Tonette S. Rocco
Tim Hatcher
John W. Creswell
Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rocco, Tonette S., 1954-
The Handbook of Scholarly Writing and Publishing/Tonette S. Rocco and Tim Hatcher, Editors; Foreword by John W. Creswell. — First edition.
p. cm. — (The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-39335-2 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-470-94918-4 (ebk)
ISBN 978-0-470-94919-1 (ebk)
ISBN 978-0-470-94921-4 (ebk)
1. Authorship. 2. Academic writing. 3. Scholarly publishing. I. Hatcher, Tim (Tim Gary), 1950- II. Title. III. Series.
PN146.R63 2011
808'.02—dc22
2010048703
THE JOSSEY-BASS HIGHER AND ADULT EDUCATION SERIES
For our graduate students, emerging scholars, and colleagues, who have challenged us on our journey to demystify the writing and publishing process
• • •
For my husband, Maurice T. Madry, who was there at the beginning of my journey to learn to write—Tonette Rocco
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For our families who should be in a “Family and Significant Other Hall of Fame” for putting up with both of us for the many years it took us to finally birth this book. I thank Linda Hatcher, my wife and partner of many years, for her patience, understanding, and love. —Tim Hatcher
The sign of a good book, whether it is a book of poetry, a novella, or an academic text, is that it draws readers in and causes them to reflect on their own experiences. This book, edited by Tonette Rocco and Tim Hatcher, had this effect on me. I thought about my own scholarly writing approach, my publications in academic journals, the reasons that I have embraced writing, the scholarly voice I write in, my collaborations, and my mentoring of students as writers. These are a few of the diverse topics that you will encounter in the twenty-one chapters of this book. These chapters fold into four well-organized parts: becoming a published scholar, improving writing techniques, preparing scholarly manuscripts, and reflecting on the writing and publishing process. Topics such as these are seldom discussed in the research literature; putting them together in one book provides an original contribution to the entire process of scholarly writing. In addition, we readers are treated to an array of discipline perspectives by chapter authors coming from such diverse fields as management, research methods, special education, higher education, educational administration, adult education, communication, curriculum and instruction, and comparative education. So often we expect faculty, students, and practitioners to know how to engage in scholarly writing. But that is not a given. Academics need a skill set for understanding the scholarly writing process just as they do to become good teachers.
I cannot explore here all of the topics raised in this book, but I applaud the advice to consider the skill of academic writing as more than grammar and punctuation. It also involves giving and receiving meaningful constructive criticism, finding time to write, and overcoming writer’s block and voice issues. Audience is also important, as I learned during my undergraduate years when one of my professors told me that I needed help learning to write. My parents hired a tutor to work with me. Through many arduous sessions, I learned to write for others rather than for myself.
I appreciated in this book reference to the reality of writing: that scholarly writing emerges from rough beginnings and then smoothes out through revising and editing. I often bring to my research methods classes initial drafts of my books or articles and compare them with the final version. This approach is what the chapter authors underscore: that research is a process that unfolds over time.
Advice is plentiful in this book. How does a scholarly writer find voice? How does an author make sense of feedback from reviewers? How should a person write to be sensitive to cultural issues? I especially liked the triad of chapters about preparing (and the differences among) research articles that might be qualitative, quantitative, or mixed in their methodological orientation.
As a former editor of an international journal, I appreciated the advice for prospective authors—advice that fills in the blanks of somewhat general author guidelines typically found on Web sites or as statements in the front of journal issues. We learn about the emotional devastation resulting from unfair or unreasonable criticism and what the recovery period looks like, reasons for rejection, and how to prioritize the comments received.
You can see that this book not only takes you into an engaging portrait of scholarly writing; it also draws you in and causes personal reflection. Your experiences may certainly differ from mine, but I daresay that you will be a more reflective writer and more aware of scholarly writing by the end of this book.
• • •
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
This book is intended to enable emerging scholars and anyone else wishing to improve their writing skills to better understand the parts of a manuscript and how they fit together and support each other to create a quality publication. Our goal is to fill a conceptual and practical gap within the literature by bringing together in one book different perspectives and providing information about different types of manuscripts that a scholarly writer is likely to encounter.
The Handbook of Scholarly Writing and Publishing is unique in that it brings together the wisdom of scholars from different professions (education, business, communications), disciplines (adult education, comparative education, educational leadership, higher education, human resource development, management, research methods, special education, teacher preparation), and countries (Australia, Canada, China, India, Netherlands, Russia, United Kingdom, the United States) who share their insights into specific aspects of scholarly writing and publishing. The chapter authors represent a wide range of experience and expertise, from doctoral students to established and prolific authors (including a few who have written books on writing for publication). Many have won awards for their writing, and most have been editors of journals or reviewers of manuscripts, or both.
