Hi all,
I am at the end of grad school now with my thesis defense coming up. Objectively speaking, I can say that graduate school (I am in the field of history) has been on the whole enjoyable and smooth. I even have a nice postdoc lined up for after graduation and most people are congratulating me on how things are going.
However, ever since I started graduate school, I have been feeling unsure and anxious about the possibility of not properly acknowledging the work that others have done on topics similar to mine. I am here not talking about the fear of having exactly copied the ideas of others (after all I would know if I had and given how anxious I am about this I am especially sure I have not done this). Rather, I am worried that I either overlooked or misunderstood the points of other scholars and therefore might have argued/said things that are similar to something that has already been said in the literature.
Basically, at least in the history field it is quite common when a new book comes out that some older scholars might grumble and say "but I have already (more or less) said that in book x,y and z." Normally such comments are limited to gossip or a note in a review that the author covered some old ground or that some parts of what the author covers/argues is well known to scholars in field x.
As long as the consequences of my possible mistake would be limited to gossip or a bad review, I would not mind or at least be able to deal with it I think. But given that I suffer from anxiety and (I guess like many graduate students) imposter syndrom, I am afraid that even one minor criticism of not acknowledging/misrepresenting the work of others would lead to me losing my academic career. While I cannot think of an actual case of another scholar where such a thing happened (except for clear cases of plagiarism in terms of verbatim copying of words), it is still something that comes up regularly in my mind.
Now that I am finishing grad school and my thesis and later my book will be there for everyone to see (+I will be on my own without my committee), I am even more afraid of such possible criticism and my inability to deal with it.
Therefore, I wanted to ask to what extent such fears are justified (i.e. being heavily criticized for possibly overlooking/misunderstanding something in the literature to the point of losing one's career) and how others deal with this kind of problem and anxiety?
Thanks!
Are they justified? In a sense, sure: if you miss something "major" then, yeah, reviewers and others will be annoyed and irritated. Nothing annoys an academic more than being ignored, and a close runner up is feeling that they've read something before. The most common way this is expresses is in peer review — reviewer #2 (always #2 for some reason) will say, "I can't believe they didn't cite X." And then you go, "ok, sounds good," and add that citation. Easy-peasy.
This doesn't ruin careers, however, unless you actually become super famous and successful at which point if you habitually ignore other scholarship, it'll be a problem. But you've got some time for that, don't worry! But nobody is going to deny you a job or tenure or whatever because of one missing footnote. The stakes just aren't as high as they seem.
As for how to avoid it: this is where senior scholars in your field help. You want someone to read it over carefully and give you good thoughts, including whether there is stuff in this field that you haven't come across that you ought to be talking about. But if you, your advisors, and any other fellow experts you show it to can't remember somebody's ancient tome... then don't worry about it, it's sufficiently obscure. If someone later says you missed it, you say, "ah, that's so neat, thanks for pointing that out to me, I can't believe I missed it!" There's no shame in missing something, as long as you aren't a jerk about it.
As for your personal anxieties: everyone tends to be very anxious about criticism in grad school. The reason, in part, is that they teach you how to be a very nasty critic. The grad seminar is often an exercise in "how can I show I am smart by tearing this work by an established scholar apart?" They rarely teach us how to read generously, or how hard it is (impossible?) to come up with something that is both novel and impervious to criticism. And then suddenly you realize: I'm going to be the one being torn apart! How do I cope with this?
There are a few ways I've found that have helped. The first is to read everything you write with the most withering, skeptical reading in mind. You can "pre-empt" criticisms with careful wording and caveats and qualifications. These can be useful and make you feel more "secure" while you are still getting your footing. This can be self-defeating, though, if it means you never say anything slightly risky. But choose your battles, and feel free to start meek and then become more bold as you get more confident.
The second is to realize, over time, that you actually are an expert in your field. For me this required getting out of grad school and away from my advisors/committee, and meant I stopped thinking of myself as an apprentice and instead as a "world expert" in my field. Sometimes this movement takes awhile to occur. But you'll realize after awhile that you actually do know the relevant literature and do know the relevant arguments and do know your stuff. You wouldn't have the PhD if you didn't have some of that, imposter or not. :-)
The third is that you eventually develop thicker skin. This comes with realizing that criticisms, dissents, "haters," whatever, don't usually come with high costs. That you can take the criticism and say, "I really appreciate your input — I disagree on point A and B, and think I was misunderstood on point C, but this has definitely sharpened my approach to this." This isn't some overnight thing or some magical temperament thing you're born with or not. You just get more used to it, and stop taking it as personally, and maybe spend one day moping if there's something particularly nasty, and then get up and keep at it.