Academics should be publishing and publishing often! That’s the conventional wisdom especially for those hoping to achieve tenure. And while everyone agrees a substantial writing portfolio is essential to a successful academic career, there are surprisingly few resources that provide guidance on how you go about doing it. Ryan Blocker is the Program Manager for Campus Workshops at The National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD). Through his regular work with faculty, he has compiled some concise recommendations for how to publish often and to ensure follow through on your writing projects.
The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: December 21, 2018
“You are far too smart to be the only thing standing in your way.” Our inspirational message to start the…
Smiley faces in your journal articles?
Language has always been evolving. For better or worse, the formality of language has changed including embracing new words. Publishing, undoubtedly, has been changing. Too slow for some and too fast for others. I was wondering how emojis will start to creep into scholarly writing in the next five, ten, or twenty years. Sounds farfetched?
I am not a big emoji person. Maybe I will do a 🙂 every so often. I use this to ensure my meaning cannot be misconstrued. I progressed to the occasional thumbs up. I know; radical.
The other day I scrolled through my iPhone 7’s emoji options for texting and was dumbfounded.
Finding the balance: Tailoring more time for writing by adjusting teaching practices
Finding short bits of time to write during the week is usually a challenge for busy faculty. Teaching expectations are often urgent and very important while writing time is important but, usually not urgent. Yet, by being more focused and intentional with our time, even our teaching time, we can tailor our teaching practice to be able to fit in much more writing time.
Here are four practices that we have honed over the years that have enabled us to carve significantly more time in our schedules to dedicate to our writing projects.
Reflections on seeking a publisher 1: Introduction
For most of this past year, I have been in seeking a publisher for my book for graduate students about using scholarly literature. As I write this, my proposal is scheduled to be discussed at a publication meeting a few days from now, and by the time this blog post gets published, I will either have a contract offer or another rejection.
In this and the following posts, I reflect on some of the issues that have come up in my process—issues that might be of interest to writers who are not yet experienced in proposing books to publishers. Those with more experience might view my reflections as naive (and if so, feel free to comment), but those with less experience might at least find comfort in someone else struggling with similar issues, even if they don’t find useful suggestions.
Cengage to offer new ‘Author Relations team’ starting in February 2019
Cengage announced this week that beginning in February authors will have the ability to contact a member of a newly created Author Relations team made up of “professionals with proven expertise in handling contracts, royalties and other issues that are top of mind for authors and for Cengage.”
The Author Relations team, said Cengage, will offer clear and regular communication with authors, and act as the main point of contact for questions and concerns related to contracts, royalties and/or other similar topics to ensure that author queries on these topics are addressed quickly and effectively.