The near-simultaneous rise of interest in open source and open access in the context of academic libraries has made these concepts ripe for confusion. Adding to the confusion is the presence of projects that are both open source and open access. Rather than cringing in silence when these terms are used interchangeably, I’m hoping to clarify the conversation. Note: I’m not an expert in either concept, so please feel free to research more and/or to add your comments. Continue reading
It’s been a busy couple of weeks (as evidenced by the crickets chirping on the blog / FB / twitter). I’ve been on the prowl for our next NYC apartment, which was such an unexpectedly complex process that it will merit a blog post on its own at some point. I was also briefly in Dallas to deal with our belongings (aka The Storage Unit of Doom) and house there–egads–and I’ve still got work on that end to accomplish. BUT. Here I am, back to academia and writing!
I’ve been struggling for months now with how to turn my dissertation into articles. Part of the problem stems from the way that social sciences dissertations are divided by functional, rather than topical, chapters. My chapters are titled exactly the same as most dissertations in my field (and the wider social sciences): 1) Introduction, 2) Literature Review, 3) Methodology, 4) Results (the data), and 5) Discussion (or conclusions, implications). By contrast, my master’s thesis in art history was great fodder for insta-articles (ah, the humanities!) because the chapters were topical: 1) introduction, 2) history, 3) iconography, 4) locations/types of images, 5) image function in the Catholic Mass.
My dissertation was a big project, something that needs to be broken down into digest-able chunks to work as articles. However, since I didn’t have to divide up the project initially, conceptualizing this after the fact is difficult. The distilled version of my dissertation study is this: I studied the education and other preparatory methods experienced by academic library administrators, and looked at how valuable/relevant they perceived each method to be, related to their academic leadership as administrators. My initial thought was to write one literature review article and two data-driven empirical articles: one on educational background (degrees earned), and another on the five other preparatory methods. But as I delved into the data, I had trouble separating the educational results from the other methods and began to see that the mentoring preparation might merit an article of its own.
I’m going back to the beginning to re-evaluate my plans. For the education-focused article, I’m going to limit my focus based on results with the greatest potential interest for my audience and impact on the disciplines (of library science and higher education). I may decide the rest of the educational data merits a follow-up article, particularly since I think there would be value in my performing some additional statistical analysis on my existing data. But if I wait to write an article after I perform those analyses, I’ll be putting off publication by months and end up with far too much information for a single article.
This blog post is sponsored by: Tiny Academic Batman!
I’m waiting to conceptualize the second article until I have a firm outline and draft for this first article. I’ve learned over and over that if I try too much at once, I can get overwhelmed and become completely un-scholarly-productive (a.k.a. “ALL THE THINGS“). Thus, I’m limiting my focus. I’m also dividing my writing time into handy 2-hour chunks, divided by scheduled time-slots for other tasks (including my academic reading–it’s so much easier to keep up with it if I schedule in a few hours a week). I’m planning on starting the literature review / meta-analysis article next, and may actually outline that while I’m working on the first article (after all, there will be some overlap).
I’m finding the most helpful tip to be starting with the abstract. I usually start with the general empirical article outline, which roughly follows the dissertation itself: introduction, lit review, methodology, results/findings, discussion/implications/future research ideas, and conclusion. However, starting with that outline has been frustrating for me this time around–for one, because those headings are so generic. By starting with the abstract, I’m creating a one-sentence summation of the specifics for each section (about five sentences total), which is a far better and more specific guide of what I plan to write.
The other key to my writing productivity is the concept of “draft vomit.” That is, I turn off my inner editorial voice that wants to edit sentences as I type, and simply try to write down ideas as quickly as they come. This is most easily done in short sprints, and it takes practice to loose your inhibitions and simply write. It’s tough enough to do that sort of thing in fiction, but in research, when we have an obligation to cite sources and explain research methods, it can feel flat-out wrong to write so freely. I must continually remind myself that producing content is the key, and that I’ll edit for sources and grammar and rational reasoning later.
Well. It’s a work in progress!
Finally, there’s my own past series on writing journal articles (from scratch, not from dissertations–but still).
I’ve had a draft of this post for months–hey, look at me, finally working on finishing this series of posts! For previous posts on this topic, see:
I highly recommend thinking about the journals you read the most, the ones that come up in your research results most frequently, because they are likely publishing topics similar to yours. Google Scholar can help with that, as well. And here are the formal tools for finding journals, journal contacts, and academic ranking of journals:
In a cover letter, the goal is to tell them what you’re writing about and what your (relevant) credentials are. For instance, if I was writing an article about imagery in government-created comics for the army (yep, they exist), I’d cite my master’s in art history and my background as a government documents librarian. Sure, I have other degrees and other work experience, but it’s important to point out the specific areas of my education and experience that relate, that show why I might have something interesting and intelligent to say about the topic.
Be brief. Give them only the information they need, and wrap it up. Don’t waste words being formal or making small talk or going on about your experience at length. If you’re wordy, they’re less likely to take the time to read your letter at all, much less your manuscript.
Try to limit the letter to three paragraphs:
This varies based on your discipline, of course. I’ve got several stand-bys for both library science and higher education. I’m a member of ASHE (Association for Studies in Higher Education), and I read their regular newsletter for CFPs–they’re very thorough. I’m also subscribed to my Higher Ed department’s list-serv, where faculty and students often post CFPs and RFPs.
For library science, I’m on several list-servs that are helpful, but these are my primary resources:
Here’s what I learned from 18 months spend in the trenches of the Texas Library Association Programs Committee, reading program proposals.
