Crafting Scholarship in the Behavioral and Social Sciences

Writing, Reviewing, and Editing

Robert M. Milardo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317659372
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Crafting Scholarship helps readers improve their writing and publishing success in academia. Framed within the context of the editorial and peer review process, the book explores writing, editing, and reviewing in academic publishing. As such it provides unique coverage of how successful writers work, how they manage criticism, and more. Examples from successful scholars provide helpful tips in writing articles, grants, books, book chapters, and reviews. Each chapter features tools that facilitate learning including Best Practices and Writer's Resource boxes to help maximize success, discussion questions and case studies to stimulate critical thinking, and recommended readings to encourage self exploration. A Facebook page provides an opportunity for readers to post writing updates and for instructors to share materials.

Highlights include:

-Insights on working with journal boards, reviewers, and contributors drawn from the author's 30 years of experience in editing journal articles and writing books.

-Describes writing quantitative and qualitative reports, theory and literature reviews, books and chapters, grants, and book reviews.

-Identifies common problems academics face in writing and publishing along with practical solutions.

-Explores best practices in writing peer reviews, responding to reviewers and editors, and how to calculate and interpret acceptance rates and impact factors.

-Addresses how to write each section of a journal article and select keywords that facilitate digital search engines to help potential readers find an article.

-Includes examples of published work and tips on writing research syntheses using meta-analytic techniques or narrative analyses.

-Examines the practices of successful writers, the pros and cons of collaborations, what publishers look for, and managing criticism.

-Reviews pertinent empirical literature on the core topics of writing, reviewing, and editing.

Intended for graduate or advanced undergraduate courses in professional development, writing in an academic field, or research methods taught in psychology, education, human development and family studies, sociology, communication, and other social sciences, this practical guide also appeals to those interested in pursuing an academic career and new and seasoned researchers.

1
Crafting Scholarship

An Introduction

Great writing underscores influential contributions in the sciences and in all of their applied iterations. The social psychologist Ellen Berscheid (2003) clearly values great writing as she reflects on the nature of influential contributions in psychology.

The ability to express a new vision of the world simply, regardless of the underlying complexity of the idea and regardless of how much it defies conventional belief, [is] essential to those who wish their work to have an impact. Disciples are unlikely to be attracted if the vision is poorly articulated or expressed in a way that seems discouragingly complex, even though great complexity often underlies ideas that seem simple on the surface.

(p. 121)

I am always amazed how significant contributions can appear so obvious, often rudimentary, regardless of the complexity of the phenomena being described. Ted Huston’s (2000) model of close relationships is one example. The model is inclusive of the full array of attributes that describe relationship development from properties of individuals like personality attributes, emergent conditions like love and trust, relationship features like interaction sequences, and contextual influences like a couple’s contact with friends and relatives, or their experience of work and coworkers. Virtually all scholarship on marriage and intimate partnerships can be organized with the close relationships model and the complex interactions of personal, relational, and contextual factors depicted. The model’s simplicity belies the complexity it portrays. Great writing is deceptive, neither simple to execute nor elementary in meaning or implication.

Great writing permits us to read efficiently. When an article or book is well organized and clearly articulated, we understand an author’s intention, we anticipate the line of argument, and there is little ambiguity. The effect is true for readers and just as importantly for the publishing gatekeepers—reviewers and editors.

Great writing is technically astute and conforms to accepted standards of style and usage, standards that buttress clarity of expression. Well-crafted articles and books are built on essential writing skills like an understanding of effective sentence structure, but they are also strategic. Great writing is consciously directed at an audience that includes general readers as well as critics, reviewers, and editors. At its core, this book is about writing strategically for an explicit and critical audience and, in doing so, crafting scholarship that is effective and influential.

