How Blogging Has Changed My Thinking and Writing

I wish I could say I start blogging to change the world. No, I started blogging with a very modest aim.

On January 23, 2011, I posted my first blog on this site. My aim was rather simple. I would ask students in the Spirituality of Contemporary World class to create a blog and post their journals there. Since I did not have the habit of blogging, I wanted to see how this worked. I created this blog and posted regularly in January and February. I posted 26 blogs in February alone. Then the number of blogs tapered off.

Many students in the course did not continue blogging after the class was over. But I carried on and had great fun writing it. In the year 2011, I posted 66 blogs. The number of words amounted almost to that of half a book.

Now with a year of blogging under my belt, I wish to look back to see how blogging has changed my thinking and writing.

First, blogging is thinking on the fly. You don’t have to do all the research in order to write a blog. If you do, it will be more like a research paper and not something instant. In the blogosphere, time is of essence. When Rick Perry drops out from the presidential race today, you can’t wait till tomorrow to write if you are a serious blogger. I sometimes wonder how Andrew Sullivan and other bloggers can comment so fast. This means you have to attend to current news and affairs if you want your blog to be fresh and relevant.

Second, blogging means writing fast. Although I consider myself a fast writer, blogging makes me type and write even faster. Sometimes it takes me less than an hour to write a blog. My colleagues and students are surprised that I have found time to do this, and they do not know that I sometimes blog at the end of day before I go to sleep. Since I don’t have much time, I just write what is in my mind to share with my readers. It may be the book I have just finished reading, the concert I attended, or anything I have read on the Internet. A blog is about 700 words. It's no big deal.

Third, I begin to pay attention to the craft of blogging. This is not a genre I was familiar with, since I write primarily for an academic audience. I look at how other popular bloggers start their first sentence, develop their narrative arc, and end on a high note. I learn to write in simple sentences and use simple words. I imagine my readers are from all over the world and may not know the U.S. context as well as I do. Indeed I was surprised to find that I have readers from Inner Mongolia, Iraq, Egypt, and so forth. I know not a single soul from these countries and am delighted to know that they have found me on the vast Internet.

Fourth, I learn that blogging can reach far more people than my books. For example, my most popular blog to date is “How to Read a Theological Book,” which has 4,179 pageviews, and the second most popular “Architecture of the Mind” has 2,330 pageviews. Many people have sent the links to their friends on Facebook, Twitter, and other networking sites. I encourage other academics to start blogging to popularize their ideas and to reach a much broader international audience.

Fifth, I cannot explain why some blogs are more popular than others. “Architecture of the Mind” is not a “popular” title and I was amazed to find that during one particular week 240 Russian readers read this and my other blog posts. I guessed a Russian professor might have found this interesting and assigned it to his or her students.

Sixth, even though I have written and edited numerous books, I am still intrigued by responses of my readers. Blogging allows me to gauge readers’ responses—number of pageviews and readers’ comments. After I post a blog, I check periodically to see how many people have read it and delight in seeing the number of pageviews grow. Blogging creates a virtual community. I envy bloggers who can post everyday and have many longtime readers who constantly give feedback.

Seventh, blogging changes my way of looking at the world. I become more alert to what is happening around me because I now have a medium that can capture snapshots in my life. It takes years to write a book and perhaps months to write an academic article. Blogging distills the moment.

Seven is good number and perhaps I should end here. How long does it take for me to write this? 34 minutes.

Getting Published

In the past two years, two very talented racial and ethnic minority colleagues were denied tenure by their universities. Among the reasons given was that they did not have enough publications.

I want to share my experience as a writer and editor for more than 25 years. I especially want to speak to those of you who find yourself in the situation that you have little time to write.

To get published, you need to do 5 things:

1. You must have something to say. Many dissertations have been written, but only a very tiny number get published. Why? Because the dissertations have too many footnotes. When I published my first book, one reviewer said that the book had all the features of a dissertation, namely, lots of notes and short summaries. As all doctoral students want to do, I tried to document everything to impress my professors and to avoid plagiarism. I felt comfortable hiding behind what other scholars had said.

After listening to Pamela Johnson, an editor at Fortress Press, speaking to a group of young scholars and students, I knew why so many dissertations cannot get published. Many dissertations use many chapters to rehearse or explain what other scholars have said about the subject. This is called literature review. It is only in the final chapter that the author brings out his or her own viewpoints. Editors are not interested in a book full of citations of what others have said. They are interested in what you, as the author, have to say on the subject. Pam asked the audience to imagine what their book would look like if they start from the final chapter.

