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GTIP Orientation Piece - Getting Published
David Lambert (Chief Executive, GA) takes you through the process of writing from the very first steps, and offers tips on getting the results published.
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| Teacher writing. © BananaStock Ltd |
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As a teacher educator you are no longer (only) a school teacher. You have taken a direction in your career that may change it completely. You are entering another academic community which, in one sense, is even more public than school teaching. It could be said that you are becoming a public intellectual – a thinker in the field of geography education.
Part of your job will be to critique ideas and developments in geography education. Another part will be to create new ideas and developments. This is best done publicly, so that anyone who wants to can have a look, comment and contribute.
You should feel good about this. Civil society needs us to take this kind of responsibility. It is a little daunting, especially if you have come to this for the first time.
The remainder of this ‘guide’ is concerned with academic papers and books, but in order to get a feel for the audience you could consider reading and writing reviews.
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The strength of a specialist subject community is signalled, at least in part, by its public discourse. The research, the curriculum development, the arguments and the disputes which are reported in the pages of books, journals, papers and websites indicate the quantity and the quality of the creative output of the community.
Though progress in geography education is not guaranteed, and can seem hard won or imperceptible at times, the collective wisdom and its evidence base is cumulative. We stand on the shoulders of others. This is why it is important to read published works, and to write for publication when you are in a position to do so.
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You can of course read and write without getting published. But you cannot get published without reading and writing. So getting started with writing is pretty important if you wish to get published (and for many other reasons too, as we shall see below).
We live in a very product-oriented educational culture. People produce articles and books. We consume these because we want to know something or because it will help serve a purpose, like pass an examination – or produce a piece of writing! But the act of ‘production’ (writing) can be misunderstood. Is it merely to fulfil the functional purpose of ‘proving’ what you know? You read … and then you write. Surely there is a more creative purpose than this!
It may be more helpful to imagine the relationship between reading and writing to be much closer, or even indistinguishable! Keep them separate and you will run into a classic problem: when can I stop reading and start writing? Since you can never hope to read the entire field you run the risk of never starting your writing!
But if you imagine the writing as enacting your thinking: literally, helping you make sense of the reading, the two can run along hand in hand.
You still have to decide what you want to write – that is, so that it becomes more than mere ‘notes’, or a record of your reading. To write something you need to have ‘something to say’ – a story! But here again the reality is messy – you may not finally know what the story is until you have pretty well written it all down. So writing can be risky (it may go nowhere) and exhilarating (you may see things differently).
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There may be lots of reasons you find to avoid publication – even if you are an avid reader and writer. We will consider these below too, but for now we had better just agree this: if you work in a university, even part time, it is part of your job to publish! This may not be very comforting, but it is reality.
Reasons to write for publication These are the reasons why teacher educators often say they write: - good for the cv
- you need to write in order to get a permanent contract/promotion
- fulfil the requirements of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
- to become a member of, and contribute to, a specialist research community
- because you have ‘something to say’ and saying it in public provides visibility, authority, status
- it is challenging – huge satisfaction at being able to do it – and you get rewarded by invitation to, e.g. conferences.
There are other less ‘instrumental’ reasons: - without writing you are not really thinking
- learning to write, especially under good supervision, helps you learn to think
- it is an opportunity to ‘give something’ to the profession
- it contributes to the greater good.
Most people write for a combination of all these reasons – and probably more besides.
Most people also have personal computers crammed with the products of their writing, much of which will not see the light of day. This reminds us of drawers full of ‘unpublished and unpublishable papers’ that David Harvey (1973) admitted to possessing in his preface to Explanation in Geography.
Waste of time and effort? Probably not, for the reasons identified in the bullet lists above. Every paragraph you write can be deemed useful in some way. But we need to accept that a piece of writing needs certain attributes and qualities in order to stand a chance of being published. Of prime importance are: - clear sense of purpose (what is the ‘story’?)
- clear sense of audience (who is meant to read this, and why?)
- appropriate length, form and structure (is it readable?).
Whether you have been asked to write a chapter for a book, or wish to submit a paper to a journal (see Journals ) you will almost always have guidance over such matters. If you have not, find it or ask for it.
So what kinds of writing fail to get published?
Points of over-riding importance to consider here are: - Is it still too much like thinking in progress? Is your chapter/paper ‘finished’ yet? It may be too long. It may be unclear in places. It may be too sweeping in its conclusions. In other words, it may need re-drafting.
- Is it sufficiently ‘scholarly’? That is, does engage with others in the field – is it well referenced and are sources (and quotations) used carefully (prudently, sparingly)?
- Is it (merely) polemic, rather than measured, evidenced argument? It doesn’t have to ‘pick an argument’ to be critical, analytical and worthwhile.
- Does it fail to arouse interest? (The topic may be new and thrilling to you, but you may not have shown how it may be of interest to others.)
As the above bullets show, trying to get published is quite challenging. And there are several reasons why it is something that gets put off till tomorrow (but try to avoid this).
Reasons for procrastination (to be avoided)
There is often an underlying fear of rebuff. But remember all of us are subject to ‘peer review’ and, though no system is perfect, this is generally a helpful and supportive process. It can hurt to have your writing criticised, even rejected, but there is no-one who has not been through such an experience. It goes with the territory.
