My work is not a cold product. It is not an objective account of the research that it tries to explain. It is a window into my soul. It is the product of my care and nurture, much like a child.
It makes me a bit sad to discover this insight so close to the job market. It would have made me a better job market candidate. Now I feel like a parent who has neglected his child for several years: the damage is not irreversible, but opportunities have been missed. I still hope that I can become a better economist and a better "parent" to my work.
Think about it. Does the economist write with great confidence about the importance of her work, or humbly suggest to point attention to an overlooked area of the field? It reveals the type of role he seeks to fulfil in life. Does he write a paper about the existence of equilibrium, or about what an experiment in Kenya teaches us about incentives? It indicates the type of problems occupying his mind. Does he label his paragraphs "Introduction" and "The model" or "Why this matters" and "What explains return predictability"? It shows how much he cares about sticking to rules and conventions. Finally, how much effort has he put into the paper? It lays bare his life priorities.
The "content" of the paper is of course the research project it describes, and this itself reveals much about the personality of the researcher. But the writing itself reveals just as much. Are you arrogant? are you timid? Do you believe in what you write? Do you feel what you do is important? It will show in the way you write.
It took a small little book for me to realise that I have written papers not to express my ideas in the best possible way, but to conform to a scheme. My writing style was guided mostly by the desire to be accepted in the research community. But that is not a very good principal motivation. It transforms the act of writing into a kind of nuisance that is necessary to be published, but somehow separate from the "actual work". That is misguided. A better motivation is to be truthful to the ideas that drive you. This motivation will also make other people listen.
We sometimes live in the illusion that our work could somehow be separate from our private life. It is not; our personality and, yes, our soul connect the two. Writing it down is part of a larger quest that shapes our lives. It is the quest of becoming truthful to ourselves.
The "content" of the paper is of course the research project it describes, and this itself reveals much about the personality of the researcher. But the writing itself reveals just as much. Are you arrogant? are you timid? Do you believe in what you write? Do you feel what you do is important? It will show in the way you write.
It took a small little book for me to realise that I have written papers not to express my ideas in the best possible way, but to conform to a scheme. My writing style was guided mostly by the desire to be accepted in the research community. But that is not a very good principal motivation. It transforms the act of writing into a kind of nuisance that is necessary to be published, but somehow separate from the "actual work". That is misguided. A better motivation is to be truthful to the ideas that drive you. This motivation will also make other people listen.
We sometimes live in the illusion that our work could somehow be separate from our private life. It is not; our personality and, yes, our soul connect the two. Writing it down is part of a larger quest that shapes our lives. It is the quest of becoming truthful to ourselves.
