Write It Up! Practical Strategies for Writing and Publishing Journal Articles by Paul J. Silvia

Write It Up! Practical Strategies for Writing and Publishing Journal Articles Reviews

• 
  Ivan

  While Silvia writes for the sciences and much of what he writes is not as applicable for guys like me in the humanities, there were a few takeaways that I appreciated:
  
  - Write to make an impact, not for mere publication.
  - Realize each journal represents an audience. “By picking a few journals as you plan your research, you can craft your work and your manuscript to appeal to the audience you want to attract” (30).
  - “The tone of your writing is like timbre in music, an aspect of personality that readers discern in an instant” (33).
  - “In most scholarly articles you will find only two punctuation marks: the comma and the period, with the former dwarfing the latter. Ignorance about the lowly facts of punctuation, I’m convinced, underpins most of the ghastly writing we see in journals” (38).
  - Silvia discourages contributing to book chapters since they are hard to track down and you are operating on a time constraint. Instead, he encourages writing in journal articles since they have a wider reach and many of them are available online.
  - “Making a writing schedule guarantees time to write and shelters your writing from the inanity and chaos of the workweek. And after a couple weeks, writing at that place at that time becomes a sturdy habit, and writing is no longer something you choose, hope, or want to do. . . . Try it—start with 4 to 6 hours a week for writing. Four hours is enough to write most of what you’d like to write and more than most people spend writing” (220).
• 
  David Lindelof

  I guess I'll just follow the author's advice and not write a book review. :-)
• 
  Andy

  Lots of practical tips for publishing scholarly articles, presented with some humor to keep it from being too dry. I like that he gives menus of approaches since there's not only one way to do any of this and that he explains his reasons for preferring one way over another. The best part is the beginning, where he tries to steer young people away from the quantity-over-quality, publish-or-perish mindset, and encourages them to try to do something meaningful.
  I have given his previous book to proteges and they liked it. I think this one could be useful as well.
• 
  Vanessa Fuller

  As an instructor to young (and older) PhD students, specifically providing guidance on the wonderfully wacky world of academic publishing, this book rocks.
  
  It's not just a how-to for each individual section of a manuscript, it's also a bit like a personalised cheerleader, cutting off each objection and 'but what about' as it crops up.
  
  Thank you, Professor Silvia, for having our instructors' backs. I'll be recommending this gem of a book to all of my students!
• 
  Brien

  One of the best books on writing I've read in a very long time.
• 
  Printed Pages and Coffee

  I found this a really good book; while I didn't blaze through in less that three hours as I did with How to Write a Lot, I did get through it quite quickly out of sheer interest in what Silvia had to say next. It contains solid publishing advice peppered with comical anecdotes, which are an excellent method of getting the reader to remember a point you're trying to hammer home. This is very much worth your time if you are writing academic pieces for publication!
• 
  Diana

  This was a longer read than How to Write a Lot, but it has a lot of helpful, useful information and the same wit that I’ve come to appreciate from Silvia. As per his suggestion, I won’t spend much time on this review ;)
• 
  Gregory Belaieff

  Very silly writing style that is vexing, Silvia tries very hard to be funny but ends up being annoying. He does offer a few good pieces advice for writing research papers but nothing that isn't already self evident.
• 
  Ietrio

  Boring. Dry. Probably excellent for academic paper pusher wannabes.
• 
  Karin

  Concise, clear, practical guide for academic writing for publishing in research journals. I’m using it and referring doctoral students to it.
• 
  Allyson

  Great guide to writing a research paper-who would have thought this subject could be funny and entertaining?
• 
  Michael Scott

  Excellent book! The content relates directly to publishing in my field (structural engineering) and will be useful to those publishing in any discipline of science or engineering.
• 
  Emine Ozturk

  You can find good hints to write and publish your academic paper! The references in the book are useful and provide practical strategies!
  
  
• 
  Lydia

  Funny, interesting, helpful. This is what a book about writing should be.
• 
  Mary Mojica

  Excellent book.
• 
  Julia Kerrigan

  Really, really, really, really, really, really, really helpful.
• 
  Nate Claiborne

  This book is helpful with some basics and orientation to journal article writing. The actual chapters on writing articles are geared for psychology articles (which have a very specific format) and so not as useful for writing in the humanities (like biblical and theological studies). However, because of the insight on tone in writing, how to pick journals, and putting together a good introduction, it's worth checking out.
• 
  Wawan Kurn

  Dapat hadiah dari salah satu dosen kampus, baca ini dan minta bantu buat jurnal. Duh, saya rasa buku ini penting. Tapi satu hal yang ingin saya catat, bahwa ada perbedaan antara peneliti di sini (Makassar, mungkin juga Indonesia) bahwa mereka membaca hanya bacaan penelitian saja, tidak membaca karya Sastra. Padahal di buku ini, penulis beberapa kali menyebut nama penulis besar yang dijadikan rujukan untuk menulis.
• 
  Ailsa Haxell

  A particularly good section on collaborative writing and on collaborators.
• 
  Donna

  Helpful and provides some unique thoughts about writing even for someone who has been in academia for some time. There is actually quite a lot in the one concise guide.
• 
  Jude

  Not as good as How to Write A Lot