Getting Published

A Guide for Lecturers and Researchers

Jerry Wellington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134427178
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This handy guide for new and practising lecturers and researchers takes a rare insider's look at the activities of writing and publishing. Turning the spotlight inwards, it examines how and why professionals communicate with each other through writing and publishing.
Written with great verve and pace, the author succeeds in providing sensible advice bolstered by many illustrative examples, case studies and anecdotes. For the academic needing insight into the serious business of getting published, this book will provide answers to many of their frequent questions:
* Why do they write and publish?
* Who are they writing for?
* What channels of communication are available for their writing?
* Who 'controls' these channels?
* How can they successfully submit articles and papers to journals and newspapers, contribute chapters to books, or approach publishers with book proposals?
Developed from a series of seminars on the subject by the author, this book will be an enjoyable and informative guide to anyone with an interest in getting their work published.

Chapter 1

Why publish?

A whole host of reasons is given in answering this question. Some involve intrinsic rewards, some extrinsic. Some are to do with outside pressures and accountability. Some relate to the satisfaction of writing and its value in aiding thinking. This chapter explores those reasons and the thinking behind them. It also discusses common reasons given for not publishing (or for not writing at all). The chapter ends by raising questions about the benefits and drawbacks of making ones writing public through traditional channels, questions that are revisited later in the book.

I’m glad I did it, partly because it was worth doing, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.

(Mark Twain, circa 1900)

Motives for publishing: the whole gamut

Many people share Mark Twain’s sentiments after they have finished the long, painful haul of writing and publishing a book or an article. But they still go on to do it again. Why?

In open discussion, people give a wide variety of reasons for wanting to publish. Over the last few years I have organized a number of seminars, often with students on our doctoral programmes, with the simple theme: why publish? The following reasons, in no particular order, have been put forward in these sessions:

• Career enhancement, improving the CV
• Getting promotion
• Sharing, communicating, disseminating, e.g. ideas, research findings, theory
• Filling a gap
• Joining the research community
• Vanity
• The Research Assessment Exercise for Universities (RAE)
• Responsibility, accountability
• Making an impact, making a difference—it may actually influence practitioners, policy makers/decision makers or just someone’s thinking in an area
• Financial reward
• Publishing and dissemination being part of the ethics of responsible research
• Keeping issues alive, on the boil
• Setting up a dialogue
• Satisfaction
• Personal development
• Professional development
• Fun
• Raising awareness
• Earning respect or recognition, even fame and a ‘reputation’
• Self-esteem and self-fulfilment
• Responding to someone
• Challenging a published viewpoint, belief, interpretation or orthodoxy
• Polemic
• Someone having told you that ‘you’ve a good story to tell’
• Contributing to change and improvement
• Getting you to conferences in nice places.

These ideas form a good starting point for this chapter and for the book. Indeed, they cover most of the points in the literature. My own additional points, gleaned from the literature (such as Henson, 1999 or Thyer, 1994), are:

• To clarify your own thinking
• As part of the process of reflection
• As a way of interacting with others
• To earn respect or credibility
• To have the ‘stamp of authority’ or legitimation placed on your work
• To enhance your standing/position in your profession
• To give something back to your profession
• To increase your visibility
• To promote your department and enhance its profile.

These reasons could be classified, rather crudely, into intrinsic and extrinsic reasons; though, as we will see shortly, these two types of motivation are often hard to separate.

Why do people write? A range of voices

In writing this book, I interviewed twelve lecturers at different stages of their careers, with different types and quantities of publications in their track record, about their writing. Most of their comments are reported and discussed in Chapter 3, on the writing process. Here I have included some of the lecturers’ own thoughts on their motivation for writing. It seems that the desire to write is often intrinsically motivated whilst the motivation to publish is more extrinsically driven, but the two are often mixed. One expressed a belief that ‘writing and researching can change things’. Another talked of ‘prompts’, from outside and inside:

for example, ‘I want to go to that conference—what could I do?’ Or I may have a feeling that something has taken shape to the point where it can be presented in a fairly succinct form. Or the prompt may come from reading an article and thinking ‘I could make a response to that’, or the article helps to solidify some thoughts that were a bit vague before then.

My professional writing stems from the responsibility I have to publish. I tend to see it as a staff-development activity as it refines my thinking and understanding, but it cannot be said that (a) writing comes easily, (b) I enjoy it or (c) I feel that I am particularly good at it. In terms of extrinsic motivation, it is true to say that you have more currency if you are writing and publishing in a particular area and that can be useful.

One intrinsic drive was that writing is

a valuable process for marshalling ideas. I read a quote once about converting a ‘puff of air’ into something on a piece of paper, and writing does have that value of making you think through your ideas.

Similarly, one respondent told me:

I write because writing gives a firmer shape to my ideas, clarifies thinking on new topics, synthesizes old patterns of work with the new data, theories or practices I am currently addressing. It pushes me to read more thoroughly and question what I read more critically. There is, for me, always a symbiotic relationship between reading and writing. They prompt and regulate one another. I usually write when I am invited to contribute after presenting a paper.

