Violets are blue
‘Revise and Resubmit’
Roses are a prickly bush or shrub
Violets are a herbaceous plant
Watch for more #AcademicValentines on Twitter throughout the weekend—you don’t even need a Twitter account to see all of the hilarious tweets!
Happy writing!
Many trends are affecting the academic and textbook publishing industries. TAA regularly examines and reflects on these trends in its newsletter, during its annual conference, and in webinars and other communications with TAA members. One of the trends currently affecting the industry is consolidation, as corporations purchase academic and textbook publishing companies and consolidate them under large corporate umbrellas. A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article discussed an example of this trend. Informa, a corporation that owns the huge scholarly publishing company Taylor & Francis, bought Ashgate Publishing last summer. By November, Informa had closed Ashgate’s U.S. office and laid off several Ashgate staff, according to a petition at Change.org. The Chronicle article noted that Informa “has become the latest adversary for academics worried about consolidation in academic publishing.”
While the debate over print versus digital textbooks (etextbooks) is not new, the content of that debate has shifted in recent years to which is a more effective learning tool for students. As publishers, instructors and students push towards offering more digital textbooks and learning products, will the benefits outweigh the negatives? Several studies have found that it not only takes readers longer to read text on a screen, they tend to skim much more and thus absorb and retain less information than reading from a physical book. Other etextbook readers have reported the tendency to multi-task while reading. One study reported that 90% of students said they were more likely to multi-task when reading onscreen versus 1% who said they multi-task when reading a print book.
Mark your calendars, the Textbook & Academic Authors Association’s 29th Annual Conference is fast approaching. Don’t miss out on this valuable two-day writing conference where you will gain inspiration for your writing projects, network with veteran authors, and learn strategies to help increase your publishing success. The conference program is ambitious, offering a wide variety of session topics for both veteran and novice authors. Register soon to take advantage of early registration rates.
The holidays are over and it’s time to get back into the swing of work, writing, and finding balance. Did…
Incorporating multimedia resources into learning materials is now standard practice, but according to Laura Frost, Director of the Whitaker Center for STEM Education and chemistry professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, it is important that educators incorporate text, pictures, and audio in ways that will be most useful for learners. Frost is also author of the textbook General, Organic, and Biological Chemistry 2e (Pearson).
