Specifying the end: Project management as applied to writing

Is project management really an essential writing process? While academic authors certainly recognize that writing requires many unique processes, each deserving attention, we rarely think beyond research, drafting, and revision. Yet, how well we manage projects can make or break the outcome. Case in point, if you miss the deadline for a special issue, it hardly matters how well your paper was aligned with the editor’s vision! Even when outcomes are not so dire, project management allows you to work in a calmer and less reactive manner, thus allowing for greater creativity.

Within formal project management, the tools can be roughly broken into “project definition tools” and “implementation tools.” In general, project definition tools are procedures that help you determine the scope, the tasks, the time frame, and the budget (i.e., time). Implementation tools are those that help you work smoothly. Here I focus on the former.

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7 Ways to share your dream of publication

Sharing your dream with others is one way to help that dream become a reality. There are two primary benefits that can be realized by sharing your dream. The first is accountability. The second, shared ownership. Regardless of which or both benefits you seek, sharing your dream is essential.

In this article, we’ll explore seven ways that you can share your dream of publication to increase your overall success.

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Developing healthy collaborative relationships: Why and how

Collaborative writing relationships can be advantageous to all involved when designed for success, but without self-awareness and clear communication, these relationships can set projects on a path of failure. In academia, opportunities exist for both student-to-student collaboration as well as collaboration between students and professors.

During their 2019 Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference session, Laura Jacobi, Justin Rudnick, Alyssa Harter, and Cristy Dougherty shared some strategies for successful professor-student collaborations.

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Tools for complex collaborations

When we collaborate on a writing or editing project with one or two people, we can get away with sharing documents as email attachments. In more complex projects, we might have multiple partners, and each partner could have a significant amount of research and/or writing to contribute. Collaborative partners might have their own teams or student assistants who contribute to the effort. Sharing attachments is no longer the best strategy for exchanging work in progress, so what should we do?

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