Purpose and Organization of Crafting Scholarship

Crafting Scholarship intends to improve your writing, success in publishing, and success in being read and cited—all of which are the building materials of influence and growth in the sciences and their applications. The book is organized in three parts. Part I includes four chapters on writing journal articles, grants, books, book chapters, and book reviews, all with an intended audience in mind. I assume we all have at least reasonably mastered the fundamentals of English composition, although I am the first to admit I am always learning more about style and grammar. And I assume we are familiar with the basic forms that journal articles take in our respective disciplines. You may not have written many journal articles, for instance, but I’m sure you are familiar with the typical forms they take. This first unit lifts off from a basic foundation and proceeds to think about crafting articles and other scholarly works strategically.

A second unit focuses on the experience of writing, how successful writers in the behavioral and social sciences approach their writing, their common practices, quirky rituals, and the issues that typically interfere with writing. I am immensely intrigued by how writers write and where and when they do so. A curiosity about writing habits initially led me to write this book.

I am interested in how the experience of writing for the behavioral and social sciences is similar to writing in other venues and genres. For instance, do novelists experience writing in ways similar to social scientists? Stephen King (2000), in his musing on the craft, says: “Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough” (p. 74). And: “When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story” (p. 57). Both observations apply whether crafting fiction or a rigidly organized journal article. There are differences. King aims to write 2,000 words per day. I’m happy with 250, and that’s a good day, but still there is similarity in our experience. The three chapters in this unit explore the phenomenology of writing as well as the issues of risk and criticism, and the practices successful writers fold into their routine writing habits.

The final unit includes two chapters, one on reviewing journal articles and one on the common practices of editorial offices and responsibilities of editors. These chapters aim to improve success in writing effective reviews, encourage an understanding of how editors work, and ultimately improve your success in publishing. I based much of the material for these chapters on a content analysis of peer reviews of journal articles taken from the archives of the Journal of Family Theory & Review and from the pertinent empirical literatures. I liberally supplemented this material by drawing on interviews with experienced editors to further interrogate core issues. I paired this mixture of source material with my own experience as a writer, reviewer, and editor.

The Wherewithal: Why Write This Book?

Writing, reviewing, and editing have been constants in my academic life. I like writing and the challenges it represents: the challenge of discovery represented by mastering a new literature, honing an insightful review or new conceptualization, or following the intrigue of an empirical inquiry. In all these ordinary activities that consume so much of my time, and I imagine yours as well, I like thinking about writing strategically and executing that writing as well as possible. Doing science well and writing well are co-conspirators.

Reading about writing and writers is another part of the conspiratorial process; it helps me to become a better writer, but, truth be told, I find writers a curious lot. I find writers and writing practices endlessly fascinating, and most certainly patterned. My colleague Elizabeth prefers writing in cafes—not just any café, but a café of a certain size, with a large corner table where she can spread out her writing accouterments and command a view of the entire room. In some ways Elizabeth’s writing practices are unique, but they are also deliberate and responsive to her own needs as a writer. Successful writers are aware of their requirements and constantly adjust circumstance with their writing needs. Uncovering some of the practices of successful writers is entertaining, instructive, and a major purpose of this book.

There is another conspirator. In 1983, Jetse Sprey, then the editor of the Journal of Marriage and Family published an editorial in which he suggested scholars interested in serving on the journal’s board write and so indicate their interest. I did so and, after completing several reviews, was appointed to the board a year later. Reviewing was interesting, yet another way to venture into the intrigue of producing great science and a way to hone my skills as a writer and a reviewer. Although I had not anticipated a career as an editor, my interest in writing crossed paths with several unexpected, and entirely fortunate, opportunities. I served six years as associate editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, which was founded by Steve Duck a few years earlier. Another six-year term as editor of the Journal of Marriage and Family followed. These experiences led to an opportunity to develop a journal specializing in theory and review. I believed then and now that the broad field of family studies needed a home for encouraging the publication of integrative literature reviews and theoretical developments. I became the founding editor of the Journal of Family Theory & Review in 2008 and served as editor for seven years. I’ve read a heap of manuscripts and their incumbent reviews. And I’ve written scores of decision letters to authors. I don’t know the exact number but over a thousand would be a conservative estimate. This book is the outcome of my unexpected, provocative, and rewarding career as an editor.

