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Explorations, thinking about integrated research questions (multiple methods, multiple disciplines)

Round 1 (30 minutes): The students divide into three groups, each taking a different disciplinary lens:

  • Group 1: Business/Marketing Perspective
  • Group 2: Cultural Studies/Anthropology Perspective
  • Group 3: Urban Studies/Geography Perspective

Task for each group:

  1. Identify one key research question from your disciplinary perspective
  2. List 3 specific aspects from the field report that support investigating this question
  3. Outline potential research methods specific to your discipline
  4. Identify 2-3 key theories or concepts from your field that could frame the research
  5. Note what other cases/examples from Berlin could be comparative reference points

Plenary Discussion (20 minutes):

  • Each group presents their approach (5 minutes each)
  • Class discusses how the different perspectives complement or contradict each other
  • Identify potential for interdisciplinary collaboration

Round 2 (25 minutes): The groups mix so each new group has members from all three original perspectives. Task:

  1. Create an integrated research proposal that combines insights from multiple disciplines
  2. Identify specific ways the different approaches could strengthen each other
  3. Develop a timeline for the research
  4. List potential challenges and how to address them

Final Plenary (15 minutes):

  • Groups share their integrated proposals
  • Discussion of how different disciplinary approaches can be combined effectively
  • Reflection on what was learned about interdisciplinary research design

BUSINESS/MARKETING PERSPECTIVE:

Research Question: How do ethnic restaurants in Berlin strategically balance cultural authenticity and market adaptation to appeal to different customer segments?

Supporting Aspects from Report:

  1. Strategic use of Pan-African imagery rather than Arabic cultural elements
  2. French language prominence over Arabic despite being a Moroccan restaurant
  3. Conscious decision to emphasize certain cultural elements while minimizing others for marketing purposes

Research Methods:

  • Customer surveys and interviews
  • Competitive analysis of other Moroccan restaurants
  • Sales data analysis comparing different menu items
  • Semi-structured interviews with restaurant owners
  • Analysis of marketing materials and social media presence

Key Theories/Concepts:

  • Market positioning theory
  • Cultural marketing and branding
  • Consumer behavior in ethnic dining

Comparative Cases:

  • Der Phönizier (mentioned in another report)
  • Turkish restaurants in Kreuzberg adapting to gentrification
  • Vietnamese restaurants in Prenzlauer Berg

CULTURAL STUDIES/ANTHROPOLOGY PERSPECTIVE:

Research Question: How do immigrant restaurant owners negotiate their cultural identity presentation in Berlin’s evolving culinary landscape?

Supporting Aspects from Report:

  1. Owners speaking Darija Arabic but minimizing Arabic cultural displays
  2. Selection of specific cultural symbols (Tamazigh tapestry, photos of African leaders)
  3. The tension between “traditional” branding and selective cultural presentation

Research Methods:

  • Ethnographic observation
  • Life history interviews with restaurant owners
  • Visual analysis of restaurant decor
  • Participant observation of customer-staff interactions
  • Document analysis of menus and promotional materials

Key Theories/Concepts:

  • Cultural hybridization
  • Strategic essentialism
  • Performance of identity
  • Self-orientalization

Comparative Cases:

  • Lebanese restaurant in Neukölln (from another report)
  • Turkish coffeehouses in Kreuzberg
  • Arab Street (Sonnenallee) restaurants

URBAN STUDIES/GEOGRAPHY PERSPECTIVE:

Research Question: How do ethnic restaurants contribute to the production of transcultural spaces in Berlin’s changing urban landscape?

Supporting Aspects from Report:

  1. Location in Friedrichstadt, an office district
  2. Adaptation to European customer base
  3. Creation of a hybrid cultural space through design and atmosphere

Research Methods:

  • Mapping of ethnic restaurants in the area
  • Analysis of neighborhood demographic changes
  • Documentation of physical space transformations
  • Foot traffic patterns analysis
  • Spatial analysis of restaurant distribution

Key Theories/Concepts:

  • Urban transformation and gentrification
  • Production of space (Lefebvre)
  • Transcultural urbanism
  • Right to the city

Comparative Cases:

  • Restaurant clusters in Kreuzberg
  • Transformation of Sonnenallee
  • Evolution of Markthalle Neun

Each perspective offers different insights into understanding the complex dynamics at play in this case, from business strategies to cultural identity negotiation to urban transformation processes.


