The Scholarly Letter

The Scholarly Letter

A weekly letter for scholars, para-academics, and curious minds who care about the integrity of thought, the future of scholarship, and the deeper meaning of intellectual work.

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EssayEssay
The Scholar Manifesto

The Scholar Manifesto

We produce and discard knowledge like the way clothes get produced, consumed, and discarded in fast fashion.

EssayEssay
The Tech-bro-ification of Research

The Tech-bro-ification of Research

And with them, what cultural and ideological imports are we quietly welcoming into how we conduct our research, how we produce knowledge, and how we relate to knowledge itself?

The DigestThe Digest
What if Scholarship Looked Like This?

What if Scholarship Looked Like This?

“A paper that does not have references is like a child without an escort walking in the night in a big city it does not know: isolated, lost, anything may happen to it”

EssayEssay
Doughnut Shaped Scholarship

Doughnut Shaped Scholarship

And yet, this framing of quality science has rarely been taken up in earnest, particularly in how science is evaluated or valued in broader society. The dominant understanding of “quality” science – especially in public and policy discourse – is

Archive

Open Notebook Open Notebook
Notes on Research, Beauty, and Progress

Notes on Research, Beauty, and Progress

You could set up a Foundation, with an annual endowment of thirty million dollars. Research workers in need of fund could apply for grants, if they could make out a convincing case.

The DigestThe Digest
Visualising, Violating, and Humanizing Scholarship

Visualising, Violating, and Humanizing Scholarship

Three weeks ago, COPE published new guidance for how to handle retractions of published articles - highlighting just how pressing the problem is becoming.

EssayEssay
On Making Research Pay For Itself

On Making Research Pay For Itself

Governments award money (take), research is produced (make), which - unless a patent facilitates private ownership for a short time - becomes part of the scientific commons (waste).

The DigestThe Digest
On Second-hand Scholarship and Academic Piracy

On Second-hand Scholarship and Academic Piracy

However, what is piratical about such open notebooks is that they trial alternative modes of knowledge sharing that resist the enclosures of copyright and proprietary temporality, and that trouble the very idea of knowledge as a finished, ownable product.

EssayEssay
Kidnapping Scholarship: Reckoning, Regulating, and Reimagining Plagiarism

Kidnapping Scholarship: Reckoning, Regulating, and Reimagining Plagiarism

“All over the country, meanwhile, students were and still are being upbraided, reprimanded, given F’s on papers, flunked in courses, and expelled from universities for doing this plagiarism thing, this indefinable thing.”

The DigestThe Digest
On Science: Fatigue, Ownership, and It's Soul

On Science: Fatigue, Ownership, and It's Soul

In discussing the extent to which science has met our curiosity about the university, we must remember that different minds are curious about different things.

EssayEssay
On Successful Scholarship

On Successful Scholarship

“The job of the scholar is to contribute to society, and if they are not doing so, they are not successful.” And here, we will agree but with one vital amendment.

The DigestThe Digest
The Scholar's Dilemma: single-use AI, reading less, and poor pay

The Scholar's Dilemma: single-use AI, reading less, and poor pay

The job was advertised in Nature and required an honours degree - meaning research experience proven by a thesis - and a minimum of 2 years experience for an annual salary of £155 (roughly equivalent to £8,778.18 or $11,658 in today’s money).

EssayEssay
Doughnut Shaped Scholarship

Doughnut Shaped Scholarship

And yet, this framing of quality science has rarely been taken up in earnest, particularly in how science is evaluated or valued in broader society. The dominant understanding of “quality” science – especially in public and policy discourse – is

The DigestThe Digest
What if Scholarship Looked Like This?

What if Scholarship Looked Like This?

“A paper that does not have references is like a child without an escort walking in the night in a big city it does not know: isolated, lost, anything may happen to it”

EssayEssay
On Scholar-Led Knowledge Creation

On Scholar-Led Knowledge Creation

I wonder, will you be content to donate your labor to subsidize the salary of a Revenue Acceleration Manager?

The DigestThe Digest
On Research Performativity, Agreeing Disagreeably, and Degree Inflation

On Research Performativity, Agreeing Disagreeably, and Degree Inflation

The same paper would be rejected by two more top journals before, as an act of desperation, Mojica submitted it to, and it was accepted in, a smaller Q2 ranked journal.

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