Academic writing and and publishing by James Hartley Review

1. Academic writing and publishing
Presented By:
GhulamFarid
PhD Scholar- Information Management

2. About the Author- James Hartley
• James Hartley is Research Professor at the School of Psychology, The University of
Keela, UK
• Best Psychologist in UK
• President of British Psychology Society
• Expertise & Skills
• Writing, Academic Writing
• Creative Thinking, Design Thinking
• Information Graphic, Visual Information
• Behavioral Sciences, Cognitive Psychology
• Publications- 283
• Citations- 4,339

3. Sections in the Book
Section 1 Introduction
Section 2 The academic article
Section 3 Other categories
Section 4 Other aspect of academic writing

4. Section 1- Introduction- Why write and
publish
• To share your practice with others
• To increase the impact/visibility of
your work
• To disseminate your research
findings
• To explore topics of interest
• To add to the existing body of
knowledge and create new knowledge
• To gain recognition
• To enhance your curriculum
vitae
• To promote your institution
• To express yourself in a creative
• Personal satisfaction

5. Reasons for writing/ Why do you write?
I can’t do normal work like other people I write to be alone
I am angry at all of you I like to be read
I love sitting in a room all day writing I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all of you
I can only participate in real life by changing I have begun a novel, a page, I want to finish it
I want others/ all of you I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story
I love the smell of paper I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries and in the
ways my books sit on the shelf
I believe in literature I am afraid of being forgotten
It is a habit, a passion

6. Different Types of Publications
• Newsletter
• Professional magazine
• Popular Magazine
• Academic (peer-
reviewed) Journal
• Hybrid Journal
• Poster
• Book Review
• Book Chapter
• Book (single author)
• Book (edited collection)
• Other opportunities – conference
presentation, radio broadcast,
television, social media

7. Section 2- The academic article
oTitles that announce the general
subject
oTitles that specify a specific
theme
oTitles that indicate the
controlling question
oTitles that just state the findings
oTitles that indicate that the answer to a
question will be revealed
oTitles that announce the thesis
oTitles that emphasise the methodology
oTitles that suggest guidelines
oTitles that attract by using literary

8. Title
• Motivate reader’s interest
• Working title/final title
• Final title should summarise the main idea of the manuscript
• Attract and inform the reader
• Be accurate
• Be fully clarifying when standing alone
• Facilitate indexing and retrieval (avoid using abbreviations)
• Suggested length no more than 12 words

9. Author’s Contribution
• Conception and design of the study
• Collection of the raw data
• Statistical expertise/advice
• Analysis and interpretation of the data
• Drafting of the article
• Critical revision of the article for important intellectual content
• Administrative, technical and logistical support
• Final approval of the article.

10. Author’s Name & Institutional Affiliation
• Use the same method throughout your career
• Forget all titles and degrees (e.g. Dr., PhD)
• Where is more than one author, names should appear in the order of
their contributions
• Institutional affiliation should appear under the author’sname
• Provide an e-mail address for correspondence

11. Structured Abstracts
• Limited more information
• Easier to read
• Easier to search
• Generally only required with a peer-
reviewed article
• Two types –informative and structured
• Details essence (not the same as
introduction)

12. Cont.….
• Compare the abstract with an outline of the manuscript’s headings to verify
its accuracy
• Use clear and concise language
• Use verbs rather than their noun equivalent (investigates rather than
investigation)
• Use active rather than passive verbs
• Begin the abstract with the most important points
• Length determined by journal–typically range from 150 to 250 words

13. Key Words
• Use simple, specific noun articles
• Avoid terms that are too common
• Do not repeat key words from the title
• Avoid unnecessary prepositions
• Avoid abbreviations
• Spell out Greek letters and avoid mathematical symbols
• Include only the names of people (profession)
• The way your article will be retrieved by databases/search
engines etc

14. Introductions
• Introduces the practical content of the paper/the research question/the
problem
• Tells why this issue/problem is important
• Sets the scene
• States the purpose
• States the scope
• States how issue is addressed/Describes the research strategy
• Explains how this work relates to previous work in this area
• Usually starts from the general and progresses to the specific

