recommendation letters from my non-philosopher supervisors in that postdoc count for anything? A further concern is that this is a research only position, which means it doesn't enable expanding my meager teaching portfolio. Should I try to adjunct a class or two on the side to make up for that?

These are interesting questions. This appears to me to be a serious issue for postdocs in Europe. In the United States, postdocs aren't hired to complete a particular project. But from what I can tell, in at least some places in Europe, that's exactly what postdocs are: one is hired (it seems) into a position funded by a particular grant or whatever, and your activities in the postdoc are supposed to be on the funded project, whatever it is. Assuming this is right, it seems to me to place postdocs in a terrible position in multiple respects. First, the postdoc may have to more or less give up on their own research program in favor of the grant-funded project. And second, as we see in the OP, the project may be largely empirical or not even in philosophy.

What should postdocs in this kind of position do? I think the OP is right that they should try to continue publishing solo philosophy work on the side. But aside from that, I'm not sure. I don't know how useful recommendation letters from non-philosophers will be for applying for jobs in philosophy. And given that postdocs like the one the OP described don't have teaching, the OP is in a triple-bind: they need to somehow spend most of their time working on their postdoc project, while also publishing solo work in philosophy and (ideally) getting some teaching experience. All things being equal, I think seeking out adjunct work would be a good idea--but, as we see here, all things aren't equal. I don't know how someone in their position can realistically do all of the above. So unfortunately, I have to confess that I don't know what to say here. It seems to me that postdoc practices like these place recent PhDs in an extremely difficult position, one that I don't have any clear views on how to best navigate (in large part because I've never been in the situation myself).

Do any readers out there have any better answers? Have any of you been in a similar position? If so, what would you suggest the OP do? If not, what do you think the OP should do, looking at it from an outside perspective?

How to write good recommendation letters?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, a reader ('G') writes:

I am a junior faculty member, and I started to get requests from students (undergraduates) for letters of recommendation for different purposes. I am wondering if people can share some tips, principles, and/or strategies for writing letters. I am especially curious about people's thoughts on the following questions:

1. If a letter only mentions positive things about a student, would it be less credible? If I need to mention some potential concerns, how should I do it? Should I be specific or not?

2. Do you use different strategies for different purposes, such as graduate school, scholarship, etc? I've learned that some people tend to be more positive if a letter is written for a scholarship (some only mention positive things about students). Is this the common practice?

3. How do people write letters for average students (below-average sometimes)? I know that some people just politely decline the request. But if I need to do it, how should I write such a letter?

Great questions! I'm very curious to hear everyone's answers. Here are mine:

On (1): I don't know whether people find a letter less credible if it only mentions positive things. But, for my part, this concern is a reason why I normally do include some discussion of specific areas where I think a student could improve. It has always seemed to me that if I only trumpet an applicant's virtues, then I've done the admissions committee (and applicant) a disservice. No student is perfect, and if my letter pretends they are (by omission), then it seems to me that someone reading it could read the letter very skeptically--particularly if the areas the applicant might need improvement in show up elsewhere in their application (e.g. their writing sample). So, I normally do include some notes in my letters where applicants can improve.  When I do, I normally carefully qualify it something like as follows: "Like all students, X does have a few areas where they could improve. For example... However, I want to emphasize that they are good at X, and an excellent all around candidate for admission to your program..."

On (2): I've only written letters for graduate admissions, so I can't quite comment on this.

On (3): Generally speaking, I won't accept a request to write a recommendation for a student I believe to be below-average. In those cases, I'll usually tactfully suggest that the student seek out someone else. I have written letters for average students, but usually ones who I've seen made substantial strides through hard work. When I write these letters, this is usually what I focus on: the student's upward trajectory. I'll usually also give the applicant some heads up too. For example, when they ask, I might note in my email response, "I'd be happy to write you a letter. However, I do want to note that you've generally received B grades in my courses, so my letter would have to reflect your overall performance." On a few occasions, I think I've had the applicant decide to ask someone else for a letter instead--but for the most part, my experience has been that they're usually still happy to have me write them a letter (usually, I think, because their performance in my classes is fairly representative of how they've done in their other classes, as well). In any case, when I do write letters for such students, I try to go about it tactfully but honestly, writing things like, "My experience was that X was a good but not exemplary student. However, their performance in my courses improved significantly over time, and I believe they would succeed and flourish in your program for the following reasons...".

I have no idea whether other people go about things differently, and whether there are readers who think that I'm going about things wrong on (1) and (3)--though I will note that the students that I've written letters for (including average students) have done well at getting into programs. Anyway, what do you all think? How would you answer G's three questions?

Saturday sounds

Tech tips for interviews?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Jack writes:

I have a second query that I thought of while reading the replies, in particular some that mention lighting and headphones. I was under the impression that headphones look a little unprofessional but on reflection that seems silly. Perhaps we could have a dedicated thread on what equipment is good for zoom interviews and other tips about lighting, angles, etc?

One reader ('Newly TT') made a couple of suggestions in our thread on how to dress for Zoom interviews:

[I]nvest in a good webcam and microphone. I actually think it makes a big difference, since you come out in HD and with good sound quality instead of a pixelated mess with tinny audio. I bought a webcam and mic set for all of my Skype interviews last year, before COVID made Zoom a thing. It happened that I could repurpose the same camera and mic for online teaching nowadays, but I think that it's worth it regardless! It's like a $100 investment and if it makes a difference, it pays off big-time.

