By John Bond

If you’ve ever stared at a blank screen and wondered how wide or narrow you should write, you’re in good company. The tension between writing narrow versus broad lives at the heart of scholarly publishing. It’s a classic dilemma: go deep and speak to a specialized very knowledgeable audience that truly gets it or go broad and frame your knowledge for readers across multiple disciplines. Let’s look at both approaches, because each has its own virtues, risks, and rewards.