Twitter Women’s Tips on Academic Writing: A Female Response to Gioia’s Rules of the Game

Abstract

This article, intended in a spirit of good humor, offers a critique of a paper by Gioia on how to get published. Based on a social media discussion to which 46 women academics from around the world contributed, we ask whether the recommendations in Gioia’s original paper are based on gendered assumptions and stereotypes (the “lone wolf” male academic competing with colleagues for a slot in a prestigious journal). Drawing on feminist scholars such as Mary Wollstonecraft (“Virtue can only flourish among equals”), we offer some additional recommendations which emphasize the importance of reflection, collaboration, acceptance of ambiguity, attention to audience and context, and nurturing self and others.