Are you interested in presenting at the 2025 TAA Virtual Conference? Submit your proposal by October 13, 2024, for the chance to share your expertise. Attendees are textbook, academic and aspiring authors, as well as graduate students and industry professionals, all of which are eager to learn and grow in this industry.
The 2025 Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference will be held online June 6-7. We invite presenters, first-time to veteran-level, to submit a proposal.
By Janet Salmons, Ph.D.
“The past is prologue.” – William Shakespeare in The Tempest
We know how to proof and edit without mercy. We are accustomed to having our writing reviewed by editors and peers. What happens when we take these processes to the next level and initiate a critical review with an eye to a radical update, synthesis, and new publication(s) based on the writing we’ve done throughout our careers? That is the project I am undertaking as a fellow of the Center for Advanced Internet Studies. The concept grew out of a TAA conference session, so I look forward to sharing lessons learned and inviting you to consider curating your work.
By Michelle Rivera-Clonch, PhD
We often hear about the hazards of an Unskilled Inner Critic and, like most things, there’s more to the story. Our Skilled Inner Critic, when called upon, promotes a writing flow that encourages us to be calm, cool, connected and creative. We have access to both Critics—it’s about the intensity and frequency that we rely upon each one to help us complete the writing project.
Why is writing so terrifying? Dr. Michelle R. Boyd’s Becoming the Writer You Already Are explains why being afraid of writing is neither strange nor shameful. And introduces the Writing Metaphor, a tool that illuminates what you already know about overcoming writing challenges. Becoming shows you how to consult, trust, and follow that process. So you can live a pleasurable, productive, satisfying writing life.
By Laura Poole
I’ve been copyediting scholarly nonfiction for many years now, and I have some gentle suggestions to academic writers who would like to tighten up their prose.
These are all suggestions at the phrase level, not the sentence level, to reduce wordiness, impose active voice, and improve flow. There are NOT hard-and-fast rules and should not be done as a knee-jerk reflex. There are times when these suggested edits won’t work or will change the meaning of the phrase; in these cases, don’t do them!
Triple your productivity. Write prose that is clearer, better organized, and more compelling. Publish in better journals and get more grants. Ninety scholars who followed the steps were studied, and 95% reported that their writing improved. They also increased then number of manuscripts submitted from a rate of two per year to nearly six. You can too, with Tara Gray’s, Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar.
