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Doing fieldwork in the Cañón del Sumidero and the Chicoasén Dam (Chiapas)

A few weeks ago I participated in a cross-national, multi-institution workshop on the political aspects of water resources. This workshop is one of two organized by Dr. Edith Kauffer from the Center for Studies in Applied Anthropology (CIESAS) Unidad Sureste. The Sureste branch of CIESAS is focused on studying and analyzing social issues in the southernmost part of Mexico.

Taller Tematico SRE-CONACYT Dimensiones Politicas de Recursos Hidricos

The field trip was organized in two components: First, we travelled by boat throughout the Sumidero Canyon, which was both amazing and disheartening. Amazing in that it enabled us to be witnesses to some of the most beautiful natural surroundings we have in Mexico.

Sumidero Canyon-60

Photo credit: Graeme Churchard on Flickr

The Sumidero Canyon is a wonderful natural beauty, but we also saw some of the worst plastic-bottle pollution I’ve witnessed in my life. As a scholar of sanitation, I’m used to wastewater, but what I saw at the Sumidero Canyon was just heartbreaking.

Fieldwork in the Grijalva River

The degree of pollution in the Grijalva River is heartbreaking. Photo credit: Dr. Francisco Peña

Taller Tematico

The group of Mexican and foreign scholars who participated in the field trip. Photo credit: Dr. Francisco Peña

Fieldwork in the Grijalva River

You can see me to the right, on the boat with my Mexican and foreign colleagues who participated in the field trip. Photo credit: Dr. Francisco Peña

The second component of our trip was a visit to the Chicoasén Dam and Hydroelectric Power Station. I felt privileged to be allowed to visit, as I’m sure there are serious national security concerns. But since we were a group of international academics genuinely interested in understanding how the Chicoasén Dam and the hydroelectric plant worked, that made our access easier. That, and the fantastic work of Dr. Kauffer in negotiating a visit.

The Chicoasén Dam is one of four dams in the Grijalva River (alongside Angostura, Peñitas and Malpaso).

DSCN0773

The Manuel Moreno Torres hydroelectric power plant was fascinating to visit. First, as a chemical engineer, it was great to be inside an industrial plant again. Second, as a scholar of water governance interested in the water-energy nexus, it made me think about the deep interconnections between these two natural resources (water and energy). When I was still a PhD student, in 2001, I remember that one of my favorite professors (Dr. Les Lavkulich, now an emeritus professor at UBC) said that water and energy would be the twin environmental issues of the century. He was definitely right.

Taller Tematico

The group of Mexican and foreign scholars who participated in the field trip. Photo credit: Dr. Francisco Peña

Over the course of this field-trip I learned a few things, which may be obvious to other scholars, but I hadn’t thought about them previously. First, it is actually a great idea to have a multidisciplinary team of scholars do fieldwork (or at least, field trips/field visits) to specific sites that are associated with the main theme of the scientific workshop. I learned a lot from my fellow academics who study the social sciences of water. Second, that there is no better way to grasp the empirical realities than actually being on the field. Seeing as I am someone who privileges fieldwork over pure data and number-crunching, I felt validated that my peers also enjoyed the field experience.

In fact, now I understand why numerous academic conferences offer field trips (particularly in the human geography field). They are in fact enriching experiences, and I learned enough during this preliminary visit to decide to come back and do more in-depth fieldwork. This area (Chiapas) offers a plethora of opportunities for water-related social research, and I do hope I will be able to visit again and do interviews with residents.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – September 28, 2013

Assistant Professor position (Political Studies) at CIDE Region Centro

As I have said in previous blog posts, we are having a fairly impressive hiring spree for tenure-track positions at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE) Región Centro campus. We are hiring in International Relations, Public Administration and now in Political Studies. You should be forewarned that both International Relations and Political Studies close fairly soon (September 30th, and October 30th, 2013). Below is the ad for the Political Studies position, which you can also read here in PDF format. As always, I am happy to answer questions about life in Aguascalientes, CIDE in general and CIDE Región Centro in particular, but I am not on the Search Committee for this position so I cannot answer specifics about what the Division of Political Studies is looking for. There is contact information for you to ask, though, should you be interested.

