Listen to yourself

Authors have some tremendous tools at their disposal. Powerful bibliographic management software as well as programs to create eye-popping bar charts are just a couple examples. Some of these tools get a lot of buzz. But there are some features of old standards that can surprise.

All of the major word processing software programs offer a Read Aloud feature. This feature reads to you the text you have written. I will speak about Microsoft Word, but these points are true for most of the other word processing programs available on computers or online.

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: January 28, 2022

What are your writing goals? What do you hope to accomplish and how will you get there? Sylvia Plath kept hers simple when she said, “Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.”

In this week’s collection of articles from around the web, we see strategies for keeping up with information, facing changes to the academic publishing industry, sharing or marketing our work, and managing our inner critics.

Whatever your writing goals, work towards those that let you live, love, and say what you need to – in good sentences. Happy writing!

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The power of words

Yesterday, January 20, 2021, we witnessed the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States and of Vice-President Kamala Harris. The ceremony was filled with messages, constructed by words, shared by many people in positions of power – both in our national government and in the entertainment industry – through speech, recitation, song, and poetry. These messages and the effect of the words delivered throughout the event caused me to revisit a quote from Margaret Atwood who said, “A word after a word after a word is power.”

In this post, I want to highlight some of the words that resonated with me from yesterday’s event, other historical instances of the power of words, and advice for how you can ensure that the words you use in your writing exhibit the power of your message.

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Cultivating your writing garden

I admit to being addicted to quotes. I have kept a list for years and it grows with each book I read. “Let us cultivate our garden,” is a well-known aphorism by Voltaire. It applies to so many areas of life: relationships, work, gardening, and of course, writing.

Quite a few authors or would-be authors I speak with feel unsure or uncertain about their writing and editing skills. I get it. Most authors have spent years honing their content mastery and little of their precious “free time” on becoming better writers or editors.

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Selecting visuals to illustrate your post, article, or book

It was great to see many TAA members at the recent conference in Philadelphia! Since not everyone could attend, I’m sharing my presentation about “Enhance Your Writing: How to Design, Select or Create Effective Visuals” in this and future Abstract posts. See the previous post, Figuring it out: Trends for visuals in academic writing. Next month I will write about ways to create original visuals.

Yes, you need visuals!

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The Where: Constructing an effective writing environment

Once you know what you need to work on, establishing an environment with the right atmosphere, tools, and resources necessary for completing the project is equally important. In the previous article, we explored the first W – The What: Defining a research project. In this article, we will focus on The Where: Constructing an effective writing environment. This discussion began with a self-reporting of participant writing environments and continued with discussion of ways to improve them.

Q1: How would you describe your current writing environment?

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