The value of using social media to broaden your academic reach

Tanya Golash-Boza, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced. She is widely published, with her academic works including academic and trade books, textbook chapters for edited volumes, and journal articles. Currently she is working on two primary projects, one being a book on the lives of people deported from the United States, and the second being a sociology textbook on race and racism. 

Golash-Boza has successfully utilized social media in her academic career for the past several years. She is the author of three popular blogs, including her academic blog entitled Get a Life, PhD, Weekly Tips on How to Succeed in Academia and Have a Life Too.

Here Golash-Boza shares her insights on the value of utilizing social media to broaden your academic reach.

12 Strategies for writing group success

Writing groups provide an opportunity for faculty authors to connect with their peers, create a sense of community, and find collaborators for joint projects. By meeting regularly as a group, author members can provide one another with peer support and accountability while sharing advice that can help improve writing skills and lead to greater publication success.

Providing valuable resources and grant funding, TAA’s Chapter Program offers an excellent foundation for establishing a successful faculty authoring community. Following are twelve TAA Chapter Program strategies designed to increase the power and success of chapter writing groups.

Journal author and editor offer advice for writing articles for scientific journals

Writing journal articles can be demanding for an academic writer in any field, but authors seeking to publish their work in scientific journals face unique challenges.

Elaine Hull, a prolific writer in the fields of psychology and neuroscience, and Ushma Neill, an editor for The Journal of Clinical Investigation, offer the following advice for science writers:

How to maximize the traffic on your blog

Publishers are increasingly expecting authors to blog in connection with their books. These blogs can be a highly effective marketing tool—if you can successfully attract readers. In order for your blog to thrive, you need large numbers of engaged readers who follow, comment on, and repost your content, which means you need to know how to maximize your traffic.