Office Hours

“Thank you for seeing me. I wasn’t sure whether to send an email or wait until today, but every time I tried to write it out, it felt like I was either explaining too much or asking the wrong thing entirely. This seemed steadier. It felt like the kind of conversation that shouldn’t exist in writing.”

“You made the right call. Emails create records. Conversations allow for calibration. Sit. We’ll take the time the work requires.”

“It’s about the second section. Page fourteen. The paragraph that opens with the quotation. I’ve been rereading your comment there for days. I understand every word of it on its own, but together they keep pointing me toward something I can’t quite see. I don’t know whether I’m being asked to revise the logic, the placement, or the tone, and those are very different kinds of revisions.”

“I wrote that the claim felt unsettled. That wasn’t a technical judgment. It wasn’t a note about clarity or evidence. The sentence itself is well constructed. The issue is how it behaves once it leaves your hands. Some sentences arrive and settle into the room quietly. Others change the temperature the moment they’re spoken.”

“The line where I say the text isn’t misunderstood so much as it’s been carefully managed.”

“Yes. That one.”

“I can qualify it. I can move it later. I can add another citation if that’s what’s missing. I’m not attached to the phrasing. I’m attached to whether it’s true.”

“You already qualified it. And you don’t need another citation. The issue isn’t support. It’s proximity. You say it plainly, and because you say it plainly, readers don’t have much room to reassure themselves that it doesn’t apply to them.”

“I wasn’t trying to apply it to anyone.”

“You don’t need to. When you suggest something has been managed, people who’ve spent years doing that managing feel it immediately, whether or not they’re named. You didn’t gesture. You pointed. That’s where the unease comes from.”

“I thought that was clarity.”

“In some contexts, it is. Here, it reads as impatience—not because you rushed the work, but because you didn’t take the scenic route people are used to walking.”

“I spent six months on that section.”

“I know. And it shows. But part of what’s expected, especially early on, is that you pause to reassure the reader that you understand why the consensus formed the way it did. That you know what it cost to arrive there.”

“I do understand it. I just didn’t think it was necessary to say so.”

“For the people whose careers are bound up in that consensus, reassurance matters. Citation acknowledges influence. It doesn’t always communicate deference.”

“I’m not sure I know how to write deference without dishonesty.”

“Most people don’t at first. They learn by watching which sentences travel well and which ones stall.”

“So unsettled means I said it before I was supposed to.”

“It means the sentence arrives before the room is ready for it. You were ready. You aren’t the only reader.”

“But I’m the one being graded.”

“You’re also being evaluated. Not for accuracy, but for how you handle pressure. This is an early version of that pressure.”

“So what are my options.”

“You can soften the line. Say it later. Let the reader arrive with you instead of meeting you there. Or you can leave it as it is.”

“And then what.”

“Then we see how it travels. Beyond this room. Beyond me.”

“And if it doesn’t travel well.”

“Then it becomes harder to stand behind.”

“You mean the department.”

“I do.”

“So this paper is a test.”

“All papers are. Of whether your voice fits the space it’s entering.”

“And if it doesn’t.”

“Then you’ll have to decide whether to change the voice, or change the space.”

“I thought this meeting was about one sentence.”

“It always begins that way.”

“Oh…”

“You should know that none of this is personal. It isn’t a punishment. It’s simply how the field protects itself from unnecessary damage.”

“I understand.”

“You’re talented. Careful. People notice that. That’s why this matters. If you revise the line, soften it the way we discussed, this becomes a strong piece. It moves forward cleanly. Letters stay generous. Doors remain open.”

“And if I don’t.”

“Then the work will still exist. It just won’t have institutional backing. It won’t be something we can comfortably attach our name to.”

“So I’m being asked to choose.”

“You’re being asked to be realistic.”

“I feel like I’m being pretty realistic.”

“Then you know what I’m offering.”

“I do.”

“And you know what it costs.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“This isn’t the hill you want to die on.”

“But it’s not a hill.”

“Then… what is it?”

“It’s a sentence.”

“Yes, and that seems like a small thing to lose momentum over. You’re stepping out of alignment.”

“I’m not sure that I am losing momentum or stepping out of anything. I’m staying where I am.”

“That can be very lonely.”

“But it’s honest. It’s me.”

“This will follow you. You don’t think that will matter?”

“I think it already does.”

“And you’re sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can’t protect you.”

“I understand. I didn’t come here for protection.”

“What did you come for?”

“To see if you would ask me to lie.”

“And did I?”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“You asked me to make it easier for you to repeat.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“It is for me.”

“You understand what you’re giving up?”

“I understand what I’d be keeping.”

“Which is?”

“The sentence.”