Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: May 13, 2022

Write. Revise. Repeat. A cycle of productivity for all academic authors, but when does it end? When is the project complete? And, what happens next?

In this week’s collection of articles from around the web, we find advice about making decisions about your writing, what to do after the draft, and how much revising is required. We also have resources on mid-career scholarship and collaboration efforts. Finally, we have some industry news on Creative Commons licensing and the book supply chain.

There’s also the philosophy of Saul Bellow who said, “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” So, I suppose that’s one way to increase productivity and avoid the need to revise. Happy writing!

Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: February 28, 2020

Are you determined to succeed? At the end of the day, are you satisfied with your results? George Lorimer once said, “You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” So what are you determined to do with your textbook and academic writing?

This week’s collection of articles from around the web includes discussion on the future of scholarly communication, how to get published, and an approach to teaching writing that works. It also includes ideas for experimenting and playing with data, looking at different aspects of the same problem, and funding research and innovation through open science efforts.

What all of these ideas, innovations, and results have in common is the determination of one or more individuals to bring an idea to fruition and share it with others. As you approach your writing projects this week, start each day with determination and end them with satisfaction. Happy writing!

The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: November 9, 2018

John Rogers said, “You can’t think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.” The ways in which we approach our academic writing impact the mindset that drives progress and success. In this week’s collection of articles from around the web, we have found several suggestions of ways to improve your writing practice that may just get you through your next “thinking block”.

First, we found examples of habits leading to writing productivity and satisfaction, and a connection between teaching, research, and writing. Next we explore the fundamental element of the paragraph, and honesty and originality in academic writing. We then found discussions on collaboration and unity of the scholarly community at large, ways to get involved as an academic, and a poll on the time commitment of a dissertation effort. Finally, our collection includes industry topics of open access, academic freedom, ethics and data breaches.

If you find yourself facing challenges in your writing efforts this week, we hope you take the advice of John Rogers. Realize that your block is not a writing block, but a thinking block, and write yourself out. Happy writing!

The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: March 30, 2018

We begin this week’s collection of textbook & academic posts from around the web with a royalty calculation update from Cengage as it relates to their Cengage Unlimited service. We then have several articles of interest to textbook authors and faculty considering OER textbook options. Finally, we found advice for academic writers on structuring papers, coping with peer review processes, and being scholar-activists.

Chris Almeida put it best when he said, “The next best thing after finishing writing a chapter is starting a new one.” As you write this week, we hope the end of March brings with it some finished work, and the start of April brings with it new beginnings in your writing.