The most useful textbook & academic writing posts of the week: October 30, 2015

November 1 is two short days away from being here. Since 2011 when Charlotte Frost (Founder and Director of PhD2Published) created #AcBoWriMo, November has been a month long marathon for academic writers to declare their writing goals, write and share progress updates along the way, plus connect and encourage other academics all over the world also striving to reach their writing goals. Academic Writing Month (AcWriMo for short), as it is now called, is the perfect excuse to start a blog or Twitter account to share your goals and progress, to encourage others, and to receive support and encouragement as you write.

The top 10 reasons we don’t reach our goals (And how you can banish them!)

It’s October, so it’s a good time to get a little witchy. Imagine we are under a clear and starry sky at night. Let’s add a cauldron into the picture. Come circle around it with me. Together we are going to cook up the foulest stew you have ever tasted. The ingredients will be all the reasons why people don’t reach their goals. We will throw them in one by one. Watch, as we do, how the brew starts to bubble and smoke.

Join us 10/15 for the TAA Webinar, ‘Expressing Yourself Clearly in (Academic) English’

Is English not your first language? When you submit an article to a peer-reviewed journal do the reviewers advise having the article professionally edited? Does the information you’re imparting get lost among the words or tangled in syntax? Join us Thursday, October 15 from 2-3 p.m. ET for the TAA Webinar, “Expressing Yourself Clearly in (Academic) English”, where Jane Mackay, owner/editor of Janemac Editing, and freelance writer and editor Amanda R. Smith, will share tips for polishing your prose and expressing yourself clearly, teach you how to recognize typical problems, and give you techniques for fixing them. Register

GUEST POST: 4 Ways to work-life balance in 4 minutes

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “work-life balance” so often that it makes you want to punch someone in the face  — but you don’t have time to do that because as you read this, it’s not even 8 am, you’re late for a deadline, you have a class to teach, your daughter’s soccer coach wants to talk to you later today, you have 24 unread emails, and you forgot (again!) to pack a healthy snack for your daughter to eat before practice.

Featured Member Kathleen King – Motivation, marketing & the ‘easy fix’

Kathleen P. King, professor of Adult and Higher Education at the University of South Florida in Tampa, is an award winning author of 30 books, most recently 147 Tips for Emerging Scholars and The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology, and more than 175 journal articles and research papers. She is known for her sessions and innovative topics and is a popular international keynote and conference speaker, mentor, and professor. King’s areas of research include instructional technology, faculty development, and mentoring. Here King shares what motivates her to write, tips on marketing your works, and the ‘easy fix’:

Join us 9/24 for the TAA Webinar: ‘Designing Your Online Presence to Communicate Your Academic Brand’

Increasingly, PhD students and junior scholars are creating an online presence to promote themselves and their work. Academics are also designing an online presence to assist in their transition to a career outside of academia or a different academic path within the university. But, there are so many platforms to choose from. How do you evaluate which ones to use, given the number and variety of options? Join us Thursday, September 24 from 3-4 p.m. ET for “Designing Your Online Presence to Communicate Your Academic Brand”, presented by Lee Skallerup Bessette, a Blogger and Social Media Advisor, and Paula Thompson, an Academic Coach, both from Academic Coaching & Writing, for an introduction to the most popular platforms and tools to help you decide which ones might be right for you.<