DIT Graduate Student Conference Keynote, June 2012
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In the opening keynote, Rhona Sharpe will draw on her experience of bidding, writing and editing to explain how to make the most of the research process and improve your publication success. The session is structured around three key activities: reviewing (knowing what editors are looking for), planning a paper and of course, writing. Rhona aims to dispel some myths about academic writing in order to encourage productive research and writing strategies.
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DIT Graduate Student Conference Keynote, June 2012
- 1. Dublin Institute of Technology 12June 2012 Getting your research published: from student to scholar Dr. Rhona Sharpe Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development
- 2. About me Co-edited two books Editor for two journals Reviewer for 10+ journals 8 book chapters 7 referred journal papers 16 reports 9 keynotes 20+ conference papers 14 funded projects
- 4. articles editing keynotes reviewing reading chapters reports projects conferences idea
- 5. What are editors looking for? Original work That is well elaborated and contextualised. Makes a clear statement of its purpose and significance. Is credible - was conducted with rigour Fits the journal’s scope and aims
- 6. Today, I want to look at 1. the research process 2. publishing 3.open scholarly activity
- 7. 1. The research process: evaluation of student support Getting it • Student funded • Uni report services • Internal • Learner conference Development • Uni • Journal in HE committee article (£5K) Networking • Year 2 Publications continuation
- 8. 1. The research process: evaluation of student support Getting it • Student funded • Uni report services • Internal • Learner conference Development • Uni • Journal in HE committee article (£5K) Networking • Year 2 Publications continuation
- 9. 1. The research process: evaluation of student support Getting it • Student funded • Uni report services • Internal • Learner conference Development • Uni • Journal in HE committee article (£5K) Networking • Year 2 Publications continuation
- 10. 2. Publishing book bid abstract review lit poster review
- 11. From gestation to publication In In press submission In In preparation gestation
- 12. It’s “in preparation” • Decide what you want to say • Choose a journal • Exercise 2: use Rogers 8 prompts • Break down the task into manageable chunks, create deadlines for yourself • Diarise your research time
- 13. Diarise your research time
- 14. Where do you write?
- 15. True or False? 1. Some people are just good writers 2. Academics write papers in sabbaticals 3. Good writing must be perfect, preferably in a single draft 4. If I had more time I would write more 5. Good academic writing can be learned
- 16. Write an abstract Exercise 3: What makes a good abstract? (courtesy of Robert Brown) A good abstract should contain: What was done (methods) What was the main result (results) Why the work was done What the work adds to theory What the work adds to practice
- 17. 3. Scholarly activity Prioritise your research and writing Always have at least one piece of writing in progress Join a writing group – or set one up
- 18. The open scholar Open access publishing Open educational resources Open source software Open courses Open data Open peer review (based on Weller, 2012)
- 22. Lazyweb
- 23. Final words Write about your current work; don’t wait until you have new research The 50/50 rule: devote half your research time to writing and half to other activities Try to have something in each of the quarters of the publication square at all times Experiment with different writing strategies Find and engage with your community of researchers.
- 24. References & further reading Boice, R. (1987) A program for facilitating scholarly writing, Higher Education Research and Development, Vol 6, No. 1, p.11 Brown, R. (1994) The ‘big picture’ about manaing writing. In O. Zuber-Skerritt& Y. Ryan (Eds) Quality in postgraduate education, pp. 38-50, London: Kogan Page. McGrail, M. R., Rickard, C. M., and Jones, R., eds., 2006. ‘Publish or perish: a systematic review of interventions to increase academic publication rates’. Higher Education Research & Development 25(1), pp. 19-35 Murray, R. (2009) Writing for academic journals, Open University Press. Weller, M (2012) The openness-creativity cycle in education. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.
Editor's Notes
- This talk is based on my experience. I know some people study academic writing and the writing process – I’m not one of them. I have written, not massive amounts, there are others who are much more productive, but I’m happy and comfortable in what I’ve done. I support a lot of writersThrough editingAnd supervising masters students, both at Brookes and at a distance with the OUHowever, I have been influenced by those who study academic writing:Rowena MurrayRobert BrownWhy do I write? To get published yes, but mostly to develop my ideas. So, I put this up to show you that it’s not just about publishing, it’s about being a scholar. Often we focus on the outputs of the process (publications) without understanding the process itself (research/scholarship)
- The reason I show you my CV is that I had this belief when I started out that you went straight from (ground breaking) idea to article in one smooth sweep – like this.
- Actually my research activity looks more like this.
- What people often seem to want to know from me is – what are editors looking for? I can tell you…SignificanceOriginalityRigouri.e. the Ref indicatorsEXERCISE 1: have a go making these decisions with the example papersSee – you can make these decisions without seeing the whole paper. It’s not about writing the paper. It’s about the quality of the research. Also, prpducing papers which arise from research of this quality is tall order – that’s a difficult place for a postgraduate to start. As well as sharing some tips for getting published. I want to talk about the research process.
- Points about my diaryNOT evenings and weekendsResearch is my job not my hobby
- Only 5 is true. Good writing can be learned. There’s no big secret, it’s just hard workWRITE SOMETHING NOW
- At the end of the year, what people will ask you is for your publications list – it is the your priority. Give it time every single week. Don’t worry if you discard what you’ve written. You are still practising your writing. Good ways of doing this: Blogging (that’s writing). I’m not very good at it, but lots of other people are Conversations, email ones, get into debates Take notes on everything, tablets, all the timeWhen you sit down to write a paper, you will have lots of notes to start with.- Share what you’ve done…
- The Open Scholar takes that last piece of advice: sharing- to a new level. Increasingly scholarly activity is taking place on the open. Open access journalsOpen peer reviewRecognition of different forms of output as legitimate research outputsWhat this means to us is that much scholarly activity now takes place in the open, so you can see how ideas are formed, how writing develops. It lets us into the secrets of scholarly activity. Here are a couple of examples.Doug Belshaw open writing model..OCSLD MOOCJIME open peer review
- You can follow the author’s progress through the early versions of their books.
- Open access improves citationSome articles in JIME publish responses to reviewers’ comments as supplementary files alongside the finished article
- The term ‘lazyweb’ refers to the practice of asking questions of one’s network, rather than researching it yourself. Martin Weller says that this light-hearted term underplays the significant function of the social network, which is access to experts, peers and a wealth of experience which can be easily drawn on. These networks are an important activity for today’s scholar.
- From Rowena Murray’s chapter- Consider writing about your current work; don’t wait until you have new‘research’.• Combine different writing strategies.• Consider changing your current writing habits.