The Department of Political Science at the Center for Economics Research and Teaching
(CIDE) invites applications for a tenure-track position at its campus in Aguascalientes, Mexico. The position is open to any topic and any subfield within comparative politics, but special consideration will be given to candidates specializing in at least one of the following areas: federalism, fiscal policy, regional parties or local politics. A strong training in quantitative or qualitative methodology along with a focus on Latin America will be especially attractive.

CIDE is a research-oriented university in the social sciences teaching undergraduate and graduate programs to select students in small groups. The university was recently ranked as having the top political science department in Latin America, measured by publication impact. Faculty members are expected to publish in top national and international journals and editorials. Our new campus in Aguascalientes was inaugurated in 2011 to recruit elite students from all regions of the country, and to form a group of strong scholars contributing to the study of accountability, public finances and subnational governments. Aguascalientes is a safe, beautiful and culturally rich city with a thriving economy that often appears in top ranks of quality of life among Mexican cities. The position offers a competitive salary with a lower-than average teaching load.

For details about this job posting feel free to contact Prof. Aldo Ponce or Prof. Gilles Serra. For information about our Aguascalientes campus visit the undergraduate programme’s webpage.

Candidates should provide:

(1) a short cover letter;
(2) a detailed curriculum vitae;
(3) a writing sample; and
(4) at least three letters of reference.

Applications should be sent to Prof. Gilles Serra, Search Committee Chair, at contrataciones.politicos@cide.edu. Review of applications will begin October 29, 2013. Later applications will be accepted while position is not filled but are not guaranteed full consideration. Employment would begin in August 2014. The successful candidate is required to have a PhD in hand before August 2014 when employment begins

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – September 21, 2013

Laura Atuesta on incarceration probabilities and drug use – Seminar at CIDE Region Centro

Seminar Laura Atuesta CIDEMy colleague Dr. Laura Atuesta (who is a Visiting Assistant Professor at CIDE Region Centro’s Drug Policy Programme) did a really interesting econometric analysis of two datasets (the Encuesta Nacional de Adicciones, ENA and the Encuesta a Internos en Reclusorios Federales) trying to discern if there is any correlation between probability of being incarcerated and drug use.

Seminario Laura Atuesta

Given how Mexican drug policy and Mexican security policy seem to be focused on health-related crimes instead of actual, real impact crimes, this kind of work is important. I sent out a few tweets during her talk. I am sure I didn’t capture the richness of her paper, but I really enjoyed it. My colleague Dr. Catalina Perez-Correa, who conducted the survey to populations internet in Mexican jails, was the discussant.

I am not sure whether the paper can be shared yet but interested parties could contact Laura to discuss the paper. I really enjoyed Laura’s delivery. She has done a lot of work on program evaluation and policy impact, so it was nice to see an econometrician actually delivering a seminar that does not cut and paste the STATA tables and actually provides policy implications that are readable for a broader audience.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – September 20, 2013

Are all professors’ desks cluttered?

I’m a big fan of productivity tips and blogs, particularly those focused on academic/scholarly life. Although I have read dozens of blog posts by fellow professors, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything related to whether their desks are cluttered or not. For many people, their mental image of a professor is almost always someone whose desk is filled with papers, journal articles, and books. Having cluttered desk almost would appear to be synonymous with being an academic.

Home office at my Mom's

I’ll be the first to admit that whenever I am in “under pressure” writing mode, my desk is almost always cluttered. I spread journal articles, books, book chapters, research notes all over my desk, anywhere I am (be it my campus office, my home office or my parents’ home office). That said, periodically (at least once a month), I clear out my desk, both on the CIDE Region Centro campus (pictured below) and my home office.

Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega's office at CIDE Region Centro

The jury is still out on whether a messy/cluttered desk is conducive or not to solid scholarly research. Some folks argue that a cluttered desk is bad for your productivity, whereas recent studies argue that messy/disorganized environments are conducive to creativity.

home office desk RPV

In my case the cluttered desk never works. I am organized and methodical about my research to a fault. I schedule my life to the 30 minute slot. I follow procedures and rules (I am, after all, a neoinstitutionalist theorist!). To me, cluttered desks are non-conducive to undertaking solid research. But then again, I am just an N=1 case. I am sure some of my fellow scholars, PhD students and professor colleagues can work in messier environments. I just can’t.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – September 14, 2013

Tenure-track assistant professor position opening at CIDE Region Centro in Public Administration or Public Policy

CIDE (the Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, A.C., Centre for Economics Research and Teaching) in Mexico recently (2011) opened a branch in central Mexico, the Region Centro campus (where I am based since July 2012). We are currently experiencing fast growth and we are hiring for a number of positions. This one (to start in July 2014) is focused on public finance but we are open to other applicants. While advertised as tenure-track, it is also an open-rank search, depending on applicants’ qualifications. The full job advertisement is below (and in PDF format in both Spanish and English here). I am happy to answer questions about the position and life in Aguascalientes.

Faculty Opening, Public Administration Division/CIDE-Región Centro

The Public Administration Division at CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas) seeks to fill a tenure-track faculty position in our Aguascalientes Campus (Región Centro) starting July 1st, 2014.

1. About the position

CIDE is advertising for a tenure-track assistant professor position in the Public Administration Division, based out of the Region Centro campus in Aguascalientes. We welcome candidates in public administration, public policy, law, economics, political science, or other related fields in the social sciences. The selected candidate’s research and teaching interests’ should be on Public Finance, Federalism and Local Government, Public Policy, or alternatively Public Administration and Public Management. While we especially encourage applicants interested in public finance and budgeting as priority research and teaching interests, other specializations are also welcome and will be considered carefully by the Search Committee. Furthermore, once hired by CIDE, the successful candidate may request admission to the National Researchers System of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) in Mexico (which offers additional monetary rewards and research funding to its members). CONACYT is the Mexican equivalent to the US´National Science Foundation (NSF) and Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

CIDE is a nationally- and internationally-recognized public research center specialized in the social sciences, offering high-quality undergraduate and graduate programs. Salaries are competitive nationally and internationally. The usual teaching load is one course per semester. Additional bonuses for research and publishing productivity are offered. There are a number of mechanisms to support and fund research, including participation in applied projects with additional remuneration.

2. About the candidates

Candidates should have a strong academic background and interest in empirical research. They should also be committed to teaching and mentoring undergraduate, Masters and PhD students. These mentorship activities include graduate student supervision. Candidates should preferably have already demonstrated ability to publish in internationally-recognized peer-reviewed outlets. Applicants should demonstrate ability to carry out top-notch research projects resulting in high-level published work. They should also be open to engaging in collaborative and interdisciplinary work, and show an interest in positioning him/herself as a national reference in his/her research area.

This is an open-rank search, whereby status as tenured, tenure-track, Assistant, Associate or Full Professor will be awarded on the basis of his/her publishing record, teaching experience, academic status and Spanish language fluency. We expect candidates to hold a doctorate. Applications from candidates without the PhD in hand will only be considered if they include a letter from the chair of the committee stating a date for the defense of the doctoral dissertation. The latter should occur at the latest before August 2015. Applicants are expected to be fluent in Spanish, or sign a letter whereby the candidate commits to be able to teach in Spanish within 12 months from hiring. If a foreign candidate is chosen, CIDE will provide advice and support to obtain the necessary work permits and visas for the candidate and his/her dependants.

3. How to apply:

Applicants should send the following documents in PDF format to the following email addresses: comite.seleccion@cide.edu and wendolyn.veana@cide.edu preferably before, but definitely at the latest by end-of-day December 15th, 2013 (addressed to the Search Committee, Public Administration)
– Research plan for the next three years (no longer than three pages)
– Teaching philosophy (no more than two pages)
– Curriculum Vitae accompanied by a cover letter.
– Writing sample not exceeding 50 double spaced pages (the candidate should be the first author of the text, preferably a refereed journal article). ABD candidates may submit the latest version of their doctoral dissertation).
– Three letters of recommendation written within the year 2013. In the case of early career scholars (2012-2014) or doctoral candidates, at least one of these letters should come from the PhD advisor.

Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by December 20th to schedule interviews. Interviews will take place in person in Mexico City from January 7th through 10th, 2014. Therefore, shortlisted candidates should be available within those dates. Candidates’ job talk should be about the written sample submitted in the application. CIDE will pay/reimburse interviewees for travel expenses. Decisions will be announced during the third week of January 2014. CIDE is an equal opportunity employer committed to the promotion of diversity, and we especially welcome qualified women and minorities’ applications.

The Región Centro campus of CIDE is located in the city of Aguascalientes, in central Mexico. Aguascalientes is consistently ranked as one of the top three cities in the yearly surveys on urban quality of life of the national newspaper Reforma. The city is considered very safe, culturally diverse, has numerous entertainment options and a vibrant business climate. CIDE (in particular the Región Centro campus strongly encourages multidisciplinary and collaborative research and scholarship. For further information please visit CIDE’s webpage.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – September 14, 2013

Balancing teaching and research

Stationery and research and readingThis term, I have returned to teaching after thoroughly enjoying my full year of teaching release. When I taught at The University of British Columbia’s Department of Political Science, I reached a point where my teaching load was 2-1-2 (5 courses per 12 months). That was, in my view, incredibly exhausting. I had very little time left to do any research or consulting. But since I arrived at the Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas (CIDE), I have really moved forward full steam ahead with writing every single day.

I recognize that there are people who teach a 4-4 load and I have no idea how they do it. I simply couldn’t. I also recognize my privilege in that CIDE is extremely flexible with the teaching loads. Normally I would only be required to teach a 1-1 load. This 2013-2014 academic year, that is the way it is going to work. I am thrilled to be teaching what would be considered a relatively light load, because I do have PhD students to supervise, I am teaching this fall, and I have a very heavy research agenda and a lot of writing commitments on my plate.

How to balance teaching and research? I can’t say that I am very knowledgeable in this regard, but what I am doing is keeping the balance of my weekly schedule skewed towards research. Because I only teach one course per term, I am able to keep 3 days out of my 5 days strictly to research duties. If you see my weekly template, you can notice that I am teaching Mondays and Wednesdays, both days when I have a lot of energy. And I also have office hours on those same days.

Of course, by the time 5pm hits I am completely spent on Mondays and Wednesdays, therefore I only spend the evenings doing research-related reading. I also devote Fridays to do the bulk of my service-to-the-university (search committee, library committee) and service-to-the-discipline (peer-review) work. And of course, I write every single day early in the morning, which is where I am more energetic.

Overall, I think balancing teaching and research is always a challenge for academics, whether in teaching or research oriented institutions (CIDE would be considered an R1). I just hope I’m always able to strike the right balance!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – September 12, 2013

A few pieces of advice for presenters and attendees at academic conferences

I have presented my research work in academic contexts since 1998, which means that I have at least a solid 15 years of experience attending and speaking at domestic and international conferences. It never ceases to amaze me how some speakers, some panel moderators and some attendees break what would seem to me common rules of courtesy when participating in an academic conference. So I’m going to re-emphasize a few tips for participants (attendees and presenters) and for panel moderators.

IASC 2013 Panels 1, 2 and lunch poster sessions

1. Be on time, regardless of whether you are a speaker or an attendee.
Nothing irks me more than people who are not punctual. Moving back to Mexico from Canada, and having lived in England, both countries where punctuality is quite the norm, I got to the point where I decided to start my meetings and seminars on time, regardless of who was there. Impunctuality, sadly, is a common cultural norm in Mexico, apparently, and one that I just can’t stand. In academic conferences, whether or not everyone else is late, your job is to be there ON TIME. Period.

