Composition Forum 51, Spring 2023
http://compositionforum.com/issue/51/

Student to Scholar: Mentorship, Recontextualization, and the Threshold of Scholarly Publication in Rhetoric and Composition

Lindsey Ives and Linnea Spitzer

Abstract: In a recent survey completed by 84 graduates of rhetoric and composition PhD programs at various phases of their career, a majority of respondents reported that their graduate programs provided excellent guidance when it came to teaching but insufficient guidance toward scholarly publication. An analysis of survey responses suggests that scholarly publication is troublesome because it marks the transition from student to scholar and because prior knowledge of “school genres” can impede learning of scholarly genres. Furthermore, the liminality novice scholars experience in transitioning from student to scholar evokes anxiety and feelings of impostor syndrome for many. This suggests that mentorship should help emerging scholars develop strategies for recontextualizing genre knowledge in response to diverse rhetorical situations in order to navigate the emotional strain that accompanies the recontextualization process in high-stakes situations.

Graduates of PhD programs are expected to be many things: researchers, scholars, administrators, teachers, and mentors. However, despite the purported equality of the three measures for promotion (research, teaching, and service), scholarship tends to be valued more heavily in terms of promotion and tenure decisions and in perceptions of academic worth (Gonzales and Terosky). A novice scholar, therefore, needs to learn early on how to contribute creatively to an academic community and how to become a unique, yet disciplinarily appropriate community participant through academic scholarship. This is challenging because academic scholarship is multifaceted and spans multiple genres, ranging from academic books to empirical research articles to grant proposals. Learning to navigate these different forms as a novice is challenging, as effective participation in these genres requires a breadth of disciplinary and rhetorical knowledge; as a result, a wide range of conversations have centered around how best to support the communicative development of graduate students (Aitchison et al.; Nettles and Millet; Simpson et al.). As scholars in rhetoric and composition enter these conversations (Simpson et al.; Wells and Söderlund), we are bound to examine the extent to which our own abilities to participate in scholarly conversations are scaffolded in rhetoric and composition graduate programs.

With regard to the three pillars of academic evaluation, research has shown that rhetoric and composition graduate students receive ample support in teaching, some in administration, and very little in scholarship. From a 1996 survey of writing program administrators, Ebest found that “graduate students in composition/rhetoric are being well-prepared to teach. However, preparation for research and publication seems considerably less structured, while training in the skills and duties required of a WPA is, in most institutions, a matter of chance” (67).

Although recent scholarship from applied linguistics offers valuable insight into graduate students’ research literacy development (Badenhorst and Guerin), research focused specifically on how rhetoric and composition graduate students learn to establish themselves as researchers and scholarly writers in their discipline is fairly rare. The few studies that have investigated the preparation of composition professionals for scholarly writing indicate that graduates of rhetoric and composition programs often learn to publish after graduate school (Wells and Söderlund) and that they are often less prepared to publish than their peers in STEM disciplines (Golde and Dore). In fact, rhetoric and composition scholars interviewed by Wells and Söderlund noted that the heavy focus on the teaching and administrative aspects of their careers negatively impacted their scholarship (143). This supports earlier findings that rhetoric and composition PhDs are unevenly prepared for the three areas in which they will be evaluated as faculty, putting junior faculty in the field at a disadvantage in the area of scholarly writing.

This uneven preparation is problematic not only because a sharp learning curve may impede these graduates’ ability to meet publication requirements as they face down the tenure clock, but also because they may increasingly be called upon to support graduate students across disciplines in learning the conventions of scholarly writing (Simpson et al.). Lack of preparation for scholarly publication may also disproportionately impact women, who make up over 60% of the doctorates awarded in English Language and Literature, but who still trail men in the proportion of publications in English (Benevento et al.; Miller). These lower rates of publication could contribute to the fact that women, femmes, and non-binary scholars, especially those with intersecting marginalized identities, end up languishing at lower ranks of the academic hierarchy (as adjunct and non-tenure-track faculty) (Benevento et al.; Weisshaar).