These are good suggestions, I think, but I also think it could be good to discuss Jack's original query in more detail. Indeed, I think it could be good to hear both from candidates about what has worked well (and not so well) for them, as well as from search committee members. So, here are a few questions directed toward each group:

For job candidates: which tech tips do you have for other job-candidates? Which kind of tech have you used that seems to be important and work well for you? On the flip side, what have you tried that hasn't worked so well? Do you use headphones? Artificial lighting? A professional mic? Wired (as opposed to wireless) internet access?

For search committee members: what have you seen that seems to work well or not so well for job-candidates? What sorts of things have you noticed that come across well or not so well? For example, do you think big headphones look weird or less-than-professional, or do you not care at all? Indeed, aside from being able to see and hear a candidate decently, do you think all of this talk about tech (e.g. lighting, etc.) is overblown?

For both groups: don't feel any need to be constrained by the questions suggested above. Feel free to share whatever thoughts you have on the general issue of tech in interviews!

An Inquiry about Writing One's Own Letters of Recommendation

I was recently reviewing Michael Huemer's arguments (from 2017) against the practice of soliciting letters of recommendation, and I recalled a phenomenon I learned about while in graduate school. Assuming these accounts were true, some faculty members in the profession are in the habit of making graduate students write their own letters of recommendation, which the faculty member then signs. (To be clear, no faculty members at my graduate program did this. These were accounts I heard from other early career members of the profession who I met at conferences or who visited my program as guest speakers.)

This practice, however common, has always struck me as problematic. First, it puts an even greater burden on graduate students in terms of job market preparation, and they are already going to commit hundreds of work hours to that task. Second, the faculty member is abdicating a professional responsibility that I think they're obligated to fulfill. Third, even if the faculty member reads the letter and signs off on it, it is unlikely that the ideas in the letter would be expressed in the same way and to the same degree as if the faculty member has written the letter themselves. Fourth, there will surely be cases where the faculty member will not read the letter carefully or will fail to raise criticisms of its content even when such criticisms would be appropriate, which means its content may not accurately reflect the faculty member's opinions.

However, it's been many years since I've heard any tales about this practice, and so far as I know, I have never worked with a faculty member who engaged in it. On that note, I want to ask the community two questions:

1. How common is this practice in 2020?
2. Is there some justification for doing this that I am unaware of?

Teaching students how to write papers

I had an illuminating teaching experience this term that I figured I'd share with readers, and which I think might serve as a useful springboard for discussion. First, a little background.

It occurred to me recently that in all my years as a philosophy student, I was never directly taught how to write a paper. I wrote countless papers as a student, of course. But, by and large, I was mostly just expected to 'figure it out.' As an undergraduate, I was given term-paper prompts by instructors, and then did my best to write a paper on one of them. Then, as a graduate student, I just came up with the best ideas I could on the course material, and then write them up. Then, of course, I would received grade--and, for the most part, that was that. In a few cases (for example, my first undergrad course with Dan Dennett), I was able to revise and resubmit papers. But, as far as learning how to write papers, that was basically it. 

Anyway, because I found Dan's resubmission policy so helpful as a student, for many years I did the same thing as an instructor: I had a standing policy of allowing (and encouraging) students to rewrite papers as many times as they wanted. While this was an extremely labor-intensive policy (both for them and me), it generally seemed to work pretty well: a fair proportion of my students would rewrite their papers, improve their work, and appreciate the learning process and their improvement. Still, for all that, there appeared to be a lot of wasted energy in the process: revisions that only modestly improved the student's paper, me spending a ton of time grading them, and so on. Finally, a good proportion of my students never did them anyway--so, it seemed like the rewrite policy wasn't quite 'reaching' them. Those students (particularly the ones who didn't do well) were never learning how to write a good paper.

Because of my dissatisfaction with the revise-and-resubmit approach, a while back I began trying a new strategy: term-paper workshops. Toward the end of the semester, I'd devote half of each class period to helping work their way through each stage of putting together a good term paper. First, there would be a day devoted to brainstorming. I'd post a worksheet on Blackboard asking them to sketch out a few ideas they have for their paper (in response to the term-paper prompts), and which asks them to not only state a rough thesis (or theses, if they have multiple ideas), but also how they plan to argue for it and what kinds of objections a reader might have. Then I would have them discuss their worksheet with a randomly selected peer, who would then fill out a series of questions, commenting on how promising the peer thought the topic, thesis, and argument were, and so on. Then, over a few weeks, I'd use a similar process for workshopping drafts of parts of the paper. The workshop schedule would go something like this:

1. Brainstorming
2. Outlining the paper
3. Drafting an introduction
4. Drafting an exposition/summary section
5. Drafting an argumentative section
6. Drafting a critical discussion section (e.g. grappling with objections)

Finally, in order to incentivize student effort, I would grade students on the basis of the extent to which they put a good faith effort into both parts of the assignment: as author and peer-reviewer. I have to be honest, though: after a few semesters of trying this, I found the 'peer review' part of the workshops to be mostly useless. This was for a couple of reasons. First, my undergraduate students simply didn't have a very good idea of what a good philosophy paper looks like--so their peer feedback was often counterproductive. Second, they often seemed reticent to be sufficiently critical: they seemed like they wanted to avoid offending their partner, so oftentimes their feedback would (in my view) be artificially positive (and again, not very useful).

So what I did this fall, and in a couple of other recent semesters, was do the workshop, but only have students submit their workshop materials to me. I found this works like a charm. Indeed, the term-papers that my students turned in this fall were, on balance, the best papers I think I've ever had students submit. Why? Well, think about the process I outlined above. Anyone who has graded undergraduate term papers knows that students can majorly screw up at many different points.