One interviewee broke his motivation down into areas:

• Because I’m teaching; I write both beforehand and after the teaching, about both the content and the process. Why? Because I want to keep developing the teaching and because I don’t want to keep reinventing the wheel. Also, in good sessions new ideas emerge and I like to record them.
• Because I feel under some professional pressure to publish, though I don’t feel this is particularly severe.
• Because I’m trying to construct a coherent story about learning and the nature of knowledge. I keep adding strands to my story by writing bits. None of this has been published, though I hope it will be one day.

One person, along with several others, called it ‘a requirement of the job’, a means of getting your name ‘out there’, a means to promotion, ‘but within those constraints there is freedom to choose what I write—this freedom is reduced when it comes to targeting a journal’.

Most seem to be driven by a mixture of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to write and publish:

I know that writing is part of my job and so could say I do it because I HAVE to, but I was attracted to my university post because of the opportunities it offers for writing and discussing ideas for writing and research. I like to write because it stretches my mind; I enjoy playing with ideas and I never think as carefully about something as when I am writing. Because there is a need to carefully articulate and to structure, it forces me to think an idea through in greater detail.
It also allows me to see and evaluate my ideas.

Similarly:

In the case of book chapters, I write because I’m asked to. With regard to books and articles I will have an idea and feel the need to write about it. I’m not sure why! Just a desire to communicate, I suppose. Underlying everything are thoughts about the RAE and the need to produce. At ____ there was pressure to produce a minimum of three publications a year. These were reported in the University yearbook and fear of not having the requisite number of things to your name was compelling. It led to people writing for not very important publications—so didn’t really achieve its goal! I still feel this imperative a bit.

The answer at one level is quite simple. It’s our job; it’s the job of university academics to write. Writing is our work. But the question of why we write WHAT we write is a more complex one.

This respondent then went on to describe the field he writes in and the key debates in it, and said:

We don’t work as isolated individuals. I write with a sense of what the key issues are, what the unresolved problems and questions are, and try to make a contribution to the field, which will move the debate forward. So that’s what makes me decide to write what I write about.

The same author spoke of the intrinsic motivation in writing:

Through writing I develop more understanding—so it is a form of selfeducation, learning, development of understanding…that kind of thing. Besides, there is almost a Skinnerian re-inforcement to seeing your own work in print.

The responses show a range of motivations or prompts to write and publish. Some prompts might be called external: having a responsibility; the need for professional development; the desire for promotion; or simply being asked to write. Other prompts could be labelled ‘internal’: self-education, clarifying and refining one’s thoughts, thinking through ideas, developing understanding and stretching the mind. It is clear from the quotations above that in considering motivation, we sometimes need to distinguish between writing and publishing. Many people suggest that the reason they write is to help them to think. Some of the really interesting authors on this area go further by saying that writing is thinking, or at least one form of thinking (Becker, 1986; Henson, 1999; Richardson, 1990). Wolcott (1990) puts it nicely by saying that ‘writing is a way of gaining access to our own personal fund of information’ (p. 22). It’s as if by writing we dig up thoughts from somewhere in our minds that we didn’t know were there. People in my interviews are saying the same thing—writing helps their thinking. They don’t know what they really think until they start to (or try to) write. It relates to the old saying ‘How do I know what I think until I see what I say?’

This kind of reason is given for writing per se. In Chapter 3 we look more fully at these themes by considering in more detail the writing process and how it relates to thinking and learning. But by its very nature, publishing (as opposed to writing for its own sake) is largely driven more by extrinsic factors and motives.

There are some interesting discussions in the literature of extrinsic motivation to publish. One very readable and pertinent discussion comes from Abby Day (Day, 1996). She gives eight good reasons for publishing that include some of those listed already: the desire for promotion, benefit to one’s own institution, or to add to the body of knowledge in an area. She also talks of increasing one’s own ‘net worth’—to become a more ‘sought-after person’, someone more likely to be listened to. This is echoed in a point made by one of my own interviewees: ‘You can’t join in debates unless you write. And if you’re not writing, your voice is not so important at a conference, because people don’t know who you are.’

Day also points out that publishing allows us to revisit our own ideas and thoughts— once they are in print, we can look back on them (and perhaps have an inner chuckle or groan in some cases). Also, publishing allows us to get feedback on our thoughts and ideas from a much broader audience, e.g. referees, eventual readers. This, of course, is at once the value of publishing and its potential to induce fear and apprehension.

Why not publish…or what puts people off?

I used another prompt in the seminars and discussions mentioned earlier by asking the converse: why not publish? As before, here is the list of points that came up, in no particular order:

• Lack of self-belief
• Lack of opportunities
• Embarrassment
• Not knowing what is expected of me, feeling that publishing is not appropriate for my role
• Fear of rejection
• Fear of being judged
• No track record
• Lack of know-how, time, motivation, energy
• Not knowing how to respond to criticism
• Knowing that you will have to wait for months for an answer
• Uncertainty
• Cost-benefit analysis coming out against submitting for publication
• Fear of exposure, vulnerability, putting one’s head ‘above the parapet’
• Fear of the work being superseded, becoming out-of-date
• Ethical reasons, e.g. fear of the work being misused or misapplied
• ‘I’m not in the big boys’ club’
• ‘Am I good enough?’
• Will anyone ever read it? Will anyone be remotely interested?
• Editors’ fashions, privileges, fads…
• Locating the right target.