A survey we distributed in 2019 to graduates of rhetoric and composition PhD programs at various phases of their career, from newly-minted PhD holders to emeritus professors, suggests that little has changed when it comes to preparation in teaching, research, and service since Ebest surveyed writing program administrators 25 years ago. By and large, recent graduates report feeling just as underprepared for scholarly writing as their predecessors. However, our aim was not to further document this under-preparation for scholarly publication, but rather to investigate how this affects graduates and what might be done to mitigate the problem. Our analysis identified that the academic’s need to continuously recontextualize their genre knowledge in response to diverse rhetorical situations makes scholarly publication a “threshold concept, ” or a concept central to a discipline that, once learned, leads the learner to see things in a new way (Meyer and Land). Although threshold concepts are comprised of multiple components, it was the troublesome nature of scholarly publication and the liminality experienced by novices that were most salient in our analysis. This study suggests that scholarly publication is troublesome because it marks the transition from student to scholar and because prior knowledge of “school genres” can impede learning of scholarly genres. Furthermore, the liminality novice scholars experience in transitioning from student to scholar evokes anxiety and feelings of impostor syndrome for many. This suggests that mentorship should help emerging scholars develop strategies for recontextualizing genre knowledge in response to diverse rhetorical situations in order to navigate the emotional strain that accompanies the recontextualization process in high-stakes situations.

Methodology

In 2019, we distributed an online survey to graduates of PhD programs in rhetoric and composition and related programs. Like Ebest, we asked respondents about preparation for teaching, research, and service (particularly administration) in rhetoric and composition graduate programs. Because this study arose from an interest in graduate communication support, the purpose of the survey was to determine respondents’ perception of the extent to which their PhD programs prepared them to understand and effectively participate in the genres necessary for success in their academic careers.

Our survey (Appendix) consisted of 19 Likert scale and open-ended questions focusing on the three primary criteria for promotion and tenure: teaching, service, and scholarship. We asked how well our respondents were prepared for each of these three criteria in their doctoral programs. We then focused specifically on research, writing, and publication, asking our participants how prepared they were to engage in academic scholarship and how they had pursued the development of these skills after graduate school. We distributed our survey on the WPA-L listerv and Consortium on Graduate Communication listserv. In total, we received responses from 84 holders of doctorates from rhetoric and composition or related fields. We defined related fields as English, applied linguistics, or education as long as the participant had pursued a degree with a composition focus. Our respondents were overwhelmingly White (92%) and female (75%), with a small proportion of Latinx, Asian, and Pacific Islanders making up the non-White participants (6%). While the number of people of color participating in our study is disappointingly small, it is unfortunately reflective of the racial makeup of the field. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015, only 7.1% of doctoral degrees in English language and literature were awarded to traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. Our sample also included men (20%) and non-binary or gender non-conforming (2%) participants, which is a smaller proportion than indicated by the same study (65% of the doctorates in English language and literature in 2015 were earned by women).

Our participants represented a wide range of experience, from recent graduates to veteran professionals. While our largest group of respondents (48%) had earned their degrees within the last five years, the remaining portion of the degree holders was evenly distributed between those whose degrees were 6-10 years old and those who had held their degrees for over 11 years. Nearly two thirds of our participants were tenured or tenure-track, with other respondents reporting roles as non-tenure-track full time teaching faculty or administrators.

Analysis

After identifying trends in quantitative responses, we coded the open comments for themes using Nvivo software. At first, we used open coding to note emergent themes in participant written responses across comments focused on preparation to create genres related to teaching, research, and service. As we narrowed our focus to preparation for scholarly genres, we noticed that comments on preparation for scholarly publication pointed toward its liminal nature, so we grouped them according to the qualities that define threshold concepts. After we uncovered the liminal and troublesome nature of scholarly writing, we revisited the comments to identify what types of experiences distinguished those who described comfort with writing scholarly genres, versus those expressing more anxiety and liminality. The themes based on these codes are detailed in the findings that follow this section.

Quantitative Survey Results

Our survey data align with previous studies showing that PhDs in rhetoric and composition and related fields receive ample preparation when it comes to teaching (Ebest; Wells and Söderlund). Survey respondents largely felt that their graduate programs prepared them well to produce teaching genres, such as syllabi, writing assignment prompts, rubrics, and presentations. Out of 84 respondents, nearly 87%, said that their graduate programs provided at least some guidance on teaching genres. The highest percentage of respondents, 30.95%, said they received a lot of guidance in teaching compared to the other genre categories (administration and research).

