From an Old Editor's Eye, Some Comments on How We Think

摘要

I am an old editor. If by old is meant, I have been editing Sociological Inquiry for a seemingly long time now. With this volume and issue, I will pass this quirky and enlightening duty off to Professor Peter Wood. In the course of five or so years of editing, I have had occasion to take the measure of the discipline as it is practiced in the world of journals. After reading hundreds of papers on topics ranging from cheating on exams to Eskimo dating practices, I have acquired a certain sensibility about how we pursue our craft. It is true that most of us think a bit first and then write, but it is also true that a thought we had prior to writing will change, if only in pitch or tenor, in the act of writing. I would go so far as to say that writing itself is arguably the most important way in which we think. To follow are just a few old editor's observations on how we write thinking into existence.