15. Literature review
• Tells what others have found on the topic
• Provides a context
• Understanding about knowledge
• Author is familiar with thinking on a topic
• Understands where their work fits
• Highly selective and specific
• Link your findings and conclusions back to the literature review

16. Methods
• Describes how the study will be
• Different types of studies have different methodologies
• Subsections where relevant e.g.
• Participant characteristics,
• sampling procedures,
• research design

17. Results
• Summary of collected data
• Analysis of data
• Findings
• Interpreted
• Relating them about hypotheses and methods
• Where required e.g. statistics, tables, charts, maps, or quotes

18. Discussions
• Move 1: Examine, interpret and qualify results
• Move 2: Evaluate how the results fit in with the previous findings – do
they deny, qualify, agree or go beyond them?
• Move 3: List potential limitations to the study
• Move 4: Offer an interpretation/explanation
• Move 5: State the implications and recommend further research

20. References & Footnotes
References
• Follow journal guidelines
• Complete
• Accurate
Footnotes
Provide additional content

21. Drafting and Redrafting
• All writing is rewriting
• Draft and redraft
• Number, date and save drafts
• Refer back to your abstract
• Ask a critical colleague to read
• Revise title, abstract & article
• Check references against journal guidelines
• Spell check
• Date and File preprint (pre-refereeing)
• Let go

22. Submission
• Professional Journal – editor
• Academic Journal – peer-review
• Usually double blind peer review
– Accept as is
– Accept with revisions
– Revise and resubmit
– Reject

23. Responding to referees
• Referee 1: Accept
• Referee 2: Accept with revision. This paper addresses an interesting and
important topic . . . Despite this . . the results are somewhat of a mixed
bag overall. Accordingly I would recommend the following revisions
before it is considered for publication.
• Referee 3: Reject. [. . .] This paper conflates (this technical task) with
some non-technical terms, some common-sense beliefs about reading
and writing that there is no strong evidence for, normative expectations
of what texts should be and moralistic stances towards textual patterns.

24. Why editors reject manuscripts
• Author guidelines not followed
• Not in-depth (little substance)
• Bad writing (lack of clarity)
• Subject of little/no interest to readers
• Poor statistics, tables, figures
• Subject or data out of date
• Unprofessional appearance
• Title
• Too simple – reporting
• Written at the wrong level

25. Section 3- Other Categories- Books
• Different Types of the books
• The popular science book
• The edited collection of previously published papers by the same author
• The edited collection of previously published papers written by different authors
• The edited collection of original chapters written by several different authors
• The conference collection
• The handbook
• The individually authored textbook

26. Theses
• A thesis is much like a graduate student: It has a limited purpose and a small
audience; it is often insecure and defensive, justifying itself with extreme
documentation; it is too narrowly focussed; and it has not yet developed a style of
its own. (Luey, 2002, p. 34)

27. Different kinds of thesis
• Traditional (simple)
• Introduction
• literature review
• materials and methods
• Results
• discussion and conclusions
• the IMRAD

28. Traditional (complex)
• introduction;
• background to the study
• literature review;
• Background theory and methods (optional);
• study 1 – IMRAD;
• study 2 – IMRAD,
• study 3 etc.;
• general discussion and conclusions.

29. Strategies for the beginning thesis writer
• Try to be well organised
• Examine two or three theses in your discipline/area
• Write from the beginning
• Make and keep clearly categorized (back up data)
• Discuss what you are doing it/ with fellow students all the time
• Think of how you might publish each chapter
• Appropriate procedures for presenting text- Reference
• Read the requirements of your institution
• Submit regular drafts of subsections of your thesis to your supervisor
• Make sure your supervisor eventually sees the thesis as a whole

30. Conference papers
• “The essential launching pad for nearly all scholarly careers” (Gould, 1995, p. 37)
• Power Point
• computer-based slides are most common
• appreciate the clarity
• seven words per line, and seven lines per slide (7*7 rule) some (5*5)