Although many books exist on technical writing and issues of style, Crafting Scholarship frames writing for academic and applied audiences within the larger context of the peer-review process. You might think of developing skills in reviewing, in the companion process of responding to reviews and editors, as additional elements in the foundation of great writing. Reviewers and editors are additional co-conspirators.

The literature on the writing for the behavioral and social sciences is well developed, with several instructional articles (Ambert, Adler, Adler, & Detzner, 1995; Belgrave, Zablotsky, & Guacagno, 2002; Bem, 1995; Matthews, 2005; Sabatelli, 2010; White, 2005), book chapters (Bem, 2004; Sternberg, 2000), and books devoted to the craft (Becker, 2007; Silvia, 2007). Authors typically address issues of grammar and style, and most address the specific requirement of technical writing. Most refer to the now classic books by Strunk and White, The Elements of Style (1999), Williams and Colomb’s Lessons in Clarity and Grace (2010), or Gower’s The Complete Plain Words (1973), and none substantially improve on these classics. However, few systematically explore the experience of writing, and none base their work on a well-designed empirical study of what authors say about their experience. Previous work is well intentioned, and sometimes useful, but often largely editorial. Previous work is neither broadly based on the experience of multiple authors, nor systematic in how the topic is interrogated, nor firmly positioned within an empirical literature on writing, reviewing, and editing. This book adds to what we know about the experience of writing across disciplines and venues. I am hopeful you will find Crafting Scholarship a useful and comprehensive treatment of the three pillars of academic publishing: writing, editing, and reviewing.

Dramatis Personae

I spoke with many people about writing, some rather informally, although not always briefly. Others I interviewed in depth with a specific set of questions in mind. I asked about their writing practices, when and where they wrote, their views on reviewing work for journals, and their experience in being reviewed and responding to reviews. I interviewed new professionals, those in mid-career, parents with young children, and some well-established and successful senior scholars. I interviewed editors with considerable experience about their views on writing and publishing. The interviews are liberally cited throughout the book, and I think they form an important empirical foundation for the best practices identified. Brief biographical statements for each of our players are included below.

Anisa Zvonkovic is department head and professor of human development at Virginia Tech. She presided as president of the Groves Conference on Families and is a recipient of several awards for her teaching, mentoring, and research. Her research interests concern the effects of work and other contextual demands on individual and interpersonal lives and feminist and postmodern perspectives on close relationships. She is principle investigator for a National Institutes of Health–funded project on work travel and families and the health and family relationships of people experiencing high work demands.

Paul Amato is the Arnold and Bette Hoffman Professor of Sociology and Demography at the Pennsylvania State University. Paul is best known for his research on marital quality and the consequences of divorce on children. His many research awards include the Ernest Burgess Award for outstanding scholarly and career achievement in the study of families, four Reuben Hill Awards for excellence in research, and a Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association.

Libby Balter Blume is professor and director of the programs in developmental psychology and family life education at the University of Detroit Mercy. Libby is the coauthor of textbooks on middle childhood and adolescence, series editor of Groves Monographs on Marriage & Family, and past book review editor for the Journal of Family Theory & Review, for which she is now editor-in-chief. Her research interests center on feminist and queer theories.

Rachelle Brunn-Bevel is assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Fairfield University. Rachelle’s research examines how students’ race, ethnicity, class, gender, and immigrant status intersect to influence their educational experiences and outcomes. She has additional interests in racial-ethnic disparities in standardized test scores among K–12 students, and the unique experiences of female faculty.

David Brunsma is professor of sociology at Virginia Tech. With research interests in race, racism, human rights, and critical sociologies, he is coeditor with his colleagues Keri Smith and Brian Gran of the Handbook of Sociology and Human Rights (2013). David is active ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• Preface
• 1 Crafting Scholarship: An Introduction
• PART I Writing for Journals, Grants, and Books
• PART II The Experience of Writing
• PART III Reviewing and Editing
• Appendices
• Index