“The Writing Workshop”: Increasing Representation in Philosophy

It’s widespread in philosophy departments to have fewer girls on school than males. In our Ph.D. granting establishment (at the least whereas we have been there), one third of the school have been girls. There’s a gender hole. A gender hole happens when girls make up a disproportionately low proportion of a bunch when put next with the proportion of potential girls members within the self-discipline or workforce (Thompson 2017). The gender hole in philosophy happens on all ranges; though the school gender hole is hanging. Just one philosophy division within the US, as of 2018, had greater than 50% girls school, whereas all different departments had fewer than 50% girls, most with lower than 30% girls school. Nearly all of departments had a mean of simply 25% girls school (Conklin et al., 2018).

To date, extra fine-grained information on the school gender hole demonstrates a spot between nontenured girls affiliate professors and tenured full professors. That is unsurprising, on condition that extra senior professors are an artifact of the academic system of earlier eras, through which fewer girls than at the moment made it to and thru professorial ranks. Nevertheless, it’s unclear whether or not the reducing illustration of ladies as rank will increase is a results of historic boundaries or is partially a results of persisting boundaries. 

But plainly this isn’t merely a historic artifact. In line with NCSES (1994–2015), girls make up 27% of the Ph.D.s awarded in philosophy, but girls solely account for 20% of full professors at the moment (Conklin et al., 2019). Thus, the distinction within the gender hole between assistant professors and tenured school is just not merely an artifact of what number of girls candidates are within the pool. Nevertheless, as Conklin et al. (2019) additionally notes, different elements could contribute to the speed that girls are employed and tenured, comparable to the dimensions of the applicant pool and wait occasions between hiring and tenure (p. 856).

One potential explanation for this gender hole at larger educational ranks is that girls publish at considerably decrease charges than males in high journals. In line with Wilhelm et al. (2018), within the high 25 philosophy journals ranked by the Philosophical Connoisseur Report, girls publish between 14–16% (p. 1447).  Publication performs a big function each in hiring and in tenure. For the reason that proportion of ladies school has a constructive impact on decreasing the gender hole in philosophy, and there’s a correlation between publication and tenure charges, there’s good purpose to strategize enhance girls publication charges in high philosophy journals. It’s unclear whether or not girls publish much less as a result of they submit fewer articles than their male counterparts or whether or not they’re extra probably than their male counterparts to have their submissions rejected (Wilhelm et al., 2018, p. 1459). If extra articles are rejected one purpose could also be that these writing from various views could also be seen as failing to observe strict disciplinary norms (Dotson 2012). Whether or not girls submit much less or are rejected extra (or each), the low publication charge suggests a chance for intervention: analysis and writing help.

So, how can we enhance illustration of ladies school in philosophy? A technique is to create a pipeline of ladies students on monitor to fill school positions. We suggest an intervention, “the writing workshop,” which takes a holistic strategy to enhancing analysis and writing. This writing workshop presents graduate college students with a technique to develop a ordinary writing behavior, coaching college students to write down extra often to satisfy the calls for of publication charges. Whereas school would possibly profit from this help as effectively, intervening on the doctoral degree supplies college students with the instruments they should thrive in academia earlier than a tenure clock begins ticking. We predict an intervention on the doctoral degree can be more practical than one on the school degree, as a result of doctoral college students have extra time to hone and develop their writing abilities post-intervention earlier than main milestones just like the job market and tenure.

On this doctoral writing workshop mannequin, contributors be taught to write down usually, to make long-term, medium-term, and short-term plans for his or her writing and analysis, to write down with educational construction and styling, to supply and obtain frequent suggestions on writing in progress, and to reframe rejection. A pilot research utilizing this intervention on doctoral college students in humanities, social sciences, and training demonstrated that, after the intervention, contributors loved writing extra, felt extra assured in their very own writing skills, and severed the affiliation between writing and inspiration. The intervention taught college students to write down productively in shorter blocks of time. Moreover, the intervention helped college students with planning a analysis pipeline and breaking it down into manageable chunks (Sarnecka, et. al., 2022).

We hope to run a mixed-methods research of a model of this intervention tailor-made for philosophy graduate college students. Since 2019, we have now been operating and tailoring workshops on this mannequin, each for philosophers particularly and for doctoral college students extra usually. Our anecdotal observations in these workshops present the ability of this type of intervention. From our expertise of how the workshop impacts contributors, we have now curated a set of quantitative measures and questions for qualitative interviews. Our hope can be to formally gather and publish information on the effectiveness of the workshops.

The rest of this publish supplies info on the essential constructing blocks of the intervention, the writing workshop mannequin, under. Whereas the authors of this paper had enter on track supplies for the general research, the primary creator on the research was a quantitative cognitive scientist. For that purpose, a number of the supplies are much less applicable for a humanities viewers. We now have since modified and augmented authentic supplies to higher help humanities graduate college students in navigating their particular literature and educational publishing within the humanities and interpretive social sciences. The primary construction of the writing workshop stays the identical.