Writing requires enormous amounts of time. Sometimes, the time it takes feels unproductive – a whole morning may pass and all you appear to have is one measly paragraph! Learn to be patient, for the next morning may yield a thousand words. For this reason it makes sense to try and block days just for writing – it is very difficult to ‘squeeze it in’, though there are folk who can discipline themselves to one hour a day - every day. At just 200 words a day this would yield 1000 words a week. (A full time writer would be doing well to average more than 1000 words a day.)
The self inflicted pain of it. Writing is very hard work and rather solitary – you experience highs and lows, and usually you are on your own, grappling with the constant self-doubt: am I good enough at this? Is this worth writing about?
Little wonder, then, we all find great solace in displacement activity – which some writers argue is an essential part of the ’cranking up’ process: if you do not extract from the lawn that dandelion you can see from your window, it will interfere with your work; so do it! Of course this is a mental game which you can learn to play well, according to your particular talents, habits and motivations. For some people ritual seems to be important – that second cup of coffee at 11.30am becomes an important target!
Try to avoid procrastination and above all be honest with yourself. If you say you are going to be writing, but do something else instead – marking, tutor visits, inset, meetings – then you will feel ‘guilty’ and others around you will feel frustrated (when you inevitably miss the deadline).
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| A strategic response: a little knowledge is a good thing |
A strategic approach to writing for publication is helpful. You certainly cannot simply hope for the best. You should:
Be under no illusion about how different forms of writing are valued, not least by the RAE. Your university will have a strategy for the RAE – find out what it is and how you contribute. It is imperative that you understand the hierarchy of value imposed by the RAE – from the single authored academic book to the paper in Teaching Geography. The latter will not count in RAE terms – but may well be important to write for other reasons!
Generally, an individual is probably best advised to assemble a balanced portfolio of writing. This should balance academic rigour (e.g. a paper in an internationally refereed research journal, which has a comparatively narrow and exclusive audience) with impact (a chapter in a teachers’ book, or a paper in a professional journal, which has the ability to communicate developments successfully throughout the profession).
Try and follow the ‘three times over’ rule. Your job involves running sessions for student teachers, possibly running ‘inset’ courses and/or contributing to masters programmes, giving conference papers … as well as writing. So whatever you do, try and make it ‘count’ in at least two but preferably three of these areas.
Know your journals. The main journals of interest in the geography education sphere are listed below, but it is not an inclusive list.
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You should also strongly consider writing for other audiences - to ‘test’ your ideas outside the comfort zone of geography and of course to inform other communities of your area of expertise. For instance, journals of: - curriculum studies
- teacher development
- teaching technologies (especially ICT)
- environmental education
- citizenship education
- assessment and evaluation.
But first, read outside the comfort zone of geography education!
Notes about books - You may be invited to contribute a chapter to a book – typically 5000 words. This could be a version, or development, of work that you have published in a journal. If you have written your thesis (see Getting Your PhD) (typically 80,000 words) you may, if you are lucky, be in a position to make it into a book (typically 50,000-80,000 words). This is rarely as ‘easy’ as it sounds however, for the audience for a thesis is not the same as that for a book! For a start, the audience for a book is expected to pay for the pleasure!
- You may have written materials for school students in the past, such as magazine articles and even textbooks. In so far as your professional publishing activities are concerned in your paid role as a teacher educator, writing material for children does not count. You may wish to continue this for other reasons (possibly financial), but it is best to consider this activity as strictly extra-curricular.
Writing is part of your job just like meetings or teaching. Put it in your diary, just like meetings or teaching. Plan time – high activity/low activity. Try to block out several days during low (teaching) activity periods – and make these high activity periods for writing. This approach will also help with setting reasonable and achievable deadlines.
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| Final words: finding support |
Because writing can be a solitary activity it can sometimes seem there is no support, and that you are on your own. This is not entirely true and it can be beneficial to seek out support by:- Talk (and e-mail) with like-minded colleagues – set up an informal special interest group
- Collaboration - why not write a joint paper with a more experienced colleague who can take you through the process?
- Seminars – jump at the chance to lead a seminar/discussion on your work. Colleagues, often from outside geography education, can provide supportive and encouraging comments. And the fact that you have had to present something will have helped you ‘make progress’ in communicating your ideas.
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Bridges, D. (1999) ‘Writing a research paper: reflections on a reflective log’, Educational Action Research, 7, 2, pp. 221-34. (There are not many papers that explicate the act of writing, but this describes the production of a paper for an academic journal.)
Harvey, D. (1973) Explanation in Geography. London: Edward Arnold.
Nixon, J. (1999) ‘Teachers, writers, professionals. Is there anybody out there?’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20, 20, pp. 207-21.(Explores a theme concerning the nature and the purpose of writing.)
Tooley, J. and Darby, D. (1998) Educational Research: a critique. London: Ofsted. (This report made a strong attack on the quality of published educational research. It contains telling points which academics are well advised to take note of! It is also criticised for being a partial – and not a very soundly evidenced – article itself!)
Wellington, J. (2003) Getting Published – A guide for lecturers and researchers. London: Routledge Falmer. (Excellent, very readable and enjoyable. Can be read either in detail or at speed (it provides a superb overview of writing for publication). Includes practical guidance on the writing process, and publishing in journals and books. Also includes a section that opens up the digital world of publishing – which may lead you to consider setting up your own website as an outlet for some of your work.)
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