Title: “Negotiating Authenticity: Cultural Restaurants as Sites of Identity, Commerce, and Urban Transformation in Berlin”

  1. INTEGRATED RESEARCH COMPONENTS:

Core Research Question: How do ethnic restaurants in Berlin navigate the interplay between cultural authenticity, commercial viability, and urban space-making in an evolving metropolitan context?

Multidisciplinary Components:

  • Business: Market positioning and economic sustainability strategies
  • Cultural Studies: Identity negotiation and cultural representation
  • Urban Studies: Spatial dynamics and neighborhood transformation
  1. STRENGTHENING INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS:

Business + Cultural Studies:

  • Economic data can help explain cultural presentation choices
  • Cultural analysis can inform marketing strategies
  • Combined understanding of both customer expectations and cultural authenticity

Cultural Studies + Urban Studies:

  • Spatial analysis provides context for cultural expression
  • Cultural patterns inform understanding of neighborhood changes
  • Combined insight into how space shapes cultural presentation

Urban Studies + Business:

  • Location analysis influences business strategies
  • Economic data helps explain spatial patterns
  • Combined understanding of neighborhood development and market forces
  1. RESEARCH TIMELINE:

Phase 1 (3 months): Preliminary Research

  • Literature review across all disciplines
  • Mapping of research sites
  • Development of research instruments
  • Initial stakeholder contacts

Phase 2 (6 months): Data Collection

  • Business data gathering: customer surveys, sales analysis
  • Ethnographic fieldwork: observations, interviews
  • Spatial analysis: mapping, demographic study
  • Cross-disciplinary team meetings for integration

Phase 3 (3 months): Analysis

  • Individual disciplinary analysis
  • Cross-disciplinary analysis sessions
  • Integration of findings
  • Preliminary conclusions

Phase 4 (2 months): Integration and Writing

  • Synthesis of findings
  • Writing of integrated report
  • Stakeholder presentations
  • Publication preparation
  1. CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS:

Methodological Challenges:

  • Different disciplinary approaches might conflict Solution: Regular cross-disciplinary meetings to align methods and share insights

Language Barriers:

  • Multiple languages involved (German, Arabic, French) Solution: Recruit multilingual research assistants, work with cultural mediators

Access Issues:

  • Restaurant owners might be hesitant to share business data Solution: Build trust through cultural mediators, ensure confidentiality, offer valuable feedback

Integration Challenges:

  • Difficulty merging different types of data Solution: Develop integrated analysis framework early, use mixed methods approach

Time Management:

  • Different research components require different timeframes Solution: Create flexible timeline with clear coordination points

Cultural Sensitivity:

  • Risk of misinterpreting cultural elements Solution: Include researchers from relevant cultural backgrounds, maintain ongoing dialogue with community members

Data Organization:

  • Managing diverse types of data from different disciplines Solution: Create centralized database with clear categorization system

Theoretical Integration:

  • Reconciling different disciplinary frameworks Solution: Regular theory workshops to develop integrated conceptual framework

Writing, new topic on Jan 21, new task for Jan 30

Freie Universität’s AI guidelines (in German) can be found here:

13 – Tue Jan 21 1–2 PM – co-producing texts with the help of ai

Key Session Content:

  • Understand the fundamental differences between human writing processes and AI text generation
  • Avoid getting trapped in AI-dependent workflows that bypass critical thinking
  • Structure your writing process to maximize human insight while critically evaluating potential AI assistance

    Core Concepts:
    1. Human Writing Process vs. AI Generation
  • Writing as thinking vs. writing as pattern matching
  • The value of struggle and uncertainty
  • When clarity emerges through writing process
    2. Critical AI Workflows
  • Identifying when AI seems tempting (language barriers, writer’s block, time pressure)
  • Understanding what you lose by outsourcing different parts of writing
  • Developing criteria for justified vs. convenient AI use
    3. Community-Based Writing Strategies
  • Building peer support networks
  • Collaborative writing and editing practices
  • Shared resources and knowledge banks

14 – Tue Jan 28 12–2 PM – improving your text // independent writing time // peer-review

