Yesterday was a nice day. My article in Inside higher Ed came out, Can STEM Professors Become Strong Writers?. As with most op-eds and writing of any type, it was a journey. In this case, this article started from a very different place and as it moved toward publication changed quite a bit. 

The initial draft (shown below) was a shot out to all the wonderful people that have helped me put together my ideas, improve my writing, etc, etc. There are just a handful of names listed here but I could go on and on listing names of people who have helped over the years. I really liked this draft. I make fun of myself even more than the article that eventually got published and I got to call out people I love and respect for the help they continually give me.

(With all the talk of plaugerism out there, I had better reference myself. The article below was a draft of the article that was eventually published in IHE. As it was draft some elements in the draft made it to the final version.)

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People Need to Be Acknowledged!

M. J. Wright

Katherine Gifford, Joanna Templeton, James Beil, Devin Thornburg, Dana Battaglia, Colleen B. Wright, etc, etc.  The list goes on and on – there have been so many wonderful people who have helped me put together really good pieces for higher education.  The fact is that when I write op-eds for higher education publications these always take a team effort and there is no way to acknowledge my wonderful team of amazing of peeps who have helped me focus my ideas and writing.  I include them in an acknowledgement section at the end of the letter I send to the publisher; however, by the time of the publication, it is taken out.  I am not sure why, but it makes me sad.  I would like to share a few thoughts about it. 

I had an article that came out recently that I was proud of and I went to show the acknowledgement to my colleague.  This is someone who really helped me put the article together.  I wanted to thank them for all their hard work.  To my surprise I found that when I got to the end of article, the acknowledgement wasn’t there.  So, there I was looking like a chump with this article when their name wasn’t even listed.  Maybe we should start allowing for a brief acknowledgement at the end of articles? 

As with most things, there is almost zero chance that we are going to change a well-worn system, like the whole education publishing industry.  So, I doubt this article will make a change in that.  But I can take up my pen and show how appreciative I am of my team.  So here we go!

The fact is, I am the worst writer ever.  I joke with my students that if they knew how low my SAT scores were, they would run into the university president’s office and demand their tuition dollars back.  I have been held up for promotions solely because my writing has been so poor.  Someone reading the first draft of my thesis questioned if I had taken a college English course.   When I lived in a country where all the members of the team didn’t speak English as their first language, people still didn’t listen to my grammar recommendations.  I vividly remember trying to find ways to write school essays in college and high school without using the word “different” because I couldn’t spell it (spell check was still new).  Don’t even get me talking about trying to pronounce names. 

Honestly, I think this is something that helps me in the classroom.  I am very humble about how bad of a communicator I was and in many was still am.  It helps me identify strongly with the students who are still learning and don’t have all of those professional skills yet.  But I digress that is an article for another time.

Communicating doesn’t come easy for me.  My family often tease me that the reason I was smart enough to become a physics professor is that I spent my childhood eating fish from the then polluted Lake Erie.  Could it be that is the reason I can’t communicate?  Or maybe, it was the fact that I got hit on the head too many times when I was a kid – there was a lot of that: bike riding, football, fighting, etc etc?  The fact is, my language skills are very poor – at best.  Yet, I have 18 higher ed op-eds in nice publications, a bunch of peer-reviewed articles, and I am in the process of actually signing a book deal.  Pretty impressive for someone who can barely speak.

High school was definitely an awaking for me.  I had lots of good ideas, but couldn’t get them out.  I can’t tell you how many times I was bested by my best friend at the diner at 4am as we debated everything from astrophysics to Saint Augustine’s role in the Catholic church to why Cheryl wouldn’t go on a date with me.  He won every time!  He became lawyer, go figure.  (Acknowledgement:  His name is Richard Zmijewski and Cheryl never did go on a date with me.)

These conversations with my friend were a game changer for me.  I had good ideas, but if I couldn’t communicate them, how was I ever going to be successful?  I knew that I had to become an effective communicator somehow and started working on it.  It’s been a slow painful process.  There have been many setbacks.  However, I have made it a career mission to become a better communicator.  To do this, I have surrounded myself with communication experts – I even married a writer (Acknowledgement: Colleen B. Wright).

I lean on these experts!  I bounce ideas off them.  They help me work through my arguments.  They help me focus my ideas, they help me connect to other big ideas, and give me confidence to put my ideas out there.  In the end, the words are still mine, but the arguments are cleaner and clearer.  I couldn’t have done anything without this grand army of people standing behind me.  I just want to acknowledge how important their contributions have been to me and my work.  Thank you and much love!