The big day has arrived. You look in your In Box and there is an email from a journal editor. You submitted your manuscript over 60 days ago and have been patiently waiting for their decision. The big day is here. You click on it. There is likely one of four decisions.
Good news no matter what the decision is! You are moving forward. Here is some advice for understanding their decision and what it means to you:
TAA Sisters of the Academy Chapter Member Dr. Dannielle Joy Davis, received the Dr. Jonathan C. Smith Faculty/Staff Appreciation Award from Saint Louis University on February 24, 2023.
The Award, named after SLU’s late inaugural vice president for diversity and community engagement, was given to members of the SLU community who were judged to have shown “tremendous dedication and commitment to supporting the Black community at Saint Louis University while facilitating major social change on campus and within the St. Louis community.”
How is your schedule?
If you are like the rest of the people I know, you either:
Feeling pushed to the max is the number one response I get nowadays when I ask someone about where they are with their writing and work.
Use spiritual principles or practices in your important academic project. “What!” you cry, “Academics and religion/spirituality don’t mix, like ice cream and boiled kidney!”
But . . . as you wrestle with your Major Work, do you crave less anxiety, more confidence, better work flow, even real answers to all those knotty quandaries?
Meditation and mindfulness can help. In my academic coaching practice, I’ve found, to my surprise, that many graduate students in their dissertations and professors in their articles use spiritual methods to help them through the Purgatory of academic writing. And I encourage them, primarily in two ways—meditation and mindfulness.
TAA member Julie Reeder coauthored an article published in the SAGE journal Autism (2022). The article, entitled, “Mobile and online consumer tools to screen for autism do not promote equity”, found that autism screening tools are available, but they are not easily found. Barriers include inaccessibility to parents with limited literacy or limited English proficiency, and frequent encounters with games, advertisements, and user fees.
I was intrigued years ago, when I first saw the cell phone feature that replied to a text that I was driving. I wondered where my life feature was “no emails, no phone notifications, no meetings: I am writing.”
While we are masters of where we focus our attention, small housekeeping habits may help our writing, and in fact help us.