2. Learn the craft of publishing. Two university presses turned down my dissertation before it got published. I wish William P. Germano’s From Dissertation to Book had been available at that time. Unfortunately the book came out much later. In that book, Bill Germano guides the reader through the process of publishing your first book: from revising your dissertation, reading with an editor’s eyes, to making your prose speak.

Many of us think that if we have some good ideas, we will be able to get them published. Not so. We spent many years honing the skills of writing academic papers. Turning a paper into a published article for a journal is a learning process. Learning to publish a book is a learning process. Over the years, I have read many books on writing. I enjoyed Stephen King’s book On Writing and Bonnie Friedman’s Writing Past Dark. After I asked a professional editor to edit my work, I was surprised that she could spot so many mistakes, while I couldn’t. So I read the book How to Edit Your Own Writing. After the page proofs came back, I needed to know how to mark the corrections. I found out The Chicago Manual has a few chapters in the beginning that I had overlooked. They talk about manuscript editing and proofs. As you can see, I needed to learn each step along the way. When I became an editor, I had to learn many new things. After I submitted the manuscript for my most recent edited volume, Hope Abundant, the editor at Orbis Books was very pleased that the manuscript was in such great shape. I had published with the same editor 16 years ago. I told her that I have learned much about publishing in the intervening years.

3. Make your proposal stand out. Many trade presses have changed their editors in the last couple of years and publishing houses have slashed their programs. I spoke to one publisher recently. His press used to publish 75 books a year, but the number was cut to half last year. When I asked why, he said people are not buying books in this economy. Even university presses, which are non-profits, are watching closely the bottom line.

A book sells because of the author and the contents. If you are not yet a well-known author, your book must have a great title and attractive contents. Your proposal must convince the editor that the book will have a market. The marketing people will sit down with the editors in the editorial committee to decide whether to accept or reject your proposal. If your book can be adopted as a textbook, you will have a better chance of getting it published. If you wonder how to write a good proposal, I recommend the book Thinking Like Your Editor by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. The book even contains a sample proposal and a sample chapter. Don’t get discouraged when your proposal is rejected. Trinh T. Minh-ha’s book Women, Native, Other got rejected numerous times. She went on to become an internationally acclaimed cultural critic and filmmaker.

4. Find time to write. I was very impressed by how many books that Miguel De La Torre, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Mark Jordan, and Daniel Harrington have produced. So I asked them what are their secrets. I found out that they write almost all the time and everyday, except for the weekends. De La Torre wakes up at 5 a.m. and reads and writes for 6 hours 3 to 4 days a week, with the goal of writing 10 pages per week. I must confess that I do not have that discipline.

For racial and ethnic minority scholars, finding time to write is such a luxury. Many of us do not teach in research universities and have a heavy teaching load. We are put on all the committees and we have communities of accountability outside the school.

But I have become convinced that only those of us who can wean ourselves from the electronic gadgets that constantly connect us with the outside world can write and get published. This may sound old-fashioned. But writing is a very lonely business and takes a lot of concentration. We need a stretch of time so that our ideas can simmer and our thoughts can develop.

We have to learn to protect our brain. In his book Crazy Busy, Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating ADD and has ADD himself, says that our culture is producing people with ADT (attention deficit trait). We can’t focus because there are so many attractions. Our attention span becomes short and we are so overwhelmed that we are about to snap. He said, “Being busy may very well keep you from doing what matters most, or it may lead you to do things you deem unwise.” In a very humorous way, he tells us how to address the problems from brain science and psychiatry and encourage us to find our solutions. He even includes a chapter on “Why women have it harder than men.”

5. Nurture Relationships. Here I mean both professional and personal relationships. If the editor has met you and talked with you, she or he will have a face to associate with when she or he is reading the book proposal. I encourage you to introduce yourself to the editors at the book exhibit and tell them the exciting projects you are working on. Get to know the senior scholars in the field so that when they are editing an anthology, they will think of including your work.

Many books begin with an acknowledgment thanking the spouses, partners, and children for their support. Writing may take you away from attending ball games, watching videos, or doing other fun things with family. But sometimes, these distractions keep you sane. Balancing all the demands is a fine art.

I am the advisor with Joerg Rieger to the Religion in Modern World Series of Rowman and Littlefield and co-editor with Ivan Petrella of the Reclaiming Liberation Theology Series of SCM. Religion in Modern World aims at the general audience and focuses on how modernity is reconciled within each religious tradition. Liberation Theology has been considered dead in some circles. SCM publishes works of liberation theology by a new generation of scholars who expand the problematique of liberation theology. I hope to hear from you.

