10 Best Articles on Academia
The most useful articles on academia from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Academia Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved on academia by Refind users in 2023.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles on academia—all under 10 minutes.
Has Academia Ruined Literary Criticism?
Literature departments seem to provide a haven for studying books, but they may have painted themselves into a corner.
Influencer culture is everywhere — even in academia
Though academics may wring our hands about influencer culture, social media promotion is now a necessary evil
The 7 Habits of Freedom Loving Academics
Shared by 112, including Dr Jordan B Peterson, Paul Graham
Princeton University Is the World’s First Perpetual Motion Machine
If you had a car that could run forever, would you still stop for gas?
As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for structural change in academia intensify
With the pandemic exacerbating long-standing workforce issues, fewer applicants are vying for open postdoc positions
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles on academia.
Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?
A wave of departures, many of them by mid-career scientists, calls attention to widespread discontent in universities.
Why I Left Academia (Since You're Wondering)
I didn’t have a choice. Thousands of people are driven out of the profession each year.
How Big Tech Manipulates Academia to Avoid Regulation
A Silicon Valley lobby enrolled elite academia to avoid legal restrictions on artificial intelligence.
Academic Exile, Two Years On
Academia has become an intellectual prison, and many incarcerated professors are compelled to live a dual existence.
The Death of an Adjunct
Thea Hunter was a promising, brilliant scholar. And then she got trapped in academia's permanent underclass.
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful. We favor timeless pieces—links with long shelf-lives, articles that are still relevant one month, one year, or even ten years from now. These lists of the best resources on any topic are the result of years of careful curation.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
400k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.