A Copyeditor’s Suggestions for Tightening Up Your Prose

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!

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2025 TAA Conference Bookstore Featured Book: ‘Publish & Flourish’

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.

Purchase in the 2025 TAA Conference Bookstore

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How Your Professional Purpose and Identity Can Impact Your Work Life

By Angelica Ribeiro, Ph.D.

Being aware of our professional purpose can play an important role in leading us to a happier life at work. That’s because our purpose can reveal elements of our identity that encourage us to live up to our values and create meaningful habits. Let me explain.

My professional purpose is to contribute to (a) language learners’ education by teaching, researching, and sharing knowledge with educators and (b) other people’s happiness by writing books and sharing positivity. After identifying my professional purpose, I realized that it revealed three main elements of my identity: a professor, a researcher, and a writer.

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2025 TAA Virtual Conference on Textbook & Academic Authoring Call for Proposals Now Open

The TAA Conference Committee invites proposals for its 2025 Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference, which will be held online June 6-7. Presenting at TAA’s 2025 Conference provides an opportunity to share your knowledge, experiences, and ideas with other textbook authors, academic authors, and industry professionals. The theme is “The Future is Now.” We welcome proposals from first-time and veteran presenters! The deadline for submitting a proposal is October 13, 2024.

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How Social Connections Can Positively Impact Writers

By Angelica Ribeiro, Ph.D.

As a writer, you have likely experienced negative emotions at some point. Whether it is receiving a rejection letter for your manuscript, facing criticism for your ideas, or getting stuck in your writing, it is normal to feel this way. The key is to learn how to cope with these emotions rather than trying to eliminate them.

Social connections can be a great tool for managing negative emotions like stress, frustration, and disappointment. Robert Waldinger, the leading author of The Good Life, explains how warm social connections can regulate your negative emotions:

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Daphne C. Watkins Receives Pynn-Silverman Lifetime Achievement Award From TAA

Daphne C. Watkins, a Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan, has been awarded the Pynn-Silverman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA). The award was established to honor individuals whose achievements over a career of devoted effort and service demonstrate the highest degree of commitment to excellence in authoring works to advance their discipline; encourage, enlighten and support the work of colleagues; and educate students in the field. The award is named for Ron Pynn and Franklin Silverman, two charter members of TAA who pursued and modeled these qualities in their own work.

“I am deeply honored to have been selected for this award,” said Watkins. “Thank you!”

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