ReadySetPublish

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ReadySetPublish!

• Maureen Pettitt, Ph.D.
• Skagit Valley College
• PNAIRP 2007
• Victoria, BC

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The Topics

• Identifying the right topic for your article
• Finding an appropriate outlet for your article
• Writing and editing
• Understanding the submission and refereeing
  processes
• Handling rejections and requests for revisions

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The outcomes of any serious research can only be
to make two questions grow where only one grew
before. Thorstein Veblen

• ??

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Generating Potential TopicsPassion or Practical?
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Generating Potential Topics

• What have you been researching lately?
• What are you passionate about?
• Are they the sameor not?

Fill your paper with the breathings of your
heart. William Wordsworth
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The Research Journal
Record your ideas!!!!
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Potential Publication Outlets

• What potential audiences might be interested in
  your research?
• Do you have a preference for print journals?
  E-journals?
• How much time do you want to spend on writing and
  revising the article?

Publication is the auction of the Mind of Man.
Emily Dickinson
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Potential Publication Outlets

• Resources for finding journals
• http//dmoz.org/Reference/Education/Journals/
• http//journalseek.net
• Look at contents/abstracts from several journals
  that seem appropriate for your topic, then
• Carefully review the submission guidelines
• See if there is an accept rate and/or time from
  accept to publication

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Get Writing!!(for some, its a bloody process)
Theres nothing to writing. All you do is sit
down at a typewriter and open a vein. Walter
Wellesley Red Smith
Writing is easy All you do is sit staring at a
blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on
your forehead.
Gene Fowler
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Collaborate or Fly Solo?
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Research Articles

• Conceptual framework
• Context
• The research question(s)
• Literature review
• Methodology
• Empirical findings
• Implications for practice or policy

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Other Options

• Research Briefs (i.e., Journal of Applied
  Research in the Community College) Editorial
  pieces (i.e., Liberal Education)
• Monographs or Abstracts (i.e., the League for
  Innovation in the Community Colleges Leadership
  Abstracts and Learning Abstracts)
• Book Reviews

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Writing Relationships

• Your best friend is the Publication Manual of the
  American Psychological Association (5th Ed)
• There are several web-based resources available
• http//apastyle.apa.org/
• http//campusgw.library.cornell.edu/newhelp/res_st
  rategy/citing/apa.html
• http//owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

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Writing Relationships

• Your second best friend is the colleague, mate,
  or pal who is willing to review and make comments
  on your drafts

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Writing Relationships

• Your third best friends are web-based search
  engines, especially Google Scholar, and on-line
  library databases like EBSCOHost and ProQuest
  get journal alerts from the latter two for the
  journals of interest to you!

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Your article should.

• Say something new, important, different or
  interesting
• Indicate an awareness of recent literature or
  debates on the topic
• Address the journals readers/audience
• Be well written

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Writing Tips

• EDIT, EDIT, EDIT

No author dislikes to be edited as much as he
dislikes not to be published. Russel Lynes
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You write to communicate to the hearts and minds
of others whats burning inside you. And we edit
to let the fire show through the smoke.
Arthur Polotnik
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The Submission Process

• Review articles in recent issues of the journals
  in which you have an interest
• Still not sure your topic/theme is suitable for
  the journal? Ask an editor
• Read the submission guidelines thoroughly and
  follow them!
• Submit one article to one journal at a time
• If your article is rejected, you are free to
  submit it to another journal

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The Refereeing Process

• Refereeing is a long process reviewers are
  generally unpaid volunteers
• The decisions are usually accept, accept with
  minor revisions, revise and resubmit, or reject
• The accept decision is not common expect to do
  revisions
• Dont be put off by harsh comments
• Contradictory referee comments? Ask the editor
  for advice.

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Revision

• Remember, Yes, but means Yes with a detour
• Think of the revision process as a learning
  opportunity (dont gag!)
• Address the comments note what youve done (or
  not done) and why

Easy reading is damn hard writing. Nathaniel
Hawthorne
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Rejection
I am returning this otherwise good typing paper
to you because someone has printed gibberish all
over it and put your name at the top.
Unnamed English Professor Ohio
University
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Rejection

• No might well mean Not today.
• In some ways, you are selling a product so, be
  flexible. Have more than one solution for the
  problem Do you have another approach? A
  different spin with more fire?

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Final Thoughts

• Dont get discouraged

Every writer I know has trouble writing. Joseph
Heller
I love being a writer. What I cant stand is the
paperwork. Peter De Vries
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Thanks for your attention!!!Questions?
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A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and
questionsas attempts to find out something.
Success and failure are for him answers above
all. Friedrich Nietzsche