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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Scholarly writing as a collective project to advance knowledge
It saddens and frustrates me that so many scholars lose sight of how meaningful their academic work is (or was) for them in the face of external pressures. Too often the collective process of advancing knowledge has been obscured by competitive pressures that lead to bullying and a distraction from the work itself to focus […]
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Sneaky ways your gremlins try to get you not to actually publish
I am tempted to put “Part 1” at the end of the title because I’m sure there are more, but since I have no intention of writing any more of this series at the moment, I’ll leave it. If you report your gremlin’s sneaky tricks in the comments or privately, I will add to the […]
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Risking doing the work you find meaningful
A longstanding imaginary-friend-on-the-Internet, who now runs a very successful online business, once said that something I’d said to him years ago had been pivotal to his success. I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently, back when we were both still trying to figure out what and how to do our things, I […]
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Communication vs Validation: why are you publishing?
The primary purpose of publishing, even scholarly publishing, is communication. If you centre the communicative role of publishing, with a focus on the audience and the difference you would like your work to make for that audience, decisions about when and where to publish will change. This principle can also influence how you understand peer […]
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A story from… A Meeting With Your Writing
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · A Story from A Meeting With Your Writing If you’re a long-time member or someone new researching how you can add some accountability to your writing goals, here is a story from A Meeting With Your Writing – my weekly series of virtual writing groups to help you learn […]
Read More »Dorothy E. Smith on the purpose of publishing
I’ve been pulling together my thoughts on the writing process and publishing to form Short Guides on popular ebook platforms. In doing so I remembered an early influence on my thinking around validation and communication: Dorothy E. Smith. My copy of The Everyday World as Problematic was published in 1988, the year before I began […]
Read More »Prestigious journals & wider impact
Writing for scholarly journals and writing for wider impact are not mutually exclusive. The impact your work has outside of academia is partly dependent on the quality of the work and the respect that work has within relevant academic networks. Yes, we want evidence based policy and practice, but we also want that evidence to […]
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 »From Conference Presentation to Journal Article
A conference presentation is an important stage in the development of your research. It allows you to get feedback, helps you refine your arguments, and begins to build an audience for your work. Now comes the hard part: actually sitting down to turn that excellent first draft into something good enough to submit to a journal. […]
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Publishing from your dissertation
It is a fact of life that if you want an academic job you need to publish. For most early career academics, or PhD students contemplating academic careers, this means thinking about your dissertation. This post looks at the options: book or articles; and what kind of articles.
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