Using IMRaD to organize article content

In his presentation “Why Your Journal Articles Are Confusing, and How IMRaD Can Help”, Thomas Deetjen, author of Published, offered advice for tightening your articles’ structure around the IMRaD format as a method for getting jumbled thoughts into words that your readers will understand.

Deetjen says, “If you know where things are supposed to go, then you can write your article that way in the first place, and you can edit your articles in a way that will move information around into the correct places.” He advises, quite simply, to put information where readers expect to see it.

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When to consider authoring as a work for hire

Work made for hire is writing that is done as part of a person’s job or as an independent contractor who signs an advance written agreement that the work is “work for hire” or “work made for hire.” Authors of a work made for hire have fewer rights than authors who sign a copyright transfer agreement. In effect, the organization that hires the author owns the work. That organization can, within the constraints of the agreement, do whatever they want with the work including adding drastic changes or deciding to not publish it. If the work made for hire is done as part of the author’s regular job, the author will not receive royalties unless a written agreement assigns royalties to the author.

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: May 14, 2021

How often do we look at the results of our work with frustration, disappointment, or even anger at failed attempts? As another semester of teaching came to a close, I found myself once again with students who were not satisfied with their overall grade in the class, seeking ways to make up for lost time to get better results. The problem, however, is not with the results, but with the effort (or lack thereof) throughout the process.

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How do you look in profile?

Being visible in your academic or research is essential to your long term career. It also affects how widely your work will be read and disseminated. Search engines like Google will care about who you are and how connected your writing is.

So how do you ensure that you look your best in your online academic profile?

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4 Steps to developing an effective textbook chapter

Thinking about writing a textbook can be much like planning to climb a mountain. A daunting task that may be overwhelming and requires both endurance and strength before even getting started. 

As we prepare to climb the mountain, however, we’re going to focus on taking it one step at a time. Relating this to textbook authoring, the steps in the development of chapters involves the creation of carefully crafted headings specific to pre-defined topics that are thoughtfully enhanced by pairing content with feature strands to engage the reader and exercises which reinforce learning located within or at the end of the chapter.

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Royalty payment class actions: Opt-in? Opt-out? How does it affect me?

In recent years multiple class action lawsuits have been filed against the biggest textbook publishers, challenging their royalty-payment practices. In 2016, it was a suit against Pearson, alleging (among other things) gray market sales to international subsidiaries, paying lower international royalty rates, and then shipping books back into the U.S. for retail sales.1 More recently, there have been suits against Cengage, challenging “Cengage Unlimited,” Cengage’s all-access, Netflix-like subscription model.2 McGraw-Hill was also sued, in January, for improper royalty payment practices on its “Connect” products.3

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