This is The Reading Instruction Show. I am your
host, Dr. Andy Johnson. Topic of today's podcast,
the importance of academic journals, full colon.
John Stossel does not know what they are. Now,
there's seven big ideas I want you to take from
this two -part series. One, having a body of
knowledge is important in any field. Two, disagreement.
followed by academic discourse enables a field
to evolve. Three, silencing opposing views results
in cognitive inbreeding. Four, academic journals
are an essential item for disseminating new knowledge
and for academic discourse within a field. Five,
the process used to get scholarly articles published
in an academic journal is much higher than that
used to get an article published in a newspaper
or magazine. Six, having a body of knowledge
that is shallow and disjointed is not optimal
for academic discourse or TV interviews. And
seven, John Stossel does not know what an academic
journal is. So to review, I was invited out to
New York City so that John Stossel could, quote,
get my take, unquote, on whole word reading instruction.
But John Stossel did not really want my take
on whole word reading instruction. He didn't
really want my take on anything. John Stossel
wanted good TV. And I understood this before
I flew out for the interview. I was hoping it
would give me something to write about, and I
thought it might be a good example of what happens
when journalists insert themselves into academic
conversations. And I wasn't disappointed. So
let's look at the importance of knowledge. Most
would agree that knowledge is a good thing. Knowledge.
enables you to evaluate data, put information
in relevant contexts, and understand phenomena.
In any field or endeavor, having more of it is
a good thing, and having less of it is not a
good thing. And having less of it while thinking
you have more of it is a dangerous thing. Interactive
theories of reading. According to interactive
theories of reading, the knowledge in our heads
interacts with the information on the page to
create meaning. Now I'm not trying to brag here,
but I've got some knowledge in my head. I earned
a PhD from a prestigious university in literacy
instruction. This, combined with 30 years of
reading academic books and journal articles,
doing scholarly work, writing books and articles,
tutoring struggling readers, reviewing articles
for academic journals, and teaching graduate
and undergraduate courses, has enabled me to
accumulate quite a bit of knowledge in my head
related to literacy instruction. And again, I'm
not trying to brag. Those are just the facts.
Putting knowledge in my head and disseminating
it is what I do for a living. The state of Minnesota
pays me to do this. I'm a professor of literacy
instruction at Minnesota State University. The
knowledge in my head enables me to easily read
and understand an academic journal like Reading
Research Quarterly. This knowledge in my head
enables me to critically analyze and evaluate
the articles. I know what information is pertinent,
I recognize the research cited, and I can put
things in a greater context. But most important
is that the knowledge in my head helps me understand
what I'm reading. But when this same head tries
to read an article in an academic journal like
the Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance,
there's very little knowledge to help me create
meaning with print. Same brain. But it takes
me far longer to read an article. And I understand
very little of what I've read. And I'm not able
to evaluate the information. And other than the
quality of writing, I wouldn't know a good article
from a bad one. Same head, different kinds of
knowledge. Having a body of knowledge is important.
Now, I'm sure John Stossel has a lot of knowledge
in his head. However, not much of it is related
to reading instruction. And this was obvious
from the first email. And it became abundantly
clear at several points during the interview
that he knew little about educational research,
educational testing, or academic journals. And
why is this relevant? Well, it's difficult to
have a substantive interview, much less give
your take on things, when the other party doesn't
understand the questions that they're asking
or the answers that you're providing. Also, the
interview doesn't go too far when one is constantly
having to correct mistaken assumptions upon which
questions are asked. But the interview becomes
a clown show when the unstated purpose of the
interview is for the person with a little knowledge
to disbelieve things put forth by the person
with much knowledge. Now I know I'm not the brightest
turnip in the carrot patch, but even a dull turnip
like me knows what an academic journal is. I
know their contributions to academic discourse,
their necessity in research and the scientific
processes, and their importance in addressing
the salient and evolving issues in any field.