First, they may simply have a bad/non-viable topic (i.e. thesis and argument). Having students brainstorm things, and then giving them formal feedback on their ideas before they draft the paper, can enable them to avoid this error. Indeed, even if what they brainstorm is bad, they can see why and then develop a better/more viable topic (several of my students this fall did this).

Second, in my experience students simply don't have a very good idea what a good introduction, summary exposition, etc., looks like for a philosophy paper--so, having them workshop each and every stage gives them a clear idea before moving on to drafting the next part of their paper.

Third, and this in my experience may be the very best part of the workshops, formally grading (and giving an 'unofficial grade') for earlier parts of the paper incentivizes better student effort when drafting. Here's what I mean. Most of us, I think, have had students submit shoddy papers--papers that show that they didn't put much effort into their paper (writing it, let's say, the night before it's due). Then, of course, we've had experience with these same students getting upset about their eventual grade, thinking they should have done better on the assignment than they did (let's say, because their instructors in other disciplines aren't very rigorous graders). What workshopping each stage of a developing paper enables me to do as an instructor is to show them very early on just how rigorous of a grader I am. So, for example, when they draft their 1/2 page introductory paragraph, and I grade everything about it to very strict standards (grammar, editing, organization, content, etc.), the student is apt to think to themselves, "Wow, I better put a lot more effort into my exposition section than I thought!". Then, when I subject their exposition to the same high standards, that seems like it solidifies the same point (viz. "Wow, I ought to put a lot more effort into my argumentative section than I thought!").

Long story short, I've found that the first drafts of student papers (viz. their workshop materials) tend to be far better than the final drafts of papers that I used to receive, and that insofar as students use the feedback I give them in the workshops to revise their papers for final submission, their final drafts (on average) this semester were vastly better than any that I received before. A couple of closing thoughts: it occurred to me that, in all of my years as a philosophy student, I never went through a process like this--and it was probably to my detriment. For example, I think it would have been great in grad school to have a seminar or workshops entitled, "How to compose a publishable paper", where an instructor would give step-by-step feedback on what journal reviewers would think is good or bad about this or that section of a paper. I never feel like I had a very clear idea about this except by learning it through trial-and-error (via lots of journal rejections). Second, I imagine that one potential concern about my workshop approach is that it might be 'too overbearing', imprinting upon my students what I think a good philosophy paper looks like, giving them too much direction rather than letting them figure stuff out on their own. I appreciate this concern, but think it can be mitigated by taking care to not simply "give students the answers" (viz. 'writing their paper for them'). The key, I think, is all in the kind of feedback one provides.

Anyway, this is just a teaching experience that I figured that I'd share, and I figure it could give rise to some good discussion. Here, for example, are a few questions to potentially discuss in the comments section below:

1. How do you teach students how to write philosophy papers?
2. Does what you work well? If so, how?
3. Do you think you were given enough instruction on how to write a good philosophy paper (say, in grad school)?
4. If so, what did that instruction look like?
5. If not, what do you wish your instructors (and/or grad faculty) had done?

Are philosophers serious? Should they be?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, a PhD student asks:

Do philosophers typically think philosophy is real? As in: do you honestly believe the philosophical positions you hold, or believe that the field you work in is pursuing real things?

I've been in graduate school for five years, and always struggled with this question. I always assumed people knew philosophy was an intellectual flight of fancy and picked philosophical positions arbitrarily. I also have always assumed that philosophical issues are fantasy. But the people in my program seem to think that the positions they hold are actually right. Am I the outlier? Do other people have similar inclinations?

I think these are really good questions. Before I weigh in and open things up for discussion, here are three response comments that readers submitted:

PhD student: nope, you're not an outlier. Your fellow grad students need to grow up. Some people never do. - by Overseas Tenured

I would not have dedicated over a decade of my life, and many 60+ hr work weeks, to philosophy, if I thought "philosophy was an intellectual flight of fancy" or if I was "pick[ing] philosophical positions arbitrarily". There are, of course, some topics researched in philosophy that I might characterize as "intellectual flights of fancy", but I avoid those and work on what I take to be serious, important issues. I also try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and assume there's something in those others topics that is important that I'm missing. As far as I know, all of my friends take either their own work, or at least much of what they teach, reasonably seriously. Some may take it more seriously than others, and I know everyone at some point struggles with feeling like their work is actually worthless, but I don't know anyone who openly takes such an extreme and sweeping view of philosophy --- e.g., seeing their own work as a mere kind of game detached from reality or anything important, and also seeing basically all of philosophy that same way. Here are some questions addressed in philosophy: How do we have a just society? Is a specific policy X just and fair? Do animals feel pain and should we eat them? When is it appropriate to believe something based on the evidence? What makes something "fake news"? These (and variations of them) are all questions studied by philosophers. I would have thought they are all clearly important and asking about objective features of reality. - by Mike

Kieran Setiya's podcast "Five Questions" asks most (or all?) of the people he interviews whether they believe the philosophical positions they hold. So you can check out that podcast for various answers to that question. - by Daniel Weltman

My own position here is somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, I wouldn't do philosophy if I didn't think the questions we address are real, and if I didn't think there is something to the views that I defend. On the other hand, I very much appreciate skeptical concerns about traditional philosophical methods. As Jason Brennan argues in his 2010 article, 'Scepticism about philosophy', "Widespread disagreement shows that pursuing philosophy is not a reliable method of discovering true answers to philosophical questions. More likely than not, pursuing philosophy leads to false belief." I advance similar concerns here about traditional methods in moral philosophy. My own preferred answer to this kind of skeptical challenge is that philosophy should use better methods, drawing on science and the methods of the sciences, vis-a-vis natural philosophy. Which is why I think rising interest in metaphilosophy and experimental philosophy is especially valuable. Finally, as many have noted, I think it is impossible to avoid taking philosophical stances on things--for example, on what morality or justice are. We have to simply do our best, though again I think we should use better methods rather than worse ones. 

