The conceit of Academic Peer Review

Below is an edited version (for anonymity) of feedback comments I received from a well-established peer reviewed ‘race’ Journal for a submitted article exploring the limits of anti-racist readings of popular texts. My brief responses are highlighted in red-italics. (Though I didn’t waste my time sending them to the journal editors).

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Reviewer Comments to the Author
The article has at least three agendas: first, there is an attempt critically to assess the [...] messages about race and racism, and especially the [...] “take” on whiteness; second, there is an attempt to discuss teaching about race (and once again, most especially about whiteness), using the [...] as a pedagogical tool; and third, there is an attempt to do theoretical/interpretive work on the meaning of racial identity, drawing largely but not only on poststructural theory.

Filed under: writing

Retro-Writing: back to basics

What with email, facebook, google, youtube…it’s time to get off the net and get writing.

After reading Steven Poole’s excellent post, Goodbye, cruel Word, it has inspired me to turn everything else off and just let the blank page of the word-processor (WP) stare back. Easier said than done; and slow-bloated crash-prone Windows MS Word has so much redundant crap that it clutters my mind.

I want to see a screen when writing and nothing much else. Old-Skool here I come: trying out a WP called Q10 – download for Windows (free): http://baara.com/q10/

Minimalist features, though includes setting a word count target, setting a timer – makes you into a writing machine. And it has reassuring typewriter sound effects – now that is cool.

The beauty of Q10: it’s all and only about writing.

Note: saves in text files only, so you can’t format, or put together a whole book. But do that afterwards.

Filed under: technology, writing , software