I know these things. People in the scientific
and scholarly communities know these things,
and most people in the field of literacy instruction
know these things. John Stossel does not know
these things. So let's talk about dissemination,
disagreement, and devolution. Academic journals
are an important source of knowledge dissemination
within any academic field. They're also a place
where experts within a field disagree. Here,
disagreeing ideas are put forth and supported
by reason and research, and this is called academic
discourse. Disagreement. followed by academic
discourse is essential for the evolution of any
field. It avoids the inbreeding of ideas that
occur when opposing ideas are silenced. Cognitive
inbreeding has led to the knowledge -based mutations
and the conceptual deformities we see in groups
like the Reading League. And when academic discourse
is replaced by journalism, these mutations and
deformities become magnified. Now it's important
that people disagree. For me, being questioned
or challenged invites me to review research,
to reflect, and either reify or refize my thinking.
And if you read my books, You will notice slight
changes in my thinking as I encounter new information
and as I was exposed to new ideas. To stay the
same is to devolve. To change is to evolve. And
it is only devolutionists, devolutionists such
as Louisa Motes, Emily Hanford, and all the Hanford
wannabes who think reading instruction is a settled
science. It's not. John Stossel doesn't know
this. And also he doesn't know what an academic
journal is. So let's take a look at academic
journals and journalists. Academic journals and
journalists both have the word journal in them.
But that's largely where the similarities end.
Journalists are trained to ask questions and
write down what people tell them. That's what
they do. That's how they get their story. But
their story is their interpretation of reality
based on the interpretations of reality of the
people who told them things. Now, my understanding
of journalism comes from an intro to journalism
class taken 40 years ago, and the movie All the
President's Men starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert
Redford. Here, the bar for getting a story published
was two sources. According to the movie, it was
only after Woodward and Bernstein had secured
two sources that the Washington Post could run
the Watergate story. Now, scholars have a slightly
higher bar when publishing in an academic journal
besides citing multiple sources throughout an
article. Articles published in academic journals
must first make it through a blind peer review.
It's important to understand this process. So
this is how blind peer review works. Once a study
has been conducted or a theoretical article written,
the authors send it off to an academic journal
to be considered for publication. When the article
is first received, the editor of the journal
considers the alignment of the article with the
academic standards within the field and the mission
of the journal. The editor then selects reviewers
with expertise related to the topic of the article
to review it. These reviewers evaluate the article
without knowing who wrote it, hence the term
blind peer review. And the authors don't know
who the reviewers are. For research articles,
reviewers consider such thing as the clarity
of the research question, the theoretical context
in which the research question was asked, the
adequacy of the methodology, the analysis of
the data, the interpretation of the data, the
validity of the conclusions, and the quality
of the writing. For theoretical articles, reviewers
consider such things as the alignment to research
-based theory, the appropriate use of reason
and research to support the thesis or claim,
the reflection of a body of established knowledge
within the field, and the quality of the writing.
Reviewers then have four options. One, recommended
for publication. Two, recommended for publication
with revisions. 3. Suggest specific reservations
be made and that it be resubmitted for consideration,
or 4. Recommend the article be rejected. Blind
peer review simply denotes a process. And the
quality of this process varies. Reviewers and
editors of highly prestigious academic journals
use a process that's rigorous and very selective.
These journals have low acceptance rates and
tend to have considerable influence on the field.
Other journals have a less rigorous review process
and higher acceptance rates. However, all are
still considered to be peer -reviewed journals.
Once published, the article is examined by researchers,
scholars, and practitioners within the field.
Here it is further analyzed, evaluated, critiqued,
debated, and embraced or rejected. This often
leads to new studies conducted and new academic
articles written to either support or denounce
the initial study or article. These are followed
by others, which are followed by others, and
the cycle of academic life continues. And, by
the way, if reading instruction really were a
settled science, as Louisa Mote says it is, there
would be no need for further research. It's all
settled. A filter. Blind peer review is a form
of a filter. to ensure that the knowledge we
get is somewhat valid, somewhat accurate, and
somewhat untainted by human subjectivity. Somewhat.
It's not a perfect process, but it is a process,
and it's used with academic journals. Journalists
like Emily Hanford, Sarah Schwartz, and John
Stossel don't have a process. There's no filter.
They just say things or write things. And because
they have a larger platform than most scholars,
their voices are heard by the public and given
more credence. Now I want to be very clear on
my position here. Journalists and a free press
are essential. in the functioning of a free and
open democracy. I'm not one of those who cry
fake news every time there's a story I don't
like. But journalists have inserted themselves
into our academic conversations about reading
instruction. And I welcome them, but they don't
get a free pass on ignorance. Now, I'm one of
the founders and one of the managing editors
of an academic journal called Equity and Social
Justice in Education, and I'm very proud of our
work. At the same time, I realize that words
like equity and social justice are shark chump
to libertarians and conservatives like John Stossel.