In contrast, responses were starkly uneven with regard to explicit guidance on administrative genres, such as performance evaluations and teaching observations. A small number of respondents, 15.48%, reported receiving a lot of guidance in administrative genres, but 25% of respondents reported that they received no guidance on those genres, and another 25% reported very little guidance. However, guidance in administration does seem to be increasing. Among those whose doctorates were only 0-5 years old, 20% reported “a lot” of guidance in administration-related genres, in comparison to 12% of those who earned their doctorates 6-10 years prior to the survey and 5% of those whose doctorates were more than 10 years old. The inverse trend was true for participants reporting no training whatsoever in administrative genres (25%, 29% and 32%, respectively), although the differences between the groups were smaller.

When it came to scholarly publication, which we defined as academic articles, book chapters, books, and book reviews, only 61.9% of respondents reported receiving at least some guidance in producing these genres. This represents a sharp drop from the 87% who received at least some guidance on teaching genres. Only 10.71% of respondents reported receiving a lot of guidance on genres related to scholarly publication in contrast to the 30.95% who received that level of guidance in teaching. Finally, 38.09% reported receiving very little or no guidance on scholarly publication, while only 13.09% reported that level of instruction in teaching genres.

Notably, respondents who did not receive explicit guidance were able to adapt to the demands of administrative work, as one respondent expressed: “I received zero guidance on anything listed in the admin section, but I’ve never thought to wish I did. I’ve found learning on the job manageable” (Respondent 2). However, this was not the case with research and scholarly publication. That lack of preparation was consistently identified as a problem. Survey comments suggest that respondents’ struggles with scholarly research and writing stem, at least in part, from the threshold nature of scholarly writing, as the next section illustrates. Positioning scholarly publication as a threshold concept helps explain why insufficient preparation for publication is perceived as a common problem among graduates of rhetoric and composition PhD programs; it also points toward fruitful strategies for addressing those problems, which we explore in the following sections.

Recontextualizing Across the Threshold of Scholarly Publication

Our analysis of the survey results is framed by two key concepts: recontextualization of genre knowledge and threshold concepts. Recontextualization as related to genre knowledge was first theorized by Cheng and later expanded by Tardy et al. to reference how writers “draw on and adapt existing genre knowledge each time they perform a genre” (Tardy et al. 300). Tardy et al. note that this concept is synonymous with DePalma and Ringer’s concept of adaptive transfer, which they define as “the conscious or intuitive process of applying or reshaping learned writing knowledge in new and potentially unfamiliar writing situations” (141). In some cases, recontextualizing genre knowledge can be a relatively straight-forward process of transferring elements from a known genre to a new, yet related one. However, the challenges described by our respondents with regard to performing scholarly genres implies that there is something impeding their ability to recontextualize school genres for these new contexts. We assert that these challenges can be best understood by framing scholarly writing as a threshold concept.

Originally proposed by Meyer and Land to describe how some learning outcomes require students to see things in a new way and others do not, threshold concepts are core concepts of a discipline, or building blocks for more complex ideas. Recent scholarship in composition studies has illustrated the value of applying the threshold concepts frame to both learning to write and learning to teach writing (Adler-Kassner et al.; Adler Kassner and Wardle, Naming; Adler-Kassner and Wardle, (Re)Considering; Basgier and Simpson; Hall et al.). In addition, researchers in the field of education have turned to threshold concepts to understand students’ experiences in graduate school (Kiley; Trafford and Leshem). Similarly, we found the concept useful for framing novice scholars’ experiences transitioning from writing for graduate school to writing for publication.

Threshold concepts are typically defined as possessing four key qualities. First, threshold concepts are liminal or transformative. Learning a threshold concept results in a fundamental change in how the learner understands a subject. During this change, the learner moves through recursive stages of liminality, where they are neither full participant nor a novice in their disciplinary understanding. Threshold concepts are also irreversible, meaning that once a threshold concept is learned, it cannot be unlearned; it can therefore be difficult for someone who has mastered a threshold concept to remember what their experience had been like before they gained this understanding. Third, threshold concepts are integrative, in that they “expose the interrelatedness” (Meyer and Land 5) of the subjects under study, helping the learner see connections between ideas that were not previously apparent. Finally, these concepts are troublesome, meaning that the process of learning them can be impeded by previous knowledge and may require learners to shift their identities, in addition to their understanding of a subject. While each quality is applicable to recontextualizing genre knowledge for scholarly writing, the liminal and troublesome aspects of threshold concepts are most prominent in our survey responses. Therefore, these two aspects frame our analysis.

