The librarian as academic author: a reflection

Writing is storytelling. In this article I share my story on how I began (and continue) to write for academic publication. Hopefully, you, the reader, will get some ideas from my experiences and suggestions and will feel motivated and enthused to write yourself. I have included some writing exercises that those new to writing may find helpful

The academic writing toolkit: writing for professional and peer-reviewed journals

This article offers a step-by-step approach to writing an article. It aims to be a practical guide, with writing exercises, for library staff who have limited or no experience of writing for peer reviewed and/or professional journals. It draws on my experience of facilitating academic writing workshops for library staff from Irish universities and for postgraduate students at NUI Maynooth

Time is not enough : promoting strategic engagement with writing for publication

Research, scholarship and publication are central to the work of higher education. However, even academics with the necessary research and writing skills can struggle to publish as often as they would like. Research suggests that a writing retreat is one solution; there is a process going on there that addresses the problem, but how it does so has not been fully explained. We used a novel approach, containment theory, to explain why the functions of a structured retreat work. We argue that a retreat does more than simply provide time to write; it is a model for academics to meet the demands of research assessment. Finally, we conceptualise this as strategic engagement - a model for producing regular writing for publication while continuing to meet other professional demands

On the Privatisation of Academic Writing Development: A Post-EATAW 2017 Provocation

All across continental Europe and the United Kingdom, academic writing teaching or development is slowly becoming part and parcel of existing institutional frameworks intended to enhance student writing and professional research communication. While more and more universities are investing in such infrastructures of support internally, a relatively new phenomenon is also consolidating: the steady rise of privatised, for-profit writing development businesses that draw their client base from academic institutions. Prompted by EATAW 2017, the conference organised at Royal Holloway, University of London, this think piece raises some fundamental questions regarding the privatisation of academic writing development and invites colleagues to consider its assumptions, emergence and implications in their local, higher education contexts

"It's Just Like Being a Student": Making Space for Teachers to Think.

This paper looks at creating legitimate thinking spaces for teachers to explore their pedagogical beliefs and practices through collaborative writing. Based upon a project from a post compulsory Initial Teacher Training programme in the UK it will describe the process of working with teacher educators towards writing as part of a critical professional development process. Writing collaborativley for publication, a companion to a student research journal, has become significant not just for producing a useful resource but as a highly valued space for thinking and discussing teaching and learning. Teacher educators teach others to reflect, to be critical and to value their professional independence, yet there is little space for them to do this themselves. One participant in a recent writing day exclaimed it was the first space he had to think for years, whilst another said it was a vital space to reconnect with educational beliefs and pedagogical practices with others. This paper will explore using writing as a framework to support critical thinking, reflection and collaboration for professional development. It provides a case study to explore if using this method supports relevant, contextual and authentic professionial developmnent both for self development and and as a site for resistance to the overwork and deprofessionalised culture in post-compulsory teaching

Belonging to a Community of Research Practice

Belonging to a community of research practice as applied linguists or as academics in any field is part of our professional life. Being an academic implies, inter alia, creativity in advancing knowledge in the disciplines, which reflects in writing journal articles, presenting papers in conferences, doing research, teaching, tutoring students and publishing. Globally, every higher education institution requires that academics publish in prominent journals to make their work and their institution visible and influence their professional field. However, the questions that arise concerning academic production are how do communities of research support academic production?, How do higher education institutions help novice researchers develop academic writing competences?, What is the place of writing within research? How do institutions foster quality publication

Belonging to a Community of Research Practice

Belonging to a community of research practice as applied linguists or asacademics in any field is part of our professional life. Being an academic implies,inter alia, creativity in advancing knowledge in the disciplines, which reflects inwriting journal articles, presenting papers in conferences, doing research, teaching,tutoring students and publishing. Globally, every higher education institutionrequires that academics publish in prominent journals to make their work andtheir institution visible and influence their professional field. However, the questionsthat arise concerning academic production are how do communities of researchsupport academic production?, How do higher education institutions help noviceresearchers develop academic writing competences?, What is the place of writingwithin research? How do institutions foster quality publication

Open spaces: The new frontier for academic writers

In the face of the ‘fees must fall’ campaign and severe budgetary constraints for South African universities, funding has become a challenge. To this end, institutional management bodies look to academics to fill the gaping void of reduced budgets through increased research output. This has sparked the need for institutions to provide support in the form of writing retreats for academics. The current study offers a critical examination of the experiences of academics on writing retreats, as well as the barriers they encountered once the retreat was over. Data was collected via qualitative in-depth interviews (n=3). Content analysis was carried out on the data which revealed barriers to publication such as the need for additional support and time constraints. On this basis, this study recommends a model for Publication Improvement which is proposed to address the barriers academics encountered