A great part about our general scholastic experience consists on learning how to read and write. These seemingly general practices are fundamental as we climb up the stages of academia, and each time, new students must learn this ability to be successful in our future professions. This skill is currently being cultivated in my first-year ASTU (Art Studies) class, in which we have emphasized the importance of citation, and the conversation between scholars when we include previous studies and ideas within our written assignments. Now very aware of this ongoing discussion, my interest has been sparked on the relations between the academic essay genre and the general media-published articles I am used to reading almost every day. I was recently cruising through my Facebook feed when I encountered a very eye-catching title on a Quartz Magazine post:

“An 8-year-old just published her first paper in an academic journal about her love of bugs”. 

My first assumption was, “this girl must be a Mozart-esque case of intelligence in the sciences”. But I immediately proceeded to read the article to learn what was so special about this girl’s knowledge on bugs, (and why was I taking so long to be published(?)). It turns out, Sophia Spencer was being bullied at school for liking bugs so much, and her mom decided to write a letter to the Annals of the Entomological Society of America looking for a way to encourage her daughter to not give up on her interests and passions.

I was pleasantly surprised on the content of the article for, differently of what I expected it to be about, it demonstrated a case of a two-sided benefit of social media. The mother’s letter was the subject of a twitter post which then became viral, and culminated in the inclusion of young Spencer writing her testimony in one of the journal’s article about “the importance of social media for making science more accessible to the public”.

It is this fact that got me thinking on how media can be a facilitator for joining the public/ mainstream and academic spheres, eventually introducing more people into a scholarly-related conversation. Academic works can become a part of our day to day knowledge without the need of searching too far into the database. In this case, Sophia Spencer’s love for insects clicked directly with the audience’s pathos and therefore caused not only a shift from her being bullied to being considered “cool”, but also benefited the journal as the article has become “one of the most popular ever published in [it]”. So then, how else can scholars create media stir to gain public relevance outside their academic discipline? Is it only these specific cases, like Sophia’s, that cause extraordinary sensation? And are is there an infinite amount of these? If a great amount, if not all academic conversations became popular, would they still be viral and paid attention to?

Nevertheless, I then sat down and thought harder on the situation. Catching the public eye is not every scholar’s aim. Some, if not many may disagree in letting in so many inexpert voices into an academic conversation. To let strangers with no qualifications comment on a topic that is so dear to them as to dedicate their researched to.

A very positive characteristic of academic research is the fact that it is not defined nor dictated by the public, but the topics of investigation are of personal interest to each researcher. The freedom of being able to investigate a topic of curiosity (and of course academic relevance) should not be interrupted by the mainstream population. The beauty of academic papers relies on the fact that only those who are truly passionate about their subject are able to join in the conversation, and there are no comments nor remarks by others; no “trolls”, “memes”, or even “hashtags” to blur the purpose of the scholar: to learn and share its findings with a community that truly values it.

Starting university and being formally introduced to academic writing has been very interesting, and after this reflection I feel deep appreciation for the academic essay, however different from any other genre I have known of so far. I am happy to have a class that provides me with the tools that can allow me to join a conversation of such prestigious characteristics on topics of my interest as well.

Link to Quartz’s article: https://qz.com/1080147/a-9-year-old-just-published-her-first-paper-in-an-academic-journal-about-her-love-of-bugs/