“We need different kinds of media for the information we’re sharing. I value the peer review process and things that take time, but I also like that we have access to online resources where folks are collecting the groundbreaking research and condensing it into digestible forms. I wrote my first blog post this year, and it’s a different audience, a different purpose, a different set of skills and conventions to make sure it’s something people will want to read. I hope that as we learn to be writers and scholars that we are reminded that if this doesn’t feel right, this set of conventions for writing this paper doesn’t feel right, know that it’s not the only way to express yourself. Not to think of writing as ‘a’ thing but lots of things.”
Jeannie Brown-Leonard is the Dean for Student Academic Affairs: Advising, Retention, and Transitions at George Mason University.