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? Do you side with PhD Student and Overseas Tenured in thinking of philosophy as little more than flight of fancy, or do you think philosophy is serious business? And, do you believe the views you defend? If so, how do you grapple with skepticism about philosophy's methods?

How to dress for Zoom interviews?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Jack asks:

How should candidates dress for zoom interviews? I’m a man but I imagine other genders have this question too. Should I wear a suit and tie? On the one had that feels somehow a little silly but on the other hand i feel that it is better to be overdressed than underdressed. What if I have multiple interviews for the same uni over different days—should I change my outfit? Any other presentational tips I [might] not be aware of?

Good questions! My sense is that expectations and norms for dress tend to be more relaxed for Zoom, so I don't think a suit and tie is necessary for a first-round interview (or advisable for that matter, as you may look like you're interviewing for a corporate job). Indeed, my general sense is that people are probably not going to spend much time thinking about how you're dressed for a first-round interview on Zoom--provided you don't wear a t-shirt or something. 'Campus visits' via Zoom may be a bit of a different story, however, as you'll be meeting with administrators (e.g. the Dean, Provost, etc.). So, I would probably be sure to dress fairly formal for them, and probably also be sure to wear different things on different days. But I don't know for sure. What do you all think? It might be good to hear from search committee members! 

Saturday sounds

Must a writing sample fit the job?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Marian writes:

I have a sort of specific version of the question: How important is it that one's writing sample(s) fit the job specification? I applied for a TT position advertised as "field X with specialisation in subfield Y". I work in X and have strong interests in Y but haven't written much in it and the writing sample I submitted was only loosely connected to it. I received an email from the department asking for a second writing sample, and I'm wondering whether I should submit a better paper in field X that has almost nothing to do with sub-field Y, or else submit an inferior paper that has a little more to do with subfield Y. Thank you everyone.

This is an interesting question. I'm inclined to think that in general (though not always), it's probably vital for a writing sample to fit the job. I would also not be surprised at all if in Marian's case the request for a second writing sample is motivated specifically by the committee wanting to see if she really does serious (and good) work in the area, as requesting a second writing sample is a bit odd. The primary case in which it seems to me that 'fitting the job' might not be a huge priority is for R1 jobs, where a department might just want to hire the best researcher they can simpliciter. But these are just my thoughts, and Peter submitted an alternative perspective: 

@Marian: I don't have any experience being on search committees. But my knee jerk reaction is to always try to submit your best piece of writing. If it's not on subfield Y, then you can always talk up your connections to subfield Y if you make it to a round when they ask you about it. But if it's *bad* and it's on subfield Y, then it seems like you're passing up the best way to even make it to that next round.

These are good points. I tend to think it's best to roll with your best work, and agree that if one's work in Y really isn't very good, then it's probably not going to help one's case to submit it. But this just draws attention, I think, to the sense in which Marian is in between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Although again this is just speculation, it seems plausible to me that the reason the SC asked for a second sample from her is precisely because her first one wasn't squarely in Y, and they want to see what her work on Y is like. Then again, Marian can't know either way, at least not without asking. So, I dunno. Maybe the thing to do here is to actually ask? Marian could always email the search chair, asking something like, 'Is the committee looking for a paper specifically on Y, or is it fine if I submit on X?' But would this be a good idea, or a bad idea? I don't know! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What do you all think, particularly those of you who have been in a similar position or served on a search committee?

Should external letters be weighed more heavily?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, a grad student writes:

I have a question about external letters of reference as part of one's application materials. Or maybe it's a comment.

I know the reasons why they're valued: this person is not personally invested in your success in the same way that your supervisor is, and hence they can (allegedly) speak more objectively to your work. Now I've been told, and have read people saying, that the external letter is the most important letter for a lot of places. This seems pretty unfair. For starters, it can be hard to get an external reader. You either need your supervisor to already be connected with them, or to meet them at a conference (which you likely had to get into), or some other way. Then of course you have to have the "right" external reader, i.e. someone from a top notch place doing top notch work. But how often do such people wind up in the circles of students not attending the Northeast East elite or the California elite programs? Pretty rarely, I'd guess.

I think what I am doing here is asking job committee members to rethink their bias towards the external letter. There's a lot of value to getting an external voice on one's committee, I think. And students should keep doing so. But it seems to me that, as hiring committee member, weighing that letter more heavily than the others is plainly unfair. I suppose this is part of the larger conversation I've seen floating on philosophy social media lately of whether or not letters of reference should be flat out abolished.

To make sure I get some kind of question in here, I am asking for a justification of the practice of weighing external letters heavier, which does seem to be rather prevalent (for the record, I've tried to secure one myself, because of what people tell me about their importance).

I'm actually very sympathetic with these concerns. As readers may recall, I'm not a fan of recommendation letters in general. The empirical evidence on them suggests they have little predictive value regarding future academic or work performance. This is for many reasons, not the least of which are selection bias:

Selection of writers is biased; usually, we don’t ask people who hate us to write letters for us.  Writers themselves are then biased; many won’t agree to write recommendation letters if the only letter they could write would be a weak one. Among those that do write letters, the personality of the letter-writer may play a more major role in the content than the ability level of the recommendee.

