What are Academic Conventions?
Anyone who has gone through, or works in, Higher Education knows about the importance of academic conventions and how students and academics need to adhere to these regulations in order to achieve anything in the system. The intention of these conventions is to bring a level of rigour to written work and publications that upholds the expected standards of academia. However, is there something else that is happening here?
When you start university as a student, there is a shift in what is expected of you. You are now an adult, able to make your own decisions and you have chosen to get a higher qualification in order to get ahead in life. However, the way you worked at high school no longer counts as you are now expected to follow the academic conventions of the higher education system.
To follow the conventions of written academic work, a student needs to cut out any informal language, use no personal pronouns (unless you are writing a reflective piece) and use specific and relevant academic vocabulary as opposed to everyday language. This language code is usually a more complex and lengthy way of expressing. It exclusively allows only subject specific vocabulary which, overall, is less likely to come up in a natural conversation. The passive form of verbs is often preferable to active sentences, and content needs to be seen to be objective rather than subjective. You also have to be careful not to make any absolute statements unless you have absolute proof that they are backed by academic approved evidence.
As a student, you are not expected, or allowed, to have any true original ideas or realisations as you need to read other academic literature and cite the work of those who have researched a topic before you. In other words, you have to prove that you have read a significant amount of literature and research on the particular topic you are going to write about or base your own research on, so that it is clear you are building on an already well-established body of evidence based research, instead of coming up with something not written about previously. Even the ‘creative’ subjects like Art or Film Making, still need you to evidence the fact that you have taken inspiration from others in order to justify the piece that you have made, whether that be a painting or a short film.
When citing other’s work, there are strict rules about how to position the author’s name, date and title of publication. These vary according to the referencing system that each faculty in the university requires you to use.
The Impact of Academic Conventions
Following these conventions can have a stifling impact on anyone’s expression. I have taught students who are on foundation courses preparing to go to university, and when introducing the concept of academic conventions, I am often faced with a disbelief that there are so many hoops to jump through when doing any kind of academic writing. The given upness that many of the students go into is palpable, but the necessity to gain a degree is enough to keep them going. However, there is also an element of the student being familiar with these, at times, pedantic rules and requirements, having been in the schooling system since the age of 4 or 5 where they have already been instructed into what constitutes conventional and acceptable expression and what does not.
So what is the real human cost of doing this? Adhering to academic conventions often takes the joy out of what is our innate expression. It’s like having to squeeze a world of amazingness through a narrow pipe, designed only to churn out factory (university) approved pieces of writing. The message that also comes across in the adherence to these conventions is that your ideas are of no value and do not matter unless you can express these ideas in a very particular way that shows us that you have aligned to others who came up with the same idea before you. This all shuts down the simplicity of the natural and true expression, which we innately know as coming from the body and heart.
The way that academia requires us to write often limits the natural flow of expression as it needs to be written in defence of anyone who may challenge it. A person reading it is asked to only understand life on a superficial level. This is in contrast to a natural flow of expression which can encapsulate the many rich multi layers of the world we live in, and allow the reader to deepen in their own realisation of how that is for them.
The fact that the ideas and concepts that you write about need to be based on an already established body of work by other academics, means there is no space for true original thought or realisation to occur. The aim is to keep circulating and churning out the same ideas. Each one might be slightly different, and you may be able to build on any one of a range of theories.
Is it not undermining to one’s capacity to understand life if you need the evidence that others have had the same idea in order for you to be permitted to express it in your writing?
A Personal Anecdote
I recall the beginning stages of doing a dissertation for my Master’s degree. The topic I wanted to research was rejected by my supervisor on the grounds that there was no previous research to build upon. This resulted in the compromise of being forced to change to a topic that had already been written about by academics before me. Equally, as a teacher, I recommend to students that they write about topics which already have a body of literature that they can easily draw from, as opposed to any original idea that they may come up with themselves that is difficult to back up with references.
These specific guidelines of the formal and more complex language used in academic writing are evidence of a system that is asking all participants to comply in a certain way in order to succeed. In the same vein is the requirement for students to only build on research and literature of other academics in order to present a position or argument in their work. This is not valuing in any way each person and their unique expression, but a practice of conformation to the academic style and already established body of knowledge in order to get the badge of honour of a higher qualification. You will only get the degree if you prove that you can write in the same way as anyone else and about the same topics. Is this asking those who attend university to conform and submit to the overarching regulations or face course exclusion? Does this not equally deeply expose a system which is said to champion and promote independent, deep thinkers?
The higher education system apparently champions the cultivation of great minds and deeper thinking skills, but only so long as you abide by the rules and regurgitate and build on the work of others.
Therefore, does this not mean that there is a great contradiction embedded in the higher education system? The image that is portrayed and upheld by many in society is at odds with the reality of how the system works. Universities are promoted as a way to better and further ourselves in life. However, in practice, the only way to negotiate our way through to a qualification is to abide by the conventions, whilst letting go of and repudiating any realisations or true original thought; and then get to work on building on and regurgitating the same ideas that have been circulating for as long as universities have given them their stamp of approval.
Hence the misnomer of the term ‘higher’ education.
The Indoctrination of Academic Conventions - Part 2 is available here.