Acknowledgments
Introduction: Using This Workbook
Goals of the workbook. History of the workbook. Philosophy of the
workbook. Pedagogy of the workbook.
General instructions. Using the workbook according to your
temperament, discipline, or career stage. Using the workbook by
yourself, with a writing partner, in a writing group, with
coauthors, or to teach a class. Feedback to the author.
Week 1: Designing Your Plan for Writing
Instruction: Understanding feelings about writing. Keys to positive
writing experiences. Designing a plan for submitting your article
in twelve weeks.
Exercises: Selecting a paper for revision. Choosing your writing
site. Designing your writing schedule. Anticipating and overturning
writing obstacles.
Week 2: Starting Your Article
Instruction: Types of academic articles. Myths about publishable
journal articles. What gets published and why. Abstracts as a tool
for success. Getting started on your article revision.
Exercises: Hammering out your topic. Rereading your paper. Drafting
your abstract. Reading a model article. Revising your abstract.
Week 3: Advancing Your Argument
Instruction: Common reasons why journals reject articles. Main
reason journal articles are rejected: no argument. Making a good
argument. Organizing your article around your argument.
Exercises: Drafting your argument. Reviewing your article for an
argument. Revising your article around your argument.
Week 4: Selecting a Journal
Instruction: Good news about journals. The importance of picking
the right journal. Types of academic journals: nonrecommended,
questionable, and preferred. Finding suitable academic
journals.
Exercises: Searching for journals. Evaluating academic journals.
Matching your article to suitable journals. Reading relevant
journals. Writing a query letter to editors. Making a final
decision about which journal.
Week 5: Reviewing the Related Literature
Instruction: Reading the scholarly literature. Types of scholarly
literature. Strategies for getting reading done. Identifying your
relationship to the related literature. Avoiding plagiarism.
Writing about others′ research.
Exercises: Evaluating your current citations. Identifying and
reading the related literature. Evaluating the related literature.
Writing or revising your related literature review.
Week 6: Strengthening Your Structure
Instruction: On the importance of structure. Types of structures.
Article structures in the social sciences and humanities. Solving
structural problems. Revising for structure.
Exercises: Outlining a model article. Outlining your article.
Restructuring your article.
Week 7: Presenting Your Evidence
Instruction: Types of evidence. Writing up evidence in the social
sciences. Writing up evidence in the humanities. Revising your
evidence.
Exercises: Discussing evidence in your field. Revisiting your
evidence. Shaping your evidence around your argument.
Week 8: Opening and Concluding Your Article
Instruction: On the importance of openings. Revising your opening
and conclusion.
Exercises: Revising your title. Revising your introduction.
Revisiting your abstract, related literature review, and author
order. Revising your conclusion.
Week 9: Giving, Getting, and Using Others′ Feedback
Instruction: Types of feedback. Exchanging your articles.
Exercises: Sharing your article and getting feedback. Making a list
of remaining tasks. Revising your article according to
feedback.
Week 10: Editing Your Sentences
Instruction: On taking the time. Types of revising. The rules of
editing. The Belcher diagnostic test. Editing your article.
Exercises: Running the Belcher diagnostic test. Revising your
article with the diagnostic test. Correcting other types of problem
sentences.
Week 11: Wrapping Up Your Article
Instruction: On the perils of perfection. Finalizing your
article.
Exercises: Finalizing your argument, related literature review,
introduction, evidence, structure, and conclusion.
Week 12: Sending Your Article!
Instruction: On the importance of finishing. Getting the submission
ready.
Exercises: Writing the cover letter. Preparing illustrations.
Putting your article into the journal′s style. Preparing the final
print or electronic version. Send and celebrate!
Week X: Responding to Journal Decisions
Instruction: An exhortation. Waiting for the journal′s decision.
Reading the journal′s decision. Types of journal decisions.
Responding to journal decisions.
Exercises: Evaluating and responding to the journal decision.
Planning your revision. Revising your article. Drafting your
revision cover letter. Requesting permissions. On the importance of
persevering.
End Notes
Works Cited
Recommended Reading
Index
About the Author
Wendy Laura Belcher is an award-winning author, academic editor,
international lecturer, and professor. She designed one of the
first publication focused writing courses for graduate students and
junior faculty in the nation, and for ten years has conducted such
courses at the University of California, Los Angeles, and in
research institutions around the world, including those in Norway,
Malawi, Sudan, and Egypt. These popular workshops are based on her
twenty years of experience as an academic editor, including eleven
years managing an ethnic studies press and the peer-reviewed
journal of record in the field, Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano
Studies, as well as her two master’s degrees in the social sciences
and a doctorate in the humanities.
She is also a published nonfiction author, whose memoir about her
childhood in Ethiopia and Ghana, Honey from the Lion: An African
Journey, won a Washington State Governor’s Writers Award and
honorable mention in the Martha Albrand/PEN Society Award for first
book of nonfiction. She is now an assistant professor of African
literature in the Princeton University Department of Comparative
Literature and the Center for African American Studies.
"Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks is the one book I would
most recommend to inexperienced academic authors in the humanities
or social sciences who seriously wish to see their scholarly work
in print. Other books may be quicker to read, but I doubt if any
would ultimately prove to be as effective."
*Steven E. Gump*
"Thorough, beautifully organized, and humane. This is a
welcome light on a dark process."
*Kevin Peterson*
"Belcher′s book uses an interactive format to help writers develop
a manuscript for submission from a pre-existing text such as a
dissertation/thesis... When I used this book to teach writing for
publication, doctorial students responded enthusiastically to the
format and tone, which bolstered their confidence and enabled them
to confront displacement activities."
*Mary Jane Curry*
"While addressing the sometimes-unsearchable field of scholarly
writing and publishing, Wendy Belcher uses unpretentious,
contemporary, and even witty prose that is simultaneously
captivating and informative."
*Grant Eckstein*
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