What follows is a excerpt from my most recent Short Guide to Peer Review. I approach peer review as primarily editorial labour, with the goal of improving scholarship. I question the use of “gate keeping” as a metaphor for the role of peer reviewers in making recommendations to editors regarding publishing decisions, while recognising that […]
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Don’t do your best!
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Don’t Do Your Best! You know all about perfectionism and why it isn’t equivalent to “striving for excellence” but is actually a psychological problem that seriously hampers your work. (If you don’t, read the pieces linked here, and maybe talk to a mental health professional.) But I bet you […]
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Write every day?
This is a question that comes up a lot in advice about academic writing, or any kind of writing really. And it came up during the December 2018 Planning Your Winter Semester class in the Academic Writing Studio. A lot of people encourage you to write every day. You may think that because I have […]
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Academic citizenship & getting better at saying no
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Academic citizenship & getting better at saying no There are a lot of tasks that when done well, no one even notices. They are essential to the smooth running of your department, institution, and scholarly association, and yet they are often invisible. Even if doing the actual tasks gets […]
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Before you can say no …
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Before you can say no It’s all well and good for people to tell you “You need to get better at saying no” but there are lots of good reasons that saying no is difficult. Even the people giving you that advice aren’t very good at hearing no, when […]
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Meditation as practice & metaphor for focus
This post is part of a series on Optimizing Focus. Finding it hard to focus is normal. Self-flagellation does not work to improve your focus. Furthermore it takes time and energy that takes you away from your writing; it is another distraction. I firmly believe that you can approach your work compassionately rather than violently. […]
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The relationship between writing for scholarly audiences & for wider audiences
My approach to academic publishing is focused on its importance for communicating what you have learned from your research with others. I also argue that writing (and publishing) for scholarly audiences is important and is often quite different than what you would write for practitioners, activists, policymakers, or other wider audiences (see What is the point […]
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Your colleagues aren’t any better at saying no than you are
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Your colleagues aren’t any better at saying no than you are Do you struggle to prioritize and set boundaries? Do you have so much to do that some of the most important things are not getting the time and attention they need? Has someone advised that you need to […]
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What is the point of publishing peer-reviewed articles if you care about changing things out there in the world?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Peer-reviewed articles and changing things out there in the world I want to write more about some of the practical applications of the general point I made in Communication vs Validation: Why are you publishing?. In particular, I want to connect my approach to writing and publishing with the […]
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How to use advice to develop your own practice
This post is part of an occasional series about how yoga influences how I work with clients. I don’t expect you to do yoga. Ever. In your whole life. The point of this series is that yoga has taught me some interesting things about how to approach other things. I have a daily yoga practice. […]
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How much teaching preparation is enough?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · How much teaching preparation is enough? Teaching is an important part of your job. You are committed to doing it well. At the same time, you may often resent how much time it takes. You really wish you had more time for research than you do right now. Content […]
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About the Short Guides Series
As I was finalising the third volume in this series of books, my editor suggested that I might want to write a series introduction. I published the first volume, The Scholarly Writing Process in November 2016. The 2nd volume, Finding Time for your Scholarly Writing was published in April/June 2018. Volume 3, Scholarly Publishing, was […]
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