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55 & ALWAYS WRITING FOR PUBLICATION 3 The first two chapters were concerned with some of the technical issues concerning writing for academic publication. These include the various types of publications and how they are relatively weighted according to prestige and contribution to the field, and the mechanics of putting together a publishable article or monograph. In a subsequent chapter, I will deal more specifically with the actual mechanics of submitting article and book manuscripts to publishers (chapter 5). In this chapter, I shift the focus from technical definitions and procedures to creation of a life orientation to publishing—that is, a mind-set of always writing for publication. Throughout our schooling in North America, we have teachers who set our assignments for us, and who tell us when these assignments are due and what the penalties are for failing to accomplish these tasks on time. Many of you who are reading and using this book, like me, are now sitting on the other side of the teacher’s desk, so to speak, and we are now making similar demands of our students. Few graduate schools make a concerted effort to teach their students how to become self-motivated so that they do not need deadlines imposed by others and instead become self-activated contributing and publishing scholars in their fields (some even discourage their doing this, which I have noted above in the introduction). Graduate schools often do an excellent job of training their students in the subject matter and may even have provided opportunities for students to gain valuable teaching experience. Few of the programs, however, build into their training how to be transformed from student to scholar in the sense of one who is regularly and actively engaged in publishing and making a contribution through scholarship. 56 Inking the Deal I am not sure why this is the case, but I can imagine all sorts of possible reasons. Some of these institutions may still believe in the oldfashioned pedagogical method of teaching by mute example. That is, the students see the professors doing scholarship and supposedly learn by this unspoken example. But do the students really ever see this take place? They may see their professors teaching in the classroom, examining students, or even possibly socializing with them, but how many of the professors have their students watching them do research for an article, write it at their desk, revise it at home, and send it off for publication? Very few that I know of. Other institutions perhaps do not think that this is a valuable skill to teach their students, as most of them will not end up as scholarly contributors to the discipline but as teachers in predominantly teaching environments. There is probably some truth to the notion that only 20 percent of the scholars in a profession produce about 80 percent of the significant published scholarship. I would have thought that most graduate schools would want their students to aspire to more than mediocrity, however. There is still the problem of how the 20 percent learn when there is no instruction. The reality is that students, even at the undergraduate level, apparently get more interested in their discipline if they are exposed to scholarship by their teachers. I believe that students appreciate the opportunity to work alongside and under the direction of a scholar who is active in academic discussion, far more than simply hearing from someone who stands on the sidelines and comments on what others are doing. A last possible explanation for the lack of instruction is that perhaps there are some scholars who are just downright afraid of their ambitious graduate students. As a result, these scholars may (delusionally ) say to themselves that they had it tough when they were students and got no guidance in how to publish, so they are not about to provide such help for their students—after all, if these students are as bright as they think they are, they will figure it out. Well, with this book, I hope that you can figure it out more easily. This chapter addresses the issue of how to establish a continuing scholarly publishing lifestyle. Two major factors considered here are (1) time management and discipline, and (2) making all your work count. Time Management and Discipline One of the most important lessons to learn in order to develop a publishing lifestyle is that you will have to take personal responsibility for it. [18.224.32.86] Project MUSE (2024...

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