When Did BS-ing "Research" Become an Integral Part of Academia?!
These days, I just cannot stop thinking about all the factors that go into a successful departure for England. Continuing to worry about the money to pay for LSE and the career afterwards, my weekend "to-do" list is filled with determined thoughts of looking for scholarships, grants, jobs (part-time at school and full-time after graduation)...yet, somehow, my mind keeps getting distracted by other things (such as, well, writing this blog post).
A friend and coworker with previous degree recently informed of the difficulties she confronted as she wrote up her dissertation for honors in her political science degree. This 163-page monster, filled with well-researched data and citations, was indeed well-written, and no doubt time-consuming...and scary enough, this was for an UNDERGRAD political science degree. Now, a masters student has to surpass this, right? Deeper in research and more in volume is probably something for which I should be mentally prepared.
Funny thing how the longest paper I wrote at Yale could not amount to more than 25 pages double-spaced (and with perhaps less than 20 citations). In fact, the longest thing I have ever written is actually this blog, something I am doing with a complete different purpose in mind. Honestly, I think my problem is that I can spend pages and pages blurting out my own thoughts and opinions regarding every issue in the social sciences, based on some ambiguous views held by some ambiguous personality I vaguely heard about recently...but to force me to opine BASED ON the opinions of others, well, is a totally different story.
But seriously, what is the "purpose" of writing research papers in social sciences? Subjects like politics and international relations are not "hard sciences," i.e. no matter how much of a "trend" in certain thoughts and values can be confirmed by quantitative data, there is absolutely no definite, constant ideas that can used to measure what is "routine" and "expected" in the behaviors of politicians and diplomats.
Isn't this the fundamental principle that separates "hard" sciences like physics and chemistry with the "soft sciences." As long as the structures of matter does not go through sudden revolutionary changes (and as supra-human identities, they certainly won't), so discoveries of today are easily applicable in the natural environment for millennia to come. But the best political scientists, who only centuries ago spoke of democracy's unrealistic idealism and communism's ultimate triumph while failing to notice the global rise of Islamic fundamentalism, cannot possibly predict the political environments of the next decades, not to mention centuries and generations.
Looking back at one of the longest international relations-themed pieces I wrote a few years ago, I am utterly surprised how prevalent attitudes of the time are no longer valid, and trends of yesteryears have completely dissipated today. And as the ideas put forth in these social sciences papers become outdated so fast in today's fast-changing international environment, what is even the point of quoting them for future papers as if they are the truthful assumptions from which future ideas must originate?
And this sort of uncertainty about what is the unchanging "truth" is also spreading into the "hard" sciences. For instance, as recent media reports suggest the rapidly rising number of science publications from China, rumors (and occasionally, their confirmations) are also heard about the data-fudging and plagiarism that occurs in the new papers. The lack of moral integrity aside, we really wonder what percentage of these so-believed public presentations of newly discovered scientific truths can actually be trusted.
In all sciences, hard and soft, publishing written "research" is increasingly becoming the main, if not the only, way of showing the "researcher's weight" in the academic field. But as these words of discovery become more and more data-, citation-, and jargon-littered, they can easily become some highly sophisticated-sounding pieces of BS to impress the public filled with its simply minded and easily-wowed laymen.
Especially in the social sciences, perhaps greater focuses should be on publicizing straightforward and implementable ideas comprehensible for everyone. After all, reflecting and channeling the voices of the people is the ultimate purpose of social sciences. If the common people cannot mentally access the increasing volumes of published "research," then aren't the social scientists losing access to the very element needed to verify whether their ideas and "research" are actually valid?
A friend and coworker with previous degree recently informed of the difficulties she confronted as she wrote up her dissertation for honors in her political science degree. This 163-page monster, filled with well-researched data and citations, was indeed well-written, and no doubt time-consuming...and scary enough, this was for an UNDERGRAD political science degree. Now, a masters student has to surpass this, right? Deeper in research and more in volume is probably something for which I should be mentally prepared.
Funny thing how the longest paper I wrote at Yale could not amount to more than 25 pages double-spaced (and with perhaps less than 20 citations). In fact, the longest thing I have ever written is actually this blog, something I am doing with a complete different purpose in mind. Honestly, I think my problem is that I can spend pages and pages blurting out my own thoughts and opinions regarding every issue in the social sciences, based on some ambiguous views held by some ambiguous personality I vaguely heard about recently...but to force me to opine BASED ON the opinions of others, well, is a totally different story.
But seriously, what is the "purpose" of writing research papers in social sciences? Subjects like politics and international relations are not "hard sciences," i.e. no matter how much of a "trend" in certain thoughts and values can be confirmed by quantitative data, there is absolutely no definite, constant ideas that can used to measure what is "routine" and "expected" in the behaviors of politicians and diplomats.
Isn't this the fundamental principle that separates "hard" sciences like physics and chemistry with the "soft sciences." As long as the structures of matter does not go through sudden revolutionary changes (and as supra-human identities, they certainly won't), so discoveries of today are easily applicable in the natural environment for millennia to come. But the best political scientists, who only centuries ago spoke of democracy's unrealistic idealism and communism's ultimate triumph while failing to notice the global rise of Islamic fundamentalism, cannot possibly predict the political environments of the next decades, not to mention centuries and generations.
Looking back at one of the longest international relations-themed pieces I wrote a few years ago, I am utterly surprised how prevalent attitudes of the time are no longer valid, and trends of yesteryears have completely dissipated today. And as the ideas put forth in these social sciences papers become outdated so fast in today's fast-changing international environment, what is even the point of quoting them for future papers as if they are the truthful assumptions from which future ideas must originate?
And this sort of uncertainty about what is the unchanging "truth" is also spreading into the "hard" sciences. For instance, as recent media reports suggest the rapidly rising number of science publications from China, rumors (and occasionally, their confirmations) are also heard about the data-fudging and plagiarism that occurs in the new papers. The lack of moral integrity aside, we really wonder what percentage of these so-believed public presentations of newly discovered scientific truths can actually be trusted.
In all sciences, hard and soft, publishing written "research" is increasingly becoming the main, if not the only, way of showing the "researcher's weight" in the academic field. But as these words of discovery become more and more data-, citation-, and jargon-littered, they can easily become some highly sophisticated-sounding pieces of BS to impress the public filled with its simply minded and easily-wowed laymen.
Especially in the social sciences, perhaps greater focuses should be on publicizing straightforward and implementable ideas comprehensible for everyone. After all, reflecting and channeling the voices of the people is the ultimate purpose of social sciences. If the common people cannot mentally access the increasing volumes of published "research," then aren't the social scientists losing access to the very element needed to verify whether their ideas and "research" are actually valid?
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