*Presented at a panel on "Getting Published" at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, November 20, 2011.

12 Tips to Improve Your Academic Paper

As a teacher I have read many students’ papers and conducted writing workshops for students. I offer these simple tips if you are a budding writer.

· Choose a manageable topic. A strong paper is one that is focused and shows the author has something to say. You can cast the net wide when you fish for a topic, but once you know more about the subject, you have to narrow it down.

· Start with a strong beginning. Journalists usually start with a story as a hook. Make it enticing for your reader.

· Provide a clear road map. What is the paper about? Why does it matter? What do you want to do? How are you going to do it?

· Use your own words. An academic paper does not mean that you should hide behind other authors’ words.

· Develop a narrative arc. I learn this from fiction writing. Why is the paper divided into different sections? What drives the arc? Where is the climax and where is the tension? How is the end related to the beginning?

· Don’t just cut and paste. When you cite other people’s words, make sure they fit the context of your paper. Read your paper without the quotes once to see if your arguments are clear.

· Check the direct quotes. Make sure you quote correctly (before you return the books).

· Always re-write. Even professional writers can’t do it right the first time. It is often when you’ve come to the end of your paper that you really know what you're trying to say. So leave time for re-writing and editing.

· Follow the style sheet. Your work will not be taken seriously if your notes do not conform to the “academic convention.”

· Read poetry and literature. I am sorry to say that many of the theology books are quite dry. You need to read outside the field to write well.

· Ask someone to read over it. You have worked on your paper for so long and can use a fresh pair of eyes.

· Never stop learning to write. It is a craft to be honed.

Do the Postcolonial Theorists Write Badly?

The Journal of Philosophy and Literature used to run Bad Writing Contest in the late 1990s. Postcolonial critic Homi Bhabha won a second prize in 1999 for a passage in The Location of Culture.

"If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories,
superstition, spurious authorities, and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to 'mormalize' formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality."

The debate on whether bad writing is necessary has a long history. Socrates was mocked for his technical language. In our modern time, George Orwell in “Politics and the English Language” (1946) warned of the use of obfuscating abstraction in political prose. For him, to write and to think “clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration.”

The late Edward W. Said shared Orwell’s thinking and criticized the opaque and difficult writings in humanities. Such style of writing, he surmised, has made humanities largely irrelevant to the public. He said intellectuals should communicate as immediately and forcefully as possible.

However, Said defended his friend Bhabha in an interview, saying, “Writers like Bhabha are looking for the occasion to work out ideas. There's something unfinished about it.”

The work of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is also notoriously difficult. In his review of Spivak’s work, Terry Eagleton teases that there must be a rule in the handbook for postcolonial critic that reads: “Be as obscurantist as you can decently get away with.”

In 2007 Spivak spent a whole day in conversation with theologians and biblical critics. The result was the anthology Planetary Love: Spivak, Postcoloniality, and Theology. I had the opportunity to ask her if she were to do it all over again, what would she have changed?

Spivak said that she would write in a more accessible way.

This is quite different from her earlier position, for she distrusts the demands for linguistic transparency. The criticism that her work is difficult to understand might mean to her that the person has not worked hard enough.

For Bhabha and Spivak, language is a performance. Bhabha said, “South Asian and Continental traditions tend to be more metaphoric and symbolic in their use of language.”

Bhabha’s mind is subtle, fluid, and multi-dimensional. This might have something to do with his upbringing in highly pluralistic Bombay. His new preface for the Routledge Classic Edition of The Location of Culture said he grew up “in Bombay as a middle-class Parsi—a member of a small Zoroastrian-Persian minority in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim context." He observes, “Learning to work with the contradictory strains of languages lived, and languages learned, has the potential for a remarkable critical and creative impulse.”

Bhabha’s writing reflects the palimpsest of his postcolonial mind and identity.

Spivak writes as she speaks—going back and forth and with loose structures. She demonstrates a mind in transition—transversing different terrains, going at full speed, making sudden turns, and shifting gears.

I certainly hope that Bhabha and Spivak would write in a way that can be more easily understood. I am not always sure that I fully understand what they try to say.

But I am amazed by how their minds work.

Blogging to Change the World

"All writing is designed to change the world, at least a small part of the world, or in some small ways perhaps a change in the reader's mood or his appreciation of a certain kind of beauty," writes Mary Pipher in Writing to Change the World.

