Dartblog

Writing is hard. And I imagine that drafting an article for a peer-reviewed journal is the hardest writing of all. When Dartmouth faculty members come to understand the full range of views in a specific field, and then are able to add original observations and information to it, they have passed the most arduous intellectual challenge that the academy offers.

In contrast, teaching students does not impose the same level of intellectual discipline: professors can say almost anything they want about a subject to undergraduate students; their 18-22-year-old charges will rarely catch them in error. This comment is not a criticism of students; it is simply an observation that the classroom does not oblige faculty members to achieve the level of rigor required for publication.

I have written about the tension between teaching and research at the College before, but the demands imposed by formal writing were recalled to me when I thought about Chief Justice John Roberts’ remarks in his confirmation hearing about the drafting of legal opinions:

“Eventually, they [the Justices of the Supreme Court] get to a point where they take a vote on what they think the disposition should be. The decision should either be affirmed or reversed or sometimes something else in between — half affirmed, half reversed, sent back, whatever.

And then the opinion is assigned [to one of the Justices of the Supreme Court], and that’s still very much part of the process — the writing of the opinion — because, quite often, or maybe not quite often, but often enough, the justices find out that, as they try to write a particular opinion, different problems come up; it’s not writing as they thought it would.

And sometimes they have to go back and revisit the case because the judge — the justice — assigned the opinion decides that it should come out the other way or there should be a different reason, a different basis for the decision.”

Roberts’ general point is that in verbally discussing a subject, we often slide into accepting less accurate thinking than when we must reduce our thoughts to words on paper. Which leads to the conclusion that non-publishing faculty members at Dartmouth are not pushing themselves to their intellectual limits — and will therefore be less informed and vigorous teachers.

Note: Chief Justice Roberts has also carved a bit of a niche for himself with his energetic and direct style of writing.

Addendum: Several faculty friends write in to observe that being published is only the half of it; the other part of the equation is being read and subsequently cited in the work of other scholars. That is the acid test of relevance. To find out a professor’s impact, follow this primer on Google Scholar.