How often do interviews make a difference?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Mercado writes:

How often do first-round TT job candidates move up in the ranking as a result of their Zoom/Skype interview such that they make it to the second-round-on-campus visit?

Here I assume that SC members have a rough sense of who is favored for the job or at least who they would like to invite for a campus visit.

Great question! My experience, having served on four search committees, is as follows. First, the vast majority of interview performances are broadly indistinguishable from each other. Most interviewees perform pretty well, and so much of the time don't make a difference in terms of who to invite to campus. I'd say that out of every 10 interviews, 8 are pretty good, 1 is awful, and 1 is tremendous. Second, the primary times interviews cause significant changes in how a search committee thinks are (A) when someone at the top of the list heading into the interview gives a terrible interview, and (B) someone seriously in the running gives a tremendous interview. Terrible interviews really can knock someone out of a 'top position' (i.e. someone the committee expected to want to hire) and lead that person not to be invited to campus. Conversely, tremendous interviews can make a real difference in terms of getting an on-campus visit. However, tremendous interviews are pretty rare, and whether they result in an on-campus will still depend on how the committee judges the rest of the dossier. If someone is toward the 'bottom' of the committee's list (due e.g. to not having publications, etc.), then even a tremendous interview might not make a difference--as members of the committee might be skeptical of the value of interviews, and place more emphasis on tangible accomplishments and how well candidates fit the institution and the department's needs. The most likely case where a tremendous interview is going to make a difference, I think, is when a candidate is in the 'middle of pack' (as it were) prior to the interview.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours, particularly those of you who have served on search committees?

Submitting extra recommendation letters?

In our December "how can we help you?" thread, Overthinker writes:

I have been wondering how committees might feel about getting more letters of recommendation than usual from an applicant. I don't have any worries about getting good letters from my advisory committee, one of whom is from an outside institution. But I think I could get letters from a couple professors who can speak to my non-research work in the department, like my teaching, service, and good relationships with the faculty. Are letters that emphasize those sorts of things overkill or even irrelevant, so that it would be more of a waste of time for the letter writers?

Good question. I'm not sure what the answer is. I personally don't focus very much on letters as a search committee member, and in fact I'm pretty opposed to them being used in job applications for these reasons. However, I do know search committee members who take them pretty seriously, especially teaching letters if you are applying to a job at a teaching focused university (indeed, not including one for a job like that might send the wrong message: that you see yourself primarily as a researcher and don't fit the job or culture well). So I'm not sure. One reader submitted the following response:

That is overkill. It will never come down to two candidates with good research letters, and then the scale is tipped by an extra letter that says you are one of the first to bring a tasty casserole to a department party.

Fair enough. But what about if you have been involved in significant service to the department? At my university, service is taken very seriously (it's a central part of the job, on a par with research in terms of how much of our time we are supposed to apportion to it). So, if a candidate does serious service and is a good colleague, might a letter on this stuff help? Maybe, I'm not sure. What do you all think, particularly those of you who have actually served on search committees? (It might be helpful to note what kind of university you work at in answering, to give your answer some context). 

Teaching applied social epistemology in a critical thinking course - by Carolina Flores (Rutgers)

Caught in a Bad Epistemic World: Teaching applied social epistemology in a critical thinking course

Carolina Flores (Rutgers University)

The traditional critical thinking course couples an introduction to logic and inductive reasoning with telling students how to detect a litany of fallacies. In my view, we can do much better by our students. Students in critical thinking classes are mostly not philosophy majors, and they are likely in your class because it fulfills some university-wide requirement. The best a critical thinking class can do for them is help them develop applicable skills to reason better about the world outside the classroom. Being able to detect fake news, or explain to their relatives how to do so, for example, is much more useful for that purpose than knowing truth tables for logical connectives.

More generally, we should make space to discuss questions such as: who should we trust and why? What news sources should we read? When and why should we question science and medicine? How should we engage with people we deeply disagree with? How can we make sure that we are not caught up in epistemic bubbles or echo chambers?  These are questions in applied social epistemology, a discipline concerned with the social dimensions of knowledge in real-world cases.

If you need more persuading that you should add material on applied social epistemology to your critical thinking course, here are five reasons to do so:

1. It is directly applicable material. Your students will have constant opportunities to return to this material. It is relevant every time you open social media, find yourself in a political disagreement, or check the news. This both makes it more useful for students and more likely that they will learn, given constant opportunities for reinforcement (especially if your class explicitly articulates such applications).
2. It brings up heavy-weight philosophical questions in a friendly guise. Questions about whether we should trust specific pundits or news sources and why, how we can know we are not in an echo chamber, why it is generally good to trust science though scientific findings despite bad science, and so on, are common-sensical questions that students might have thought of themselves, or which are easy to motivate. But they also get you close to traditional philosophical questions about the nature and value of trust, Cartesian skepticism, the nature of reasonable doubt, and so on. This means that this is a great way to get students to actually do philosophy in your class, applying the logic and argumentation skills a critical thinking class should help them develop and maybe motivating them to take more philosophy courses. (see Thi Nguyen’s twitter thread for more on this)
3. Students like this material and engage in the classroom. Because the material is applicable, it is easy for students to bring up their own examples. These examples are often funny or entertaining, which helps with classroom engagement. In turn, this makes this material fun to teach, and it helps you connect with students and get to know them better. It’s a win for you and a win for the students.
4. It provides opportunities to recap and apply classic critical thinking skills. Addressing questions in social epistemology requires careful argumentative reasoning, providing students with opportunities to practice their deductive argumentation skills. Considering problems with conspiracy theories, vaccine skepticism, and bad science requires students to return to material on inductive reasoning to detect what the problems with these kinds of reasoning are. If, earlier in the semester, you explicitly covered this material, this gives you a chance to reinforce that learning and show students why it matters.
5. Teaching applied social epistemology might make the world a little better. Here is a small dose of idealism. Imagine your students leaving the class with a good (or, at least, much improved) understanding of what a good news diet looks like, of how to detect fake news, of why conspiracy theories and science skepticism are dubious, of why they should make efforts to trust members of marginalized groups more than they naturally might, and so on. This is a win well beyond the classroom. It will make them more likely to form and maintain good beliefs and good epistemic habits. It will also give them tools to engage, and maybe even persuade, family members and friends who have fallen prey to some of these vices. In sum, helping students in this domain can make some difference to halting the spread of bad epistemology, which tends to seriously compromise democratic deliberation.