Our participants’ responses highlight two intertwined tensions that rhetoric and composition PhDs face as they begin to work toward publication: tension between school genres and scholarly genres, as well as tension around identity, including between identification as student and scholar. Furthermore, they illustrate the need for mentorship to help navigate these tensions and identify ways in which mentorship commonly falls short. Finally, they point toward manageable strategies that novice scholars and their mentors can employ to fill gaps in mentorship toward scholarly writing.

The troublesome transition from school genres to scholarly genres

To make valuable contributions to one’s research field, emerging researchers must possess a deep understanding of previous research findings and schools of thought that shape the discipline. To demonstrate understanding of disciplinary content, graduate students write seminar papers, take qualifying examinations, and write a dissertation. Our respondents indicated that producing such genres did help them gain content knowledge that made them experts in the theories and scholarly conversations that shape their field. However, respondents did not find those genres helpful for building the rhetorical knowledge necessary to complete publishable scholarly research for broader audiences. In fact, several expressed frustration that these school genres bear little resemblance to the scholarly articles and books they need to produce to advance in their careers as faculty. As Respondent 24 wrote, “I didn’t struggle with coursework papers but that’s misleading because the expectations for publication are completely different.”

As this comment illustrates, scholarly writing is troublesome because it can conflict with prior knowledge of academic writing done in school settings, which may impede learning of scholarly writing conventions. The audience for school genres is typically a professor or advisor, rather than the scholarly community as a whole (Lee and Norton). The rhetorical devices used in such papers are therefore designed to demonstrate knowledge rather than to add to the construction of knowledge. Ultimately, PhD holders build upon the knowledge they demonstrate in their degree programs to make original contributions to their fields, but the rhetorical strategies they must employ to do that are often not explicitly addressed.

Coursework often required seminar papers or review papers, which were difficult to turn into a publication... I think it would have been more beneficial to introduce scholarly writing to grad students and have them write for publication. (Respondent 33)

We were told about conferences and publication, but it was more of a “you should turn your project for class into a publication, ” and little, “here’s how to actually do that.” (Respondent 42)

I think [my advisor and I] met once to discuss publications, and her advice was “Well, you should be doing that.” We didn't discuss publication in class—we talked about the theories and arguments presented in scholarship... In sum, I felt the pressure to publish, but I got no formal education in how to make that happen alongside my coursework, studying for exams, and dissertation. (Respondent 26)

These respondents identify a crucial gap in mentoring toward scholarly publication. While superiors expected their graduate students to publish research conducted as part of their coursework, they provided little guidance as to how to do so. The lack of such guidance is also apparent to journal editors and reviewers due to graduate students’ failure to conform to journals’ genre conventions. As a reviewer, Paré has noted the tenacity of school genres in novice scholarly work:

It is rarely difficult to identify the authors as doctoral students. The topics are far too broad for short papers, the research methodologies are extensive and longitudinal, the theoretical terminology is impenetrable, the parentheses are crammed with citations, and the reference list is half as long as the paper itself. In other words, the submissions are reasonable facsimiles of student or school genres, but ineffective journal articles. They display knowledge--the chief rhetorical goal of school discourse--but fail to address an actual dialogue among working scholars. (30)

For the respondents quoted in this section, it was not challenging to display content knowledge through school genres. However, this learning did not seem to transfer into the creation of genres that would allow them to “participate in the ongoing knowledge-making endeavors of their research communities, ” the level of participation that defines scholarly work (Paré et al. 217). To do so, they would need to learn strategies to recontextualize, or adapt their “existing knowledge … for the unique rhetorical circumstances of the task” (Tardy et al. 300).

