2017 Fall Webinars – Improve your skills

TAA fall webinar seriesWhether you are interested in learning how to publish in scholarly journals, develop a website, use podcasting to promote your scholarship, managing your writing projects, or how to use your research and insights in ways that contribute to the social good, TAA’s fall webinar series for textbook and academic authors has you covered. Join us as various industry experts share their expertise on academic and textbook writing topics. Sign-up early to reserve your spot! Not a TAA member? Learn more about member benefits and join today.

How I’m using Milanote to write my PhD thesis

A PhD thesis is a large piece of writing which compiles several years of research. As such, it needs a great amount of planning not only at the beginning but also during the writing process itself where thoughts might move to another section several times.

My PhD is in the field of nanophysic, exploring the possibility that single molecules could be used as the building blocks of new kinds of microprocessors. My work is based on numerical simulations that run on supercomputers where performance really matters, which could explain my obsession with finding the right tool for a given task.

Productivity tips for authors ‘on the go’

Q: As a “pro on the go” what do you do to ensure you can stay productive?

A: Eric J. Schmieder, author, presenter, and computer technology instructor:

As a corporate trainer and adjunct instructor, I am always on the road and find myself relying more on my mobile device to stay connected, stay productive, and better prepare me to get things done when I do find a place to land with my laptop. I find it important to arm myself with the best tools to keep moving on my long-term projects.

For academics: Are your kids growing up without you?

You were probably thrilled beyond words (mono- and polysyllabic) when your kids were born and you witnessed the true miracle of those so-young lives. The kids grew older, and you hunkered down into your academic career. Maybe your feelings changed—you don’t love them any less, but you may see the children as distracters and interrupters of your work. After all, we have important completions of all the conference abstracts, articles, books, chapters, dissertations, even the course syllabi. And we need to finish all these projects for advancement.

Granted, children can be annoyances and disrupters. Most of the time, though, barring a fall from the tree house, they are bothering you because they want—no, crave—your attention.

Join us 11/18 for the TAA webinar ‘Becoming a Productive Writer: Strategies for Success’

Why does it seem like there’s never enough time to write? One of the key challenges of academic life is balancing the many demands on our time; while writing is generally key to professional success, finding time to write is consistently challenging. Most academics realize that they need to protect their writing time but still struggle to do so. Rather than seeing not-writing as a simple failure, it can be helpful to see it as a reflection of the inherent difficulties of writing and time management.

Join us Friday, November 18 from 12-1 p.m. ET for the TAA webinar, “Becoming a Productive Writer: Strategies for Success,” where presenter Rachael Cayley, who blogs at Explorations of Style and tweets at @explorstyle, will discuss how and why academic writing is so hard and look at some strategies for establishing a productive writing practice.