EngL 5805 Writing for Publication

Fall 2003 – 1:25 pm-3:55 pm Fridays in Lind 202

Donald Ross

This is a workshop course for graduate students who wish to prepare their academic writing for publication.  To some degree, it will be a motivational seminar.

Along the way, we will discuss professional issues such as

   o  the goals, politics, and diplomacy of journal editors and conference organizers

   o  the various roles of conference papers, book reviews, articles, and books

   o  good practice and ethics

  o  differences between course papers and articles, dissertations and books

You will do various exercises in writing abstracts, book reviews and notices, surveys of literature, and introductions.  Also, your work in progress will be both edited and (somewhat formally) reviewed during the term.

Writing and rhetorical issues to be addressed will include

   o  getting started, momentum, and knowing when to quit

   o  writing in short segments, starting at the beginning or at the middle

   o  the roles of narration, description, and other forms of exposition

   o  developing and expanding content

While variations are possible, I think the course will go best if you focus on a single project.  It will be better if you have a start on your topic; there just isn't enough time for you to do full research and write a paper in fifteen  weeks.  However, if your research is done or nearly so, it should work out for you to begin with your notes and access to your sources.  It's just fine if you start with a paper from one of your previous courses (maybe one of those with "this is publishable" cryptically at the end).

If all things work out, the official result will be for you to send out a publishable manuscript to an appropriate journal.

		EDITING TYPES	COMPUTER
9 Sept.	Describe your project
16 Sept.	WRITE an abstract of your paper for a conference which is listed in PMLA - also include the "RFP" [You could send it out !] Copies for everyone www.english.upenn.edu/CFP Explore and explain the travel conference web site http://english.cla.umn.edu/travelconf/home.html Join a listserv in your specialty, and keep us abreast of what it says BB& R 1-8; Appendix	Acquisition
23 Sept.	WRITE: Trends in three possible journals (see later page for Exercise #1) LUEY Ch. 2; BB& R 12-15
30 Sept.	CURRENT DRAFT (or outline) and a one-to-three-page discussion of your revision plan (3 copies) WRITE a 300-word review of a book in your field for a specific journal (include a sample from that journal) BB&R 16, 17, 20		Excel - use it for your research or do the exercise
7 Oct.	Discuss the draft with your trio Travel conference web site exercise - 10 best, 10 to drop BB&R 19	Develop-mental – see below
14 Oct.	MINI-CONFERENCE - everyone gives 20 minute speeches based on the paper
21 Oct.	FIRST REVISION of your paper (3 copies)	Substantive
28 Oct.	Discuss the revision with your trio LUEY Ch. 10 (skim "Illustrations" and "Permissions") to p. 197;  Ch. 11 to 218, and 233-41; BB&R 9-11     John Mowitt, editor, Cultural Critique		Format your paper to match a journal
4 Nov.	Put together an anthology proposal based on the Travel Conference web site - http://english.cla.umn.edu/travelconf/home.html; write a letter inviting people to contribute their paper Style, rhetoric, and organization of journal articles (see later page for Exercise #2) LUEY Ch. 6		Track Changes & Com-ments in Word
11 Nov.	SECOND REVISION - ready for copyediting (2 copies) - copies of your introduction for everyone Dissertation writers – Bleakney, Slater	Copy – see below
18 Nov.	Partner edits the manuscript; explain editing to the author
25 Nov.	Thanksgiving Holiday
2 Dec,	12 Write a book prospectus with your article as the sample chapter  LUEY Chs. 3, 4, 9, 11; BB&R 18 Richard Morrison, U of Minnesota Press
9 Dec.	NEARLY FINAL DRAFT (2 copies)	Proofread
16 Dec.	Write a fellowship application ( see next page  #3 ) Brief discussion of proofreading  with the author, explain author query, if any LUEY Ch. 5, in 10, "Proofreading "and "Indexing," 198-204; Ch. 11, pp. 229-32, 241-46		Index your paper
23 Dec.	IN EXAM WEEK - THE PAPER IS DUE

(LUEY) Beth Luey, Handbook for Academic Authors, 4th edition, ISBN: 0521-891981 Cambridge University Press.