These words are perceived as a threat somehow.
Their bodies go into fight or flight mode when
threatened, mostly fight, and blood is shunted
away from their frontal lobes to their survival
organs. They're less able to think clearly as
they work themselves into a feeding frenzy. Thus,
I was not surprised when during my interview
with John Stossel, John Stossel referenced an
article that was published in this journal titled
Profit, Power, and Pedagogy, The Minnesota Read
Act by Drake Burke. Burke's article is a solid
piece of scholarly writing. Yes, it's complex
and lexically dense but well worth the read.
It was received very positively by the reviewers
and it reflected the mission goal and goals of
the journal. The editors selected it for publication
and I strongly recommend that you read it. In
the article, Burke used research and reason to
support a strong case for the general theses
and supporting arguments in that article. And
this was done using 13 pages, 64 citations, and
7 ,774 words. In our interview, John Stossel
picked one sentence from this article. And he
asked me if I supported that sentence. But it
wasn't asked as a question. It was asked to be
a challenge. The real question behind the question
was this. How can you support this horrible thing
you bad person knew? And why do you hate America?
And when did you last kick a puppy? This, I guess,
was to be the gotcha moment. And you can't blame
John Stossel. This is what journalists do. You
can't ask a skunk not to stink. Of course, the
sentence was not representative of the article.
It was pulled out of context and used to create
a misperception. It would be like the editor
of the book that this is taken from to ask that
editor, do you support the idea that skunks don't
stink? This is a common practice used to craft
a narrative to create stories and sadly today
this practice is not limited to journalists.
Well -known scholars such as Louisa Moats and
Claude Goldenberg have done similar things. The
only reason I know this is because I've checked
the sources they've cited. When this occurs,
their scholarship becomes journal -ship with
big words and long sentences. And as stated previously,
the blind peer review process isn't perfect.
But back to the interview. During the interview,
it was clear that John Stossel had not read the
article. It was also clear that John Stossel
didn't know what an academic journal was. Why
else would he ask an editor of an academic journal
if they supported something that somebody else
wrote? An academic journal is not a magazine,
a newspaper, a cable TV show, a podcast, or publication
like Education Week. Managing editors of academic
journals don't silence the voices of people whose
views don't align with their own. Managing editors
of academic journals don't craft narratives to
express their ideas or promote articles to advocate
their views. A managing editor of an academic
journal is like a referee making sure certain
standards are adhered to and guidelines are followed.
And a managing editor of an academic journal
welcomes opposing ideas if a. the articles are
well written b. they represent standards of scholarship
and academic discourse and c. they go through
a blind peer review. process. Since journalists
have inserted themselves into the conversation,
I want to make sure that you understand the difference
between scholars and journalists. And of course,
I make generalizations here, and I'm going to
name a few, but if it walks like a clown and
quacks like a clown, It is a clown. Scholars,
their work is submitted to blind peer review
for publishing. Journalists, they just write
stuff. Scholars have extensive background knowledge
about what they write. Journalists, they write
what people tell them. Scholars understand the
basic elements of science in determining causality.
Journalists, randomly assign causality. Scholars
know that correlation does not imply causation.
Journalists assume that if two things occur together,
one must have caused the other to occur. Scholars
will generalize to larger populations only if
the sample size is similar and ample. Journalists
will generalize to larger populations based on
a sample size of one or two. Scholars use anecdotal
evidence and experience to illustrate research.
And journalists will use anecdotal evidence and
experience as research. These are just some of
the difference. Final word. Seven ideas. Having
a body of knowledge is important in any field.
Two, disagreements followed by academic discourse
enables a field to evolve. Three, silencing opposing
views results in cognitive inbreeding. Four,
academic journals are an essential element for
disseminating new knowledge and for academic
discourse within a field. Five, The process used
to get scholarly articles published in an academic
journal is much higher than that used to get
an article published in a newspaper or magazine.
Six, having a body of knowledge that is shallow
and disjointed is not optimal for academic discussions
or TV interviews. And seven, John Stossel does
not know what an academic journal is. This has
been The Reading Instruction Show. I am your
host, Dr. Andy Johnson.