Trade paper drafts and examine them through the lens of AI co-production. Each reviewer should:

  1. Identify sections where AI assistance might be tempting but would bypass crucial thinking work
  2. Suggest alternative approaches that maintain intellectual sovereignty
  3. Find opportunities where limited AI use might be justified by clear social/academic benefit

TASK #7: Critical Writing Process Analysis
After peer reviewing each other’s drafts, submit a reflection (1-2 pages) that:

  • Takes 1-2 examples from the papers you reviewed
  • Analyzes specific passages where AI tools might be commonly used (e.g., language polishing, transitional phrases, literature summaries)
  • Discusses the tradeoffs involved (environmental cost, thinking process, accessibility needs)
  • Proposes concrete alternative strategies for addressing writing challenges through peer support and collaborative work

Submit your analysis as a PDF by e-mail from your zedat or @fu-berlin.de address to my email address, using the subject “porcupine”. Deadline Thu Jan 30 6 PM.

The Comfort of Context: A Critical Self-Reflection on Academic Writing’s Addiction to Background

As I sit here, staring at yet another introduction that begins with “Scholars have long debated…”, I find myself confronting again something uncomfortable about academic writing—our peculiar addiction to creating stability through excessive background and definitions, a practice that actually undermines the very purpose of scholarly discourse. This compulsive need to establish firm ground before making any claims reveals something essential about our relationship with academic writing and perhaps our own insecurities as scholars: We build elaborate foundations of context not because our readers need them, but because we need them, like a security blanket that shields us from the vulnerability of making bold claims in an intellectual landscape where critique is currency.

The ritualism of the academic introduction has become so deeply ingrained in our scholarly consciousness that we barely question its necessity anymore—especially when teaching academic writing to graduates. We meticulously lay out historical trajectories, carefully define every term as if our readers were novices in their own field, and construct elaborate methodological fortresses—all before daring to merely whisper what we actually want to say. This performance of erudition, while comforting to write, creates a peculiar form of what I would call intellectual procrastination. Instead of engaging directly with the tensions and problems that make our research vital, we spend precious pages establishing our membership in the academic club through citation parades and definitional displays. It’s as if we believe our readers won’t trust us to challenge existing knowledge until we’ve proven we can recite it verbatim.

Perhaps most telling is our collective resistance to abandoning these practices even when we intellectually understand their limitations. We know our readers—they are often accomplished scholars in their fields unless we cater our texts explicitly to other audiences—don’t need a Wikipedia-style overview of basic concepts. We recognize that starting with “Since ancient times…” rarely serves any purpose beyond demonstrating our ability to use JSTOR. Yet time and again, we find ourselves falling back into these patterns, like comfort food for the academic soul. This behavior suggests something more than mere habit; it reveals our deep-seated anxiety about academic authority and our place within scholarly discourse. Each carefully constructed paragraph of background becomes a talisman against potential criticism, a way of saying “Look how thoroughly I’ve done my homework!” before daring to contribute an original thought—if at all.

The irony, of course, is that this obsession with stability and stasis often achieves the opposite of its intended effect. Rather than strengthening our arguments, these lengthy preambles dilute them. Rather than engaging our readers, they exhaust them. Rather than demonstrating our mastery of the field, they suggest we’re not confident enough in our contributions to let them stand on their own merits. The real intellectual courage lies perhaps not in proving we know everything that’s come before, but in daring to challenge it directly, to create productive instability that advances our understanding. When we finally do allow ourselves to write introductions that foreground problems rather than background, that challenge assumptions rather than recite them, we often find our writing becoming not just more engaging but more honest about what we’re actually trying to accomplish in our research.

Breaking free from this addiction to context requires more than just technical writing advice—it demands a shift in how we conceive of our relationship with our readers and our role in academic discourse. Instead of viewing our introductions as credentialing exercises, we might reimagine them as invitations to productive discomfort, to the kind of intellectual instability that generates new insights. This means trusting our readers enough to skip the historical tours and definitional parades, and trusting ourselves enough to make bold claims without first constructing elaborate defensive fortifications. Only then might we transform our academic writing from exercises in stability-building to genuine contributions to knowledge that challenge, provoke, and advance our understanding.

