Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Managing your energy The academic year varies in intensity. The typical structure of an academic year has 2 teaching semesters, or 3 teaching terms with shorter breaks between them and then a long break in the summer. Everyone involved needs time to recover and recharge, and to integrate knowledge. […]
Read More »Developing a Practice: Feedback & Criticism
Giving and receiving feedback and criticism is hard. And yet it is central to everything you do.
Revision following peer review is a normal part of the scholarly writing process
When I talked to Katherine Firth, one of the things that came up was the frustration that comes from the writing process taking longer than expected. (The link goes right to the bit of the video where we talk about this.) This happens at all stages of the process because all academic writing projects are long […]
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Where does confidence come from? Part 3: support
This is part 3 of a series about confidence. In Part 1 of this series, I talked about meaningfulness. In Part 2, I talked about security. The introductory section is repeated so you don’t have to read them in any particular order. Or, listen to the whole series here: Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Managing your […]
Read More »The frustrations of peer review: why is it taking so long?
The scenario You submitted your journal manuscript. Polite enquiry or a well designed journal website has provided you with information about how long they expect the review process to take. That time has passed. You’ve allowed some extra, possibly a couple of months extra. What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks (as we Canadians like to say) is going […]
Read More »Communicating manuscript edits
I received a tweet asking whether I had written anything about managing manuscript edits. I have a class available that helps with the emotional aspects of that process, and leads you through the process of making decisions (Dealing with Criticism, recording available for members of the Academic Writing Studio ). However, you still need to figure […]
Read More »Managing Manuscript Edits
I received a tweet asking whether I had written anything about managing manuscript edits. You need to figure out how to manage the work involved in revising the manuscript once you’ve made those decisions. And you’ll need to write a letter to the editor when you resubmit. In November 2019, I published a Short Guide, […]
Read More »Why questions are useful in feedback
As I was preparing the class on Dealing With Reviewer Comments (recording available for members of the Academic Writing Studio), I asked some friends and colleagues to recommend resources for dealing with feedback. That’s how I discovered Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. Lerman developed this process for artists, and assumes a situation where you are actively […]
Read More »Your vision guides the writing and the revision
You’ve worked really hard on this article. The subject is important to you. You have something important to say. It feels urgent. This vision you have for the paper is extremely important. You know what you want to say even if you are struggling to say it clearly. That vision is still important after you submit the […]
Read More »How can reviewer comments improve your work?
You want to do good work. You want your work to be published so that other scholars can read it and engage with it. You’ve submitted an article manuscript to a peer reviewed journal or a book manuscript to a scholarly monograph publisher. You’ve received a decision and the reviewers comments. What now? Your emotional […]
Read More »The role of peer review
In situations where scarce resources are being allocated, peer review ensures that those decisions are made by people who share a set of values about what counts as knowledge, rigour, and so on. In the context of journal and monograph publishing, only so many things can be published in this journal issue or by this […]
Read More »Stop diminishing your accomplishments
Whether it is in the weekly e-mail that clients send me, in tweets, or in casual conversations I’ve been noticing that academics seem to diminish their accomplishments. “I’ve had a slow week.” “I only marked 2 essays.” “I only wrote [insert number here] words today.” “I only read 10 articles this week.” Negative talk demotivates By […]
Read More »Making Writing Less Scary: Getting feedback on your writing
You don’t have to write in obscurity waiting to be discovered. Whether you write on a blog or you create multiple documents on your own computer, you can create an audience for your writing. In this post, I offer several options for creating conversation on a blog.
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