HOW TO READ AN ACADEMIC DEBATE

Academics are human beings: although we create work that is evidence-based, with arguments crafted out of careful analysis, we still work from particular sets of experiences and points of view. Indeed, we might argue that scholarship is only ever interesting (to its producers and consumers) to the degree to which it speaks to our experiences, expectations, desires, and passions. It is no surprise, then, that often academic works can become the center of strong, even passionate debates.

Academic debate is an important element of the growth of academic knowledge, and is often made more passionate by the particular experiences and desires that academics bring to their objects of study (this is particularly visible in the fields of politics and religion, as you might imagine!). Without ongoing debate, academic knowledge would not grow or change.

There are many forums academic debate:

book reviews: The primary ground to debate academic work is in the professional book review, which appears in scholarly journals (for academic works with a more general appeal, academic reviews might appear in The New York Times or New York Review of Books). Generally such a review will judge the merits of an author's argument, her use of evidence, and a recommendation for potential readership (e.g., "A must read for all scholars in the field" or "appropriate for advanced graduate students"). It is rare in the contemporary, North American context to read a blanket bad review: a combination of academic etiquette and intellectual generosity usually indicates that only in the case of a truly bad book (in the reviewer's judgment) should a review actually say a book should not be read. (Negative reviews are thus taken to be very negative.)

Sometimes several books on a similar theme will be grouped together into a review essay; typically, such essays are as much about a particular subdiscipline and its present state as about the individual books in question.

"a reply" articles and notes: Sometimes scholars will also reply to particularly scholarly essays or articles in the form of a "reply," usually published in the same journal as the original article (sometimes in the same issue, arranged by the editors), when an article has engaged directly with the replier's scholarship (e.g., "In her article on women's politics, Professor X describes my work as 'dated'"). Sometimes, the author of the original article (the "reply-ee") will also then publish a "reply to the reply" or a "rejoinder."

conference panels: At academic conferences, panels are often arranged around an individual scholar, usually around her recent book, but sometimes also a broader consideration of her work and its significance. It is customary for the scholar to then reply to those who have spoken about her work. Usually the scholars invited to be on the panel will be congenial colleagues, but not always. The "in-person" aspect of conference panels will usually demand pleasant behavior, but also creates a more informal atmosphere than the published book review.

special journal issues: Sometimes entire issues of an academic journal will be dedicated to a recent, important (or provocative) book. Sometimes these journals are published versions of conference panels. These published considerations of an author's work tend to be slightly more formal than the conference panel paper, but still more open to critical appraisal (and downright criticism) than a book review.

footnote battles: A lot of the detail work of academic research takes place in the margins and notes (see, for an enlightening history, Anthony Grafton's The Footnote: A Curious History [Harvard, 1999]). It is in footnotes and appendices that scholars often lay out the more arcane points of their arguments, and where they often make a point of "correcting" previous research or points of fact. In some cases, these corrective footnotes are themselves corrected, leading to a subterranean debate that only a few insiders are ever aware of.

Although the contexts of academic debate vary, the parameters of these debates are fairly fixed (since most scholarly debate is officially sanctioned--by publications or conference venues--creating a kind of check against out-of-bounds discourse):

Evidence: Scholars will often appraise the kinds of evidence (whether it stands up to the weight of a scholarly argument) and also how it is evaluated (methodology). Sometimes counterevidence is introduced, and then a rebuttal must explain why this evidence was not used (e.g., it was not available, not relevant, already discussed in an earlier work, etc.).

Context: Sometimes a reply to scholar's work will engage with her context, that is, attempt to explain why this work emerged in this way at this time and then perhaps suggest how this newly explained (or expanded) context must be taken into account when evaluating the work (e.g., "As a piece of feminist history, this book does not adequately explore suffrage").

Agenda: Less frequently, but more spectacularly, some debates will engage with the spoken or unspoken motives that lie behind a piece of scholarship. An uncharitable reader might call this an author's "agenda," as if the production of a scholarly argument was really directed to some other, nonacademic purpose (e.g., "It is well known that Professor Y believes we should not eat meat, and so her history of butchers is suspect"). Sometimes the author herself will acknowledge that her work has implications beyond the production of new knowledge, and this makes debates over "agendas" particularly difficult to resolve, and often painful.

Ad hominem attacks are never persuasive in academic debates; to attack someone's character suggests that the debater has nothing else to say about the subject at hand. When reading an academic debate it is important to try to put yourself in the shoes of the appropriate academic audience: what is relevant, and what is a distraction? What is the charitable reading, and what is the unnecessarily harsh one? What kinds of scholarly arguments are persuasive, and what kinds of arguments are irrelevant?

Finally, it is important to note that it is rare that any one scholar can claim to "win" an academic debate (except in cases of accusations of fraud, plagiarism, or other outright, falsifiable academic misconduct). Usually some scholars will be persuaded to one side, and some to another, and only the longer flow of academic discourse will decided a "winner."

This page has been written for Core II, section 9, taught at Scripps College in Spring 2010, by Andrew Jacobs. Feel free to link to this page, but please to not reproduce it without permission.