It's Academic

by Tom Reinsfelder, Christina Steffy, and Amy Deuink

Publishing. It’s something many of us in academia are expected to do, or are at least highly encouraged to do. But the thought of publishing is often intimidating. What do I write about? Where do I publish? When should I start? All of these questions and more go through someone’s mind when she or he thinks about publishing.

What to write about/When to write

The first two steps in publishing are deciding when to write and what to write about. These two steps may or may not happen at the same time – you may realize you want to write when you find something you’re passionate about, or you may first decide you want to write and then start looking for something to write about. If you want to write, you might get your feet wet with writing and working with a publisher by volunteering as a book reviewer with venues such as  American Reference  Books Annual (ARBA) or one of the LIS publications you read. Or, perhaps a graduation capstone project or term paper, or career promotion and tenure will dictate when you start to think about writing. Regardless of the order, it’s never too early to start writing. You can start writing and publishing as a student, as soon as you enter the field, or years after you’ve been in the field. It’s important to keep in mind what Crawford (2003) tells us about writing – you write, “because you have something to say. More to the point, you have something to share – something to say that other people will want to read or hear.” Crawford also cautions us against writing solely for the purpose of promotion and tenure, saying that, “when you write or speak because it’s required and only for that reason, your articles and speeches are likely to reflect that mandate” (1).

What you write doesn’t have to be a new discovery in the field; it can be a new perspective on an established idea, a case study, a literature review, or an analysis. Perhaps you want to learn more about a topic but find nothing published – that’s a great opportunity to do original research. Also, keep abreast of information in your field by joining professional associations, groups, discussion forums, and listservs. No matter how you choose a topic, choose something that interests you and write passionately about it.

Val Lynn provided some tips for choosing a topic as well as tips for working with data in an earlier CRD post. To view those tips, click here.

Finding the right “fit”

So now that you have your topic, where should you publish?

Read more…