31. Posters
• 4 feet (120 cm)
• 2.5 (75 cm)

33. Section 4- Other aspects of academic writing
• Finding, keeping and disseminating information
• It is accessible twenty-four hours a day
• You do not have to visit a library
• To find information relatively quickly and conveniently
• You can choose between saving, printing or reading the information from the
computer screen
• Sources on the Internet are often more up to date than sources in paper format

34. Choosing where to publish
• Author decide where to published their article
• 20,000–25,000 peer-reviewed academic journals
• In UK and USA- Mostly online journals
• Most authors preferred they published their work in peer reviewed

35. Some typical criticisms of impact factors
• Does not necessarily reflect the quality of all of the articles
• No correction is made for self-citations
• Review articles are heavily referenced
• Books are not included in calculating impact factors
• Impact factors vary in different disciplines
• Small research areas tend to lack journals with high impact factors
• High-quality research in non-English journals is rarely cited.

36. Open-access journal
• Author puts findings/paper online for free
• Author pays to publish online in an open-access journal
• Author’s institution pays for the author to publish online in an open access journal
• Research funding agencies pay for publication of the research findings
• Online in an open-access journal

37. Delays in the publishing process

39. WRITER’S BLOCK- Factors in
writer’s block
• Delay
• Fear of failure
• Criticism
• Neatness
• Time pressure
• Personality factors and mood disorders

40. Writers should
• Make writing a daily activity
• Write while fresh
• Write in small, regular amounts, and avoid ‘binge sessions
• Schedule writing tasks in small sizes
• Share their writing with supportive, productive friends

41. Practical suggestions
• Make time to write
• Do not aim for perfection on the first draft
• Start by reading what you have produced
• Make a note of the structure of the text
• Do not stop writing at the end of a section
• Do not stop to correct and revise
• Reward yourself

42. Writing best practices
• Writing about what interests you
• Making time to write
• Organizing and providing structure
• Sharing with others
• Asking feedback
• Testing surveys
• Using statistics
• Meeting your deadlines
• Writing with a co-author

43. Writing best practices
• Revise, revise, revise
• Should be able to answer the questions
• What am I trying to say?
• If someone new to my fields
• Read this, will they understand it?

44. Moving on with your writing
• Write
• Describe, reflect and evaluate
• Talk/Network
• Notebook
• Data
• Collaborate
• Be strategic – Have a plan
• Look for links/connections in
what you do
• Cite key people
• Set realistic goals
• Give and look for peer support
• Consider everything you do as potential
material for a presentation/paper
• Set up a writing circle
• Develop a culture of celebration
around publication/presentation

45. Common Writing Mistakes
• No defined purpose
• Waiting too long to identify the purpose
• Too much detail; lack of focus
• Lack of structure
• Local story with no global context
• Why is this important?
• Wrong opinion
• Inaccuracies

46. Cont.…
• Making the reader work
• Failure to follow journal guidelines
• Submitting an unfinished manuscript
• Changing person throughout the paper (I, you, they)
• Inconsistent use of tense (past and present)
• Inconsistent mood (both casual and formal

47. Guidelines for academic writing
The author may not be expert
• Use the first rather than the third person
• Use short, simple words
• Use active tenses
• Sequencing in sentences
• Place sequences in order
• Avoid negatives
• Avoid abbreviations
• Avoid overloading the text with references
• Contrast sentence lengths

48. Guidelines for academic writing
• Use short paragraphs
• Use numbers or bullets
• Settings for lists
• Use subheadings
• Print out and revise
• Read the text clearly
• Ask other people to read your drafts
• Read and listen to other authors
• Revise continuously . . .

49. Writing Activity- Plan
• Writing goal
Topic and purpose
List of ideas to cover
• Writing approach
Mood – formal or informal
Research method
Publications to target
• Resources required
People to consult or interview
Tools
Time
Research and investigation
• List of tasks to do
• Tentative time line and schedule for
project milestones

50. So, do you want to write an article, thesis or
book?