Category Archives: Writing

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How to respond to a revise and resubmit from an academic journal

When submitting your writing for publication, the best you can often hope for is to receive a revise and resubmit request from the editor. This means the reviewers and editor found value in your manuscript, but want to see revisions. After the revisions, the journal is willing to have you resubmit the manuscript for a second review. While there is no guarantee that the journal will accept the article after revisions, your odds are certainly better than if they rejected you! In today’s post, I will share a few tips and suggestions for how to respond to a revise and resubmit from an academic journal.

I recently went through several rounds of revisions on a manuscript that I am publishing. I received literally hundreds of comments and suggestions for changes. One round of revisions had 277 items to address!!

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Use a model to write better journal articles

One of the joys and curses of academic writing is that we can always do better. Writing is a skill that can be continually improved. Before I begin any writing project, I identify a model that I use as a guide for how to structure my article, chapter, or book. I find this to be a tremendous help in thinking about my project and provides me a concrete targets to shoot for when writing. In today’s post, I will share how to use a model to write better journal articles and improve your success at academic publishing.

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Model articles can offer important tips such as how long various sections should be or how to craft the implications for your study.

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Why you need to start using bibliographic software right now

Writing is hard.  It is also time consuming.  Yet, I constantly see students and faculty that do not take advantage of a simple tool to make writing easier.  Bibliographic software has tremendous advantages that can make the writing process easier and move more quickly.

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References are important for identifying the source of ideas and letting readers know where they can look for additional information.  However, the amount of time spent on references and citation styles far outweighs their value.  

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How to Overcome Writer’s Block

Few things scare students or writers more than writer’s block.  And, of course, writer’s block shows up at the worst times.  There’s nothing like an impending deadline to bring on a severe case of writer’s block.  Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had two major writing projects due.  I couldn’t afford to lose valuable time by simply staring at the screen.  In order to avoid getting stuck while writing, I have a few tricks that I use.  In today’s post, I’ll share my suggestions for how to overcome writer’s block.

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There are many different ways to kick writer’s block to the curb.  These are my five go to approaches when I’m stuck.

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Use the Bucket Method to Write Effective Literature Reviews

Writing a literature may be one of the most difficult aspects of academic writing. When I think back to my own dissertation or doctoral students that I’ve worked with, some of the greatest struggles were tied to the lit review. I believe there are many reasons for this. We all have a tendency to want to read more and more feeling like we never have a full grasp on everything that’s out there. There’s always one more article or book. Additionally, the genre of the lit review is so different from much of the writing that we are exposed to going through school. In fact, I would argue that many of the ways we learn to write cause problems when it comes to writing literature reviews. Over the years, I’ve come up with a method that I use for writing lit reviews and I want to share how you can use the bucket method to write better literature reviews.

Photo credit: Niels Linneberg

Once you have identified the topic for your literature review, you are ready to use the bucket method.