(BB&R) Beruvides, Behnen, and Ross, "How to Write and Publish Articles on Literatures in English," at the Paradigm Copy center in Dinkydome or at my web site.

I'll probably assign other readings (through Paradigm) during the term

You should own the standard style guide for your discipline.  For people in modern languages and literatures, the is Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 5th ed. (New York: MLA, 1999).

 You might want to buy The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career: A Portable Mentor for Scholars from Graduate School, by John A. Goldsmith, John Komlos, and Penny Schine Gold.  Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2001

Exercises 

#1

Trends in journals over the past 10 years (odd- or even-numbered): Find THREE journals where you would like to publish your key paper (or others like it) and read a healthy sample of the articles published, editorial statements.  Write a 3-page report on where the journals have been and where they seem to be going.  A Consumer's Reports style spread sheet might be an interesting appendix.

#2

Style, rhetoric, and organization of articles:

Option 1: From your survey, pick about half a dozen articles which you admire and which you would like to emulate.  Write a 3-page analysis of how these admirable articles are put together.

Option 2: Pick an important source for your paper.  Write a 3-page analysis of its strengths and weaknesses.  Turn in a copy of the article (annotated, if you wish).

#3

Write an application for a U of M fellowship.  Here are the rules for a Shevlin or Stout-Wallace:

1. A statement including research project title, of up to three pages describing the research or study you plan to pursue in the coming academic year.  Double spaced, no smaller than 12-point type, margins no less than one inch.

2. A one-page personal biographical statement that gives a picture of you as an individual.  It should recount influences on your intellectual development.

On developmental editing

As we go through the editorial process, the acquisition person finds likely manuscripts to be published (in a journal or as a monograph).  Then she or he convinces the publisher to write a contract or otherwise be committed to getting the manuscript into print.  Once that decision is reached, the manuscript goes to you, and, given the state of what you have, you can't just read for content, general organization, and style.  That would be substantive editing.  Instead, you need to make general suggestions on how to cut, focus, add, and rewrite the whole text so that it gets closer to the general specifications of what we are seeking.  In this context, you may decide not to mark up the draft you read at all – you may just write a letter or notes for a conference with the author.

On  substantive and copy editing

Substantive editing is an intellectual and cognitive process; you are supposed to think carefully about what you read, and point out where the argument, logic, evidence, and those big issues fall down.  You are also trying to evoke thought on the part of the author, especially since you likely do not know enough about the topic to figure out how to change the contents.  Copy editing is actually at an emotional or affective level, because you are working on the author's style.  In terms of a journal, substantive editing is what follows "revise and resubmit," and is typically in the form of a letter to the author with some general mark-up of the text, but not a lot at the sentence or paragraph levels.

Copy editing is quite different from two activities you are familiar with – commenting on student papers and substantive editing.  The main goal is to help the author make a better text, and thus some operative verbs are: sharpen, clarify, concentrate, focus, smooth,

When you comment on student papers you are writing to the author, and you are teaching.  Commenting is also forward looking – toward the next paper, toward a life time of happy prose.  Copy editing has nothing (ostensibly) to do with the writer – it is just about the text, the writing on the page as received.  You are "fixing" the text; therefore, you do not say "find a better word," YOU write down the better word if you know it.

And, because it is so personal, that is why journal editors or publishing houses hire anonymous people as copy editors – while afterwards, most authors appreciate the work of this editor, at the time it strikes too close to home.  For that reason, I do not recommend that you ask your partner, parent, or child to be a copy editor – that could be the end of a beautiful friendship.

Depending on your temperament and experience, you MAY be able to be a good copy editor of your own writing.  For example, I've seen enough pages of my work go through several drafts that I can often catch many first-draft problems myself.

Of course, copy editing is on a continuum – you don't totally shut your brain down, nor do you ignore minor errors that are properly part of the proofreading step.