Being criticized as a scholar/researcher

[Adelaide9216]

Hello everyone,

I was involved in a awareness campaign on a specific social issue in the last year, and I have seen in the last few days that I am being quoted by name in at least two peer-reviewed research articles. I don't have the premium version of ResearchGate and Academia.edu, so I only get some notifications through emails that someone is citing me by name, but one of my friends who was doing research for a undergraduate university assignment noticed while being on ResearchGate that one article talked about us specifically (she was also part of that campaign) and our contribution to that campaign in a way that wasn't very flattering. Mostly, the article is saying that the campaign used us for their own image or something like that (I haven't read the entire article), so even though it isn't criticizing us directly, it still mentions our names as examples to illustrate the author's point. 

Although I am fine with people criticizing me, especially in a manner that's articulate and non-personal, and that I agree with most of what's I read from the article (because these were considerations and questions I had in mind after having taking part in the campaign) I still wonder: how do you get used to other scholars critizicing your work or your community involvement? Because I just looked at my emails and I got new notifications again, on a extra article. I don't think that article will go widespread because it's on a online research community, but my colleague who was also part of that campaign seemed to be very much affected by that negative article. 

Edited April 30, 2018 by Adelaide9216

[PokePsych]

Criticism is an essential part of academics I say. I always approach it as:

1) something that is not personal - just because they don't like my idea/research on whatever grounds, that doesn't mean I'm not liked or valued as a person. My advisor is the type that gives very hard criticism, yet we've always been great on an interpersonal level, no matter how hard he was on me. Although he criticizes my ideas and approaches, I know he has the best intentions and his opinion of me is not any less. It's also because he knows I'm trying to always 'push' things in new directions or just come up with some crazy idea. But I know he's doing this to help me. Never suspect that people are out there to get you, always assume they have the best intentions, not the worst.

2) It was at least worth having an opinion on - Yeah my idea may have been crazy or bad, but at least people took the time to think about it and talk about it. Still better than going unnoticed haha

3) something I can learn from - Maybe I should have framed my argument better, missed something important, or my argument/thesis can have better development. And sometimes we try something new and it doesn't work. That's OK. 

4) an opportunity to improve my argument - In line with 3. If I believe I'm right for whatever reason, I need to find a way to rebut the criticism I got. I always like this challenge.

5) something I don't always have to agree with. Sometimes it's just unfair and unwarranted. 

 

But let's face it - criticism ALWAYS sucks. I just try not to get emotionally attached to my work. And no project is perfect. Yeah, it sucks to be the one to be called out on, and sometimes the amount of criticism is unfair, but take it with grace. 

[TakeruK]

I agree with @Psygeek. I try to take the same approach and I feel that my science does improve when it's legitimate criticism (i.e. not #5) and I take action to improve it. At the very least, even if there is no net gain, or the time invested to address the criticism is not worth the improvement, you usually get something else out of it that makes it worth it, e.g. appease a coauthor/colleague/referee.

But I think Psygeek's point #1 is important: something that is not personal, i.e. relevant to my work, not my self. I work in a field where it is much easier to separate the identity of the researcher with the work they are doing. So, I actually just ignore all criticism that isn't only relevant to my work, unless I know for a fact that the person offering feedback is acting with good faith. 

For example, if scholars criticize my non-research-related* community involvement, I just ignore them. When an instructor criticized my accent during a presentation of my research, I also ignored them (I did my best to push back to let them know that this is not an okay thing to say to me but I didn't change it for them).  (*Again, for me, all of my community involvement is unrelated to my work). 

Just want to clarify two things:

1) I'm definitely not advocating for an actual separation of self and work. That is, we should not regard each other as scholars only, but our human sides are also important. We should be aware of the impact of our research on other people (in my field, one major impact that few astronomers seem to care about is that we have built some of our telescopes on the sacred territory of other peoples). And, we should not ignore/excuse a scholar's bad behaviour (harassment, etc.) because they are brilliant/produce great research. I'm just saying that some people have no right to criticize aspects of my life unrelated to work (e.g. whether I have a family, my accent, etc.)

2) From your other posts, it sounds like your field and your work is much more related to your community involvement/activities than mine, so separating criticism like I have may not be possible. Hope this idea is still useful though---I have no idea if your situation would count as valid/legitimate criticism or not. But I guess that's up to you anyways. So my point is similar to Psygeek's #5: you have to decide whether you care about this particular feedback or not. As students, it's easy to feel like you're expected to absorb every piece of advice and feedback, but the reality is that people aren't all well-meaning (and sometimes well-meaning people make mistakes). So an important thing to learn is to filter out the useful/good criticism vs. the bad.