The Where: Constructing an effective writing environment

Once you know what you need to work on, establishing an environment with the right atmosphere, tools, and resources necessary for completing the project is equally important. In the previous article, we explored the first W – The What: Defining a research project. In this article, we will focus on The Where: Constructing an effective writing environment. This discussion began with a self-reporting of participant writing environments and continued with discussion of ways to improve them.

Q1: How would you describe your current writing environment?

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To keep writing, use a time log

“What did I do today!” you wail. For the life of you, wiped out at the end of the day and ready for binge TV, you can’t remember anything you did except overeat for lunch. Maybe you recall writing for eight minutes midmorning and half-heartedly pecking at your journal article in progress, but otherwise the day’s a blank. And paradoxically, you feel you’re always so busy, dashing from one thing to the next and never getting it all done.

Sound familiar? Where does the time go? Especially for academic writers, with the responsibilities of teaching, mandatory committee meetings, office hours, reading endless memos, emailing responses, and comforting a colleague who just got her article rejected—again—it’s an ongoing challenge to take hold and wrestle our writing time to the ground, or desk.

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Just two weeks left to register early and save!

Early registration for TAA’s June Conference ends April 15. All rates increase by $50 after that date. Join us in Old City, Philadelphia, June 14-15 and prepare to be inspired!

TAA’s conference program features three writing tracks:

Academic Writing Track: Learn tips on how to plan your writing projects for maximum productivity; create writing that is clearer, better organized, and more compelling; revise at the macro and micro levels with efficiency; safeguard your scholarship; get started with conducting and writing systematic reviews; use qualitative coding to enrich data analysis; collaborate more effectively; and more.

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: March 29, 2019

This week’s collection of articles from around the web has a spring-like atmosphere of newness, pruning, and growth. We begin with two questions: “What does academic work look like?” and “Which academics are happy?” We then explore emerging trends in the academic publishing lifecycle, revision processes, and synthesis in a literature review. We close with new ideas on re-reading and technological support for peer review.

Kelly Barnhill once said, “That’s the magic of revisions – every cut is necessary, and every cut hurts, but something new always grows.” Whatever revisions face your writing (or writing practices) this week, find the magic that helps you grow. Happy writing!

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The What: Defining a research project

During Academic Writing Month 2018, TAA hosted a series of #AcWriChat TweetChat events focused on the five W’s of academic writing. Throughout the series we explored The What: Defining a research project; The Where: Constructing an effective writing environment; The When: Setting realistic timeframes for your research; The Who: Finding key sources in the existing literature; and The Why: Explaining the significance of your research. This series of posts brings together the discussions and resources from those events. Let’s start with The What: Defining a research project.

Before moving forward on any academic writing effort, it is important to understand what the research project is intended to understand and document. In order to accomplish this, it’s also important to understand what a research project is. This is where we began our discussion of the five W’s of academic writing.

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Veteran academic authors Stevens, Caskey, Reeder, and Bertrand Jones to speak at TAA’s June Conference

Veteran authors Dannelle Stevens, Micki Caskey, and Julie Reeder of Portland State University, and Tamara Bertrand Jones of Florida State University will present “From the Blank Page to the Published Journal Article: Let’s Practice Strategies to Ensure Success” at TAA’s 32nd Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference. The conference will be held in Old City, Philadelphia, June 14-15, 2019.

This hands-on presentation will focus on three key strategies designed to take you from the blank page to the published piece. From these four accomplished faculty, three of whom are journal editors, session participants will learn how to identify the most compatible journal for their work, carefully structure articles to meet expectations, and respond appropriately to feedback from journal editors.

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