One of my old professors told us about this fellow who used to be on the conference circuit at Kalamazoo....he would constantly make references to "his book," which, as it turned out, had never quite gotten written.
I got to thinking about this as I was listening to a speaker at a local conference, admiring the deft way in which he worked in references to his own past book. Or maybe it was BOOKS, in the plural. He kept vaguely referring to "my first book," as if there were others, but it was kind of hard to tell.
The point is, in our field the mere fact of writing a book does not ensure that anyone will ever read it. And thus you are fairly safe assuming that no one will ever know the difference, should you choose to render yourself credible through invented publications.
And I mean to pass this advice on to all my graduate students. Be sure to mention your book. It doesn't matter whether it actually exists or not. No one will ever be interested enough to check out your claim, but they might just be impressed anyway.
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Oh, dear. I have a PhD in my sights, even though it is far off, but after watching Richard fight his way into grad school, I worry that I will not have the political spin-sense to see myself through. *sigh* Aren't we allowed to simply hole ourselves up with Chaucer and de Pizan and not talk to people?
Damn, and look at me doing research like a chump. F this. I'm just going to make a bunch of stuff up. If anyone challenges my authority on Eastern European affairs, I'll just tell them they're being too critical.
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