With blogging, everyone can write to change the world. At least, try to. You don't need a publisher or an editor. It is instant and spontaneous.

If you've found a fabulous and cheap Indian restaurant in downtown, you can blog about it. If you've read something interesting, you can tell your friends through your blog.

But writing a blog is not for everyone.

Andrew Sullivan, a senior editor of The Atlantic, wrote "Why I blog." He says, "For centuries, writers have experimented with forms that evoke the imperfection of thought, the inconstancy of human affairs, and the chastening passage of time. But as blogging evolves as a literary form, it is generating a new and quintessentially postmodern idiom that’s enabling writers to express themselves in ways that have never been seen or understood before. Its truths are provisional, and its ethos collective and messy. Yet the interaction it enables between writer and reader is unprecedented, visceral, and sometimes brutal."

Blogging can be hard for academics. Why? Blogging requires thinking on the fly. We are used to take time to collect our thoughts, gather the data, and wait until events have settled. But by then, our blog will be so outdated. All that needs to be said would have been blogged already.

Blogging requires a different writing style. I am not used to writing paragraphs that are so short. I was horrified when the editor of a communal blog cut one of my paragraphs down to only one sentence.

As academics we are used to put our most important conclusion at the end, after we have laid out the arguments. But in a blog, we need to put the most important thing upfront, for we have a few seconds--three or less--to encourage people to read more. There is eye-tracking technology that follows a reader's eye movement as the person views a page.

The Yahoo! Style Guide says most readers scan first:

• They scan to see whether the content is relevant.



• They are more likely to scan the top of the page than the bottom.



• They look at headings, boldfaced terms, and images.

Thus the Style Guide advises:

• Keep it short: use short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, bulleted lists.



• Front-load your content: put the most important content in the upper-left area of the screen.



• Keep it simple: include only one or two ideas per short paragraph, choose common words over more difficult ones.

The Huffington Post is a site I visit often. Some of the site's bloggers are real experts in this genre. I especially like Bill Maher, who is always witty and funny. Here is how he writes about the NFL and socialism.

The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging recommends the following rules:

1. Blog often



2. Perfect is the enemy of done.



3. Write like you speak



4. Focus on specific details



5. Own your topic: think of your topic as you beat



6. Know your audience



7. Write short: we live in an ADD culture



8. Become part of the conversation with like-minded blogs

I especially like "perfect is the enemy of done."

When I started, I did not know how to cut and paste from a Word doc and did not know there is a devise for checking spelling in Blogger. Now I have learned gradually. I even know how to post a video. This is a video on how to create a blog with Blogger. May be you should start one too.

Remembering Reynolds Price

I do not remember how I came across Reynolds Price's memoir A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing. I remember on the book cover I saw Price sitting in a wheelchair. Price had an incurable illness--a 10-inch long malignant tumor wrapping around his spinal cord. He was 51 then, a well-known novelist and writer, who wrote about the South.

What impressed me most was Price's lack of self-pity. After several surgeries and dozens of radiation treatments, he survived, but was left paralyzed from the waist down. He was constantly in pain and sought hypnosis to ease his discomfort. At the end of the book, he said that he had hoped he would have learned earlier not so much to cure the illness, but to live with it.

Price continued to write despite his illness. I always wonder how these people could be so productive even when they suffered so much. Edward W. Said was shaking all over as a result of the treatment for his leukemia, yet he persisted to write his memoir Out of Place. Price would finish three memoirs before he died of heart attack at 77 on Jan. 20, 2011.

"Writing is a fearsome but grand vocation--potentially healing but likewise deadly," he told the Paris Review. He would not trade it for anything.

Price left behind a treasure showing how he worked: Learning A Trade: A Craftsman's Notebook, 1955-1997. If you think writing a novel is just imagination and not a lot of work, this book would surely change your mind.

Price was an "unchurched" Christian. He has long been dissatified with the church. He said the church has not spoken prophetically against racism and against poverty. As a gay man, Price found himself at olds with the teachings of the church on homosexuality. He called his faith "outlaw Christianity."

I have not read his books in which he discussed Christianity, such as Letter to a Godchild: Concerning Faith and Three Gospels. His colleague at Duke University for 30 years and EDS alumus Bruce B. Lawrence spoke highly of him, saying that Price's imaginative retelling of the gospels has opened up new horizons.

Although I have never met him, I hope he will rest in peace, knowing that many of his readers mourn his death.