Making an Analytic Contribution

The Buzzing Lunch Table Metaphor

Academic research and writing is much like a buzzing high school lunchroom with tables of all different conversations occurring and different accepted status signifiers and communicative conventions distinguishing the various disciplines. Among the most fundamental and universal of these conventions is the use of citations to identify the participants included in the conversation.

At each journal - the editors and authors included in the pages are colleagues who regularly convene for conferences and work across halls from one another at universities. These individuals know each others work and their careers are established through citations to one another. 

Journal editors expect that submissions are in conversation with their chosen table mates. To sit down at such a table - you cannot just begin to speak, you must understand the direction of the conversation and gracefully find your way in. In the context of peer-reviewed research, your task is not only to enter the conversation - but it is to contribute to it in a way that might inspire new directions and encourage others to take over the conversation where you've left off. 

“There are three broad contributions that peer-reviewed manuscripts can make...”

Typically there are three broad and fundamental contributions that peer-reviewed manuscripts can make to a journal's readers.

1. They can craft a new theory/method:
   This is rare, and especially difficult for emerging scholars as it often means challenging the gatekeepers of the current conversation.

2. They can test existing theories/methods either to replicate them or to test them in new contexts:
   This more common and requires a considerable review of existing literature and a clear description of the social and scholarly need to expand the theory/method to a new context.

3. They can poach from an outside discipline to integrate literature from a corresponding field that serves to better explain a particular phenomena:
   This is less common in the sciences but often utilized in the humanities to promote inter-disciplinary contributions and develop new and important concepts.

As a scholar sitting down at this table, you’ve got to demonstrate your capacity to ‘speak up’ at the table and share something relevant amongst a group of elders in a way that will inspire a generative dialogue.

While often conceived of as the set-up that precedes the analysis, the review of literature is actually much more than a set-up. A review of literature should situate your larger project amongst the many buzzing lunch tables of academia. Are you choosing to sit with the geologists or the geographers? The statisticians or the sociologists? While there will always be members who can move between multiple tables, your manuscript should be presented as the buzzing subject at one table.

When understood as a process of setting the table and inviting conversation, the review of literature can be acknowledged as one of the most important portions of your manuscript. As you select a combination of foundational, recent, and relevant citations you begin to identify your audience, structure your argument, and get the table talking.

I want to know about how you approach the review of literature.

What are some strategies to contribute to academia in a way that gets the tables buzzing?

Reach out at Philip.tschirhart@discoursedesigngroup.com
or connect with me on linkedin.com/in/philip-tschirhart/