I've had my students "cold call" authors with questions and they've always responded. But it's an extra credit effort, not expected. The original tweet seems dismissive of any effort to be contacted. I hope that's not the case.
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Replying to @johnCfallon @word_geek
Scroll down to the bottom here: https://whatever.scalzi.com/about/publicity-blurb-and-unpublished-work-guidelines/ … And yeah, assigning your students to bother people is not great.
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Replying to @scalzi @word_geek
You wouldn't want students to ask you questions about your work if they're genuinely curious and reading/writing about your work? If being contacted is "bothering" why make it possible?
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Replying to @johnCfallon @word_geek
Yes, you're right, I should sequester myself off from all human contact if I refuse to answer student questions for assignments that they shouldn't have been given by a teacher who doesn't understand why making grades contingent on someone else's indulgence is a shit thing to do.
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Replying to @scalzi @word_geek
You didn't read my previous message. I have never made it mandatory or grade contingent. I just think it's a cold thing to say that budding readers and writers should never contact authors because they're "bothering" you.
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Replying to @johnCfallon @word_geek
I did read it -- "extra credit" is a shitty rationalization for pestering people, especially in an academic environment where *not* taking advantage of extra credit is effectively an academic penalty. Making "extra credit" contingent on someone else is bullshit in any event.
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Dude. There’s a difference between a reader, student or otherwise, contacting a writer of their own volition, with no set requirements or timeline for a reply, and hundreds of teachers asking students en masse to ask writers to meet unpaid deadlines to aid their grades.
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Replying to @fozmeadows @johnCfallon and
You know how you’re busy as a teacher? Imagine other teachers at other schools - in other countries, even - asked their students to cold-call random teachers about your thoughts and jobs, and you had no time for that, but this unknown kid needs a grade.
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Replying to @fozmeadows @johnCfallon and
Even if some of those kids are potentially passionate future teachers and you want to help, if you’ve got a ton of grading due and departmental emails to answer and a field trip to chaperone, you likely won’t be able to reply in the timeframe.
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Now imagine you become so well known for these purposes that every year, over the same set of months, you receive multiple emails from students all asking for your time. Every year. Because each teacher asking their kids to do this thinks they’re the only ones, but they’re NOT.
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Replying to @fozmeadows @johnCfallon and
Imagine the pressure you’d feel to reply, knowing what an impact you could potentially have, positive or negative, even though you *literally don’t have time*. Maybe you can reply to one, but which one? How do the unanswered kids feel if they learn you answered someone else?
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Replying to @fozmeadows @johnCfallon and
Of course authors want to encourage budding writers! We just don’t want to be volunteered to mentor one or more specific strangers, on a timeframe, without prior consultation, by someone who, however unknowlingly, has assumed we have endless free time and energy for the task.
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End of conversation
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