Writing groups provide an opportunity for you to connect with your peers, create a sense of community, and find collaborators for joint projects. By meeting regularly as a group, you can provide one another with peer support and accountability while sharing advice that can help improve writing skills and lead to greater publication success.

1. 8 Strategies for
Successful
Writing Groups

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Writing groups provide an opportunity for you to connect
with your peers, create a sense of community, and find
collaborators for joint projects.
By meeting regularly as a group, you can provide one
another with peer support and accountability while sharing
advice that can help improve writing skills and lead to
greater publication success.
Why a writing group?

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Have each writing group member set writing goals so that
at each meeting, they can share the progress they have
made toward meeting their goals.
Set writing goals1

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 Form writing group members into pairs and spend five minutes
talking about three different topics:
① Teaching interests
② Writing interests
③ Hobbies
 Every five minutes have one person in each pair change to a
different table until everyone has had a change to talk to each other.
Not only does this allow everyone to get to know each another, it
provides the opportunity to develop relationships that could lead to
co-authoring projects.
Speed networking2

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 Invite writing group members to bring along a work in
progress.
 Pair up with partners to read and critique each other’s work.
 Ask reviewers to share what was good about it, what was not
good about it, what stood out, and other constructive
suggestions.
Conduct a peer review3

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 Conduct a group edit of a rejected manuscript that a publisher
sent back with suggestions for improvement.
 Using an overhead projector, have writing group members
work together to show how they would edit the manuscript.
Conduct a group review4

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 Invite senior faculty members who serve as editors
and/or reviewers at various journals to share what
editors look for, and suggestions for getting published.
 Invite faculty textbook authors to share advice about
some aspect of textbook publishing, or solicit specific
questions from writing group members for a Q&A
session.
Invite guest speakers5

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Bring in a set of Cabell’s Directories and work as a group to
develop a list of potential journals to submit to.
Cabell’s Directories are available for all disciplines. They
list all the journals published in each discipline, and their
acceptance rate, website address, style guidelines, types of
articles accepted, and publication tips.
Utilize Cabell’s
Directories
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Ask the dean in charge of tenure and promotion at your
institution to talk to writing group members about tenure
expectations.
Work toward tenure
& promotion
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Invite more experienced writing group members to share
tips and lessons learned from their publishing experiences.
Share your combined
knowledge
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