2. As a presenter: DO NOT READ PAPERS. Related: Respect other people’s times.
I am well aware that, in the humanities, the archaic norm of reading a paper is actually enforced, and I have no idea why. No writer that I have known in 15 years has ever been able to fit reading a paper from start to finish in 15 minutes. So, if you have 15 minutes to present your paper, make sure you are able to finish in 12. It is disrespectful to other people to take over their alloted time because you are running overtime.

3. As a participant: DO NOT MAKE OVERLY LENGTHY COMMENTS. Related: Do NOT make a “this is more a comment than a question” comments.
Organizers of panels and conferences are often bound by ridiculous requirements (to fit 4-5 or even 6 papers in a panel, which I consider absolutely absurd – yes, ISA, I am looking at you). Since most panels are about 60 to 90 minutes, fitting 6 papers is pretty much impossible. Thus, if in the very scarce amount of time dedicated to questions you decide to actually talk about YOUR research or YOUR opinion, instead of asking participants brief, smart, intelligent questions, you devalue their time (and that of other attendees). Save the lengthy comments and questions for when you have a chance to speak to the presenters one-on-one.

4. As a conference/workshop organizer: DO NOT ORGANIZE OVERLY POPULATED PANELS. Related: Do NOT organize conferences that require speakers/participants to be on site for more than 8 hours.
I am well aware of how academics need to do more with less and less resources, but overly packed panels and workshops end up exhausting the participants and thus diminishing the quality of discussions. 8 hours for an on-site conference is more than enough, and it requires extensive breaks (I don’t know where do people get the idea that 4.5 consecutive hours of panels and conference speakers with no breaks is a good idea). Also, panels with 5 presenters are overly crowded. Make sure that panels have 3, and at most 4 speakers. And the panel moderator, your job is to keep people on time and cut them off when they’ve run out of time.

Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega presenting at LASA 2013

I am well aware that these tips sound rather snarky, but as I am gearing for the fall 2013 academic conference circuit, and as I just started the semester, I am more and more baffled by how my fellow professors fail to remember these basic pointers. Hopefully these little reminders will help!

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 27, 2013

Scheduling my academic life to the very minute: My weekly template

A lot of people have asked me through the year how I accomplish as much as I do. While I feel enormously flattered, I don’t think I am particularly productive. What I am, is very disciplined. I learned early in my life that I had a really broad range of interests, and that if I didn’t rein in my own impulses, I would be scattered and disoriented before long. I knew I wanted to do academic research and that I wanted to complete a PhD and thus I needed to plan my life accordingly.

My academic weekly schedule

What you see above is my weekly template for the Fall 2013 semester (this is a term coined by Tanya Golash-Boza, whose blog I read religiously). It was nice to see a couple of other scholars (Eric Grollman and Jan in the Pan) write theirs. Even before I ever read Tanya’s blog, I learned to be organized with my life. I had a similar template for my life when I was a consultant and when I worked in the NGO world. My life is, and has always been, scheduled to the very minute. That was the only way I could play competitive volleyball, teach dance, do theatre, volunteer running literacy programs and teaching adults how to read and write, hang out with my friends, spend time with my family and still maintain a high average in school. All the while, of course, while maintaining sanity.

My schedule is online, and sync’d with my iPod Touch and with my HP TouchPad. This enables me to know what I am doing anywhere at any point in time. For years, my partner and I shared our online calendars, because that made it easier for him and for me to plan our time together. And I booked time for him that nobody else would every overlap with (that was, for me, the only way to maintain a healthy relationship). I follow the same philosophy when I book time for my friends and for my family, as well as for my own health. Nobody can schedule time for THEIR activities when it’s MY time. If you notice, I have left ample time for administrative stuff and for meetings during normal hours.

I am currently on a 1-1-0 teaching load, which is really very healthy and lucky for me. I also have a low number of students that I supervise, and my service commitments are limited too. I am the CIDE Region Centro representative to CIDE’s library, and I also sit on a search committee for a new tenure-track position, so my service does not take a lot of my time. I do have the Associate Editor commitments for the Journal of Environmental Sciences and Studies, and my regular contributions to editorial boards, peer reviewing and so on. But I don’t feel that they are terribly onerous.

