Tag Archives: academic writing

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How to get your writing groove back

What makes you a writer? It isn’t some special skill or ability, but rather simply being someone who writes. I think students and even early career faculty often look at senior scholars assuming they have some experience or ability that makes them better writers. While experience and practice helps with writing, the biggest help is simply writing. Yet, even the best writers lose their way. In today’s post, I want to share a few tips about how to get your writing groove back.

I recently completed two major writing projects. Even after working on them for months, I had to do a lot of extra work (binge writing) to get them completed on time. Binge writing is terrible for many reasons, but the greatest issue may be how burned out it makes us.

After those projects were finished, I was completely burned out on writing.

Simply put, I’d lost my writing groove.  

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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.