Issue Details: First known date: 2021... 2021 What Constitutes Discovery? An Analysis of Published Interviews with Fiction Writers and Biomedical Scientists
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Literary texts reveal aspects of lived experience, historical reality and subjectivity. In Uses of Literature, Rita Felski (2008) argues that they therefore take part in practices of knowing. In the following paper, writers’ recognition of moments of discovery as described in The Paris Review Interviews is contrasted with biomedical scientists’ discussions of their salient discoveries in interviews from the Australian Academy of Science’s website. While writing in the biomedical sciences has long been assumed to consist of ‘writing up’ results established in a laboratory, some research into scientific writing suggests that the process of writing itself clarifies scientists’ thinking. The following paper compares interviews with writers and interviews with scientists using an online text analysis tool, Voyant. It asks how the conceptualisation of discoveries made by biomedical scientists differs from or aligns with notions of discovery among fiction writers, and what role the interview process plays in revealing how writers and scientists write. Long-held assumptions about writers’ and scientists’ practices affect approaches by interviewers to their subjects, yet analysis of existing interviews demonstrates how discoveries emerge in the fiction writing process; in contrast, interview questions asked of scientists likely obscure the role of writing in their work.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon New Writing vol. 18 no. 2 2021 21790927 2021 periodical issue

    'I am not asking if it is difficult. It can be. What I am asking is if it is a doctorate in the field of rocket science. Clearly, it is not. In fact, it should not be a doctorate in any other field than creative writing. Yet, over and over again, we find this simple fact misunderstood or misrepresented or misinterpreted. I admit I used to blame colleagues in English and Literary Studies for attempting to bend creative writing study (the methods, philosophies behind the degree, outcomes) to their disciplinary will. But I was wrong – English Literature Departments are not to blame, Literary Studies is not the culprit here. Nor is Cultural Studies, Film and Media Studies, Theatre Studies, Writing Studies, Composition Studies, or Biomedical Studies or Legal Studies, for that matter. If the Doctorate in Creative Writing might as well be a Doctorate in Rocket Science we have no one to blame but ourselves.' (Editorial introduction)

    2021
    pg. 149-161
Last amended 13 May 2021 14:40:11
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