InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network
With today’s consideration of Academic Writing as Christian Action, Dr. Royce Francis wraps up his Masterclass in writing. I have been inspired by his weaving together of theological reflection and practical suggestions on becoming a skilled writer in general and within one’sRead more…
What this means is that when we write to pursue an area of inquiry in obedient and affectionate response to the call of Christ, our writing is an act of worship that reveals both us and God in the process.Read more…
To find a good mentor, it is important to have a strong sense of self. You need to know who you are, and what kind of person you want to become…Both mentor and student need to respect one another’s time, honesty, and commitment to the relationship.Read more…
Your vocation, your calling, must be undertaken in love. It is a response to the call of the Holy Spirit into places you didn’t even know existed. He has selected a place for you in the body of Christ, and for us this includes academic inquiry.Read more…
For the past 8 weeks, we have been reflecting on writing disciplines for an academic who believes in Jesus. But for the next four weeks, let’s talk about why your writing is important. I want to speak first about obedience.Read more…
When writing, always consider the needs of your audience as more important than your own writing needs.Read more…
As we are writing, it is not enough to focus on our community’s framing and rhetorical expectations. We must always look towards how we will become integral members of those who shape the direction of the community. Is your trajectory towards the center of the community of practice? What is your plan for developing a sustained, systematic program of research?Read more…
The goal of writing is to communicate your message with authority to your intended audience in the form they expect and the limited time they have. This post addresses the first of these A’s: audience awareness.Read more…
To manage your time well, make sure you know your Master’s voice. Otherwise, you may end up choosing the wrong master.Read more…
There is a question I have been thinking of for some time now: “What does it mean to say that I am free?” Closely related to this is: “Can I truly be free?”Read more…
I view reading as one of the primary ways we express our love for ideas.Read more…
To some, it may seem counter-intuitive to start a discussion on writing with an imperative to read.Read more…
Take a masterclass in writing with a professor experienced in writing, engineering, and teaching writing. Read more…
If I were to sum up my last five years in one word, it would be “change”. I have lived in four different houses, worked three different jobs, lived on two continents, gotten married, gone to grad school, and had a child. Read more…
David Russell Mosley chats with ESN about writing a novel and a PhD thesis at the same time, publishing them both for a wider audience, and why beauty matters for Christian academics. Read more…
Recently, I was pleased to write a recommendation for an outstanding 4th year medical student’s application for a residency program. While the letters I’ve written and read highlight a wide range of positive attributes, two characteristics have stood out to me lately.Read more…
Sometime in my junior year a faculty member spoke to our InterVarsity chapter. I remember distinctly one element of his talk, a quote in German that he attributed to Luther. It is a message that has stayed with me and a few years ago I set out to track down the origin of the quote. Read more…
For the better part of a decade, my life ambition was to become a professor. I was confident that hard work and a few providential breaks would land me a tenure-track political science professor position. I believed that God had called me to a life in the academy, to be a witness pointing peers and students to Christ.Read more…
The Gospel opens to us a new reality, a new awareness of timeRead more…
It was 1991, during the summer between my first and second years of medical school. I was in the basement of a Christian clinic in Times Square. The clinic provided free medical care for homeless people in New York City. I was filling up a tub with warm soapy water so one of our homeless clients could soak his feet.Read more…
We daily live in this tension of the “already and the not yet.”Read more…
I once had a seminary professor who liked to talk about something he called liminality. The term comes from the Latin word limens, which means “threshold.” Liminal space is a place of transition, of waiting and not knowing.Read more…
What Christian Brady learned about transitions from a vaudeville performer turned expository preacher. Read more…
When I began college thirty years ago I was intent on being “a real doctor.” I loved science and medicine, I had interned at NIH, and I was going to be a physician. Until I wasn’t.Read more…