Academic Ronin

In which I answer students’ emails

24 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by academic ronin in Uncategorized Tags: academia, conferences, musicology, research, teaching, writing

I get mail! Let’s examine some. My comments are in [brackets.] (I wanted to put them in blue but can’t seem to figure out how to do that.) Identifying details have been redacted or changed. I just hope students read this.

Stu Dent #1:

Hello  [Peeps, please use a standard salutation.  If you don't know my title, guess. You can never go wrong with "Dr."; even if the person you are writing to is not a Dr., it's polite and won't usually offend. Otherwise, "Ms." or "Mr." will do just fine. "Ms. Leonard" is great. I'll even take "Ms. Preston Leonard," b/c I realize the middle name thing (Preston is my middle name, not a pre-marriage name) can be confusing. Finally, if you can't tell a person's gender from his/her bio, etc., "Dr." is perfect and neutral]

Season’s Greetings!

I am a musicology PhD student at Fancy Parisian University, working on [topic redacted].

I have come across your work , though I hope to be reading more and in more details whenevr I get hold of the books and articles. [OK, English isn't your first language. I'm OK with little mistakes. My correspondence in German probably ain't the best either anymore.]

In the meantime, I wish to know if any of your writings and researches are available in electronic formats? [The fact that you have found me online indicates that you have internet access. Have ya gone to the publisher's site?]

Apart from that, without taking too much of your valuable time, I would appreciate any recommendation regarding documents or methodologies which might help my research. [Oh, well, let me see. I'd be happy to look in all of the databases for articles for you, and look at your library catalogue for books you can use, and gosh, you know what, I'll even write your lit review for you. NO.]

Stu was politely directed to the publisher’s site for my relevant book in e-book format, and I suggested a thorough search of the standard databases and such. What I really want to know is why these students don’t know to ask their librarians or advisors. A first-year PhD student should have already had or be taking a research methods course that explains all of this good stuff, and if the school doesn’t offer such a thing, then the librarian should be the first person they talk to. At least this student was relatively polite. Let’s move on…

Stu Dent #2:

Dear Kendra, [No. You don't know me. Use a proper form of address. ]

I’m an English BA student from Big City U. [A BA student? Newbies, don't your professors talk to you about resources and also the polite way to approach other scholars?] I’m taking a seminar regarding [topic] and I was thinking of exploring this matter regarding [film I've written on]. I’m still skeptic whether I can actually write a 10 pages paper (double-space, granted) about the [topic], but hey. [Um, what? Why are you telling about this? Also, 10 pages is short!] In any case, I found very few articles which specifically addressed [film], including your article [actually, it's a chapter, but I understand that English isn't your first language] entitled [redacted] from the collection [redacted]. Trouble is, and this is where you come in this gigantic rant [it's not a rant, but this isn't not professional either], the collection is not available at any library in my country. Would it be possible of you to send me the article? As I’ve mentioned, I don’t know if this is the direction my paper would take eventually, but being able to read it would certainly help seeing which materials are actually available to make my claim. [Have you checked the publisher's website? Talked to your librarian? Asked faculty members in the relevant areas?]

Stu #2 was directed to the publisher’s website for the e-book, her librarians, and her own faculty directory. I didn’t want to spend much time correcting her net-etiquette, so I just signed off as “Prof. Leonard.” Some respect goes a long way, people.

Stu Dent #3 and #4 are music history students I’ve met at conferences.  I don’t know either of them very well. I suspect they have crappy advisors, because they have adopted me as some sort of honorary one. It’s kind of cute, actually, except for the fact that they are well old enough to read the CHE, Ms. Mentor, and every other piece of academic advice ever written before they come to me with the kinds of questions they send me. Stu #3 is nervous: he writes to ask me if I think his article, 21 pages (with bibliography) is acceptable for a journal with a 20-page limit; what should be on his business cards; how much pictures count in a word-count. I’m happy to help, because, like I said, I get the feeling he doesn’t get this from his advisor. But I’d really rather help him see the major problems in his writing or analysis instead of these picky things that he can find the answers to elsewhere. Stu #3 also has a big Facebook problem, in that he seems like an idiot on it. We all post kittens, but when you’re going to go on the market one day and your future colleagues read about how putting Ikea furniture together is so hard that makes you cry, that you’ve lost your only good shoes and are panicking about it, that you don’t know why you should need decent theory skills to analyze a piece of music if you’re going into “music history”, you’re never going to look good.

Stu #4 seems to be a nice kid but radically misguided about higher education. She has some ideas about the way HE works that are totally from Saturn, and, even worse, is very rigid about her POV. Like Stu #3, her writing needs work; she likes to rehash old research by other scholars and call it new, and sometimes she makes arguments without having read the relevant lit, in very obvious and painful ways. She usually emails me because something hasn’t gone her way, and she can’t understand why. I offer her logic and suggestions for improving situations, but she doesn’t really want help, often–she just wants to bitch. Like Stu #3, Stu #4 has a FB problem, which reveals a lack of common sense and a sense of what’s appropriate on a public (or semi-public) forum. Again, future colleagues don’t want to know that you believe in magic, don’t know how to cook an egg, don’t know how to pay bills, can’t read a map, and get lost on your own campus. You can post this stuff when you have tenure–then it’ll be considered eccentric and charming. But right now, it makes you look incompetent.

I feel like we need to start training advisors better. All of these students should be going to their advisors, librarians, and relevant faculty for help rather than contacting total strangers or a person they met once who was friendly. I’m all for being friendly and helpful, but someone closer to these students would be more appropriate as mentors for these students. At the same time, if there’s an obvious problem with poor advising, maybe students need whatever kind of mentors they can get.

Thoughts?