The actual contents of the slideshow presentation, after several weeks of evolution, comes together in a nifty two-hour session. The slideshow objectives are defined as follows:

Define academic publishing as a field

Review the conventions and ethics of academic writing

Discuss the relevant laws affecting academic publishing

Describe information gathering and research

Describe some written artifacts related to publishing

Review usual academic publisher processes

Explain imagery concerns for publishing

Describe multimedia often created for academic publication

Discuss issues for writers in publishing online

Collaborate around a workshop for academic research and writing (individual specialty identification, identifying potential publishers, strategizing writing projects, identifying potential professional allies, and political and university considerations)

The Opening Activity

The planned opening activity involves a brainstorm by the participants. They will be asked to define the following about themselves.

Your areas of professional expertise

Your areas of professional interests

What you enjoy reading professionally

Your ambitions for academic research, writing, and publishing

Your experiences with academic research, writing and publishing

What you want to learn and achieve with this workshop

The State of the State

It helps to review where academic publishing is currently. Even though it is highly formal writing, it has gone online in terms of the manuscript and image intake, the peer critiques, the editorial and revision, and even the publishing. There are shared digital systems for the various participants in publishing. (Academic writing does not generally refer to the writing on wikis and blogs.)

Academic publishing tends to be done to a pre-defined purchase base (libraries, students, and corporations), and works are not published unless there is a clear market. Publishing niches are defined. In particular domain fields, each major press has a couple main words for the different levels of learners, and those works and authors may go “head-to-head” for market share. Academic publishing has gone digital in terms of publishing and distribution, too…with some organizations buying “perpetual” access rights to databases and repositories.

“Low” Rewards for Writers

Novice writers (it seems to me) assume that there are many more rewards for publishing than there actually are. Of course, those who are faculty will benefit in terms of tenure and in-field recognition. Those outside this academic stream have much less in the way of benefits. Royalty rates for books are low, and few ever get advances anymore. Readership is fairly low, and it takes years to make back some funds for the time that goes into the creation of a text.

Publishing companies also put in a lot of their staff time and moneys to perfecting a text to get it ready for publication, and they have a vested interest in making back what they put in and then raking in some profit to keep their companies going and maybe to pay salaries.

Academic writing may be offered for free on a site to drive traffic to commercial sites, and then services or other aspects of a company actually bring in the cash.

That’s not to say that there’s not personal satisfaction in academic and professional writing and publishing. The “high” that comes from this remains even after many years in the field, but as with every “high,” there is a point of diminishing returns. And there are the perks of free review texts and access to people who would ignore oneself otherwise.

Publishing Practice

The next section of the slideshow then focuses on publishing practices. One concept that is difficult for new writers is the idea of single submission to one publisher. That one publisher then has the rights of first refusal. In other words, there are no multiple submissions. If four or more words are used in the original order from a published source, then there needs to be a clear citation and the use of quotation marks to avoid plagiarism.

Another reality of publishing practice is that the quality of the journal affects the writer’s reputation. The usual method is to start local and small and keep honing the skills until one can publish nationally and internationally. If there is a journal with a bad reputation—in terms of how they treat their writers, in terms of what they put into print—then it’s probably unwise to try to publish there.

New writers need to be able to read the situation and strategically sent the right works to the right publications to get published and to not damage their reputations at the same time.

Local University Policies

Writers should also be aware of local university policies. Any research that has potential effects on people need to be approved with the various institutional review boards. These include the uses of online surveys, how questions are formulated, and how the research is stored and handled over the years. While most universities do not pursue any rights in terms of intellectual property ownership, they may have a fiduciary and IP interest in research and development. That interest may preclude the early publication of research (or the publication at all of research). Grant-funded projects may inject even more complexity in terms of ownership issues, and principal investigators (PIs) on a grant should have a say on what is published—if not for courtesy then for basic legal protections. How primary and secondary research is handled also depends on the domain field values.

I then offer information on specific writing strategies, which may be too minute to address here. What is discussed will depend on the backgrounds of the academic writing and publishing seminar participants.

(The next entry will continue this overview of the slideshow created for this academic writing and publishing seminar. The next section focuses on the issues of authorship and co-authorship.)