The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: April 20, 2018

This week’s collection of articles from around the web contains a lot of advice for academic authors including key writing skills, tips for communicating with your dissertation chair, coping strategies, and books on writing productivity. It also contains information on changes in research and edtech, including Google’s “Talk to Books”, a study on uncited research, necessary support and incentives for sharing data, and a scam involving forged acceptance letters from journals. Finally, we have an article on a technology platform for textbook authors designed to keep textbooks current.

According to Khaled Talib, “Writing is the light of imagination playing over shadow of thoughts.” This week let your imagination drive your research and creativity to enhance your writing.

The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: April 20, 2018 Read More

Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Wiley win $34.2m willful trademark and copyright infringement suit

Cengage, McGraw-Hill Education, Pearson, and Wiley won a $34.2 million verdict in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against a group of online booksellers and their owner for dealing in counterfeit textbooks.

The nine-person jury unanimously found the defendants — several Ohio-based bookselling companies, including Book Dog Books and Robert William Management, and their owner, Philip Smyres — liable for willful trademark infringement, willful copyright infringement, and breach of a prior settlement agreement.

Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Wiley win $34.2m willful trademark and copyright infringement suit Read More

2018 Textbook award-winning insight (Part 1): Deciding to write and getting the interest of a publisher

We recently reached out to winners of the 2018 TAA Textbook Awards and asked them to answer some questions about how they made the decision to write their textbook, how they interested a publisher, what they do to boost their writing confidence, how they fit writing time into their schedule, and more. We will be sharing their answers in a series of posts over the next few weeks.

This first installment of the four-part series focuses on why they decided to write their textbook, and how they got the interest of a publisher.

2018 Textbook award-winning insight (Part 1): Deciding to write and getting the interest of a publisher Read More

Beware of fake journal acceptance letters

An April 18, 2018 article on the Society for Scholarly Authors’ blog, The Scholarly Kitchen, called attention to a scam in which unknown individuals, using fake acceptance letters, are promising publication in the journal of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The article’s author, Angela Cochran, ASCE’s associate publisher and journals director, said that over the last five years, the society has become aware of seven fake acceptance letters for its journals.

Beware of fake journal acceptance letters Read More

Rejecting the premise of writer’s block: Write your way out

When you talk with academic writers about productivity, you are likely to hear the term ‘writer’s block’. Despite the prevalence of this term, I am resistant to identifying common academic writing difficulties as writer’s block. Most writers who are struggling with their writing are actually struggling with their thinking. That isn’t just a semantic quibble: it matters that we grasp exactly what is inhibiting our writing processes. When we diagnose ourselves as having writer’s block, we can start to believe that we aren’t currently able to write. If you find yourself with a sore leg, it may well be that avoiding walking is a sound strategy. If you find yourself unable to write, might it be a sound strategy to avoid writing? The answer to that question is almost always no. Not writing has little-to-no curative power, in my experience.

Rejecting the premise of writer’s block: Write your way out Read More

Member Spotlight: Noelle Sterne

TAA member Noelle Sterne is an Independent Academic Editor, Author, Consultant, and Writing and Creativity Coach. She is an industry professional with experience in the English, Education, Nursing, Faculty Development, and Social Sciences writing disciplines.

Her most recent publication is Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping With the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015). She published two other books previously: a spiritual self-help book and a children’s book of original dinosaur riddles. She has also published over 400 essays, writing craft articles, short stories, poems in print and online publications and blogs. She contributes regularly to four publications: TAA’s blog, Abstract, Two Drops of Ink, Transformation Coaching, and FromAddict2Advocate.

Member Spotlight: Noelle Sterne Read More