by BARRY MAUER AND JOHN VENECEK

Entering the Conversation

From the Framework for Information Literacy: “Communities of scholars, researchers, or professionals engage in sustained discourse with new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of varied perspectives and interpretations.” Or in layman’s terms: “Groups of scholars, researchers or professionals talk to each other about new insights or discoveries over time because of new ideas and thoughts.”

Academic communities revolve around questions researchers ask that move the conversation about a specific topic or problem forward. They converse with each other through the research they present at conferences and publish in scholarly books and journals. They also converse by email, in the hallways, and through discussion boards hosted by Humanities Commons, H-Net, and others.

The conversation analogy can help us grasp the meaning and purpose of audience awareness, a concept that is new to many students.

Joining a scholarly conversation for the first time can be both exciting and intimidating. We might look to the more established scholars and think that they “belong” in the conversation and that we don’t. These established scholars, like everyday people, may be welcoming to scholars hoping to join the conversation or they may not be. If you meet first with scholars who are not so welcoming, keep trying (but maybe with other scholars)! Joining the conversation is less about who you are and more about learning the guidelines. Scholarly conversation often follows the principles of dialogue. Some of them are:

1. Listen – a lot– before jumping in
2. Learn the key terms, the key questions, the key theories, the key figures, etc.
3. Be curious – ask questions
4. Be respectful

5. Offer information or perspectives that haven’t yet arisen in the conversation
6. Don’t be afraid to state a claim about a subject, but be prepared to defend the claim
7. Be willing to change your mind if challenges to your claims are warranted
8. Be open and receptive to feedback
9. Remember that the goal of scholarly conversation is to improve our shared understanding

One thing to know about established scholars is that they too have self-doubts. Many experience what is known as “the imposter syndrome,” the belief that they are a fraud and don’t belong in the conversation. Self-assessment is good, and your level of expertise should be counted as a factor. We should strive to create an environment where everyone feels they belong. Of course, not every conversation is for everyone. You wouldn’t have conversations about how to take out an appendix with someone who doesn’t know what an appendix is. These conversations need to have restrictions otherwise they threaten the project of gaining real knowledge (We see this with armchair experts, aka TikTok doctors from time to time.) So to sustain a welcoming environment that furthers knowledge, we should follow the guidelines listed above and encourage others to do so as well.

Being open to feedback is necessary. We all make mistakes. When we do, and someone points it out to us, we need to recognize the value of this feedback and take it to heart. Your instructors are doing you a favor when they point to weaknesses in your work. Advanced scholars must accept critical feedback from editors, reviewers, other scholars, etc. The better we become at accepting this feedback, the more likely we are to improve.

For more advice on Scholarship as Conversation, consider the following from WritingCommons.org:[1]

To easily identify a conversation between your sources, look at those sources (articles, websites, images, videos, books), and think of these questions:

• What kind of conversation can you see happening between your sources?
• How many sources are communicating with each other? How are they communicating?

• Why don’t other sources join that conversation? Do they engage in another conversation? Can you link all conversations in one web?

• How are sources in your bibliography communicating with one another?

 Identifying Gaps

“Gaps” refer to areas of research that have yet to be fully explored. Many researchers find productive problems by looking for gaps in the published research. They may be neglected or overlooked areas, but they can also be contradictions in the research. To go back to the conversation analogy, gaps, tensions, and contradictions are identified through the ongoing debate among scholars. Identifying gaps is accomplished by conducting a literature review and asking critical open-ended questions – such as who, what, when, where, why, and how – about your findings. Your goal is to contribute something unique that will generate new knowledge, help solve a problem, and keep the conversation going. Filling a gap in knowledge is often a “low stakes” exercise since it accepts the paradigm of knowledge – the big picture – and strives to fill in the margins. Imagine a large mosaic where the general outline and main features are done, but not all the areas are filled in. Think of these unfinished areas as the “gaps.”

Establishing Relevance

Relevance is a personal concept. What is relevant to me is not always relevant to you and the other way around. I might research fairy tale literature because when I was young my grandmother read Grimm’s Fairy Tales to me every time I spent the night at her house. You might research advances in cardiovascular health because you are going to be a doctor. The similarities between YOUR experiences and YOUR research is not a coincidence and will continue to have an impact on who your audience is and what research questions you choose to write about.

CC LICENSED CONTENT INCLUDED

Mina, Lilian. “Conversation Between Sources.” Writing Commons, 23 Jan. 2020, https://writingcommons.org/article/conversation-between-sources/. ↵

OkStateLibrary, director. Inform Your Thinking: Episode 1 – Research Is a Conversation. YouTube, 18 May 2016, https://youtu.be/DmbO3JX5xvU. Accessed 3 Apr. 2022. ↵

Scholarship as Conversation Copyright © 2021 by Barry Mauer and John Venecek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.