Ep 2. Playgrounds for Revolution: Helen Sword on Structure, Pleasure, and Innovation in Academic Writing

Just as the container of a playground frees a child to explore and grow, the containers that we do our writing in -- containers of time and space and genre and institutions -- are the spaces where we can experiment, and improvise, and take risks, and invent the ideas of the future. In Helen Sword’s 2012 Stylish Academic Writing, she made the case that academics across disciplines and around the world want a style revolution. We’re all craving the freedom to write more creatively, more like human beings. The key to the style revolution is not to overthrow all structures, genres, and conventions. Instead, the key is to re-imagine how we work within existing structures and how we create new worlds from the inside out. How does Helen herself navigate this paradox of structure and freedom, constraint and playfulness, in her writing process? How do these tensions fuel her innovations? Listen to this episode to learn how Helen integrates structure and play in her writing, and how her innovations as a scholar have centered on the evolution of her mental model of scholarship. From Helen, the Oracle we receive is the question, “Where is your playground for revolution?” (Length: 36: 31)

“The structure gives the scaffolding for play and pleasure. So it's not an inhibiting structure. It's a freeing structure.” — Helen Sword

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

Helen’s links:

• Join Helen’s WriteSPACE!: https://www.helensword.com/writespace

• Website: https://www.helensword.com/

• Writing tools: https://www.helensword.com/writing-tools

• Stylish Academic Writing: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674064485

• Air and Light and Time and Space: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737709

TRANSCRIPT

Oracles of Academia, Episode 2. Playgrounds for Revolution: Helen Sword on Structure, Pleasure, and Innovation in Academic Writing

Think about how the container of a playground frees a child to explore and grow. The containers that we do our writing in -- containers of time and space and genre and institutions -- are the spaces where we can experiment and improvise and take risks and invent the ideas of the future. 

Constraints can feel limiting. The containers that we're in define where we can't go and what we can't do.   But constraints can also be liberating. Once we accept what isn't possible, we are free to find out what is possible. And we're free to find out who we really are, and what we have to offer the world that no one else can.

Back in 2012, Helen Sword published Stylish Academic Writing, a book where she made the case that we -- academics scholars, researchers -- all want a style revolution.

Helen showed through meta-analysis and original research that academics across disciplines and around the world are all craving the freedom to write more creatively, more like human beings. We just all think that nobody else wants us to.

Helen has devoted much of the past 10 years to giving