Nicole,

I though your response was a little harsh. I agree that you can’t take one person’s experience and generalize it to everyone and everywhere. On the other hand, the fact that personal experiences are unique to each person does not make them invalid.

I am not a professional educator, but I’m familiar with academic writing and I teach a couple of Master’s level classes. Viktor James’s article has sparked me to at least give a little thought to why I do things how I do them.

I need my students to become ‘Masters’ of their discipline…is footnoted academic writing going to help them be leaders? Or only when pursuing Ph.D.s? And if it is only truly useful when writing scholarly articles that academia writes for itself, does it call into question the whole academic-industrial complex?

All that reflectin’ I now have to do because I read one person’s opinion…