Focusing on recontextualization is key to understanding the troublesome nature of this threshold concept because rhetoric and composition graduate students are no strangers to genre analysis. In their classes, most of these students gain the theoretical knowledge necessary to adapt to new demands. Because they study rhetorical theory and analyze strategies rhetors use to respond successfully to a range of rhetorical situations, rhetoric and composition PhDs likely leave their programs with at least a base level of genre awareness, which Tardy et al. define as “explicit awareness or understanding of how genres work ... (which) includes a broad understanding of rhetorical contexts and how writers may effectively respond to exigencies within such contexts” (296). One might assume that rhetoric and composition PhDs should be able to harness this genre awareness to recontextualize writing knowledge developed while completing seminar papers and dissertations in order to transform those school genres into published work. However, our survey responses indicate that genre awareness alone is not sufficient for new scholars to successfully navigate the academic publication cycle:

While I was writing the dissertation, a faculty member did offer a professional publishing class, but the class did not focus on the process of submitting an article to a journal, receiving feedback, and then using the feedback to revise and resubmit. Furthermore, it would have been nice to require graduate students in the course to analyze the moves different types of articles make within various disciplinary journals. (Respondent 39)

As Respondent 39 suggests, novice scholars crave explicit guidance in what Tardy et al. call “ genre-specific knowledge, ” or “the knowledge that writers hold of a particular genre or group of genres” (294). Genre-specific knowledge includes the four domains of knowledge identified by Tardy et al.: “formal (e.g. content, organization, lexicogrammatical features), process (e.g. composing, distributing), rhetorical (e.g. discourse community, social relations), and subject-matter knowledge (e.g. disciplinary conversations)” (294). Respondent 39 has the genre awareness to articulate exactly where mentoring toward publication fell short. While the publication class may have helped students develop the subject-matter knowledge necessary to publish their work, they would have benefited from more explicit guidance to develop the formal, process, and rhetorical knowledge necessary to confidently seek scholarly publication.

As the next section illustrates, for many new scholars, process knowledge includes preparation for the stress and anxiety that come with the scholarly publication cycle and the struggle to frame research for readers in the broader field.

The liminal space between student and scholar

Through the struggle to reframe one’s understanding of academic scholarship, there is a necessary process of transformation. Becoming a scholarly writer necessitates a recursive process where the learner moves non-linearly through stages of liminality from novice to expert. For many novice scholars, the experience of liminality occurs after graduation when they begin to establish their voice in their fields. Especially for scholars whose primary experience with original research is their dissertation, additional scholarly work can be a daunting prospect, as several respondents indicated:

I feel I was a bit hamstrung by leaving graduate school having only submitted an article drawn from my dissertation research. While that submission was successful in large part because of the depth of my data and thinking for the project as a whole, it left me with a sense that every successful scholarly article must be the product of a long/large-scale project. Even though I know intellectually that this is not the case—I read proof of it all the time—it’s been hard to shake. (Respondent 2)

I feel like I am doing okay but every new challenge sends me into a tailspin of anxiety--like writing a new genre (book proposal???) or trying to break into a new journal. I guess I feel like I am flailing in new situations and maybe don’t have a basis of knowledge that is strong enough to tackle new publication challenges. (Respondent 34)

The lack of confidence described by the above respondents is a common feature of liminality and compounds feelings of impostor syndrome (Keefer). For these and other respondents, the requirements of recontextualizing their genre knowledge to produce a new genre leads them to question not only their preparation, but also their ability to overcome these obstacles. In learning a threshold concept, Meyer and Land assert that some discomfort is natural and even necessary, since this transformation takes place through a period of liminality, defined by uncertainty. However, the anxiety described by the above participants borders on debilitating and may actually interfere with their ability to move forward with their scholarship. For these novices, recontextualization is a painful process rather than a natural next step.

Recontextualizing writing knowledge gained in school to succeed in publication requires adaptation to a range of contexts likely to prompt stress and anxiety. As Respondent 2 explains above, moving from the dissertation to scholarly articles involves adapting one’s notions of what constitutes acceptable content in a given situation. Similarly, Respondent 34 describes the stress that comes with the steep learning curve presented by novel rhetorical situations. When faced with new communicative tasks, the novice scholar must learn enough about unfamiliar audiences, purposes, and genres to share content in a way that contributes meaningfully to a conversation using appropriate moves. The demand for these rhetorical and cognitive leaps is riddled with anxiety for new scholars in part because it necessitates a shift in identity.

