"Ignore the Advice."
Presented by Janice Walker
Janice Walker is in the department of writing and linguistics
at Georgia Southern University. Her work is in computers and writing, but she was told by others during graduate school not to get too involved in the computers part of writing because everyone knew at the time that it was "a fad." This idea speaks to the best piece of advice she ever received, which was "ignore the advice." She gave that advice to herself, and her podcast reiterates that advice to others.
Her research in computers in writing was primarily in how to cite information online. This led her to information literacy issues and other broader ideas. She found value in her work in publications, both in print and online. She mentions the online journal Kairos, which is a peer-reviewed journal. Her position is regardless of print or online, peer-reviewed is peer-reviewed. In her own department, she has worked to revise the tenure standards to ensure such publication is counted. She also looks forward to the day where publishing online is seen with value. She reiterates the importance of networks to assist scholars. Research panels and organizations frequently found at conferences have resources to support faculty facing tenure and promotion committees. She continues to encourage rhetoric and composition scholars to pursue their interests in the field despite the continual stream of advice from most English departments to publish research that follows the more narrow constraints of traditional research.
She relates a couple of stories about how her research led to a greater recognition of online citation. She says that research can often take on a life of its own. She hears from others sometimes that her book on online documentation needs a third edition. She actually enjoys reading MLA and APA handbooks. Documentation has become such a large portion of her life, she says she gets excited about the decision concerning whether to underline or italicize an item in a citation. She enjoys her work, and is grateful that she was able to ignore the bad advice to take on more traditional research tasks.