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Diversifying examples in papers?

In our September "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I've noticed that in recent papers, philosophers are starting to include more diverse (non-Anglophone) names for people in their examples and thought experiments. This seems reasonable but also challenging (how to choose when writing? how to pronounce when discussing?). What's the normative status of this practice? Would it hurt one's chances for publishing or send a negative message if one were to stick with Alice and Bob?

I have no idea. I tend to stay away from giving vignettes/hypothetical examples in my work, so I've never run into this problem. 

What do you all think?

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11 responses to “Diversifying examples in papers?”

  1. David

    I have no idea how it might affect chances for publishing, but I like to use this pretty robust random name generator to mix up the names I use.
    https://www.behindthename.com/random/
    If I expect to be discussing the example, I will try to look up pronunciations of candidate names and if I can’t find the pronunciation, use another. This probably has something of a biasing effect, but the result is still a wider range of names than the stock generic Anglophone ones.

    Reply
  2. The moral police

    To the reader,
    Alice and Bob have turned out to be very bad people. To use them in your examples, as good or bad knowers, or as people who might or might not pull a lever and let a trolley run over a number people, would just give them undeserved attention.

    Reply
  3. academic migrant

    As an academic migrant, nonwhite, and second language speaker, I would, as far as I can, stick with Anglophone names and examples. I believe that some reviewers and editors are biased, and I don’t believe that the risks are worth taking.
    I’ll just give one example. An editorial comment included things like “too many typos,” “examples not clearly explained,” and “too emotional.” As far as I can tell, Anglophone examples require significantly less explanation to be published, because “everyone knows them.”
    I’ll also express my feelings about diverse names appearing in employee training: try to be genuinely more inclusive instead of signalling how inclusive you are. Signals are just so cheap.

    Reply
  4. Michel

    A friend of mine liked to use names drawn from the cast of characters in the Harry Potter novels. It struck me as a fun variation. So: you might consider recognizable fictional characters. Whether reviewers might be annoyed, I can’t say. I can only say I’m glad I’m not always reading about Smith and Jones.
    Where more concrete, real cases are concerned, though, I think it’s definitely worth taking the time to use new examples. In aesthetics, for example, there’s really no need to keep harping on about Duchamp’s Fountain; yes yes, it’s historically important and did something unusual. But widen your scope, show that your claims are illustrated by other moments in art history.

    Reply
  5. Hermias

    I generally use Greek names with a salient meaning, to honor our forebears in wisdom. I think that name choices should either be salient, funny, or just unobtrusive (meaning familiar to most of your actual audience, and reasonably phonetic; Johan, Jade – not Siobhan, Csongor.) Depends heavily on context.
    I have been in colloquia where 10 white men are discussing a hypothetical Shaniqua and it comes across as cringe, performative, pointless.

    Reply
  6. Habits Can Beat Biases

    I think that there are practices that are even more challenging, but more worthwhile given the goal of helping non-Anglophone philosophers, such as making more effort to avoid the negative practices that academic migrant describes, and fighting various forms of prestige bias.
    A lot of the latter involves focusing on resisting prejudice against unfamiliar names of the philosophers that one (might) read and potentially cite. For example, like most analytic philosophers, I’m used to reading philosophy by people with Anglophone, German, Polish, or Dutch names. The human mind is thirsty for pattern recognition, but one can also develop the habit of recognising when such pattern recognition is occurring.
    A more subtle form of prestige bias that can hurt non-Anglophone philosophers is with respect to academic institutions. In the internet age, it’s possible to acquire a lot of information about whether e.g. a potential PhD student from an unfamiliar country attended a rigorous university.
    On the positive side, while these habits take effort to establish, the benefit in terms of increased talent for the profession is very significant, in addition to fairness concerns.

    Reply
  7. ItHappenedToMe

    I think “academic migrant” has things backward.
    You are at greater risk of encountering an unfair problem if you use an “Anglophone” name/example than if you signal (perhaps insincerely) your allegiance to prevailing political ideology with something more “diverse.”

    Reply
  8. Peter Finocchiaro

    I have to confess that I’m shocked and disappointed to read some of the answers here.
    Nevertheless, it may be valuable to mention the following: most actual Anglophone philosophers are incredibly ignorant of who their actual audience is. It might very well be the case that Siobhan, Csongor, Yifan, and Arjun are more familiar names than Johan and Jade. Of course, they may not be familiar names to you. And therein lies the problem.
    I agree that 10 white men discussing a hypothetical Shaniqua is pretty cringe.

    Reply
  9. academic migrant

    re ItHappenedToMe
    Would like to hear more about your experience. But for me, it’s not about signalling loyalty to white supremacy. It’s just a simple wish to avoid standing out and triggering implicit bias.

    Reply
  10. Tim

    One thing I’ve done is drawn names from art. Specifically, I enjoy movies and tv shows that were made in countries other than my own. I sometimes draw names from the characters in them.

    Reply
  11. Northeast prof

    I wouldn’t overthink this. If you just use names that you encounter regularly in everyday life, you’ll likely end up using a fair number of non-Anglophone names.

    Reply

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