“To know whom to write for is to know how to write.”

This sentence from Virginia Woolf’s “The Patron and the Crocus” is part of my standard presentation on academic writing. I do well to consider it as I write my posts here, too. Who, then, do I imagine I am writing for, and how does this answer the question, How to write?

My aim with this blog is foster a conversation among working academics, mainly those employed at a university, about the underlying “craft skills” that make research possible and meaningful. It’s not just about “how to get things done”, but much more about how to do them well, how to attain the standard of quality in knowledge that the university should, properly speaking, ensure. So I want to talk about what those standards are and how to meet them.

For this reason, I imagine my readers to be mainly PhD students and early-career researchers. These are scholars for whom the question of standards is still very important, and who don’t need to feel any shame in raising them earnestly. In truth, all scholars should feel comfortable discussing standards critically, but one sometimes finds established scholars simply “embodying” the standards rather than articulating them for the purpose of critiquing them. I am of course happy to include them in the conversation if they wish, whatever they may wish to say.

I am also happy to hear from anyone else who reads this blog about what they think can and should be done to preserve the particular value of “academic” knowledge. I have to admit that I’m of the opinion that we are in the process of recovering those values after a period in which they have suffered serious erosion. Sometimes I think I’m like one of those anthropologists that is hired to by an indigenous tribe to teach them the culture that was lost under colonial rule.