How can we help you? (December 2020)

Now that it's been over a month since our last "how can we help you?" thread, it's time for a new 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:

• Life and work in the COVID-19 era
• The job-market (applying for jobs, etc.)
• Issues in the profession (including issues of social justice)
• Graduate school
• Publishing
• Teaching
• Work-life balance
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Fire away - we're here to help! Important note: if you submit a comment in this thread responding to someone's query, I won't post it (as this makes it difficult for me to keep track of everything in the comments section, particularly which queries I've started new threads on and which ones I have not. However, if you do post a follow-up comment, chances are good that I will post it in the new thread I start on the relevant query. So, do feel free to submit responses. Just know that they won't appear in this particular thread and might instead appear later in a new post!).

In the mood for philosophy: on the importance of setting the mood for philosophical thinking

I've been learning how to write fiction. It's been a slow process, going on for about three years now, and after many rejections and writing about 15 stories (far more if you count all the unfinished ones) I got my first short story published published in a magazine here.

It has been an interesting learning experience so far, and I'm still learning.

One thing I've learned is the importance of mood. Mood is very important for fiction writing, and also perhaps for philosophy. It's an under-appreciated aspect of why we love some philosophical works and keep on turning back to it. 

The YA novelist Maggie Stiefvater says in her online course  that mood is more foundational to a story than the idea or the plot. The reader engages with the novel because she wants to feel something. When people go to the movie theater (ah remember!) they don't go to see e.g., two friends having a drunken weekend in Las Vegas, or about an asteroid about to hit the Earth and a team of scientists trying to stop it. No, we go into a movie wanting to feel a certain way. Do we want to feel excitement, are we in for some goofy fun, do we want to feel sad? That's what we're looking for in fiction.

Psychologists commonly make a distinction between emotions, which are directed and more transient (e.g., anger, disgust) and moods, which are less directed, more enduring, such as nostalgia or playfulness. I need to look more into this distinction as I'm not sure how well it holds up, but a fine-grained distinction isn't really needed for this post, I could grant that emotions also have their role, but they need to be more enduring/less directed than a momentary emotion that quickly fades. Moods are semi-persistent mental states and are influenced by many different factors. Stiefvater argues that though we write for ourselves, we also write for others, and our writing only really works if we can move our audience. Eliciting mood is an effective way to do this. We want to listen to sad music because it evokes a sense of nostalgia, wonder and peacefulness. Sometimes, we are in the mood for such things.

By allowing works of art to elicit moods in us, particularly music, we engage in a kind of cognitive scaffolding, as Joel Krueger points out. Art is experiential.

But philosophy is also experiential. Pragmatist authors such as William James, John Dewey and others have discussed the importance of mood and temperament in philosophizing. So, for example, William James discusses what makes life worthwhile is not the drive for survival, as evolutionary ethicists hold, but "the social affections, all the various forms of play, the thrilling intimations of art, the delights of philosophic contemplation...the rest of religious emotion, the joy of moral self-approbation, the charm of fancy and of wit--some or all of these are absolutely required to make the notion of mere existence tolerable" . 

Some philosophical works have a very distinct mood. I will be teaching Zhuangzi next term (together with my colleague Pauline Lee) and one thing I find is that, at least in the inner chapters, there is a consistent mood of playfulness and profundity, Zhuangzi (though highly likely extensively edited and not by one author) the mystic, the sage who doesn't take himself too seriously. I think the mood is an important contributor to the work.

Saturday sounds

Interview: ‘How to Shawshank your way out of academia’

I came across this very interesting interview yesterday with Aaron Kagan, who received his PhD in philosophy at Fordham and now works at Google. The interview not only covers his own path out of academia. Kagan also gives a ton of helpful tips on how to do so, including things to do during grad school, how to network, how write a good non-academic resume (1 page only!) and cover letter, how interviews differ, and how to present oneself to a non-academic audience--to name just a few. It is a great interview, almost certainly the best that I have come across on this topic. Here are just a few choice snippets (not in the same order as in the interview), and again, there's a ton of other good stuff:

Did you have to deal with feelings of grief or anything else surrounding leaving academia? Did you find there were other consequences of making that choice?
I beat myself up pretty badly at first. However, once I ‘left’ (i.e., started working somewhere that wasn’t academia) I was so happy. People cared about the work I did, more than 3 people actually read stuff I put together, people depended on me for things, and I was a part of a team, plus I got paid like real (livable) money.

If I think back to my decision, the grief associated with it was largely internal (e.g., how I felt about myself), and a bit of vanity (e.g., not telling people I’m a professor, that I’m not sure what I’m doing, that I’m a “Junior XYZ” at some corporate so and so). But once I got a job this all instantly vanished, I had a massive community of people, co-workers, teams, and others in the industry that also worked as a ___.