In a recent study on the emotive aspects of the publication process, Beare and Stenberg point toward two important identity shifts that come with entry into the academic publishing cycle. First, the transition from student to scholar is marked by a jarring shift in ways readers respond to one’s work and what is expected of the writer. As one assistant professor interviewed by Beare and Stenberg explains, whereas professors look “for the seed of an idea that can grow into something better” when they read the work of a graduate student, journal reviewers tend to “look for where your argument falls apart, which is a very different way of reading research” (115). This shift in reception can be surprising and discouraging, especially for new scholars who are not prepared for it. Perhaps even more unsettling is the need to revise one’s work, often multiple times, in response to critical feedback. Beare and Stenberg point out that because graduate students have few opportunities to extensively revise seminar papers or even dissertations, new scholars may not be “well practiced in and prepared for the work of revision or for the emotions of frustration, anxiety, and even anger that may accompany that work” (117). Extensive revision in response to feedback from reviewers is an inevitable marker of scholarly life, and growing comfort with this process marks the transition from student to scholar. However, additional anxiety may arise when reviewers push writers to embody an identity that is not authentic for them. Beare and Stenberg observe that the pre-tenure faculty they interviewed “articulate a relationship to reviews that requires assimilation to others’ rules and expectations” (111) by “deemphasizing any perceived difference from the dominant group’s values and practices in order to gain acceptance” (110). Many dominant norms defining academic publication conform to what Godbee calls the “mythical norm, ” which is coded in part as White and male. For some, the process of transforming one’s identity into alignment with such mythical norms may drive scholars from non-dominant groups “further away from [their] home community” (Cuellar 131). For others, failure to conform to White androcentric ways of being subjects them to false assumptions about their fit for academic culture (or lack thereof). Although our survey respondents were majority White women who, depending on their class and multilingual status, may have had substantial training in dominant culture, many still struggled to find their way as scholars. For scholars with multiple intersecting marginalized identities, navigating a liminal space that not only requires transformation but also devalues non-dominant ways of being can be both traumatizing and stifling.

Responses to our survey add to a growing body of evidence that the ability to recontextualize not only genre knowledge, but also one’s scholarly identity for the multiple genres of academic scholarship is a crucial threshold that most scholars cannot cross without experiencing significant difficulty. Positioning scholarly publication as a threshold concept may help graduate students to anticipate what struggles are on the horizon and why. It also points toward strategies for navigating the transition that may be useful to both novice scholars and their mentors, as described in the next section.

Supporting Novice Scholars in Navigating the Threshold of Academic Publication

A critical pragmatic rhetorical approach to current scholarship

To help graduate students prepare for scholarly publishing, we encourage graduate faculty to assign readings from two perspectives: as disciplinary content and as rhetoric. The content of any discipline is rhetorical in that it must successfully address the interests and expectations of a specific group of readers. However, it is not always taught as such. As Paré et al. argue, “For doctoral students, the challenge here is that social interaction and practices are not only difficult to observe, but that written forums where they can be observed have been taught in a largely arhetorical way throughout their education--that is, as a matter of mere ‘information’ or ‘sources’” (218). Analyzing the social interactions made in recent publications is exactly the practice Respondent 39 above recommends in citing the need to identify rhetorical moves. Although such an exercise cannot fully prepare students to respond successfully to every scholarly rhetorical situation, it would at least start a productive conversation about similarities and differences between the many genres writers must navigate when seeking scholarly publication.

By focusing on not only what the texts say but also on how they say it, to whom, and why, doctoral programs in rhetoric and composition can integrate the theoretical and practical knowledge of their discipline(s) in a way that helps their students recontextualize knowledge in response to new demands. Rhetoric and composition students spend entire semesters learning rhetorical strategies articulated in ancient and contemporary texts, but our survey responses indicate that not all programs ask them to analyze how those strategies operate in recent scholarly publications in their own field. Recent scholarship suggests that such integration of disciplinary knowledge may help prepare newly minted PhDs for the rhetorical exchanges that lead to influential scholarly publications (Micciche and Carr; Robillard). Thus, discussing scholarship as both content and rhetoric maximizes the value of readings that are already assigned in graduate courses, allowing faculty to mentor students toward publication without neglecting content.

