Tuesday, January 23, 2001

LOGGING IN WITH . . . Paul Brians A Professor Prefers Online Self-Publishing to Scholarly Journals and Books By SCOTT CARLSON A penchant for publishing on the Internet has brought Paul Brians minor fame, if not fortune. Mr. Brians, a professor of English at Washington State University, says that Internet publishing has transmitted his work to interested audiences instantly for the past five years. His most popular feature -- "Common Errors in English," a guide to bad grammar -- has been featured on National Public Radio and even on a radio show in Australia. And, he adds, academics as well as journalists have taken an interest in his scholarship on nuclear-age literature and on film, science fiction, and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. Although Mr. Brians still publishes in traditional media -- in fact, he's working on a book right now -- he says he's fortunate in that his university has been open to recognizing his online work during reviews. Q. Why did you decide to self-publish online? A. I've always been very dissatisfied with the way that academic publishing takes place. You have to wait so long and go through this vetting process, in which the reviewers might not have the same reaction as your potential audience. I just fling the stuff out there and let people tell me whether they find it useful or not. I also love the idea of being able to change things. If you say something erroneous or stupid, people will tell you pretty quickly. If you publish a journal article with an error in it, there may be an erratum published later, but chances are, few people will see it. Also, I'm a 60's type. I like open-ended public discourse, unimpeded by the commercial realm. It really irritates me that the commercial textbook industry makes so much money off the trivial payments to the hard work of scholars. So I really like the idea of being able to reach out and tap into a community. As a professor, you are interested in the material. Most of your students are sitting there because they need a credit for their major. So it's always a chore to try to inspire enthusiasm. When you're publishing materials on the Web, the people who are coming to look at it are already interested in it. You get a steady barrage of thank you's and a few criticisms, but it's very heartening. It's like standing in a reception line all day being congratulated versus going into the classroom and pulling teeth to get students to care. Q. Would you advocate this as a new model for publishing? A. I think the idea of the Internet as an intellectual commons is very important. We're in an age when there's a giant tug of war between those of us who treat it as a commons and those who see it as a commercial opportunity. There are all these leeches that come, wanting to use my stuff to make money. I always say, "If you're making money off of it, you have to pay; if not, you can use it for free." There are so many practical benefits. I get so many interviews and articles in papers and magazines, and I've gotten a lot of invitations to speak and publish. Almost every public address, every conference I've gone to, every piece of published writing I've done in the last four or five years, has been invited. Instead of the old situation, where I'd spend five years becoming an expert and trying to batter down publishers, now editors come to me. It's like having free samples out there. Q. Even though there are benefits to publishing online, it seems like it could be a tremendous hassle, because you're getting criticism, questions, and feedback from people all over the world, all the time. A. When I publish in a journal, I rarely get any feedback. After it appears in print, someone may cite it, but they usually don't even bother to write and say, "Hey, I'm citing your article." But on the Internet they write all the time, saying, "Hey, I'm linking to your site. I like what you're doing." So you get much more of a sense of what you're doing out there in the community. I can put a counter on a Web page, whereas in a journal article, I don't know if anyone read it after it hit print. It might be out there for 20 years and might be read by a couple of graduate students who are forced to survey a field. They're mainly looking at it to figure out, "What did he miss that I could say that will be different?" A lot of scholarly reading is not done to learn; it's done for competitive purposes. Internet research is not like that. People don't generally read stuff unless they are interested in it. To me, that's a much more congenial environment. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

University libraries hold thousands of books seized during the Holocaust Computer Learning Centers suspends classes Carnegie Corp. awards $2.4-million to start 3 institutes in Russia Defense Department announces $45-million in awards for research equipment A professor prefers online self-publishing to scholarly journals and books Four universities create an alliance against onslaught of technology vendors