What should someone thinking about leaving academia do to figure out what kind of career they would enjoy?
Talk to as many people as you can outside academia and ask them all kinds of questions about their life and their job(s). We have a tendency to get tunnel vision in the ivory tower and only surround ourselves with academic perspectives. Most of the world is not academia, so cast a wide net.

Research non-academic stuff…
This is a lot easier than the kind of research work you’re probably used to. It consists largely of looking through the morass of information on different job roles. There’s loads of free information and training out there.

Try your hand at a bunch of different stuff…
If you’re a business owner and someone comes along and says “Hi, I’m a functioning adult and would like to work for you for free”, you’ll probably get their attention if you’re not totally off putting. There are plenty of opportunities to try your hand at a variety of jobs. In all likelihood, you’d very quickly start to discover the kinds of things you like and don’t like.

What kinds of resources did you utilize to help transition out of academia? Are there resources you see available now to job applicants that you wish you had been able to access?
I wish I had forged even more connections outside academia without the guilt that I was somehow “cheating” on my academic career. There are so many resources nowadays with respect to ‘free education’ on pretty much any topic. I think I could have chased down a lot of dead ends much faster, for example.

Most of the resources I utilized I mentioned above–viz. reading a lot of non-academic stuff, talking to people outside of academia, and sweat equity (i.e., free work for experience of trying your hand at something).

 

'Philosopher Spotlight Series' @Philosophy, Etc.

Richard Yetter Chappell (University of Miami) is starting a really neat new series at his blog, Philosophy, et cetera. Here are the details:

In a previous post, I summarized my published papers, with an eye to trying to answer the questions, "What makes your papers worth reading?" and "What insights or lessons from your work do you wish were more widely appreciated?"

I'm hoping to encourage more people to do the same, since I think it'd be (i) interesting, and (ii) helpful for discovering new papers I should read!  No need to list all your papers (unless you want to) -- even just highlighting a few favourites, with suitable summaries, could be really helpful.  You could also include works in progress if you wish. Be sure to provide links to your papers (or their associated PhilPapers pages) for ease of access.

 

Write your own blog post (or a public Facebook post or the like) doing this, and email me the link, and I'll add it to the link-list below. (Please also link here from your post, so that your readers can discover others in the series.)

 

Eligibility: Anyone with a Ph.D. in Philosophy, or who has multiple publications in reputable philosophical journals (tracked by PhilPapers) is welcome!

 

I think this is a wonderful idea. It seems to me a great way to learn more about other people's work, and I think it could be a great venue for early-career people in particular (i.e. readers of the Cocoon) to introduce people to their work. I plan to follow the series closely here at the Cocoon, and hope some of our readers take Chappell up on the offer!

Should websites be 'purely professional'?

In our ongoing discussion of whether job-candidates should have professional websites, a reader ('designer') wrote:

My issue is that people's webpages are often quite unprofessional. They often have a lot of nonsense on them. Some people, for example, post a lot of pictures of themselves milling about at conferences with famous philosophers. Or they post pictures of themselves on holidays in exotic places. Of course, one can post what one wants to, but it is no longer a professional webpage.

Several readers responded to this comment. Francois wrote:

I have a photo of my cat on my website, just so the impression I give off is a *little* lighthearted rather than totally stodgy. Is this objectionably unprofessional?

Then 'R' wrote:

For what it's worth, to me it still seems quite unfair, if not a bit mean, to judge people for having a personal website. Most of us are not professional designers and at least during graduate school cannot afford to pay a professional designer for our website, but as the OP indicates there is some pressure to have a personal website. I would (still) recommend to cranky and designer that they avoid personal websites rather than holding it against candidates that they have one.

Finally, an anonymous postdoc wrote:

It's less off-putting than standard personal websites, which always gives me a narcissistic vibe. However, I come from a less individualistic and assertive culture than the US, so I might be unrepresentative of how most academics think...

I try hard to stop a personal website being a negative in assessing candidates, but it's definitely not a positive for me. I'm sure that, for others, it's the other way around.

This conversation raises a bunch of important issues in my mind. First, do personal/professional websites come off poorly or narcissistic to most people? I have no idea, and I'm really curious to hear what readers think. I will say that I've come across some that came across that way to me, but that most of the websites that I've come across don't bother me at all. Am I an outlier? Second, given that different people can respond very differently to websites (some very negatively like 'designer', some more positively), what should candidates do? Here are a few quick thoughts...

Teaching During Lockdown (guest post by Graham Oppy)

This is a guest post by Graham Oppy, Monash University, for our unusual teaching ideas series.

In Australia—as in many other parts of the world—we have been through more or less an entire academic year of teaching entirely via Zoom. It is likely that, in 2021, we shall continue to do some part of our teaching via Zoom.

I taught three medium size upper level classes via Zoom this year: a second year class in philosophy of religion (‘God, Freedom and Evil’) and two third year classes, one in philosophy of religion (‘Philosophy of Religion’) and one in metaphysics (‘Metaphysics’).

Philosophy of Religion Classes

The two philosophy of religion units were taught on the same plan. Each week, the students were assigned three tasks to complete prior to a two-hour Zoom class:  reading (around 6000 words); watching a collection of short videos (typically, 10-12 short videos, with a total running length of around 50 minutes); and working through a list of questions on a worksheet.

