How do you get things done? When it comes to academic writing there is no shortage of strategy advice available to authors, but there are also no shortcuts either. As Larry L. King stated, “Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.” In this week’s collection of articles from around the web we found some helpful resources for accomplishing all three of these fundamental practices in the pursuit of your publishing goals.

Beginning with topics of project management and daily writing practice, you must be writing and rewriting to move projects forward. That writing takes reading – and we have advice on how to stay focused while reading scholarly articles. Next we have writing tips from some famous writers and suggestions for writing under deadlines. Addressing some current issues in academic writing, we turn our attention to part-time PhD pursuits, research practices during Covid-19, gaps in academic communication, diversity, inclusion, and equity strategies, and an equitable transition to open access publishing models. We close the collection with information on how American Journal Experts (AJE) partners with the Researcher app to produce a new form of author services.

As you explore the strategies and resources available to improve your textbook and writing practice this week, remember there are no shortcuts. Write. Rewrite. Read. Repeat. Happy writing!

Project management for academics III: Juggling multiple writing/research projects

Recently, Dr. Gretchen Sneegas (Texas A&M University) asked me how I manage multiple writing projects, a situation she’s facing right now as a post-doctoral researcher. This is not uncommon, even as a doctoral students: in academia, we tend to work on several projects at the same time. The biggest challenge for me is how to continue moving all these projects forward without falling behind.

A successful daily practice requires honesty

Be honest about whether you are attending to your daily practice enough. Be honest about whether you are creating dramas so as to avoid your practice. Be honest about whether you are truly engaged with your practice or just going through the motions. Be honest about whether you tend to leave your practice too soon. Be altogether honest: anything less jeopardizes your daily practice.

Q&A: How to stay focused while reading scholarly articles

First of all, I need you to understand that staying focused while reading technical papers is HARD. Papers are typically very condensed forms of information, requiring quite some effort from the reader to get through. When I find it hard to stay focused, I do the following.

Awesome writing tips from 6 famous writers

As I always say on Bang2write, there are no specific writing rules to break, just risks to take … That said, there are ‘best practices’! This is why it can be a good idea to check out what others who’ve gone before us think … We can then decide if we agree, disagree or are neutral. In turn, this helps us work out how we see our own writing craft working. So, check out these famous writers and decide what you think!

Writing under deadlines

What’s it like to write under a deadline which has been set for your project by someone else? What strategies might help you bring the writing in under the deadline?  Can you train yourself to be ready for this? Those are all good questions. Hopefully we won’t run out of time to come up with answers…

Starting a part-time doctorate? Three top tips

Doing a doctorate later in life is more likely to be a part-time affair. In the UK, the majority of the part-time postgraduate research students are over the age of 30. Despite 27,000 people undertaking this mode of study in the UK alone, it is less commonly addressed in guides to success in doctoral research. In this post I will share three things that ultimately had the greatest impact upon my timely completion.

Researchers respond to Covid-19: Interview with the editors

SAGE author and independent researcher Dr. Helen Kara wrote a post on her blog in May about research methods to consider using in a pandemic. One thing led to another, and a new series of e-books is now in press for October release. To carry out an unusually fast process for academic publishing, Helen tapped Su-ming Khoo as collaborator and co-editor.

Gaps in academic communication

These gaps between East and West are not uncommon. What is more unexpected are the gaps between publishers and librarians, the two major players in academic communications. Because of my work, I have quite a few librarians and publishers in my WeChat network. The first time I noticed an obvious lack of communication between the two groups was when an active blogger who works more on the library side translated and posted one of my Scholarly Kitchen posts, an interview with two well-known Chinese academic journal publishers. While this post was shared by many of my library contacts, it was not mentioned once among my publisher friends and groups, before I re-posted it myself.

Demonstrate your commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity with action!

The Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC) is pleased to announce the formal launch of the organization, which will enable us to meaningfully engage in the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work that the scholarly publishing/communications ecosystem needs today more than ever.

Achieving an equitable transition to open access

A new white paper assesses the current level of uptake of open access publishing models in those countries and examines barriers to adoption of OA.

AJE teams with Researcher app to support scholarly authors

Through this partnership, leading global author services provider AJE will bring its editing, translation, formatting, journal recommendation, figure, and illustration services to Researcher’s one million-plus platform users, including early-career researchers and those who speak English as a foreign language.