The book is divided into four parts. Part One, “Becoming a Published Scholar,” contains six chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of the reasons to write, creating writing opportunities, learning to write, writing tips, and helping others to write. The second chapter presents information on publishing in peer-reviewed academic journals and nonrefereed professional journals. Three doctoral candidates share their insights in Chapter Three on organizing materials for a writing project, overcoming writer’s block, and techniques for working with coauthors. Chapter Four presents techniques for reading critically to improve scholarly writing. The last two chapters in Part One deal with the tensions of writing a dissertation and publishing (Chapter Five) and with designing a dissertation project to yield multiple publications (Chapter Six). Graduate students and their advisors are the primary audience for the chapters in Part One. More experienced authors may learn new ways to organize notes, critically read and write, and simply overcome writer’s block.
The four chapters in Part Two, “Improving Writing Techniques,” provide insights for authors on writing concisely (Chapter Seven), developing a scholarly voice (Chapter Eight), understanding common problems with manuscripts (Chapter Nine), and crafting a problem and purpose statement (Chapter Ten). A problem for journal editors is that manuscripts written in a clear and concise style with a well-defined and well-articulated problem and purpose statement are not the norm. This means that anyone who writes for publication can benefit from the insights provided in these chapters.
The six chapters in Part Three, “Preparing Scholarly Manuscripts,” offer useful information for all scholars. They provide guidance on developing specific types of manuscripts such as literature reviews (Chapter Eleven); qualitative (Chapter Twelve), quantitative (Chapter Thirteen), and mixed methods (Chapter Fourteen) reports; conceptual or position pieces (Chapter Fifteen); and book reviews, editorials, and essays (Chapter Sixteen).
The five chapters in Part Four, “Reflecting on the Writing and Publishing Process,” cover topics such as becoming a reviewer (Chapter Seventeen), addressing feedback (Chapter Eighteen), dilemmas international authors face (Chapter Nineteen), working with coauthors (Chapter Twenty), and mentoring (Chapter Twenty-One). The book ends with a section of resources for further reading on scholarly writing, highly useful to anyone developing a manuscript or thinking about developing one.
The Handbook of Scholarly Writing and Publishing is for anyone interested in improving their writing skills and better understanding the processes behind developing and publishing scholarship. Although the focus is primarily on helping graduate students and emerging scholars, those in midcareer and even more established scholars may find helpful insights as well. Emerging scholars (graduate students, scholar-practitioners, and new faculty) are given specific guidelines on how to craft scholarly papers and other writing suitable for submission to academic journals and other ventures within their respective fields of study. They will also gain information on how to follow through with editors, how to handle rejection, and advice on rewrites and resubmittals. Another audience is instructors who teach writing for publication and who mentor colleagues and graduate students through the practice of writing and publishing. Professors who teach advanced doctoral students dissertation writing and instructors who teach research methods may also find the book useful. Finally, since much of the book is about the publishing process, we hope journal editors will find the book a useful reference in their work with authors.
We have many people to acknowledge and thank. First, we extend our sincere and heartfelt thanks to our contributing authors, without whom this book would not have been possible and whose intellect, expertise, experience, time, energy, and patience are without equal. Next, we are forever grateful to our editor, David Brightman, who believed in this project from its inception. His feedback and insights have been invaluable to this process. We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the many students and colleagues who challenged us and gave both of us ample opportunities to learn about the contributions of scholarly writing.
Tonette S. Rocco is associate professor in the Adult Education and Human Resource Development Program at Florida International University in Miami. She has published four books and coedited a special issue of Advances in Developing Human Resources. Challenging the Parameters of Adult Education: John Ohliger and the Quest for Social Democracy (with André Grace, 2009) received the 2009 University Continuing Education Association Frandson Book Award. She received the Elwood F. Holton III Research Excellence Award 2008 from Human Resource Development Review and a Cyril O. Houle Fellowship funded by the Kellogg Foundation. Her university awarded her the 2010 Excellence in Mentorship award. She has over one hundred publications in journals, books, and proceedings. She is coeditor of New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, assistant editor for Human Resource Development Quarterly, and qualitative methods editor for Human Resource Development International. She is a founding board member for the Journal of Mixed Methods Research and serves on several boards.
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Tim Hatcher is associate professor of human resource development and adult education at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He joined academe in 1991 after twenty years of working in international business and industry where he was primary author of several hundred procedures, specifications, and manuals. Since 1991, he has published over one hundred book chapters, research articles, concept articles, editorials, books, white papers, conference proceedings, and other scholarly writing. His book Ethics and HRD: A New Approach to Responsible Organizations was awarded the Academy of Human Resource Development 2002 Outstanding Book Award. For eight years as associate editor (2002–2005) and then editor (2006–2009) of the Human Resource Development Quarterly, he managed the blind review, editing, and publication of several hundred research manuscripts. He has been or is on the editorial board of five international journals.