More Takeaways and ‘Aha’ Moments From 2024 TAA Conference Attendees

The following takeaways and “aha” moments were shared at the end of the Saturday Author Talk session at the 2024 TAA Conference in Nashville June 22:

“Writing is thinking. Remember that one small step can change your life.” – Qian Ji

“I learned two things that were somehow in opposition to one another. The first one is: The journal article is not ‘about’ the data, it is about the story, and the data is there to give support to the story. The second one is: Don’t impose a theme on the evidence, let the theme emerge from the evidence.” – Serena De Stefani

Takeaways, ‘Aha’ Moments from 2024 TAA Conference

In a survey of attendees of the 2024 TAA Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference, which take place in Nashville June 21-22, several shared share a piece of advice, a takeaway, or “aha” moment they had while attending:

  • “The simple reminders about writing, with the focus on generating to make progress rather than getting caught up in the editing process.”
  • “The power of journaling and the affirmation that I have something to contribute to the field.”
  • “I learnt the importance of peer review and how essential it is in publication.”

2024 TAA Post-Conference Survey: Majority of Respondents ‘Very Satisfied’ With Experience

In a survey sent to attendees of TAA’s 2024 Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference, which took place in Nashville June 21-22, the majority of respondents (91.49%) said they were very satisfied with their conference experience. Eight-and-a-half percent said they were satisfied and no one said they were dissatisfied.

A little over 38 percent of respondents said they participated in 10 or more sessions, with 28 percent reporting they participated in 7-9 sessions, and 32 percent saying they participated in 4-6 sessions. Sixty-eight percent of respondents rated the sessions very high quality, with 30 percent rating them high quality. No one rated them low or very low quality.

Academese: Are You Narrowing Your Audience By Not Speaking Their Language?

By Sierra Pawlak

During TAA’s May 2024 Conversation Circle, several members shared their experiences with ‘academese’ and tips for how academic writers can avoid it in their writing. Academese is characterized by writing that is heavily filled with jargon, overcomplicated language, and/or convoluted sentence structure (Wikipedia).

“The biggest sin in academic writing is the passive voice,” said Barbara Nostrand, an Aquisitions Editor at Gakumon and Senior Fellow at the de Moivre Institute. “It makes it much more difficult for the reader to understand what’s been written, and it’s completely unnecessary.” She recommends using the active voice instead, for example, ‘I saw’, ‘I observed’: “A trick to doing that is to move the verb as close to the beginning of the sentence as possible.”

2024 TAA Conference on Textbook & Academic Authoring Receives Rave Reviews

Multiple attendees of the 2024 TAA Conference on Textbook & Academic Authoring, held in Nashville June 21-22, called it the best conference they had attended this year or even ever.

“The opportunity to share time with, and be inspired by, fellow authors who are proud of their craft and conscientious about their work is priceless,” said Karen Morris.

Christina Gushanas said: “Every session I attended was intriguing and applicable to my career in academia. Not everyone at my institution values academic writing, so to be surrounded by others who were excited about academic and textbook authoring was very motivating!”

Attendees from across the country representing a variety of writing disciplines gathered for sessions on artificial intelligence and authoring, copyright, DEI, writing strategies, productivity, marketing, contracts, and much more.

Before You Start Writing: Identify the Journal You Want to Publish In

By Sierra Pawlak

Dave Harris, an editor and writing coach from Thought Clearing, says identifying the journal you want to publish in early helps you decide what goes into the paper you write.

“You want to identify what journal you’re writing to first, because every journal is different, and if you’re not doing a good job of targeting your article to a specific journal, you’re going to have a harder time getting accepted,” he said, during the April 2024 TAA Conversation Circle discussion on the topic of literature reviews. “At some point where you’ve got this research project that you’ve done and you’re trying to write it up, that’s when you say, ‘here’s the journal I want to go to,’ and you start there, thinking about how to frame your material to suit the journal.”