About Speculative Diction The Speculative Diction blog provides commentary and analysis on higher education policy and practice in Canada, linking them to developments overseas and also to the experiences of those working within the Canadian university system. The blog is written by Melonie Fullick, a grad student working on her PhD at York University. Many of those of us kicking around the academic Twitterverse over the past few days have been witnessing (and participating in) an intense discussion that??s raised issues at the core of academic values and assumptions about knowledge and research. This discussion has been focused on the ??ethics of live tweeting?_ as a practice at academic conferences, and the ways in which presenters and academics either support this practice or reject it . We can see that this topic has touched a sore spot from the extreme reactions it??s generated in some Twitter circles. A number of people have also written thoughtful blog posts addressing the issues in more detail, and I??ve linked to those throughout my own contribution here. To begin, I have to say I agree with those who??ve argued that we need to respect other people??s boundaries and try to understand where strong reactions come from; there are reasons why people react the way they do. But those reasons aren??t necessarily personal (even when the reaction makes it sound like they are). So I want to take a look specifically at the accusation that academics ??use?_ other people??s work in social media venues like