Writing, Beyond Background

A Self-Learning Session on Breaking Academic Writing Habits (60 minutes)

STEP 1: Examining Our Academic Security Blankets (15 minutes)

READ these common introduction patterns, reflecting on how often you’ve used them:

Pattern 1: The Historical Journey “Since ancient times, humans have…” “Scholars have long debated…” “The history of [field] shows…”

Pattern 2: The Definition Cascade “Before proceeding, we must define…” “X can be understood as…” “This paper uses Y to mean…”

Pattern 3: The Method Shield “Using qualitative methods…” “Through a mixed-methods approach…” “By applying framework Z…”

Pattern 4: The Citation Club “Smith (2010) argues that…” “Building on Jones’ (2015) framework…” “As numerous scholars have shown (Wilson 2018; Brown 2020)…”

TASK 1: Personal Inventory Write down:

  • Which patterns do you most frequently use in your writing?
  • What makes these patterns feel safe or necessary?
  • When you read others’ work, how do you react to these patterns?
  • What are you trying to prove by using these structures?

STEP 2: Understanding the Psychology of Stability (15 minutes)

READ this reflection: “We construct elaborate backgrounds not because our readers need them, but because we need them. Every definition becomes a shield, every citation a membership card to the academic club. But what if our desire for stability is precisely what prevents us from making meaningful contributions?”

TASK 2: Analyze Your Own Writing

Take a recent introduction you’ve written and:

  1. Highlight every sentence that:
    • Provides historical context
    • Defines terms
    • Reviews literature
    • Describes methods
  2. For each highlighted section, ask:
    • Does this advance my argument?
    • Does this create value for my readers?
    • Could I remove this without losing anything essential?
    • What am I afraid would happen if I cut this?

STEP 3: From Stability to Productive Discomfort (15 minutes)

TASK 3: Transform These Stable Introductions into Problem-Centered Ones

Example: STABLE: “Migration studies has long examined cultural integration in urban spaces. Scholars have defined integration through various lenses, from economic to social factors. This paper uses ethnographic methods to study Berlin’s Turkish Market…”

UNSTABLE: “The celebrated ‘success story’ of Berlin’s Turkish Market masks a troubling paradox: while we praise its cultural authenticity, we simultaneously expect it to adapt to German urban norms. This tension reveals how current frameworks for understanding cultural integration fundamentally misread the dynamic nature of immigrant spaces…”

Now try these:

  1. Transform a historical opening into a current problem
  2. Replace a definition cascade with a conceptual challenge
  3. Convert a methodology shield into a problem-solving approach

STEP 4: Testing Your Transformations (15 minutes)

For each rewritten introduction, ask:

  • Does it create immediate tension?
  • Would readers in your field care about this problem?
  • Does it challenge existing understanding?
  • Does it promise valuable insights?

Final Reflection: Consider how different your writing feels when you:

  • Start with instability rather than stability
  • Challenge rather than reinforce existing knowledge
  • Focus on problems rather than background
  • Trust your readers’ expertise

Homework: Take the introduction of your current project and:

  1. Identify all stability-creating elements
  2. Remove or transform each one
  3. Foreground the key problem or tension
  4. Test whether each sentence creates value for your readers

Remember: Your goal isn’t to prove you’ve done your homework – it’s to show readers why they should care about your work right now.

Explorations, formulating research questions that matter

Round 1 (20 minutes): In your groups, identify 2-3 key research questions emerging from these field experiences. For each question:

  1. Write down specific questions in case the report asks any
  2. Note what sparked these questions in the field report
  3. Evaluate whether you think the research questions are of value, if yes, to whom
  4. List what you would need to know/understand to research one or more of these questions
  5. Identify initial challenges you anticipate

Plenary (25 minutes)

Round 2 (20 minutes): Take one research question your group identified and develop it further:

  1. What methods would you use to investigate this question?
  2. What sources would you need to consult?
  3. Who would you need to talk to?
  4. What theoretical concepts might be helpful?
  5. What practical steps would you take first?”

For the plenary (25 minutes):

  • Each group presents their most developed research question and approach
  • Discussion of common challenges across the different proposals
  • Brainstorming of resources and support needed

Writing, Why “No One Has Studied This” Is Scholarly Writing’s Most Dangerous Comfort Zone

Let’s talk about one of academia’s most cherished myths: that identifying an unstudied area automatically creates a valuable research problem. We’ve all done it. Faced with the need to justify our research, we fall back on that comfortable phrase: “While scholars have extensively studied X, there is a gap in the literature regarding Y.”