I made the videos using Panopto. Each video was somewhere between 2 minutes and 5 minutes in length. The videos were collected into a playlist on Moodle. Each video had an informative title. Each video dealt with a discrete topic: the explanation of a concept, or the examination of a premise in an argument, or the like. I used no more than one PowerPoint for each video. Most students liked the searchability of the short videos; some students wanted a single video that they could listen to while doing something else (e.g. exercising).

The questions on the worksheet were grouped in sets of five. Typically, I made four sets of questions; sometimes, I made five. The group of questions were connected thematically: typically, exploring different angles on a single important claim or sub-topic. (I include an example of the question sets below, in an appendix.)

Zoom class group sessions were organised around the sets of questions. After a brief introduction to a set of questions, the students were [randomly] divided into five Zoom breakout groups. (There were about 30 students in each class group.) Each group was assigned one of the five questions. The groups were given an assigned time period to discuss their question. One member of each group was appointed to deliver feedback to the main group. Feedback to the main group allowed for discussion from everyone in the class.

Early in the semester, the group sessions were 7 minutes; and the feedback sessions were about 13 minutes. This allowed us to get through four sessions in two hours (with a coffee break in between the second and third sessions).  Later in the semester, the group sessions expanded to 10-11 minutes; and the feedback sessions expanded to about 40 minutes. This allowed us to get through two sessions in two hours (though we sometimes went slightly beyond the allocated time in order to complete the second session).

In second semester, I had two separate cohorts—so, 60 students in total—and I had a tutor who was randomly assigned to a different breakout group in each small session. (The breakout groups were randomly reassigned after every small session.) In first semester, I also had two separate cohorts—again, about 60 students in total—but no tutor.

Even in second semester, during our second—and very long—period of lockdown, a higher percentage of students attended class than in past years. Moreover, student engagement in general discussion was much better distributed across the cohort than in previous years. Finally, the assessment results for the unit were slightly up on assessment results in previous years. These might all reasons for thinking that it will be worth trying to implement this model of teaching when we eventually get back to face-to-face learning in the classroom.

Many of my students—and my tutor—agreed that these classes had been important for their mental health during lockdown: they all looked forward to the (admittedly limited) form of human interaction that the small and larger sessions afforded. While this reflected a uniform trend at Monash, it is probably worth noting that my first semester student teaching evaluations were the best that I have had (in thirty-five years of teaching). We do not yet have the second semester teaching evaluations, so I cannot report on them.

Part of what I aimed for in setting up the classes in the way that I did was to build communities of discussants who were committed to candour, charity and doxastic humility. There is clearly room for argument about whether these are appropriate goals for the classroom. In particular, if students do not complete the pre-class tasks, then there is a risk that such classes will descend into banal agreement. This did not happen in my classes this semester. One of the interesting features of the reporting back periods was the reporting of the range of opinions in the small groups.

(In the first week of semester, I got students to post to a discussion list, explaining why they were taking the class. From that information, I know that the class was quite diverse: a number of religions were represented in the class, as well as a range of non-religious standpoints.)

Posting your dissertation online?

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

I recently have had a number of requests for a pdf of my dissertation. I defended in 2018 and am currently a postdoc. At the moment, I've polished and published a few sections of the dissertation; however, I'm currently in the process of refining other elements into their own proper articles. Is there any reason, besides the somewhat dated content and style, that I shouldn't post a pdf version of my dissertation on my website? When I've searched for advice on this topic, I've found blog posts (usually from other humanities fields) that recommend not making the dissertation freely available (e.g. https://theprofessorisin.com/2011/08/24/the-perils-of-publishing-your-dissertation-online/). I would love some advice from folk in the tenure-track process on this matter.

This is an interesting question that I have to confess never coming across before. Having read The Professor Is In's post above, the main worry there seems to be book publishers not wanting to publish something that's already available online. However, this worry seems to me a bit overblown in philosophy. My understanding is that some disciplines (English?) generally expect faculty to publish books for tenure. But this isn't the case in philosophy, and my impression is that publishing dissertations as books is pretty rare. Further, the Professor Is In updated their post with data indicating that almost no publisher would refuse to publish a substantially revised dissertation, and that posting dissertations online is in general no obstacle to tenure.

By my lights, a more relevant worry about posting dissertations online might be 'idea poaching', i.e. someone reading your dissertation and publishing ideas based on yours without appropriate attribution. Here again, though, I'm not sure how seriously to take the worry, and of course in one sense 'publishing' your dissertation online (via ProQuest or even on PhilPeople) does constitute a public record of the relevant ideas being yours. So, I'm really not sure what to advise. I uploaded my dissertation to PhilPapers prior to obtaining tenure, and it didn't prevent me from obtaining tenure or from publishing papers based upon it.

What do you all think?

Summer community college teaching?

In our November "how can we help you?" post, Anthony writes:

Question: How does a graduate student find summer teaching opportunities? I would be happy to adjunct this summer at a community college.

Context: I'm currently earning a masters degree in humanities. For it, I'll take a couple philosophy-related courses. I'm actually halfway through a PhD in philosophy at a different institution; I'm officially on a leave of absence from my PhD program to complete this MA. I've completed graduate coursework at my PhD program. But my PhD program only grants masters degrees to those who exit the program early (which seems unjustified to me, but that's a different matter), so I won't have a MA degree until June. My only experience as a primary instructor was at a summer school, but I do have several semesters of TAing under my belt.

Good question, and I have to confess to not knowing the answer. I suspect it's easier to get teaching opportunities at a community college during the normal academic year, as there are presumably more course sections then. I taught at a CC for a couple of semesters during grad school, and if I recall I just applied when I saw an advertisement. But I never did during the summer, so again, I'm not quite sure what the answer to the OP's question is. Do any of you know?