Research using the Cornell Notes method

I write better first thing in the mornings and I know that if I try to write on campus it will be much harder for me, so I wake up at 4:45am every morning, brew a pot of coffee and I start writing for 2 hours at least. Some of the time you see blocked for “Research” is also where I do a lot of reading and writing, so often times I end up writing for more than 10 hours per week. I also have scheduled time for “recovery” as my energy levels fall rapidly. This is something I knew about my physiology since I was a child, so I always schedule “down time”, otherwise my productivity falls.

On regular weeks I try to be in bed by 9:30pm at the very latest, except when I go out with my best friend from childhood and his wife (who both live in Aguascalientes as well – something that has turned out to help me keep my sanity). Two things I am desperately trying to fit into this schedule is regular volleyball training and frequent dancing, as I do miss those two components from my life.

Of course, academic conferences completely screw up this calendar, but I always try to ensure that at least I get exercise and regular writing in. I rarely attend academic events where the commitment is 12 hours per day or more, simply because I believe that allowing people to disrespect my time and my own schedule is a really bad idea. One exception I make is when my expenses are paid (as I feel a responsibility to the organizers).

A few caveats that I have to recognize:

  • I have a low teaching load 1-1-0
  • I am single (at the moment), with no children
  • I have low service commitments
  • Both my parents are academics, so even when I visit them on weekends I bring work with me
  • Related: I love my research so I don’t care if I spend more than 60 hours per week on it. This means I often work on weekends and holidays (I try not to, though, at least not too often).
  • I have a small army (5) of research assistants, who are incredible. This increases my productivity.
  • I have an amazing set of collaborators all over the world, who are brilliant. They keep me honest and encourage me to work really hard.
  • I have excellent resources both on campus (because I have a gorgeous office at CIDE Region Centro with a fabulous library and great access to online materials) and off campus (I live alone in a 3 bedroom, two story house, with a fully equipped home office, and I have a full home office at my parental units’ place too).

What I do hope sharing my weekly template with you will achieve is show you the broad range of activities you can engage in and goals you can achieve by being organized and schedule your life every week. This approach works, at least for me. And hopefully it will work for anyone who reads my blog.

EDIT –

Lots of people have asked me “but what about when you have to go on the field, or when you have something unexpected come up, or at a conference?” so I thought I’d share my weekly template for the week following (e.g. September 2-6). As you will notice, I’m at an academic workshop all week, except for Thursday when I am doing fieldwork with the same group of water scholars. So, I only scheduled time to write every day, and nothing else. Because that’s the one thing that I want to keep doing regardless! Also, notice I didn’t schedule anything before or after my flights.

My academic weekly schedule

My schedule is rigid, I know. As Tanya herself said, I run a tight ship. But I am flexible enough to be willing to shift things around, particularly when the going gets tough. Self-care time does not actually get shifted in the sense that even if it’s an intense week for me, I always will take some time for myself, even if it’s not possible every day at the moment.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 26, 2013

Tenure-track International Relations position at #CIDERegionCentro

We are hiring at CIDE Region Centro. Below is the actual ad

IR Search 2013 – Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)

The Department of International Studies at CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas/Center for Research and Teaching in Economics) seeks to fill one tenure-track position in International Relations, to start in August 2014. The position is open to subfield and rank. Special consideration will be given to candidates specializing in environmental politics, migration, or global governance. The position will be based at CIDE’s new Central Region Campus, in Aguascalientes, Mexico.

Candidates should have a doctoral degree at the time of employment. Spanish skills are not required at the time of hire, but candidates are expected to become proficient within a reasonable period of time.

Interested applicants should submit the following documents electronically to dei.contrataciones@cide.edu:

  • Cover letter
  • Curriculum Vitae
  • Statement of purpose, including future teaching and research agenda
  • Writing sample not exceeding 50 pages
  • Teaching evaluations (if available)
  • Three reference letters, sent directly by the referee

Complete applications received by Monday, September 30, 2013, are guaranteed full consideration. Interviews will begin in November 2013.

