Why Write? (The Purpose of Scholarship)

If the purpose of writing has not troubled you, consider yourself blessed. You can then, I would assume, write without worrying why you are doing what you are doing. That's bliss for some writers. But others like Professor Stephen Carter have diverted their academic energy not only in advancing their scholarly pursuits but also to introspect on how they did it. In Academic Tenure and "White Male" Standards, Professor Carter discusses the value of scholarship and puts a high standard on the why of writing. For him, the purpose of scholarship is to increase human knowledge. Inspired by his teaching of Patent Law for many years, he comes up with a standard to gauge scholarship (on what makes it good or bad). So, here are the two very basic requirements of scholarship:

(a) Domain Knowledge (The scholar must know the field of his writing);
(b) Novelty and Non-obviousness (Good scholarship should not only do something different from what past work has done, it should also make claims that are not obvious in the light of past work).

That's a hard ask. Professor Carter admits that it may not be possible to do this all the time and doesn't claim to have done it himself. But his insight provides the critical link between the purpose of scholarship (the advancement of knowledge) and evaluating the quality of scholarship.

There is a chat-room analogy (akin to Professor Carter's standard) on how to have a smart (scholarly?) persona on the web. Given the anonymity that the internet provides, you can do this by two ways. Enter a chat-room you know. Open your mouth when others can't.