Every assembly is run for 3 hours and contains 4 actions:

• Quiet writing time: we write quietly collectively to foster a way of communal writing
• Test-in: the facilitators check-ins with all contributors to see how the week went and assist troubleshoot issues
• Ability-building: talk about the readings assigned every week (see pattern syllabus under).
• Suggestions discussion board: every week we learn and edit a brief piece of writing from one participant in actual time

We encourage philosophy departments to run these writing packages. The entire authentic supplies for using this mannequin of writing workshop can be found on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/ftuhp/). The authors have now been operating these workshops for over two years and may present insights for these interested by adapting the mannequin to their circumstances, particularly to these educating philosophy graduate writing programs and graduate college students who want to begin their very own workshops. Beneath is a pattern syllabus with advised readings. The syllabus is scheduled for a 10-week quarter, however there are extra subjects on the finish. E mail the authors at renag@uci.edu for entry to the studying supplies. We are going to gladly provide them!

Pattern Syllabus

Week 1

Week 5

Learn/Pay attention: YGT 11: Input and Output Seasons | Dr Katie Linder

         Learn: “The Eureka Phenomena” by Isaac Asimov

1:30pm-2:00pm: Suggestions discussion board

Week 6

10:00-11:30am: QWT

11:30am-12:00pm: Test in

12:00pm-12:30pm: Literature Assessment

Learn: Chapter 5 Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks – Wendy Belcher

Optionally available: Chapter 4 “Literature Opinions” The Writing Workshop – Barbara Sarnecka

12:30pm-1:00pm: Suggestions discussion board

Week 7

10:00-11:30am: QWT

11:30am-12:00pm: Test in

12:00pm-12:30pm: Designing Your Venture

Learn: Chapter 1 “Discovering the Proper Dialog” Designing Analysis for Publication (pp. 2-20)

12:30pm-1:00pm: Suggestions discussion board

Week 8

10:00-11:30am: QWT

11:30am-12:00pm: Test in

12:00pm-12:30pm: Paragraphing & Structural Readability

Learn: Chapter 8 “Paragraphs” The Writing Workshop (pp. 235-263) (Jess)

Reread: Revise to proceed your pondering, Chapter 3 “The Observe of Writing” (pp. 96-103)

12:30pm-1:00pm: Suggestions discussion board

Week 9

10:00-11:30am: QWT

11:30am-12:00pm: Test in

12:00pm-12:30pm: Writing Type & Sentence-level Readability

Learn: Studying: Chapter 9 “Sentences” – Barbara Sarnecka (pp. 265-289)

Learn: Chapter 10 “Phrases,” The Writing Workshop – Barbara Sarnecka (pp. 291-323)

12:30pm-1:00pm: Suggestions discussion board

Week 10

10:00-11:30am: QWT

11:30am-12:00pm Test in with Writing Log

12:00pm-12:30pm: Co-authorship/Sharing Concepts

Learn: Standing within the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators

(Views on Writing) by Rebecca Howard

         Learn: Myra’s weblog

12:30pm-1:00pm: Suggestions discussion board

Different Potential subjects embody

Shows

Chapter 7 “ Shows” The Writing Workshop – Barbara Sarnecka

Grant Writing

Learn: Chapters 51 & 52 in The Professor is In – Karen Kelsky

         Optionally available: Chapters 53 & 54 on Publish-Doc purposes The Professor is In – Karen

Kelsky

         Optionally available: Chapter 6 “Proposals” The Writing Workshop – Barbara Sarnecka

Titles

“Tempting Titles” (Chapter 6, pgs. 63-75) in Fashionable Tutorial Writing by Helen

Sword

Participating with Reviewers & Editors

Learn: Chapter 7 “Participating with Reviewers and Editors” Writing for Peer-Assessment Journals (pp. 127-144)

Optionally available: Chapter 8 “Paragraphs” The Writing Workshop – Barbara Sarnecka

Select the Proper Journal for Your Article

Learn: Chapter 2 “The Reader” Writing for Peer-Assessment Journals (pp. 29-49)

Learn: Studying: Chapter 4, “ Write a Journal Article in 12 weeks” – Wendy Belcher

Optionally available: Chapter 6 “Proposals,” The Writing Workshop – Barbara Sarnecka

Readability and Imaginability

         Learn: Chapter 9 “Sentences” The Writing Workshop – Barbara Sarnecka

Optionally available: Fashionable Tutorial Writing by Helen Sword

Optionally available:  Chapter 10 “Phrases” The Writing Workshop – Barbara Sarnecka

Rena Beatrice Goldstein

 

Rena Beatrice Goldstein is a Mellon School Fellow on the College of California, Irvine. Her analysis focuses within the area of social and utilized epistemology, with an emphasis on Twentieth-century analytic philosophy, advantage epistemology and the philosophy of training. Her work has appeared in Philosophia, Academic Idea, Pre-college Philosophy and Public Observe, and in an edited quantity printed by Routledge. Goldstein has taught programs in writing, introduction to philosophy, and important pondering at group faculties and Cal State faculties within the Los Angeles space. Goldstein was the recipient of the Kavka Endowed Prize for wonderful scholarship in 2019, and the 2020-2021 Svetlana Bershadsky Graduate Scholar Neighborhood Award for her dedication to enhancing graduate scholar life at UCI.

Darby Vickers

Darby Vickers is an assistant professor of philosophy at College of San Diego (beginning Fall 2022). She obtained her Ph.D. in philosophy from UC Irvine in 2021. Her analysis focuses on experience and ability acquisition and transmission and sits on the intersection of ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of training. In her analysis, she attracts on up to date philosophy and cognitive science in addition to her coaching in Historic Philosophy. She has co-authored articles on ethics of synthetic intelligence and doctoral scholar training.