This morning’s pre-coffee session for #MediaLit14 – has there been a digital revolution, and if so, what might it look like?:
Tag: Publishing
Categories
Getting a Scholarly Monograph Published
Having published my first book, with calls for a sequel of case studies … I would like to get my PhD turned into a book this year (10 years aftetr I finished the PhD), so this guidance may be helpful:
It involves blood, sweat and tears, and the experience is most frequently likened to childbirth. But with the right support and guidance, the process of publishing an academic book – a key step in most scholarly careers – need not be too excruciating. While the careful crafting of the manuscript itself is the key step in a book’s formation, many other elements contribute to the creation of the finished volume and, ideally, the author will benefit from the expertise of colleagues and professionals at every stage of its gestation. For first-time or inexperienced authors who have set their sights on a career-enhancing scholarly monograph, however, getting to grips with the dos and don’ts of academic publishing can be daunting.Times Higher Education asked a panel of academic authors to share their experience and expertise and to point out pitfalls to avoid.
Read full article.
Categories
The Digital Age and the Monograph
This is interesting sounding, especially as my PhD (which I still want to turn into a book) is image heavy:
For monographs, these included the ability for authors to make additional datasets available for academics to work with. Monographs could also contain extra images that it may not be possible to include in a traditional book print run.
Professor Crossick added that such additions could be “really exciting”. “The monograph can become a much more dynamic form of communication with readers; so a community of people is built up around the monograph engaging with it,” he said.
But he maintained that the integrity of the publication must remain and readers should not be able to edit texts as is possible on Wikipedia.
Read full piece, and a letter in response.
Categories
Academics Writing Too Fast?
Interesting piece … look out for the words that are used!
We all know that academics, under constant pressure to publish, are writing too fast, with little time and even less inclination to craft their prose as scholars of old might have done. Consequently, it is easy to complain about declining aesthetic standards, but this does not get to the heart of what is going wrong, particularly with academic writing in the social sciences.
Read full article.
Categories
Speed Up/Slow Down?
Is the world too fast, or the publishing process too slow?
So much is going on, and so quickly, in so many different places: for me, for you, for people we know, for people we don’t know, for people whose lives we can’t even imagine, but about whom journalists, bloggers and tweeters are desperate to get us to worry. And of course, with so much going on, one wants to intervene. Here is my opinion, or insult, with a click of a button immortalised in cyberspace.
Meanwhile, it still takes me a couple of months to write a 9,000-word article for publication in a refereed journal. It still takes months for the journal to respond. The inevitable revision stage occupies another few months. And then, when the article is accepted, I may find out that it won’t be published for another two years. And that’s a 15-page article. Don’t even ask me how long it takes to get a book written, revised and published.
I am not saying that this is wrong. I help to edit a journal myself and review manuscripts, and that’s how it goes. Art is long, etc. I am only saying that it is frustrating.
Read full story.