What kind of academic writer are you?
How Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies can help us understand academia...plus a quiz AND a survey!
Hi friends,
Remember back in January when we had a lot of fun deciding if we wanted to be empaths, surfers, or sprinters this year? Well I’m back with another quiz you can take to understand yourself as a writer, based on Gretchen Rubin’s theory of the Four Tendencies. I came across this theory from Rubin's quite interesting interview on the #amwriting podcast.
Briefly, the theory divides people into four categories based on how they deal with expectations, which I think is a fascinating way to gain insight into our weird world of academia. If you’re a quiz-taking type, you can go here, take this quiz, figure out which of the four tendencies best describes you, and then come back.
…
OK, welcome back, armed with new self-awareness (especially you Rebels, who refused to take the quiz just because this stupid article told you to, and you Questioners who took it but spent the whole time challenging the validity of the measures. I see you). More on this below, but I’d love to know how all of you identify if you want to tell me here!
Here are some ways I think each profile lines up with what we see in academia.
The Academic Obligers
Obligers are on every committee. You say yes to everyone who asks you to cowrite. You have infinite office hours. Your academic identity comes from knowing that you meet the expectations of their colleagues, co-authors, and students. Extrinsic motivation—accountability—is key. (Rubin says most people in the world fit in this category).
The Good: You’re a great colleague! Collaboration is your jam, and you are highly motivated to do work when you know people are waiting to get things back from you.
The Challenge: Expectations become habits—if you don’t always want to take notes at faculty meetings, draw that line before it feels like an obligation. Also, it’s easy to feel so obligated to respond to the never ending list of things things that don’t matter that we don’t leave time to do things that do matter (I see you, solo-authored articles and books). You gotta make time for those things that are important but not urgent (and make peace with saying no to things when you’re volen-told to do them, like representing your department on the subcommittee on subcommittees). Oh, and if you go into administration, you may never write again.
The Solution: Writing groups are your friend. Set up accountability structures that mean you’re letting other people down if you don’t get your own work down (externalize the internal expectation!) Writing coaches and editors can be great about this too—if you’ve promised pages to your editor, it can be a powerful incentive to put that first.
Academic Upholders
You are a beautiful unicorn in academia, interested in meeting your expectations of yourself AND what others expect from you.
The Good: Universities literally could not run without you. Journals could never publish without you. You are the glue that holds this enterprise together.
The Challenge: It’s easy to burn out, because you’re the ONLY ONE meeting all of the expectations. How do you avoid becoming trapped in administration? Your competence, and the desire to see order in the world around you, might keep you from doing what you love, not just what’s expected of you. Also, the administration often sees you as their go-to person on the faculty, so you wind up chairing the subcommittee on subcommittees instead of writing your book.
The Solution: Set boundaries that balance your service/research/teaching life with your home life. Make time for things that feel frivolous but bring you joy in your writing. Maybe it’s writing short stories or op-eds, maybe it’s co-authoring an interdisciplinary piece, maybe it’s writing with undergrads. Work with the coach or editor or accountability buddy in your life to keep all of these expectations reasonable.
Academic Questioners
Based on the many (many) faculty meetings and job talks and conference presentations I’ve attended over the years, my guess is that most of us fit in this category. Questioners are accountable to their own expectations—”Because I told you so” or “It’s been decided that…” does not sit well with them. They intrinsically motivated to do things that matter.
The Good: Questioning is at the core of what we do as writers and scholars. As cheesy as it sounds, there is something quite noble about choosing the kind of life where you ask questions that help us live better as humans. And you ask so many questions that the subcommittee on subcommittees never gets off the ground, which is a huge favor to everyone.
The Challenge: Aligning external expectations (like the ones for the job market, tenure, and promotion) your expectations. If you are at a teaching university that doesn’t place a priority on research, and you expect yourself to publish like your friends at R1s, you’ll burn yourself out. Likewise, if you want to write the great American novel in an article-heavy department, you may have a lot of trouble persuading the tenure committee that it should “count.”
The Solution: Goals! Set goals, write them on your calendar, reward yourself for getting them done. Also, there’s something to be said for changing things from within, so sit on those committees once in awhile to give your obliger and upholder friends a break. Editors and accountability structures can feel artificial unless it’s your idea so finding someone that works really well as a sounding board is key.
Academic Rebels
You resist both internal and external motivations because they don’t make you free. Grades are a construct - people should learn because knowledge is an intrinsic good. You write not because it’s expected of you, but because of a higher calling (or because everyone else who has written about it is wrong).
The Good: Paradigm shifts and revolutions in thought are possible because of rebels. Your writing and work can truly change the world because you’re able to see things other people can’t. Academia often suits your need for freedom.
The Challenge: You know what the challenges are—having to teach the basic course, or Friday morning classes, or do service not related to things you care about, or meet expectations for tenure, all feel really restrictive. You don’t even go to the faculty meeting to talk about how the subcommittees on subcommittees is bullshit. Are people resentful? Maybe. Does it make it hard to build community? Also maybe. Do you even WANT to be in community with those people in biology who don’t understand why what you’re doing matters? Maybe not!
The Solution: What is important to you? Use that as a motivating force instead of focusing on meeting expectations for the sake of expectations. If freedom is important, maybe AAUP needs your energy. If international connections are important, maybe you can mentor international students on your campus. You’re doing things because they are intrinsically important, AND those things happen to coincide with your tenure and promotion requirements (even though those are bullshit). Rebels usually don’t want to work with an editor (or a coach or a therapist or a mentor). If you do, the most important thing is finding someone who shares the vision of your work and can engage intellectually with your ideas.
So what?
A little self-awareness never hurt anybody. Knowing what motivates you can make it easier to set yourself up for success. It can also, perhaps, give us insights into our colleagues and give us ways to help them be more successful at getting things done and drawing boundaries.
A one-question survey!
Lately, I’ve been thinking that the online space to talk about writing, particularly academic writing, is both very full and also seems to be missing major things that people need. As I think about what you, my readers and past, present, and perhaps future clients, might benefit from, could you take a minute and take a one-question survey about what you think the writing world needs more of?
Just for fun, I put a bonus question in there about which tendency best describes you, and I’ll share the results in the next newsletter.
Our writing retreat is FULL and we are now keeping a waitlist. THANK YOU for helping spread the word. We are so excited, and hoping to host more, so stay tuned for details on those. If you’d like to host a retreat and need a facilitator, I’d love to talk with you about that as well.
Oh, me? Your favorite editor? I’ve mellowed from the Rebel of my teenage years into being a strong Questioner.