It feels safe, doesn’t it?

After all, we’re not claiming anything controversial. We’re just pointing to empty space on the academic map. But here’s something uncomfortable: in an infinite field of knowledge, there are infinite gaps. The mere existence of unexplored territory doesn’t make it worth exploring. The comfort of gap-thinking has become a trap, leading us to mistake the unknown for the important. It’s academia’s version of the path of least resistance. Like finding an empty parking spot rather than questioning whether we need to drive at all. We comfort ourselves with the methodological security of virgin territory – after all, if no one has studied it, we can’t possibly be wrong about previous findings. We can sidestep the messier task of challenging existing scholarship. It’s a scholarly security blanket that lets us avoid the scarier question: not what’s missing, but what’s wrong with how we currently think about things.

Think of it this way: There’s no research on what color socks professors wore while writing groundbreaking papers. There’s a gap in literature about how many times academics check their email or scroll through Instagram for a new chocolate cake recipe while revising manuscripts. There’s an unstudied area regarding the relationship between coffee consumption and citation practices. There’s an unstudied area regarding whether academics who write with blue pens cite differently than those who write with black ones. No one has investigated the correlation between article rejection rates and the phase of the moon. There’s a shocking gap in our understanding of how the font choice in rejection letters affects scholars’ ice cream consumption….

Ok, I’m getting side-tracked here, but it’s really fun to gap-think like that.

So, these are gaps, but they’re gaps no one needs filled (although, the more I think about the socks and ice cream questions, the more curious I become!). The existence of a gap tells us nothing about its value. Yet how often do we see dissertations and articles justified solely by their novelty, as if being the first to study something automatically makes it worthwhile?

And let’s be honest – academia excels at producing these kind of meaningless gaps. We could write entire dissertations about the font choices in conference presentations, the correlation between theoretical frameworks and coffee brands, or the migration patterns of lost USB sticks in university libraries. We could map the relationship between academic jargon and impostor syndrome, or study how many scholars actually read the articles they cite (now that might actually be useful!). The point is, gaps are everywhere, and most of them deserve to stay unfilled.

The problem runs deeper than just weak justifications. Gap-thinking shapes how we conceptualize research itself. It encourages a peculiar form of academic timidity, where we avoid making strong claims about what’s wrong with current understanding, preferring instead to quietly suggest that something might be missing. It’s a defensive posture that prioritizes safety over significance. This timidity manifests in our very language. We ‘contribute to the conversation’ rather than challenge its premises. We ‘build on existing literature’ rather than point out its foundational cracks. We ‘extend current frameworks’ rather than show why they might be fundamentally flawed. It’s academic politeness taken to the point of intellectual paralysis. Meanwhile, the really interesting questions – the ones that might actually advance understanding – often require us to be academically impolite, to suggest that current thinking might not just be incomplete, but wrong.

Consider how gap-thinking manifests in different fields. In history: “No one has studied the daily routines of medieval peasants in this particular village.” In sociology: “There’s a gap in our understanding of how people choose their grocery store.” In literary studies: “Scholars haven’t examined the use of semicolons in early modernist poetry.” Each statement might be true, but none tells us why these gaps matter, what problems they create, what understanding they prevent.

The gap-as-justification approach particularly fails our junior scholars. PhD students, already struggling with impostor syndrome, grasp at gaps as safe harbors. “If no one has studied this,” the thinking goes, “at least no one can say I’m wrong.” But this safety comes at a cost: research that fills space rather than solves problems, that adds to knowledge without advancing understanding.

Compare these two openings: “While scholars have extensively studied memorial culture in Berlin, there is a gap in research about smaller diaspora communities’ commemoration practices.” Versus: “Current theories of memorial culture, developed through studying major ethnic groups, cannot explain how smaller diaspora communities successfully achieve recognition, revealing fundamental flaws in how we understand the politics of remembrance.”

The first tells us what’s missing. The second shows us why our current understanding is inadequate – and implies that this inadequacy matters. The gap version promises to add knowledge. The error version promises to fix flawed knowledge. One cautiously claims territory; the other boldly challenges assumptions.

