February 12, 2004
Hello,
My brother pointed me to your website and I must say that I find your
report really interesting, especially since there are similar phenomena
in other areas as well.
I haven't had the time to read through the "selected comments" so I
don't know whether anything I'm going to say has already been mentioned
by others. If so, ignore me.
I witnessed a similar phenomenon to the hostility described in your
article over the last couple of years. It is the criticism of student's
papers or presentations in class. There are basically three ways these
things were treated in the various faculties and universities I visited.
- No public criticism at all, all comments (if any at all!) are given
in private talk between student and lecturer/professor. Very common in
linguistics.
- Harsh criticism, just as you described it, in public. It's sort of
like a boxing match, the student's got to have the endurance to "live
through the storm". Quite common in economics.
An interesting case arises if a lecturer from economics ends up in
linguistics and continues to use his mode of criticism there. This comes
as a shock to many students since they are not used to such harsh attacks.
- Constructive criticism in public - very rare. Unfortunately many
lecturers/professors seem to lack the skill (or the will) to provide
this sort of criticism. This is probably due to the fact that it much
easier to simply bash a paper/a presentation than try to point out
what's good, what's not so good, what's bad and how to do it better.
Furthermore, I had the impression that some lecturers/professors got
some kind of satisfaction from bashing a student's work in public. This
is of course very pitiful as it compares to a boxer walking up to the
local kindergarten and asking the oldest child to come out and fight.
Some writers/speakers seem to think that it somehow improves the quality
of their argument if they bash someone else. As long as no one bashes
them for bashing others, nothing will change. A vicious circle?
However, I do not think that aggressive behaviour as described by you is
limited to men or that more women would guarantee a nicer atmosphere.
Women have just a different way of being "aggressive" and "mean", a way
that doesn't manifest so openly perhaps.
Concerning the referees' reports in peer review processes you
mentioned, the following article might be of interest to you:
Robert de Beaugrande, "Peer Review is Far from Peerless"
http://beaugrande.com/peerreview.htm.
Regards,
Christian Kohl, M.A.
Trier, Germany
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