Academic Self-promotion

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Clarissa

June 3, 2017

I know somebody who is a very successful academic. Like in, you don’t get much more successful than that. Well, this person has no problem at all self-promoting. She emails you her articles, brings her books to every meeting, and generally acts like the world is desperate to see her work and she is trying to oblige.

I love this attitude of deep respect towards one’s own work. I envy the deep conviction that everybody is eager to read what one has published. I wish I could be this way but I have this unfortunate trait of all Soviet intelligentsia of fearing self-promotion. And it’s not even real modesty. You, folks, know me, how modest am I? And it’s not self-effacement because seriously, you know me. It’s a weird Soviet tic.

So academics, share your self-promotion strategies to help me get over it.

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6 responses to “Academic Self-promotion”

David P. Bellamy

June 3, 2017

The only self-promotion I have ever done is to give talks at conferences in my field. It has been sufficient, although perhaps I could have had more research money if I had done more of it. But, in mathematics, it is most important to solve old, famous problems that have stymied your colleagues for decades. If you self-promote without having done this first, people will (quite properly) be contemptuous.

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Evelina Anville

June 3, 2017

Actually I find academia.edu a wonderful promotion tool. I have linked with some quite famous academics and whenever I post new work, they get the announcement and I can tell they clicked on the link.

I know there is a big anti-academia.edu backlash going on right now and lots of people are pulling out. So this might not continue to be a great tool. It really irks me too. The people who are most “offended” by academia.edu are based at large research schools who don’t need the support academia.edu offers. For someone like me, who is based at a school that nobody has heard of, it’s a bit harder to circulate my work widely and academia.edu has been enormously helpful to me.

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1. J. Otto Pohl
  
  June 3, 2017
  
  Link your papers from academia.edu to relavent FB groups. That usually gets me a couple of downloads.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    June 3, 2017
    
    This is a great idea but oh, I detest Facebook. Every time I go something annoying happens.
    
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2. Clarissa
  
  June 3, 2017
  
  I agree 100%. I love academia.edu. If people don’t want to pay from premium features, they simply don’t. I don’t pay for anything and I’m very happy.
  
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David P. Bellamy

June 4, 2017

https://www.researchgate.net

is a useful tool, although I have never thought about it as a self promotion tool, but as a place that I can find references not available in my university’s library.

Of course, it may be devoted only to STEM fields.

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