Because every rhetorical situation is marked by power dynamics, a rhetorical approach to disciplinary discourse is necessarily also a critical approach. Analyzing texts as interactions between writers and readers presents opportunities to unpack the ideologies and power relations shaping the field. Therefore, a critical pragmatic approach to analyzing scholarly discourse would respond to the aspects of this threshold concept that minoritized scholars like Cuellar and Godbee identify as particularly troublesome. A critical pragmatic approach invites students to critique privileged discourses even as they learn them (Harwood and Hadley; Ruecker and Shapiro) by considering which discourse conventions and rhetorical strategies are accepted in the field, which are rejected, and what the consequences might be. This approach opens the possibility for writers to resist unquestioned assimilation into dominant norms (Beare and Stenberg) when appropriate and instead assert their own linguistic and intellectual contributions to scholarly dialogue.

Extending legitimate peripheral participation through layered networks of support

The critical analysis of publication genres is essential for helping novice academics identify how their voices fit within the discourse of their scholarly communities. However, studying rhetorical moves in classroom settings is not enough; learning a new concept also requires scaffolded participation. To this end, we suggest that departments create opportunities for what Lave and Wenger have termed legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Paré et al. describe LPP as “the learner moving toward competent practice through participation in a series of authentic and ever-more difficult workplace tasks under the direction and guidance of workplace veterans” (219).

In many graduate programs, doctoral students work in labs on different parts of a research project, relying on advisors for guidance in the early stages of research and publication. Through such collaborative efforts, LPP functions not as the “acquisition of knowledge by individuals, but rather as a process of social co-participation” (Teeuwsen et al. 691). In rhetoric and composition graduate programs, students often experience LPP in their pedagogical practice. They are guided in TAships as they develop their teaching identities through the supported development of teaching materials (Dobrin; Ebest; Elder and Davila; Reid et al.). However, LPP in research and publication is not guaranteed for rhetoric and composition graduate students, leaving them less supported as they traverse the liminal space between student and scholar.

LPP can alleviate some of the uncertainty and stress associated with crossing the threshold of scholarly participation by facilitating “active student engagement with, and manipulation of, the conceptual material” (Land et al. 57). Such engagement with scholarly discourse often comes through formal avenues like graduate school courses or advisor support. Several of our participants reported that the scaffolded nature of these supports was key in helping them develop as confident scholars:

I took a course on writing for academic publication offered as part of the Ph.D English curriculum. Each of us began with a seminar paper we wished to revise and submit to a journal, and the course provided readings/guidance on academic publication along with a writing workshop. I ended up placing the paper in a respected refereed journal; however, it was really the general information, resources, and advice offered during the class that stuck with me later. This was my most useful preparation for scholarly publication. (Respondent 83)

I was really fortunate to publish collaboratively with three faculty members from my MA program and three faculty members from my PhD program, so I received very explicit, hands-on mentorship on scholarly publishing. The experience was scaffolded perfectly, perhaps by accident; the faculty members from my MA program allowed me a good deal of participation, and my collaborative publishing experiences in my PhD program escalated in terms of rigor, starting with collaborative publications where I would play a major role in data collection but would receive more help in publishing and moving toward collaborative pieces where I played a more central role and received more explicit instruction. (Respondent 18)

Active, hands-on mentoring was commonly reported among respondents who described having a good deal of preparation for scholarly publication. Many graduates who were happy with their scholarly preparation described at least one guided experience (in a class or with a mentor/ advisor) in publication that was informative for them in navigating later processes. This direct, hands-on experience seemed to help these novices understand how to recontextualize their existing genre knowledge for a new audience. In contrast, respondents who were not happy with their preparation for scholarly publication often used words like “indirect” “implied” or “informal” to describe their mentoring experiences.

When new scholars have active mentoring relationships with experts, they are provided with a supported liminal environment, where they are brought into participatory practices under the wing of a more experienced scholar. The benefits of mentor support are well documented in literature on graduate students and faculty mentors (Bommarito), particularly novice faculty (Barnes and Austin; Terosky). For graduate students, mentoring relationships can jumpstart publication practices that can lead to more productive careers post-grad school (Thein and Beach). For new faculty, mentors can provide the technical, professional and emotional support needed to overcome the early days of academic liminality (Terosky).

