# On critically engaging with other people's writing


I just finished a blog post about Sean Duncan's PhD dissertation about
reuse of learning objects, which was quite critical. And I asked myself
for a second whether I should publish it or not. Would it make anyone
upset (him, his supervisors)? Was it aggressive or uneccessary? I don't
think so. I think part of the reasons I felt uneasy with publishing
this, is because I am so used to "haters" and "trolls" on the internet,
who will obsessively debate and criticize everything. In addition, while
the fundament of academia is critical engagement and debate, there is
certainly enough unproductive "attacks", personal disputes and other
issues that don't serve to promote scholarship.

However, just as Cory Doctorow is more afraid of obscurity than
ebook-piracy, I think that obscurity or indifference is far worse than
criticism in academia. If you have worked for years on a product, and it
just ends up on a shelf in some library, never to be seen again... And I
find this kind of thing happens frequently, at all levels. For example,
I attended the [Comparative, International Education
Society](http://www.cies.us) annual meeting last year in Charleston, SC.
This is a huge conference, with over 900 presentations given on all
topics related to comparative education. Unfortunately, many of the
presentations were extremely poor, but I felt that there was very little
real engagement with the content, by the audience. Partly, this was
probably due to the lack of time (often four 15 minute presentations,
followed by just 20 minutes of discussion).

The best session I attended was the presentation of a large project
presented by several famous scholars, who had invited a who's who of
famous education scholars to read drafts of their presentations
before-hand, and give brief comments. One after another, they went up to
the podium, and give extremely incisive and critical comments, with
lot's of substance and deep insight. In a way, the presenters were being
ripped to pieces in all kinds of ways, in another way they got the
incredible privilege of having some of the best minds in the world
engage deeply with their content. And I also wonder whether the fact
that the presenters were also so established, and that everyone knew
each other, was one reason why they could be so outspoken... they
probably would not have done that to graduate students.

Thinking about myself, I finished [my undergraduate honor's
thesis](http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00014659/)) last year on
community libraries in Indonesia. It was quite a novel topic, and I was
very excited to put it together. I even had it translated to Indonesian,
because I believed it was very important that those who were talked
about, could also read (and criticize!) the paper. However, although I
know that a number of people downloaded the PDF (and mysteriously, it
even appeared on the shelves of the [Australian National
Library](http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4495338)), I have yet to
receive any kind of substantial comment or criticism about the paper
(which is very far from perfect!).

Even blog posts are similar. I always wondered how some bloggers get so
many comments on their posts. I know through statistics that there is a
nice number of people visiting this blog, many finding it through Google
queries, others reading it through feed-readers, etc. Yet, I get very
few comments, and even when my blog posts are republished or linked to
otherwise, it's usually just in a "this is neat" way. (There are
exceptions, for example Downes did give me some[nice
resistance](http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/10/theoretical-frameworks-for-researching-oer/)[](http://www.downes.ca/post/46921)about
the role of theories in OER research).

And added thing that sometimes strikes me is the whole hierarchy. What
business do I have, as a first year MA student, to criticize the [field
of OER
research](http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/11/10/theoretical-frameworks-for-researching-oer/),
or a PhD thesis? However, as long as you do it in a respectful and
sincere manner, I think it is an important part of learning. I never
pretend that what I say is the final truth, it is what I think. If it is
completely wrong, then better that I say it out, and be corrected. For
example, I mentioned that I thought the 45 page PhD thesis was very
short. Perhaps this is quite normal, and I will be corrected. Great.
Then I will have learnt something.

I gave [a
talk](http://reganmian.net/blog/2009/06/04/talk-in-chinese-at-sociallearnlab-social-learning/)
two weeks ago for a Chinese community of people interested in open
education and elearning, and one of the things I talked about was the
English-language open ed blogosphere. I might have romanticized it a
little bit, but I still believe it's one of the most helpful and
constructive "communities" or networks that I've ever engaged with. And
one of the elements is that what you say really is much more important
than who you are. Even if I am a first year MA student, if I have
something interesting to say, people will read it. And although our
education system is far from perfect, I treasure enormously the
self-confidence of my teachers, almos consistently from primary school
until my current MA, who welcome criticism and questioning, and
encourage you to not accept things at face value.

So I will continue poking my head out, but it works both ways - my stuff
is out there, and I would love for people to tear it apart. Then I'll
know, at least, that somebody's read it.

Stian