Doing the Unthinkable
Four Writing Strategies for the Anti-Academic Academic Writer
Last year, the book I’d spent three years writing and several more researching was finally published: Humanizing Ballet Pedagogies: Philosophies, Perspectives, and Praxis for Teaching Ballet (available at Routledge and elsewhere). Just recently, I did the unthinkable: I read it cover to cover.
[Reading my own book wasn’t a vanity thing.
I was considering how I could potentially reframe the content for a readership outside of higher ed.
More on that not at all soon.]
The first thing I noticed in the writing was the voice—my voice. I liked it. It made me proud of myself.
[Perhaps it’s inelegant to say I like my own writing and my own voice.
I hope more women will be willing to say they’re proud of their writing and their voices when they are.
Then it might not feel so inelegant.]
Asides aside, it’s an academic book that doesn’t [too often] slap you in the face with tedious academic language. When it does—and I know it does because someone told me [don’t worry I asked for their feedback]—it’s because I ran out of time. I’d managed to rework many of the over-written bits [overwriting is practically an illness for me at this point], but due dates exist.
[I’d already gotten a five-month extension from the publisher. I didn’t think I couldn’t ask for more without losing the contract.
Pro tip though? Publishers, even the big fancy ones, issue extensions!
They probably grant them more often than college professors.
Ask for one before you ruin yourself trying.]
Anyway. I remembered deciding that I wanted to come across as myself when I wrote this book. I wanted the writing to reflect me as a person. I didn’t want to let scholarly writing conventions make my writing interchangeable with other writing. I didn’t want to write the kind of book that readers wouldn’t read unless it was assigned. Mostly, though, I didn’t want to be the kind of academic writer that readers would resent because the language is so alienating they’d stop reading out of sheer frustration.
[I have a vivid memory of discussing some pretentious scholar’s introductory chapter in graduate school with my doctoral and masters program colleagues in a seminar. I left that class enraged. In three hours, nine intelligent heads had collectively gotten nowhere close to understanding it. I was determined not to be that asshole academic who makes readers feel stupid, like I did that day. Sometimes my goals are simple.]
Below are four small shifts away from academic writing traditions that unexpectedly helped me with readability and voice. Outlining them here makes me seem somehow organized about it, but don’t be fooled. These things happen in the in-between moments for me; I figure out what I’m doing as I’m doing it, which means I usually make a real mess before I can [mostly] clean it up.
I’ve listed these here in part so I can remember them the next time I take on a writing project, and maybe then you can accuse me of being organized in the process. I’ve put them out into the world in case they’re useful to anyone working to find their own voice while navigating the myriad [sometimes unnecessary] conventions of academic writing.
1. I include full names of everyone I cite throughout the text; I don’t just stick them in the endnotes.
This credits those whose work I respect and admire. It makes clear who compels my thinking and who I’d like to be in dialogue with.
This allows me to identify outright some of the individuals whose work is problematic. It allows me to address a lack of accountability for harm in this subject area. Ballet pedagogy has no shortage of harmful perspectives in print.
This gives me the opportunity to use my privilege of authorship to elevate and highlight the voices of others.
This humanizes citation. In the age of AI, identifying the people behind the texts is critical.
2. Beyond the citation practice in #1, I acknowledge several times outright that I’m not the only one working with or writing about the ideas in this book.
See examples in Humanizing Ballet Pedagogies, pages 2, 43, 58, 120, 179.
This flies in the face of the academic tradition that demands scholars “fill a gap in the literature”—that they do something or make a claim that’s never existed before. This also eliminates the related academic tradition of battling it out with other scholars—jockeying for the mantle of the-one-who-knows-best, otherwise known as a pissing contest. Such traditionally individualistic, competitive approaches sit in conflict with the current landscape of Dance scholarship, which emphasizes building inclusive communities and spaces for dialogue. This book “fills a gap” by virtue of it being my voice and not someone else’s, but I don’t establish my authority by one-upping or discrediting everyone else who’s contributed to the conversation. My work draws from theirs; their ideas strengthen mine.
This acknowledgment leans on a central concept in qualitative research that perspectives are valuable in and of themselves; that statistical significance isn’t the only way to validate a study. In that light, this book is simply my contribution to a much larger conversation.
3. Despite wanting to situate myself in a community of like-minded people, I avoid the second person—the “royal we”—and use first person only when I’m talking about my own perspective.
This makes space for me to identify and define my own ideas and voice as my own.
This holds me accountable for statements I make about my own experience and understanding—it demands my integrity.
This keeps me from speaking on another’s behalf without their permission.
This prevents me from assuming I know someone else’s perspective. It echoes my day-to-day work on the critical skill of not making assumptions about people. It keeps me from “making an ass out of u and me,” as my bestie has been saying to me for nearly 30 years. 💗
4. When I use the third person or make declarative statements, I sometimes go beyond basic practices in citation, supporting major assertions by discussing the larger dialogues they’re part of. It’s like writing a literature review to help me identify my own perspective.
See examples in Humanizing Ballet Pedagogies, pages 19-22, 30-33, 34-37, 120-121.
Book editors sometimes suggest that the author’s voice is the most important; that at the book stage extensive quotation can be minimized. On the contrary—while I’m no editor—I don’t think extensive quotation of others takes anything away from my voice in this work. Rather, the introduction of more voices enriches the material and allows me to locate my own perspective inside the dialogue.
This keeps me from stepping into a “default” role of the academic authority—a position that relies on dominant identities and unacknowledged privileges. Instead, it reminds me to situate my voice among other voices, acknowledging how my particular position and identities shape my perspective.
These relatively simple choices amount to quite a lot, all told. They make the writing process feel less isolating: they make me feel like I’m in a real time conversation while I'm working through it. They also remind me that I’m in a community, and that I have responsibilities to support and foster that community with my words. Mostly, they make me grateful to be engaging with the work of so many thoughtful scholars and practitioners. In writing, as in life.