A Further Typology of Draft Readers

I enjoyed Eugene Mazo's post below on different kinds of readers of colleagues' manuscript drafts. In the comments, I added one more category of reader/commenter: "The Bikini, whose advice is always: 'This is really two pieces.'"

That was a joke, but not a joke. Notwithstanding that comment's light tone, there certainly are people who give the "it's really two papers" advice all the time. But just because some readers tend to give the same particular advice or ask the same questions repeatedly and thus fairly predictably, that doesn't mean the advice is not valuable. Provided you give your draft to a range of readers with a range of hobby-horses, it's useful to hear even from readers with marked tendencies to ask the same questions of each paper, because as predictable as that reader's conclusions might be as a general rule, sometimes (ie., almost always) authors don't see their own piece clearly. Moreover, you might be the exception that proves the rule, and that's good to know. When someone who sees almost every piece as a bikini-in-waiting agrees that your paper is a genuine one-piece outfit, you know you're safe on that score. 

Still, anyone who delights in the amusement of seeing types and tendencies in the characters of our colleagues (and ourselves) can enjoy this kind of semi-satirical academic sociology in the paper-reading category too. So here are a few more types, and I welcome others (as long as they're on point) in the comments. Some such readers may include: 

1) The Sullen Adolescent, who asks of most pieces, "So what?" 

2) The Fixer, or perhaps, in tribute, The Markel, who demands some "normative" or prescriptive payoff at the end of each piece; who asks every time whether the piece is "merely" descriptive or whether it has some fix or solution--the inevitable Part IV of so many legal academic papers. Others can disagree with me altogether or modify the description, but it seems to me that this was our friend Dan's favorite question, and a source of endless disagreement and debate with his friends, who if they're like me would gladly have that debate a few more dozen times.

3) The Publisher's Agent. Do such readers take money under the table from the university presses? Knowing what I do about the budgets of those presses, I doubt it. But the advice from this reader is invariably, "This is really a book."

4) The Librarian, whose reaction to each piece is to begin, "Have you read...?" and provide a long reading list of (possibly) relevant cites and sources. (I am often a Librarian as a manuscript reader.)

5) The Careerist, whose advice for papers is aimed at less at encouraging the writer to follow his or her own scholarly muse as such, and more at helping the writer to play the academic game with cunning and skill. I am fairly convinced that I have seen enough smartly shaped and tailored papers from well-trained law school fellows and VAPS to spot the behind-the-scenes advice of a Careerist. One could say much more about this category of advice, and advisor. But I am feeling unusually prudent this morning.

6) The Gamer. Similar to the Careerist but with advice aimed at a slightly different, if overlapping, goal. The Gamer's advice is aimed not at advancing the career of the paper's author, but at passing along all the tricks and tools that may advance a paper's placement chances. (As I say, the goals overlap.)   

7) The Careerist-by-Proxy. A cross between the Careerist and the Librarian. Like the Careerist, the Careerist-by-Proxy advises authors with the hope of career advancement; but the career this reader seeks to advance is his or her own. Like the Librarian, this advisor offers a well-stocked shelf of sources for the author to cite; unlike the Librarian, the stock of the Careerist-by-Proxy consists mainly or entirely of his or her own work. The advisor's own cite count and academic stock rises as a result. The Careerist-by-Proxy may be defined as someone who is adept at buttering his own bread with other people's loaves. Is there a little Careerist-by-Proxy in most of us when we act as readers? I suspect there is. 

Provided they're on point, dealing specifically with types of draft readers, feel free to add your own.