From time to time, I like to Google the handful of articles I've written, especially the ones that have appeared in academic journals. I've published two such papers, one about Cormac McCarthy and Shakespeare and one about motif of cake (yes, cake) in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre.
My searches don't tend to yield anything earth-shattering, but once in a while I'll find something. As far as I can tell, my work has been cited three times:
1 - A Master's candidate named Amy Wilson, from Georgia State University, cited my cake paper, which is so awesome and flattering. Her work is impressive: it really resembles a doctoral thesis more than anything I wrote for in my Master's program. I hope her professors liked it enough to give her that Master's.
2 - Professor Stacey Peebles from Centre College in Kentucky, cited a paper I wrote for The Cormac McCarthy Journal in an essay from her book Cormac McCarthy and Performance: Page, Stage, and Screen. She is the editor of the journal, and one of the foremost experts on McCarthy. I was honored enough that she accepted my article to her journal, and just so pleasantly surprised when I found that she had cited it in her own work. Truthfully, I haven't read the whole book, and I doubt I ever will. Doesn't matter. It's still awesome.
3 - And then there's the third citation. About a year ago, I happened to come across a paper prepared by three professors from University of Central Florida that cited my cake paper rather heavily. The paper had more to do with pedagogy than with literature. Specifically, the professors talk about teaching their students to distinguish between good sources and bad ones, using sample essays from academic journals. Its title is "The Prestigious and the Predatory: Helping Online Students Navigate Open Education Sources in a World of 'Fake News.'"
It will come as no surprise to you, given my less than enthusiastic tone, that my own paper is featured in this article as one of the bad ones. Yes, these three professors combed through academic journals for an article that represented a perfect example of what not to do, and they landed on my humble paper "Baked Nectar and Frosted Ambrosia: The Unifying Power of Cake in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre" featured in an online journal called The Victorian.
Here's a direct quote from professors Hohenleitner, Campbell, and Raible:
Their final essay, which is read in conjunction with Donaldson’s, is “Baked Nectar and Frosted Ambrosia: The Unifying Power of Cake in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre” by Alexander Barron. Also an Open Education Source from a journal called The Victorian, this article is generally easier for the students to read critically. Some get very excited about the idea of cake because it’s accessible, but Barron’s argument is a bit circuitous and doesn’t really prove anything profound about the reading of either text. They are quick to identify his gmail address; some even question the validity of Breadloaf College of English (which actually is a legitimate organization associated with Middlebury College). One student even went so far as to critique his “gratuitous quoting of plot summary” which really made me proud. Unfortunately, she was the exception.
Oof. Where to begin? My first instinct was defensiveness. I even started to draft a response before realizing that there was no way to respond without sounding defensive. That I never ended up sharing my thoughts in e-mail form is probably for the best. Anyway, that's what the blog is for.
I wrote the paper for a class I took in summer of 2013: the Victorian Novel, with Professor Isobel Armstrong. (She was hands down my favorite Bread Loaf professor, and this was one of two classes I took with her.) Most papers are written by PhDs well versed in their specialty areas. When I wrote this one, I was a Master's candidate who had just read Jane Eyre for the first time that very summer. So if my work seems a little elementary in comparison to some other published essays, there's a reason for that.
The main topic (cake) is admittedly quirky. And my writing style is, for better or worse, simpler than what you'd find in most comparable articles, which makes it "accessible" at best and hard to take seriously, at worst. In the world of academic writing, "accessible" is sometimes code for "frivolous," as though in order to be worthy of serious attention and respect, one's writing must be as obtuse and impenetrable as possible. This position is total bullshit, and it certainly shouldn't be advanced by anyone who teaches writing, but the professors in this article aren't the only academics who perpetuate it. (And for what it's worth, the voice in "The Prestigious and the Predatory" is pretty lucid.)
Of all the many charges levied against my paper in this paragraph, I'm most willing to admit that it "doesn't really prove anything profound." It deals with what I thought was a cool detail about Victorian culture. Not profound, I guess, but I have to wonder whether or not my point is really any less profound than the central points of similar academic papers.
Is my argument circuitous? I mean, obviously I didn't think so, but I'd be willing to hear you out if you told me it was.
The accusation of "gratuitous quoting of plot summary," rankles me since it's something I caution my own students against. I think I provided necessary context in my paper, rather than gratuitous summary. That unnamed student and I will have to agree to disagree.
The most laughable point here is the insinuation that Bread Loaf is some sort of obscure, phony, or non-accredited school. Both the Masters' program and the annual literature conference are famous in academic circles. For God's sake, Robert Frost taught and worked at Bread Loaf for like fifty years. Besides, does the University of Central Florida really want to be throwing shade at other Master's Programs in English? #SorryNotSorry
I can't fault undergrads for not having heard of the program, but you'd think their professors might know better. The revelation that the school is "actually legitimate" is such a lame concession, as though a professor had to hastily Google this improbably-named school just to confirm its existence.
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| See?? It's a real thing! |
The author continues, "I want to be clear that I don’t intend to dismiss the work of a critic like Barron categorically" (How charitable!), before finally dismissing my work as a "random discussion of one image in two novels," which, I guess if you're comparing to another paper written by a feminist critic that clearly fits into the larger context of Feminist readings of Victorian Literature, then yeah, mine is going to seem kind of random.
She also talks about the merits of face-to-face class time with students, rather than using online discussion boards. That way, she can slam my article in real time. She writes, "Online, sometimes someone has already posted a full endorsement of the intellectual profundity of the cake article before I or other students have the chance to rebut it, and then I never know for sure if that student will ever revisit the board to read the continued conversation." Yes, it would be a shame if some student actually saw the merit in my argument before the professor had a chance to set the record straight about its actual worthlessness.
How am I supposed to feel about all of this? On the one hand, the old "No press is bad press" axiom might be applicable. I'm flattered to know my little paper is even being discussed. When I publish these things, I assume no one outside my immediate family will ever read them, so I'm kind of tickled to know that some kids in Central Florida have not only read this paper but have opinions about it.
Then again, these professors completely tore my paper apart, and apparently encouraged their students to do the same. I'm not adverse to constructive criticism, and in fact I don't even necessarily disagree with some of the charges levied against my paper. But damn, that stings.
The title, "The Prestigious and the Predatory" seems to cast me in the role of predator, which is a laugh. If anything, I feel like I've just been eaten alive. Better than being left on the shelf to spoil, I guess.
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| A message to the three distinguished professors from UCF. |
