Blogging—should students and pre-tenure faculty do it? In my opinion, no.

I try to keep my posts on the topic of Hebrew, and occasionally NWS, grammar. But, no doubt to my co-blogger’s chagrin, I have also been motivated to diverge from our grammatical focus a few times, such as with my thoughts on book reviews, journal submission evaluations (parts 1 and 2), and now … student blogging.

This issue has recently been raised here by Brian LePort, who is preparing a conference paper proposal on the topic. I couldn’t help commenting on one of the posts; subsequently, he asked me to pull my thoughts together in a more coherent fashion. Ouch — coherence, that’s a tall order.

Update

It has been just over a year since our last post. Though we have not blogged, we have been busy. Below I highlight some of the things we’ve done. Links to a couple new articles are posted at the bottom.

In addition to teaching quite a bit and working on a number of encyclopedia entries, our textbook, a joint Baylor Hebrew Bible Handbook (on Qoheleth), a Baylor volume of his own (on the Biblical Aramaic portions of Ezra and Daniel), John achieved tenure at his institution and also published his book on the Biblical Hebrew verb (see the new link on the left sidebar).

Besides developing a couple new courses, writing a number of encyclopedia articles, working on the joint Baylor volume with John as well as another Baylor volume (on Esther) with a doctoral student in my department, I have two articles coming out in JBL and JSS (both of which took me a number of years to finish off). And I am trying to balance my work on the Accordance Hebrew syntax project with my desire to finish revising what used to be my thesis on the relative clause (I say “used to be” because the amount of newly added material makes it a different work altogether).

So, it has been a busy year for us. Sadly, little of that translated into blogging. But I will make a post based on my SBL presentation on Biblical Hebrew pedagogy in the next day or so and John will post on verbal valency in the next few weeks. For now, below are links to some of the works we’ve published (or finished and are in press) in the last year.

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Journal Submissions, Part 2: Setting (Higher) Standards for Evaluations

This is the second post in a two-part series on the evaluation process for articles submitted to journals. In this first post, I (RDH) described a few of my more colourful experiences in the publishing game. In this second post, we offer our thoughts on the flip-side: the task of the reviewer/editorial board member. We recognize that there are editors and reviewers who excel and we commend them for their hard work. These comments are not in any way aimed at them. Indeed, even for those editors or reviewers who behave in ways similar to what we described in the first post, since it is unlikely that our views will matter to them, these comments are not aimed at them. Rather, as with all our posts on this blog, we hope to provoke a bit of rumination among younger scholars who will one day be editors or reviewers (and at whose mercy we may find ourselves some day!)

Journal Submissions, Part 1: Experiencing the (Often Unjustifiably Painful) Evaluations

This is the first post in a two-part series on the evaluation process for articles submitted to journals. [Update: the second part has been posted.] In this first post, I (RDH) will describe a few of my more colourful experiences in the publishing game. In the second post, we (RDH and JAC) will offer our thoughts on the flip-side: the task of the reviewer/editorial board member. The numerous difficult experiences I’ve (RDH) had in getting articles accepted have decisively informed my behaviour as a board member and ad hoc reviewer. For John, the authorial experiences have been happier, but besides serving as an ad hoc reviewer he’s also seen the publishing issues from the “other side” in his former work as an editor. Both posts together serve as our appeal for editors and reviewers to—at the same time— impose more rigorous standards and make sure submissions are reviewed carefully and objectively.

“On their own terms”: Book Goals and Book Reviews

What follows may seem to depart from our stated purpose on the blog to maintain a tight focus on issues of ancient Hebrew grammar. However, since it concerns writing projects in which we are both involved, it seems related closely enough for the departure to avoid being an egregious one.

In her 2002 OTL commentary on Lamentations (Louisville:WJK), Adele Berlin observed that “a commentary need not be encyclopedic” (ix). Given the massive history of scholarship on every biblical book, which seems to increase exponentially every year, she was wise, in my opinion, to avoid representing “every interpretation put forth or every issue debated in the scholarly literature.” Taking the position that “a commentary gets its character from what is selected for comment, both from the text and from the secondary literature,” she flatly states what her approach is and leaves the rest for others.

!שׁלום

Blogging to commence in the late Summer or early Fall 2010.

– update: our first posts will come slowly as we catch up on summer writing.

For now, see here and here or the pages on the side bar.