This distinction changes not just how we write, but how we think about research itself. Instead of scanning for unstudied areas, we begin looking for problems in current understanding. Rather than asking “What hasn’t been studied?” we ask “What can’t current approaches explain?” Instead of promising to add another brick to the wall of knowledge, we commit to fixing structural problems in the wall itself.

The implications extend beyond individual research projects. Gap-thinking has shaped entire fields, leading to what might be called the ‘archipelago effect’ – isolated islands of research, each filling its own gap, but rarely connecting to form meaningful patterns of understanding. We see this in conference presentations: ‘Here’s my gap!’ ‘And here’s mine!’ ‘Look what unstudied area I found!’ – a chorus of scholars proudly displaying their isolated discoveries without addressing why anyone should sail to their particular island. We end up with more knowledge but not necessarily better understanding, an academic archipelago where each island might be meticulously mapped but no one’s building bridges between them. And this fragmentation through gap-filling creates what I call the “academic butterfly collection” – beautiful specimens of knowledge, carefully pinned and labeled, but ultimately lifeless.

The solution isn’t to completely abandon gaps – sometimes identifying unstudied areas is part of showing why current understanding fails. But gaps should be supporting evidence for problems, not problems themselves. They should help us show why existing frameworks are inadequate, not stand alone as justification for research.

The next time you’re tempted to justify your research with “no one has studied this,” stop and probe deeper. What breaks if this gap remains unfilled? What phenomena can’t current theories explain? What assumptions need challenging? Transform your gap into an error, and watch your readers’ interest transform too.

After all, gaps are passive – they just sit there, waiting to be filled. Errors are active – they create tension in how we think about something, suggest our current frameworks might be wrong, hint at costs of leaving things unresolved. Gaps invite completion; errors demand resolution. In a world drowning in information but starving for understanding, which would you rather contribute?

Writing, The Perils of Gaps and the Power of Errors

A Self-Learning Session (45 minutes)

STEP 1: What’s Wrong with Gaps? (10 minutes)

READ these common gap formulations:

  • “Little research exists on…”
  • “This area remains unexplored…”
  • “No studies have examined…”

TASK 1A: Write down your immediate reaction as a reader to these phrases. Do they make you want to read more? Why/why not?

TASK 1B: Look at this full gap introduction: “While scholars have extensively studied Turkish immigration to Germany, there is a gap in research about food culture’s role in integration. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how döner kebab shops have shaped urban spaces.”

Answer:

  1. What’s missing from this formulation?
  2. Why should readers care about this gap?
  3. What happens if this gap remains unfilled?

STEP 2: Understanding the Power of Errors (10 minutes)

READ these error formulations:

  • “Current frameworks fail to explain…”
  • “Traditional approaches overlook crucial factors…”
  • “Existing theories cannot account for…”

TASK 2A: Compare your reaction as a reader to these phrases versus the gap phrases. What’s different?

TASK 2B: Look at this error introduction: “The widely accepted framework that equates visibility with integration has obscured a more troubling phenomenon: how seemingly positive acknowledgments of Turkish food culture actually reinforce patterns of exclusion. This oversight has significant consequences for how we understand immigrant integration in urban spaces.”

Identify:

  1. What’s wrong with current understanding?
  2. Why does it matter?
  3. Who needs this problem solved?

STEP 3: From Gaps to Errors (15 minutes)

TASK 3A: Transform these gap statements into error statements:

Example: GAP: “No research has examined how smaller diaspora communities navigate memorial politics in Berlin.” ERROR: “Current theories of memorial culture, focused on major ethnic groups, fail to explain how smaller diaspora communities successfully achieve recognition, limiting our understanding of memorial politics.”

Now try these:

  1. “There is a gap in research about museum curation of Middle Eastern artifacts.”
  2. “Little attention has been paid to how Turkish immigrants shape urban spaces.”
  3. “The role of food in cultural integration remains unexplored.”

TASK 3B: For each transformation, ask:

  • What assumptions in current knowledge are you challenging?
  • What consequences follow from this error?
  • Why do readers need this resolved?

STEP 4: Applying to Your Work (10 minutes)

TASK 4A: Write your current research problem as a gap statement.