LPP through peer mentoring

While publishing with faculty mentors is undoubtedly beneficial for graduate students, it is not always possible. Because rhetoric and composition publications do not rely on large teams collecting data in labs, scholarly mentoring relationships are not built into a faculty member’s workload as they are in other fields. In addition, the high administrative and teaching loads that rhetoric and composition faculty commonly face leave little time or energy for mentoring relationships outside classroom instruction.

Therefore, seeking out collaborative partnerships with peers, both within and beyond the writer’s institution, is equally crucial. Forming such partnerships early on is a concrete way for graduate students to move beyond the student/scholar binary. In addition, peer mentoring relationships have the potential to continue beyond graduate school, providing the lasting support necessary for new scholars as they continue to navigate the liminal space of scholarly publication.

Although a community of peers cannot provide the same expertise as an experienced advisor or mentor, the positionality of peers in relation to each other can provide a range of other benefits. For example, peers are likely at similar stages in their understanding of the threshold of scholarly publication and can therefore more authentically empathize with the struggles of others on a similar path. Rhetoric and composition graduate students at different institutions are also well-positioned to support each other and share resources through organizations like WPA-GO (Elder et al.) and WAC-GO (Russell et al.). In our survey, peer support was especially important for women respondents. Of our women-identified participants, 20% specifically mentioned collaboration as a resource in learning to write for scholarly publication.

I participated in a peer review group at my current institution ... and that was really helpful. I have co-written pieces with colleagues, and that has been really helpful, as well. (Respondent 78)

Seriously, though, collaboration has been invaluable. I was lucky to find a writing partner in my department and we have cranked out several manuscripts together. She doesn’t have any more experience than I do and has expressed similar frustration with the lack of preparation in her program, but we managed to figure it out together. (Respondent 32)

These respondents were supported by their peers as they navigated the threshold of scholarly writing, and participants who struggled with research genres on their own worked together to master them. These women mentioned collaboration not only in terms of developing as scholars, but also in terms of building support networks. This finding echoes research by Terosky, who found that women scholars rely on a network of relationships to build the skills necessary for producing scholarly work, validate their scholarly interests and open professional doors in academia (35).

Peer mentoring also provides quality support for scholars from marginalized communities that is often not available elsewhere. Advisors from privileged backgrounds often do not understand or even recognize the unique challenges faced by scholars from minoritized groups. However, peer mentoring groups offer the opportunity to form “academic kinships, ” with other academics that offer mutual support and understanding based on similar experiences (Alvarez et al.; Cuellar 134; Edwards). As Godbee illustrates, peer mentoring relationships can “build solidarity, ” empowering writers to “enter and alter academic discourse” (44). Peer mentoring, then, gives emerging scholars an alternative to relying primarily on advisors, offering in its place an opportunity for peers experiencing similar challenges to not only cross the threshold into scholarly publication but to transform the threshold and what lies beyond it.

Conclusion

By theorizing the experience of becoming a scholar as a threshold concept, we have pulled back the curtain on why so many rhetoric and composition graduates feel underprepared for scholarship despite their breadth of genre knowledge. The troublesome nature of this threshold creates a type of interference, which prevents effective recontextualization of existing genre knowledge to the rhetorical forms needed for effective participation in academic scholarship. The resulting anxiety felt by novices experiencing the liminality between student and scholar can be stifling; however, our respondents indicate that explicitly guided participation in scholarly genres can help alleviate this anxiety by explicating the recontextualization process.

In building more opportunities for LPP, it is important to acknowledge that this support cannot, and likely should not, come from a singular source. Because of the complexity of becoming a scholar, a single class, mentor, or peer group is unlikely to fully illuminate a novice’s path across this threshold. Instead, departments and institutions should prioritize “layered” learning experiences, where different opportunities for peripheral participation can help graduate students build an understanding of the depth and breadth of full participation (Simpson and Matsuda 98). Even with such support, new PhDs will rarely emerge from their programs as fully formed scholars, due to the emergent nature of one’s scholarly agenda. Instead, scholars may follow a long “trajectory of participation” continuing well after graduate school and into the first tenuous years of an academic career (Casanave).

Appendix (PDF)

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