“Academic papers are a terrible discussion forum” so should I start writing books instead?

By Dr Tom van Laer

A response to Why Academic Papers Are A Terrible Discussion Forum

(http://rationalconspiracy.com/2012/06/20/why-academic-papers-are-a-terrible-discussion-forum/)

I agree academic papers aren’t good for discussion with the “real” world, but why are books the logical alternative? How about blogs, Facebook posts, Tweets, and Wikipedia updates? Could we invent a system to value our academic contributions through those media? Can we adapt the peer-review system to accommodate these new possibilities to show scholar relevance to the world? Could we win prizes for online contributions?

Online is better for discussions and we should be able to come up with some kind of quality review. Question is how we get enough people to participate. This question about participation may be related to the questions about quality review above. At the moment, the incentives to publish papers are much greater than the incentives to participate in the public debate on marketing matters. In that sense, my snide remark above about winning a prize for commenting may not be a throwaway comment.

Basically, I’d predict that if participation in public debate is incentivised over paper publishing, participation increases, which will lead to greater scrutiny of contributions, which will lead to higher quality. However, I do not yet see how a clear quality review system can come from that… Is that perhaps where the Creativity Marketing Centre comes in?

Useful links:

MSc in Marketing & Creativity
Creative London Summer Course