CIDE is a public social science research institute oriented towards high quality research with small, elite graduate and undergraduate teaching programs. According to one study (Altman 2011), the International Studies Department is the top IR-only department in Latin America, and one of the top 4 political science departments in Latin America. Successful applicants will be expected to publish their work in top disciplinary journals and presses. Salaries are nationally and internationally competitive.

CIDE is an equal opportunity employer committed to the promotion of diversity.

For more information, please visit the Department webpage (http://www.cide.edu/div_estudios_internacionales.htm) and the Central Region campus webpage (http:// http://www.cide.edu/regioncentro/index.html) or contact:

Dr. Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz
Chair, International Relations Search Committee
División de Estudios Internacionales (DEI)
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)
Circuito Tecnopolo Norte s/n
Col. Hacienda Nueva, CP 2013
Aguascalientes, Ags., México

As always, I am more than happy to answer questions about living in Aguascalientes, what being a professor at CIDE looks like, and life in Mexico in general as a foreign academic. My email contact is raul.pacheco-vega(@)cide.edu (remove the parentheses).

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 18, 2013

Making time to read to improve your academic writing

Reading is an integral part of academic life. We expect our students that they read journal articles, book chapters, books and other materials as background to our lectures. But with the haste of academic life, it looks like the only times when we actually engage in reading scholarship is when we need to engage in a broad literature review and prepare our next paper, book chapter, or manuscript. Reading also has an impact on our writing.

The other day, I was joking with Tanya Golash-Boza (one of my favorite writers on all things academic life, and a tenured professor at University of California Merced) over Twitter that I was no longer able to speak Academiquese because of the fact that I used social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and of course this blog). I blame my inability to write obscure, jargon-laden prose on the fact that I prefer if my scholarship reaches a broader audience and actually has a positive effect on policy making and on societal welfare.

Research books 001

But the truth is that we do need to write in a more “academic” way. Contrary to what one of the professors and my own PhD advisors said (to write as I would speak), more often than not, academic output doesn’t follow this pattern. Since the audience for most of our academic writing is other scholars, it is important to write for the audience we have. Thus, whenever I write a paper for a political science journal (specifically public policy), I make sure to read a few articles from the journal I’m targeting, as well as similar ones.

So, given that I write at least 2 hours every day, and with all my other duties (grant writing, dealing with peer reviews, administrative workload, outreach, etc.), when on Earth do I actually have time to read? Well, the reality is, I also book time to read. I schedule my life pretty much to the 30 minute block. I assign at least 30 minutes to 2 hours a day to read. This time is in addition to the time I book to write. This schedule is going to be hard to maintain in the fall when I start teaching again, but my hope is to at least keep this program of work in the fall.

But what happens if you can’t carve 30 minutes to 2 hours a day to read? This happens to me quite often, particularly when I travel for academic conferences or fieldwork. In these cases, I read on the plane, on the bus, first thing in the morning, and before I head to bed. I love reading, and even if all I read is academic literature, I still have a blast.

Like any good academic, reading on the plane :)

One of the most important elements of reading as a tool to improve my academic writing is to take notes. While not a complete fan of the Cornell Notes, I do take detailed notes on the journal articles, books and book chapters I read. This is particularly important because of attribution. Because I need to make sure that I attribute quotes to specific journal articles, making detailed notes is key to my research workflow and process.

Research using the Cornell Notes method

I find that if I don’t read as a preliminary activity to my writing, I often use more colloquial prose. Thus one of the activities I engage in is reading a journal article, or a book chapter right before starting to write. This is particularly important as it kick-starts my thinking around the issues I want to tackle in the manuscript. As this article indicates, reading does have very positive effects on your mind.

An interesting website by Dr. Matt Might who provides a series of useful tips for academics is here, including a couple on writing. I don’t necessarily agree with all of his tips, but they’re good. Except of course, the “don’t work at home” one, because I do actually work at home, and I have the best possible home office.

Posted in academia, writing.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 1, 2013