Interlude: Introverts, Meetings, and Plagiarism

Happy National Introverts Week!

Many writers and editors are introverts, including me.

Although we often hear advice on what introverts can do to become (or at least appear) more extroverted, both introverts and extroverts have valuable strengths.

I recently listened to a podcast interview with Clair Hughes Johnson, an advisor for Stripe and former leader at Google. During the interview, she said that "introverts think to talk, and extroverts talk to think."

I was struck by the simplicity and accuracy of this statement.

I think this thinking and talking dynamic is readily apparent in meetings, where extroverts can dominate the conversation while introverts contemplate before responding. Because of this dynamic, I think we can support more inclusive and collaborative meetings with a few strategies:

Circulate an agenda in advance to give introverts time to think before the meeting.

Collect input before the meeting, even anonymously when possible.

Give adequate time for processing after asking questions.

Make decisions after, not during, meetings.

If you're curious about the dynamics of being an extrovert and introvert (and how you may channel these different ways of being in different scenarios), I highly recommend that you check out Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. It's a fascinating read.

Now for this week's round-up...

💌 Round-up

🎉 Featured

​A few favorite resources for academic writers and editors​
I was delighted to learn that Kyra Freestar of Bridge Creek Editing featured me in her list of favorite resources for writers and editors—and at the top of the list! Check out her blog post for more great resources on language, writing, publishing, and technical skills, as well as several great books on writing.

📆 Upcoming

Connection Compass: Create Flow that Guides Readers Through Your Writing – March 27, 2024, 11 am PT
Next week, join me and the American Medical Writers Association for my recent conference presentation on flow. During the webinar, I’ll share how writers can apply valuable writing principles to create a smooth flow that guides readers through the content, builds on their knowledge, and keeps them engaged in the writing. All are welcome to attend.

👓 Reading

Why is There So Much Plagiarism Right Now?​
"Fixing this is going to require systemic change in academia. However,...a good place to start would be to emphasize education about the writing process itself, with a heavy focus on citation. Teaching students how to write and how to cite and making those expectations clearer can help separate the students with bad habits from those actively trying to game the system."

​The ChatGPT conundrum: Human-generated scientific manuscripts misidentified as AI creations by AI text detection tool​
“This has broad-reaching implications, with the possibility of career-altering allegations being made against students and researchers when their work was an original creation. . . up to 8.69% of the ‘real’ abstracts had more than 50% probability of being characterized as AI-generated text, and up to 5.13% of all “real” abstracts being erroneously characterized as having a 90% likelihood of being AI-generated.”

💬 Quote

"Quiet people have the loudest minds." – Stephen Hawking

✅ Action

The next time you plan a meeting, try a new strategy that encourages more contributions from introverts. After that meeting, reflect on what went well and how that strategy could be improved to support more inclusive meetings.

Thank you so much for reading.

Warmly,

Crystal