This paper explores the academic craftsmanship of two scholars: Prof. Pamela Shoemaker, the John Ben Snow Professor, an endowed research chair, at the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University and Prof. Clement Henry, an expert on the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), who teaches in the Government department at the University of Texas at Austin. I chose to interview these two scholars because they are renowned in their respective fields of research. They took advantage of opportunities that came around. They have been phenomenally productive, consistently producing numerous journal articles and books. They also complement my multi-disciplinary research interest: I am studying the American media coverage of the Middle East. While Prof. Shoemaker's work gives me insight into the workings of the American press, media content, questions of legitimacy, research methods etc., Prof. Henry's research in offers insights into the socio-political and economic transitions in the Middle East. It also makes an interesting study to compare academic craftsmanship of two scholars in two completely different fields as it entails examining styles used in area studies and comparative politics, on the one hand, and an emerging and dynamic social science discipline such as Mass Communication, on the other.

Prof. Shoemaker has been teaching for more than 21 years. Her research has been published in several books and monographs. Dr. Shoemaker's most recent book, How to build Social Social Science Theories, is co-authored by J. Tankard and D. Lasorsa and is planned for publication in December 2003. One of her books, Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content, which she co-authored with Prof. Steeve Reese, (1991, 1996, Longman), has been named by Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly as one of "the 30 Most Important Books in Journalism and Communication of the 20th Century." Apart from writing books that have tremendously influenced the direction and content of communication research, she has written 10 book chapters, 20 refereed journal articles, 11 other articles and essays, 9 book reviews, 42 refereed conference papers, 27 presentations and speeches, and directed 50 theses and dissertations. She has also found time to serve on various committees. She served as the president (1995-1996) of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC). She is now the administrative co-editor of the Communication Research Journal.

Prof Henry's qualifications include a M.B.A. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University. Prof. Henry wrote his most recent book Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East with Robert Springborg (Cambridge University Press, 2001). One of his books The Mediterranean Debt Crescent: Money and Power in Alegria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey (University Press of Florida, 1991) explores the relationship between economic and political power in the five Muslim countries. He examines the space and power occupied by commercial banks in patrimonial MENA politics which is characterized by a network of patron-client relationships. The book also examines Islamic finance and its possible role in the democratization of the Middle East. Prof. Henry co-edited Oil in the New World Order (University Press of Florida, 1996), edited the Maghreb et Maitrise Technolgique (Tunis, CERP, 1995), and authored Images of Development: Egyptian Engineers in Search of Industry (2nd edition, American University in Cairo Press, 1994.) Prof. Henry has also contributed over 36 articles in other books and journals, including the American Political Science Review. Prof. Henry directed the business school at the American University of Beirut from 1981 to 1984. He has lived in the field for over 12 years in Algiers, Beirut, Cairo and Rabat. He speaks French, German and Arabic.

How did the two scholars manage to publish so many articles and books? What were their working hours like? Did they have a life outside their research area? Where did they get grants from? How did they balance teaching with research? Did they ever burn out? This paper seeks to find answers to such questions of academic craftsmanship.

Both Prof. Shoemaker and Prof Henry made modest beginnings just like other graduate students today. They had similar dilemmas which they sorted out in time. Many graduate students worry about what they should do after completing their master's: work in the industry or do a Ph.D. It was no different for Dr. Shoemaker. In fact, she was the first person in her family to get a college degree. But she left graduate school after completing her master's to work with association publications. She edited and designed newsletters for various organizations, including the Federation for Prosthodontic Organizations and the American Association of Women Dentists. But she found her job incredibly boring. "It became physically painful to work in that field," she says. So she called her old adviser at Ohio University who advised her to do a Ph.D. at one of the three universities: Wisconsin, Michigan State or Stanford. Before she applied, she married a man who was living in Wisconsin, so she ended up at the University of Wisconsin for a Ph.D.

Both Prof. Shoemaker and Prof. Henry were open to inputs from other doctoral students and faculty. They were intellectually imaginative. They happened to identify their research interests by chance happenings. Something happened that sparked their interest in the area and they pursued it for the rest of their lives, probing deep, expanding and improving on their work. Prof. Shoemaker identified her research interest when a classmate, also a doctoral student like her, showed her an article on Legitimacy by Ralph Miliband. It got Dr. Shoemaker very interested in the problems of legitimacy. Her dissertation also dealt with the same topic: Political Deviance, the Media, and Legitimacy. She believes a doctoral student should not only learn from professors but should also be open to inputs from fellow students. "We are all colleagues - the faculty and doctoral students" she says.

Prof. Henry also identified his area of research by a chance incident. After graduating from Harvard, he spent a year in France when he was expelled from the country for the nature of his participation in Algerian student politics. He was expressing solidarity with Algerian interests and their perception of the consequences of French colonialism. "I was given 48 hours to leave France," he said. He was back at Harvard to pursue graduate studies in the Government Department. Since then, he has researched on the Middle East and North Africa with particular focus on Algeria.

The examples of how these two scholars discovered their research interests, shows that one must learn to use one's life experiences in one's intellectual work. "In this sense, craftsmanship is the center of yourself and you are personally involved in every intellectual product upon which you may work