What are the odds of getting published?

Some good advice here and in my view the focus is always on resilience. Very useful for academics!

Milly Schmidt

How many times have you plugged the question: ‘What are the odds of getting published?’ into google? Me – an innumerable amount. There is nothing more mesmeric than seeing that ‘magic’ number of new authors who manage to score a publishing deal or literary agent in any given year. And nothing gives more of a thrill of excitement than reading the Writer’s Digest ‘How I got My Agent’ series, or the query appraisals over at Call my Agent! I am also constantly searching and devouring success stories direct from the writers themselves, like Louise Allen and Paula Weston, who both signed with literary agent Lyn Tranter in 2016 and 2011 respectively.

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What is normal?

I think this also applies to academics who publish journals and books. Maximum exposure is essential and blogging is a tool which can help develop such an exposure.

Henry Walton

“The Journals of Thaddeaus Shockpocket – ALBION 77”

To blog or not to blog? My publisher says that it is imperative to blog. Much like the ‘publish or perish’ maxim in the academic world, the modern world of the author apparently requires a blog in order to maximize exposure. I wonder what it is that makes blogs so important or, more to the point, so popular in our current culture. Well, blogs that focus on specific topics like the latest cooking trends are a great source of practical information such as new recipes and ways to prepare dishes that otherwise are simply old and tired. Movie review blogs steer me to pictures that suit my particular interests and book review blogs do similar for my reading selections.

But what about all those other blogs? Those that simply chronicle someone’s activities or their random thoughts on arbitrary topics with no rhyme or…

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Book Launch!!

First of all I would like to send everyone my very best wishes for 2017.

I blogged a few months ago about a book chapter that I wrote for a book called“Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Working towards Decolonization, Indigeneity and Interculturalism”. As previously mentioned I am very excited that the book will be  available from January 20^th 2017, you can find it on Amazon and Springer. In light of this a formal launch is being organised by the editors at a seminar in England on March 10^th-11^th 2017.

Please find attached a flyer with all details. If you are not able to come along but would like to be kept informed about the event and any activities that flow from it please follow the  hashtag #decolonizingteachered on twitter.

You can find the flyer about the launch here: decolonizing-teacher-education-flyer-final

Article: Costs, efficiency, and economies of scale

I don’t normally do this, and something I hope to do more of in the future. If I find a interesting or curious article then I would like to write a short blog post on my thoughts, and hopefully share with the wider community.

The article I came across the other day is very timely, written by my colleague on “Costs, efficiency, and economies of scale and scope in the English higher education sector“. To me this comes at an excellent time for many Universities who are facing so many pressures on so many different fronts. It feels like one of those articles that can help many institutions develop the fabled “competitive advantage”. In the sector as a whole there is still a lot of work to be done in this area, and this very much feels like a step in the right direction.

You can read it by clicking here.

 

Book available online …

Conducting research and writing is always a labour of love and dedication. Thus, I was very happy to see that a book chapter I wrote a couple of months ago will soon be available on Amazon within a book called “Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Working towards Decolonization, Indigeneity and Interculturalism”. The book is initially designated for a  Hardcover release on 20 Jan 2017. You can check it by clicking here.

The book is about Culturally Responsive pedagogy and the importance of academics and teachers reflecting on themselves and on their pedagogy.

My work is on Chapter 2, please do check it out. There is no book cover yet but hopefully once that is live I will update this post.

 

Seven Things Every Scholarly Publisher Should Know about Researchers — The Scholarly Kitchen

What should publishers know about researchers and their work? Alice Meadows and Karin Wulf follow up a post earlier this year about “Seven Things Every Researcher Should Know about Scholarly Publishing.”

via Seven Things Every Scholarly Publisher Should Know about Researchers — The Scholarly Kitchen

Academic SEO: The future of research citations

Using SEO principles to increase research citations

As academics we spend countless hours, days and weeks developing papers which we hope will one day make a difference in the world. One metric that is often used to measure this difference is article citations. The more citations a paper can gather the higher the impact this can have on the career of an academic. However for many academics once they submit their paper and it has been has accepted for publishing they sit on their laurels and expect citations to come rolling in.

In the brave new world of the internet this is no longer the case. With so much data and information out there, getting your paper seen is becoming increasingly difficult. Academics need to understand that they are competing for citations in a global marketplace, the competition is fierce. Hence this blog post looks at the process of Academic SEO, which is the application of marketing principles to rank your research higher in the popular search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing), and hence increasing the chances of your research being found and cited.

writing the introduction to a journal article

This is a really good introduction into the world of academic publishing.

patter

So you want to write a journal article but are unsure about how to start it off? Well, here’s a few things to remember.

The introduction to your journal article must create a good impression. Readers get a strong view of the rest of the paper from the first couple of paragraphs. If your work is engaging, concise and well structured, then readers are encouraged to go on. On the other hand, if the introduction is poorly structured, doesn’t get to the point, and is either boring or too clever by half, then the reader may well decide that those two or three paragraphs were enough. Quite enough.

At the end of the introduction, you want your reader to read on, and read on with interest, not with a sense of impending doom, or simply out of duty. The introduction therefore has to say what the reader is going…

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Making the most of academic conferences

Another thoughtful blog by Weekademia. Good suff.

Weekademia

“Been there, done that.” #2

‘Been there, done that’ posts are where I share experiences, mistakes, life lessons and advice primarily for students and early career researchers.

I stumbled upon an interesting blog series this week by a PhD student, Owl_Meat, on “Harsh truths and bad conferences” (part 1, part 2 and part 3).

“Conferences can be terrible.”

I have been there, done that.  I have been the awkward poster tube hauling lonely academic wondering who on Earth will come and visit my poster and who I can find to have lunch with.  Whilst I agree there is room for improvement in conference organisation and social events etc., I am not sure the traditional academic conference format is entirely to blame.  In hindsight, I could have been more proactive to make the most of those early awkward conferences.  So whilst we wait for innovative improvements (and I hope they come), here are…

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Do I really need the Kudos?

Some of you may have already heard of a new web-based service called Kudos. The main USP of the software is to help academics develop awareness and greater impact of their research through the main academic (Academia.edu, researchgate.net) and public social media engines (Twitter, Facebook). It is aimed at researchers, publishers and institutions and is free to register.

So what are the facts behind the marketing buzz. Here are my views on the advantage and disadvantages of this unique software and how useful I really think it is in helping to develop awareness of your work.