Matsuda, Paul Kei. (2003). “Coming to Voice: Publishing as a Graduate Student.” In C. Pearson and S. Vandrick (Eds.) In Writing for Scholarly Publication: Behind the Scenes in Language Education (39-51). New Jersey: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Inc.
In this chapter, Matsuda works to challenge some of the assumptions that many established academics and graduate students likely share: that academic publication is merely a means of producing intellectual capital; that graduate students are not established enough or well read enough in their fields to publish; and that the purpose of publication is merely because that’s what scholars do (hence, publishing for personal and institutional recognition, not the advancement of a discipline).
He shares a narrative of the experiences, perceptions, and reservations he remembers from graduate school and first publishing experiences, these imaginably being what many graduate students experience: the terror of finding enough to say to fill a frightening 20 pages; the difficulty of limited all that has to be said in only 20 pages; the amount of reading we imagine we need to do in order to find a topic worth writing about; the realization that we don’t quite understand what would be considered a worthy contribution to the field; the hardship of gaining perspective about the scope of an extremely vast field and then coping with the amount of reading it will take to gain that perspective; the battle to find one’s “niche” and the worry that we’ll be judged based on how our identities influence our research interests; the uncertainty of whether or not we know enough about the arguments for and against a certain topic so as to anticipate possible objections to our claims and analyses; the potentially troublesome task of becoming aware of who our audience is, who our audience should be, and how we should rhetorically approach arguing for that audience; and the hesitance we have in being confident in our ability to theoretically contribute to our fields.
His narrative also sheds light on how such a widely recognized and published scholar in the field became so widely recognized and published. I was impressed (but not shocked) to learn of Matsuda’s early academic successes. Before entering graduate school, he had published in his university newspaper, tutored ESL for four years, contributed to the curriculum (by way of short essays) of his university’s tutoring practicum, and mastered writing in English as a nonnative speaker through taking numerous writing-intensive courses. Besides his undergraduate preparations, Matsuda also set the motions early on in his grad courses for scholarly publication: he approached his professor about writing for publication during his first semester of his master’s program; he sought, determinedly, to seek out as much knowledge about his field by reading as much as possible; and he joined academic conversations by becoming involved with online groups in his profession. He attributes much of his understanding of the discipline that he gained in graduate school, in fact, to TESL-L, an email discussion forum:
[T]he interactive nature of the list helped me become more keenly aware of my audience and their expectations as well as my own construction of a discursive self in relation to them….I became aware of the importance of seriously engaging with—not just acknowledging—various views of forming a balanced perspective. I also felt the need to contextualize my claims more to reduce the risk of being misinterpreted. In addition, this experience helped me realize that authors and readers are living human beings and that I need to be fair and respectful when I present them in my texts (this is not to say that I wasn’t be respectful)—just as students deserve to be treated fairly and respectfully in the research literature. (44, 46)
When networking online, Matsuda crafted his interactions to conceal his status as a graduate student and attempted to foreground his background as a NNES interested in TESOL, thus constructing a credible and professional ethos. Even though he attempted to appear authoritative, however, he recalls his approach as being just a façade; he was actually extremely insecure, so much that he ignored an invitation from a professor to collaborate on research. Besides networking, Matsuda also attributes much of his advancement as a scholar to his establishing a professional library of his own to include texts, articles, and journals relating to his interests as well as his commitment to writing seminar papers with the goal of eventually publishing. Ultimately, he feels that his goals for publishing changed during his graduate studies:
My goal was no longer just to publish but to respond to the conflicts, gaps, and discrepancies I perceived in the professional literature by contributing my perspective, which is informed by my inquiry—be it philosophical, historical, or empirical. I was no longer simply trying to engage in conversations with people in the field through my writing. At conferences, I tried to meet those people whose work I had read in order to gain a better sense of who they were and where they were coming from. I also saw it as a way of constantly reminding myself that they are real people who have not only interesting ideas and perspectives but also feelings—about issues in the field and about their own professional identity. (49-50)
Lastly, Matsuda’s story reminds graduate students and faculty alike that as tenure-track professors after graduate school, our professional work in the university (teaching, publishing, administrative and committee work, etc.) accompanies new pressures and challenges. To conclude, he ponders how pressures for faculty to publish—based on often unclear departmental policies—might affect or influence his current goals and reasons for publishing.
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