TASK 4B: Transform it into an error statement by asking:

  1. What does current understanding get wrong?
  2. What can’t current approaches explain?
  3. What assumptions need challenging?
  4. What costs come from this error?

TASK 4C: Compare both versions:

  • Which creates more urgency?
  • Which shows clearer value?
  • Which makes stronger claims?

Final Check

Your error formulation should:

  • Challenge existing understanding
  • Show clear consequences
  • Matter to specific readers
  • Demand resolution

Homework

Revise your paper’s introduction to:

  1. Identify a specific error in current understanding
  2. Show why this error matters to your readers
  3. Preview how your work addresses this error

Writing, The Art of Making Readers Care: Why Most Academic Writing Fails to Create Real Problems

A confession: I’ve been teaching academic writing for years, but only recently realized I’d been focusing on the wrong problem entirely. In countless workshops, I’ve helped students craft elegant prose, structure clear arguments, and perfect their academic style. Yet their writing, while technically proficient, often left readers cold. It took me too long to understand why.

The issue crystallized during a recent seminar. A brilliant student had written a technically flawless paper on memorialization practices in Berlin. Perfect citations. Impeccable methodology. Comprehensive literature review. And utterly forgettable. When I asked her who needed this research and why, she looked blank. “It fills a gap in the literature,” she said, reciting the standard academic justification we’ve all used.

But here’s the thing: gaps don’t matter unless something falls through them. In academic writing, we’ve become masters of identifying what’s missing, but we’ve forgotten to ask why anyone should care about filling these holes. We mistake absence for importance, forgetting that in an infinite field of knowledge, there are infinite gaps. The mere existence of unexplored territory doesn’t make it worth exploring.

Real academic problems – the kind that make readers sit up and pay attention – aren’t about gaps. They’re about instability. About tension between what we think we know and what we observe. About contradictions in our current understanding that have real consequences for how we think or act in the world. When a piece of writing identifies such an instability and shows readers why it matters to them, it creates an intellectual itch that demands scratching.

Consider two ways to frame research on, say, urban memorials. Version one: “While scholars have extensively studied Holocaust memorials, there is a gap in the literature regarding memorials to other genocides.” Version two: “Our current theories about how cities process historical guilt through memorialization cannot explain the puzzling selective visibility of different genocides in Berlin’s memorial landscape.” The first tells us what’s missing. The second shows us why our current understanding is inadequate – and implies that this inadequacy matters.

The difference isn’t just semantic. It’s about intellectual stakes. A gap is passive – it just sits there, waiting to be filled. An instability is active – it creates tension in how we think about something, suggests our current frameworks might be wrong, hints at costs of leaving things unresolved. Gaps invite completion; instabilities demand resolution.

This distinction transforms how we write. Instead of starting with background information (the classic academic move), we begin by showing readers why their current understanding is unstable. Rather than establishing our credentials through literature reviews, we demonstrate value by revealing the costs of unresolved tensions in existing knowledge. The goal isn’t to prove we know something, but to show why knowing something new matters.

I see this shift happen in students’ writing when they finally grasp it. Their introductions stop trying to educate readers about basic concepts and start showing why established concepts don’t fully work. Their literature reviews stop being catalogs of previous work and become stories of unresolved tensions. Their research questions stop being about what we don’t know and start being about what we need to know.

Most profoundly, their relationship with readers changes. Instead of performing knowledge for evaluation, they’re offering solutions to intellectual problems that matter. Their writing becomes less about filling gaps and more about resolving tensions that have real stakes for their readers.

This is more than a writing technique – it’s a different way of thinking about academic work itself. It suggests that our value as scholars lies not in what we know, but in how we help others understand better. It reminds us that academic writing isn’t about displaying knowledge – it’s about advancing understanding in ways that matter to specific communities of readers.

The challenge, of course, is that this approach requires us to really know our readers – their concerns, their assumptions, their needs. We can’t create meaningful problems in a vacuum. We have to understand what keeps our readers up at night, what challenges their current thinking, what would help them understand better.

Perhaps this is the deeper problem we need to solve in academic writing: not how to fill gaps in knowledge, but how to create intellectual problems that matter to real readers. Everything else – the style, the structure, the methodology – serves this fundamental purpose: helping readers see why they need what we’ve discovered.