Abby Day writes a valuable chapter (Day, 1996) on people’s fears of publishing. She talks of the ‘fear of being judged’; the thought that ‘I’m a bad writer’ or ‘my work will be dismissed out of hand’. Other fears include: ‘People will steal my ideas.’ Apprehension about the process to which one is subjecting oneself by submitting a paper to a journal or any other refereeing process can be equally strong. Day talks of the feeling that ‘It will be slated by referees’ and the fear of the unknown, ‘the black hole of refereeing and publishing’ (p. 14). She suggests sitting down and recording exactly what your fears are and then considering each one in turn. In this book, I attempt to look at some of them, especially what she calls the ‘black hole’ that seems to swallow up our submissions, from which they emerge some weeks or even months later, with the addition of scathing comments or other forms of disparagement.

Another author (Dies, 1993) talks of the common obstacles or ‘roadblocks’ to publication. He starts by listing, rather dismissively, some of the ‘groundless preoccupations’ of potential authors such as ‘doubts about their ability to write successfully, uncertainty about the worthiness of their ideas as judged by their professional colleagues and misunderstandings about the publication process’. My own view is that these are real rather than groundless. Ironically, Dies himself actually shows that they are genuine by reporting on his own empirical study (by questionnaire) of fifty experienced authors from different fields. His respondents listed a total of 118 perceived obstacles to publication, which he analysed by grouping them into four categories: personal apprehension, conceptual or organizational problems, difficulties relating to the submission of type-scripts, and resource limitations.

Personal apprehension includes unsurprising feelings such as fear of rejection and selfdoubt, with ‘narcissism’ and ‘perfectionism’ mentioned too. The latter category would include those who will not put pen to paper unless they can achieve a ‘perfect outcome’. Dies uses the metaphor of ‘stage-fright’ to sum up this category. The second group involves more academic concerns. In my words: how does one develop a suitable and appropriate organizational framework for one’s paper? Which topics should be included or excluded in order to keep a focus? Other worries are about keeping to the word limit and about writing style. The third area, ‘submission problems’, included three main sets of issues: finding the right journal, rewriting after referees’ feedback and ‘rebounding’ after critical appraisal from reviewers. Dies’ final category of perceived (and real) ‘hurdles’ involved resource limitations: lack of a mentor, lack of secretarial support and lack of time.

Factors that help people to publish

Dies’ survey and discussion are actually helpful, and he goes on to offer useful practical advice to authors in preparing articles for submission and how to overcome commonly found problems in papers. My own view is that a concerted effort to remove some of the barriers listed above is the first stage in writing for publication. The main necessary (though not sufficient) condition for writing is to have, or be able to create, the time to do it. Given this necessary condition, other factors can be a major catalyst: the presence of encouraging, supportive colleagues; the assistance of a critical friend or friends; having one’s confidence boosted; and finally, receiving concrete guidelines and advice on writing and publishing. The aim of later chapters in this book is to present and elaborate on these guidelines: to glean from various sources, and then to present evidence and advice on the presentation of material for publication with precisely the above fears and apprehensions in mind.

As an aside, my own personal apprehension, or more accurately a deterrent, to writing is quite simply that it’s hard work—it requires effort, a struggle and some pain (see also Mullen, 2001). This is why I, and others, I’m sure, are so creative at inventing displacement activities.

The impostor syndrome

One of the reasons people give for not publishing, and I suffer from it myself, is what Brookfield (1995:229) calls the ‘impostor syndrome’. He discusses it in the context of teaching, but it is paralleled in writing. It is the feeling ‘Am I teaching (writing) this under false pretences?’ Do I really know what I’m talking about? The syndrome feeds on lack of confidence, fear of being ‘found out’ or of not being as competent as others might think we are, feelings of inadequacy, of not being worthy, fears of being revealed as a fraud, possession of an inferiority complex. Brookfield calls it one of the dangers of critically reflecting on our own practice.

For example, who am I to have the nerve to write this book? It is the first book I have written about writing. I don’t have a degree in English literature (in fact, I barely scraped O-level English in 1966). I started my university education studying physics. And how many physicists can write? (Actually, a fair number, I suppose, if you consider Stephen Hawking, Fritzof Capra and Werner Heisenberg.) I’ve written quite a few books and articles, but maybe I’ve just been lucky? These are the kinds of thoughts that linger.

At its worst, the so-called syndrome can be inhibiting and create feelings of impotence and inferiority. This alone can be enough to stop people from exposing their writing. But, if brought into the open and shared, it can have a positive effect. It can lead to (or indeed is a feature of) a sense of humility, of...