Less often cited, but perhaps at the root of many people s concerns, is the fear that gaining a higher public profile might damage their reputations as scholars, causing them to seem less serious than they really are. This is not an unreasonable concern. And trying to explain the implications of a new theory to a non-academic group can often help one realize where the gaps still are, or whether or not jargon and technique have overwhelmed substance and relevance. Participating in a discussion with people outside one s field or taking questions from an audience of such people can frequently serve the same purpose, offering fresh viewpoints on ideas that may have grown stale. Public scholarship can produce new insights By addressing public concerns, a scholar can wind up going down paths that lead to interesting scholarly questions.
Public scholarship can cause others to think A good public scholar is a public teacher.
By bringing the fruits of one s research to the media or to practitioners, one does exactly what a scholar should do in teaching a group of students. And in the non-academic world, the class is likely to be larger and sometimes more eager, too. To be sure, traditional scholarship can also achieve many of these results. Moreover, as a practical matter, most colleges and universities will accord greater weight to its contributions than to those of public scholarship. Still, if more scholars tried to engage the public in their work, both they and their institutions not to mention those to whom they write or speak would benefit.