Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Motivating yourself to finish the damned book Do you have a book project that’s been in progress for a long time? You are not alone. Over the years I’ve helped several mid to late career scholars who are weighted down by the unfinished projects they have lying around. Like […]
Read More »Scholarly Publishing: a category in transition
Communicating your research knowledge to scholarly audiences. Books, journals, edited collections, etc. Selecting a journal or publisher. How publishing is used in evaluation processes.
Posts in this category will be edited and/or recategorized beginning in July 2015 as we move to a library of useful information.
How do I know when my book is ready to submit?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · How do I know when my book is ready to submit? You are almost finished with your book! You plan to submit it to your publisher in a couple of months. You’ve been working on it for a long time. You’ve not only got a full draft but you’ve […]
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How grading has ruined peer review
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · How grading ruined peer review “Academics should not be terrified of one another’s judgments, just as students should not be afraid of their teachers. … we need to imagine things as they might be otherwise; in this case, a world where evaluation of others isn’t part of the daily […]
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How to find a book structure that works
A note from Jo: I saw a great Twitter thread by Allison Van Deventer that is related to a book she and Katelyn Knox have coming out in November: The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook. She agreed to write a blog post (with her co-author Katelyn E. Knox) based on that Twitter thread for November. Jo VanEvery, Academic […]
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Why are you writing this book?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Why are you writing this book? A book is a big project. Depending where you mark the beginning, book writing can take years. Not only is it hard to protect the time, given all your other commitments, but it can be hard to sustain momentum. Some of that is […]
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Who are you writing for?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide | Who are you writing for? One thing that’s difficult about writing a book is its scope. There is a lot of material to organize. It’s too big to hold in your head. It’s hard to maintain your motivation when you won’t see a finished product for a long time. […]
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You don’t have to find a “gap” in the literature
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · You don’t need to find a “gap” in the literature Your research, and the publications based on that research, need to make an original contribution to knowledge. Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen a lot of ways academics, at every career stage, get in a bit of a […]
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What to do about a stalled book project
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · What to do about a stalled book project Are you *not* writing a book? Maybe it’s your “thesis book”. Maybe it’s something else. You might have a contract for it. You might not have started it, but think you should have by now. You might have a lot of […]
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Making Decisions: peer review
This post was originally written in February 2021 as a follow up to Planning Your Winter Semester and was shared in the Academic Writing Studio. It has been edited and divided into a series of shorter posts for ease of reading. The general principles—habits, routines, and default responses—are explained in the first post in the […]
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Thoughts on academic freedom, scholarly publishing, and mundane practices
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Thoughts on academic freedom, scholarly publishing, and mundane practices This post is something I initially wrote for my newsletter. I had come across something that I wanted to write about even though I didn’t have a neat conclusion or lesson. I value freedom and autonomy. I know freedom and […]
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Revision following peer review is a normal part of the scholarly writing process
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Revision following peer review is a normal part of the scholarly writing process Upon the publication of my 4th Short Guide: Peer Review, I had a lively discussion with Katherine Firth to mark the occasion. One of the things that came up was the frustration that comes from the […]
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Peer review supports academic writing!
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Peer review supports academic writing This post is an excerpt from the 4th book in my Short Guides series, Peer Review (A Short Guide), was published on 15 November 2019. I also offer a class called Dealing With Reviewer Comments which is based on the principles elaborated in this book. […]
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