How Not to Be A University Lecturer in the Area of Teaching, Research and Publications

Of course, universities differ in respect of conditions of service, funding, and facilities. However, for the sake of your reputation and/or the reputation of your university or institution, Prof. Kari, outlines thirty-five (35) things You Should Not Do as a university lecturer:

1. Earn a salary without doing anything to justify your pay.
2. Go to the classroom, teach, and go home without doing any research with limited or abundant resources at your disposal.
3. Do research without publishing.
4. Publish your academic articles/papers in predatory journals.
5. Publish your academic articles/papers in non-peer-reviewed journals.
6. Have a concentration of your academic articles/papers in one journal or a few journals.
7. Publish your academic articles/papers in one country, region, or continent.
8. Target journals that charge publication fees and compromise quality.
9. Engage in self-publishing.
10. Fail to write and have at least one quality academic article/paper published in two years.
11. Fail to have a sustained research and publication profile.
12. Take and use other people’s works without attribution (This is called plagiarism or academic dishonesty).
13. Write say a 10-page article/paper with so many citations that tend to drown your voice or ideas as an author.
14. Present your ideas in academic articles/
15. papers and conferences in poor spoken or written language.
16. Prepare your academic articles/papers haphazardly, and without adherence to the journal’s recommended style sheet.
17. Fail or refuse to engage in collaborative research with your colleagues and/or students.
18. Do teaching that is not informed by research.
19. Recycle your ideas without any significant new content.
20. Refuse to entertain questions, comments, or suggestions from your students on the subjects/
21. courses you teach.
22. Teach your students in a hurry such that they hardly understand or follow what you are teaching them.
23. Speak in a manner that makes it difficult for your students to understand what you are teaching them.
24. Laugh at your students when they ask questions and cause them to lose their self-esteem.
25. Cultivate the habit of arriving late at lecture venues to teach your students.
26. Encourage your students to arrive late at lecture venues to attend lectures.
27. Refuse to maintain a healthy relationship with your students.
28. Engage in double standard dealings with your students.
29. Refuse to inculcate in your students the culture of honesty and diligence.
30. Refuse to attend to/ignore reviewers’ comments and suggestions on your academic articles/papers submitted for review and possible publication.
31. Teach without sufficient knowledge or information about the courses you teach.
32. Refuse to insist on quality research and/
34. Pass on outdated information to your students.
35. Hoard information that is useful to your students and/or colleagues.
36. Allow yourself to be influenced negatively by pecuniary or other forms of rewards.
37. Maintain a master-servant relationship with your students rather than a collegial relationship.
38. Deliberately lead your students or colleagues astray in your pursuit or delivery of knowledge.

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About the Author:

Professor Ethelbert Emmanuel Kari teaches linguistics in the Department of African Languages and Literature, University of Botswana. He has many years of experience in teaching and research on African languages and li+nguistics and has published many high-quality academic books, journal articles, book chapters and manuals which deal with various aspects of African languages and linguistics.