The most important step, of course, is sending off that cover letter & manuscript, or that program proposal. If you don’t send it, you don’t have a chance of getting it. I frequently use this philosophy to get myself off of my perfectionist, intimidated, procrastinating duff and submit things. And the crazy part is that I’m accepted more often than not. So I repeat: Go forth and SEND IT.
For previous posts on this topic, see:
Don’t let your “inner editor” slow you down with correcting typos: grammar, spelling, comlete sentences, and coherent thought are NOT your goal now. Your goal is to get as much thought and RAW CONTENT down as possible. Does it sound stupid? Is it wrong? Get it out anyway, all your thoughts there in the file or on the paper.
NOW you’re free to get OCD on the grammar, conveying thought, etc. I typically do two to three editing passes with printed copies and a colored pen and/or highlighter, because I catch more typos and sentence structure issues in print. Then I do at least one editing pass in the electronic file, usually as I’m typing in previous edits. I also don’t worry too much about formatting or citations until the second or third draft when I pull out my spiral-bound, tabbed APA Manual. That’s a good activity to do when you have some time to work but no brain left for creating content–I do this on days when I feel like I should write, but my brain will only say “coffeeeeee.” Often it’s draggy Friday afternoons or late in the evening with sitcom reruns on in the background.
Sometimes I’ll pass it by a colleague, but unfortunately I’m doing that less these days. It’s hard to ask a colleague to read and comment on a 20-page paper when you know they’re behind on the same work deadlines as you. But in my learning community we pass drafts around a few times a year or at least discuss the ideas and theory as they unfold, an extremely helpful process. And if you’ve already presented this content as a poster and particularly as a presentation, you’ve most likely built upon content-related feedback.
If you want to get regular external editing for your work, there are two good methods. First, get a dedicated editing/critique partner. Folks, this is what the internet was made for: pairing up people with similar interests, possibly geographically removed from each other. Twitter is fantastic for this, existing networks like ALA and other professional groups are stellar, and if you need suggestions of where to look, email me and we’ll brainstorm. (I love being a librarian and getting paid to help people–woohoo!)
Second, you can hire an editor. Yeah, this isn’t something I want to do with my money either, but if you’re desperate or writing your dissertation, it can be a good option. Want a cost-effective option? Mine your local English departments for rhetoric/formatting nerds who actually like to do that and will work in exchange for coffee and laundry change. It doesn’t hurt to put up a flyer and ask.
Okay, yes. I know this feeling from my studio art classes; trust me, you will NEVER be fully satisfied with a painting. You will always, years later when that thing hangs in your living room, look at it and notice a detail you should fix. But you know what? Perfectionism is the enemy of accomplishment. DONE is far better than perfect. Getting your knowledge and insights out there into the world where other people can think about them and try them out and build further upon that knowledge is the purpose of research–the purpose isn’t to create the Perfect American Article. Save your OCD for something practical like keeping your kitchen spotless (and if you’re into that, come over to my place, will you? It’s a terrific mess because I’ve been writing).
But back to the question–when are you done? Well, here’s my very non-professional rule: when I can’t STAND to look at it any longer, OR when I run out of time to do edits, whichever comes first. Seriously. Because you know what? I’m going to send that article to a journal editor. And they, and likely about two other professionals are going to read it and make content edits, and then they’ll either accept it (on condition that I edit it), or they’ll reject it (and possibly give me some pointers on why they rejected it, giving me edits anyway before I submit to another journal). For an accepted article, I’ll make those edits and then a copy editor will send it back with grammatic and spelling edits. They want to be sure what they publish is as spotless as they can make it, so they’ll catch all kinds of things I missed. Trust me, my English BA is a bit wounded when I get back an edited draft… but simultaneously I’m relieved they caught my crazy comma-splicing before it went to press.
If in doubt about a draft or proposal, send it anyway–the worst thing that can happen is getting rejected. And getting rejected is just one step forward toward your goal: it means you actively put something out there, and that you’re one more rejection letter closer to accomplishing your goal of getting published.
For previous posts on this topic, see:
Strangely, I find research articles one of the easiest article types to write… once I get started, that is. They are also intimidating for me, so it takes me awhile to convince myself to start writing, even though by that point I’ve already done the research. But research articles for library science and education, the fields in which I publish, tend to have the same outline for all research articles:
I tend to use this format as the guideline for my research-based conference presentations as well. It’s the same format as a social sciences dissertation, and it boils down to the following guides.
What’s your topic about? why is it important? why did you perform this research?
What are the most significant things that other people have written about this topic? unusual findings? commonalities? methodological flaws? what gap in the literature are you filling, or what study are you replicating?
What did you do?
For me, this is the most intimidating, but also most straightforward part of a research article. The title “methodology” sounds grand, but really it boils down to following the rule, “plainly tell your audience what you did in enough detail that they could exactly replicate your study.” My trick for this: I pretend I’m telling a colleague about the study, and then suddenly it doesn’t seem as intimidating! Plus, I tend to write clearly and concisely when I think of it as explaining to a colleague, without being in “academic mode” which causes me problems (wordiness, jargon, convulted sentences). I am decidedly of the “less is more” camp of academic writing.
What statistical analyses did you perform, and what were the results?
Report these either in the text, or in a table. APA says do one or the other, but if the results are particularly complex, I break the rules to do both, in favor of clarity.
How do you interpret these result? what do they mean? what implications do they have on the topic, on library/educational practice, or on the literature previously mentioned?
That’s it. It’s not rocket science, it’s writing.
Geeky Artist Librarian 