Academic journals are principal publishing media for scientific research papers from various academic fields. While reading a journal article – I do not remember when and in which journal –, I came across the phrase cited in the title. The purpose of science cannot be clearly defined as we define a physical concept. This phrase, however, personally appealed greatly to me. I have of course read other articles. A professor with a career spanning over 20 years is estimated to have written between 100 and 150 papers. Quite true! As mine numbers some 120, it may well reach 130 by the time I retire. However, why do we write papers? The first answer that occurs to me, perhaps not the brightest one, is to take up writing to fulfill a certain sense of responsibility. This is true for a great number of my papers. As a matter of fact, I do not remember many occasions where I wrote for my own satisfaction based on research topic dictated by my heart. In other words, most papers were written as part of the process of providing guidance to my graduate school students or for the purpose of climbing higher rungs in my career path. Looking back on the first years of my life as a professor, I had the satisfaction of selecting research subjects to my heart’s desire, and I published papers on the results of these studies. Driven by my earnest desire to keep studying, I aimed to pursue a continued study abroad program as soon as possible to consolidate my academic capacity to conduct valuable research. One day, during the course of my third year as a professor, my goal to live this type of pure academic life was suddenly challenged by the pressure from the university to mentor graduate school students. Because graduate school students were only assigned to professors with strong academic accomplishments and background power, my modest wish was to only mentor graduate school students after completing my studies abroad. It was the 1980s, a period in which the social system was somewhat authoritarian, and the academic world was no exception. After exhausting all conceivable sorts of escape maneuvers, this professor who was at his wits’ end started to mentor graduate school students. Once placed in an inevitable situation, my instinct to do my utmost in any task entrusted to me kicked in. I spent countless hours contemplating appropriate research themes for my students to support their dissertations, thinking that students only rarely enter the graduate school with a dissertation topic already decided. I was quite empathetic, so to speak. Surrounded by graduate school students, I have lived a busy life determining the directions of dissertations and guiding the students through their dissertations. As byproducts (?) of this busy life, the number of papers carrying my name as the corresponding author has increased. The time has now arrived to appraise my work! For what reasons did I publish specific types of papers? Just as the reasons for living change as the times change, there seems to be an increasing number of papers written for research fund reports or professorial performance evaluations. There is of course nothing wrong with this approach, but it may be a good idea to from time to time stop and contemplate why we write papers. This approach might allow us to enter retirement without regrets. September 2013 Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health 2013 September 37(3):117-118 http://dx.doi.org/10.11149/jkaoh.2013.37.3.117 Editorial
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Aug 29, 2013
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