Professors as Writers (Robert Boice) – my reading notes
As I went through the first few pages, I realized that I had read Boice’s book at some point in my doctoral degree, but never paid much attention to the book, to be perfectly honest. It wasn’t until I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#AcWriMo Day 1: On the importance of gradually building an academic writing...
I’ve had a “want-to-do-can-do-can’t-do-wish-I-could-do” relationship with AcWriMo (the Academic Writing Month, first started as #AcBoWriMo, Academic Book Writing Month, in November of 2011, by Dr....
View ArticleClik here to view.
#AcWriMo Day 4: 3 strategies to catch up when you fall behind on your writing
Friday (yesterday) was the last day of a conference and pre/post doctoral I co-organized with colleagues from INECOL, University of Helsinki, Universite du Luxembourg and obviously my own institution,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean (my...
This year, I’ve been reading a lot about writing (in general), and academic writing (in particular), because more and more people come to my website for advice on how to write, and I’ve created a nice...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dealing with rejected papers and revise-and-resubmits (R&Rs) with purpose
One of the things I’ve been learning this 2017 has been dealing with rejection in a more constructive manner. Toward the beginning of the year 20017 I got a paper rejected from the top journal in my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Writing a book review
Writing book reviews, to me, feels as the service we all ought to provide other scholars. I don’t post actual reviews on my website (instead, I post my reading notes because I don’t know if my notes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks (A Guide to Academic Success) (my...
Despite the fact that I have interacted with Dr. Wendy Laura Belcher quite a lot, we discuss academic writing almost every day, I had never written my reading notes of her book (Writing Your Journal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Legitimising reading as a crucial component of academic writing
Like many of my fellow professors, I feel the pressure of having to continuously write scholarly papers, present them at academic conferences, submit them for peer review and publish in highly-ranked...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mapping a new field of scholarship
One of the first questions I get asked on Twitter (I’m at @raulpacheco) is: “how do I get started on X?” It’s always hard because to be perfectly honest, a lot of things I don’t even realize how I got...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to write the introduction to a research paper
As I’ve noted before, many of the blog posts I write are about things that I know my own students and research assistants need (or will need). This is one of those cases. My students and research...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Forward citation tracing and backwards citation tracing in literature reviews
One of the skills I teach my students and research assistants on a regular basis is a method to find new citations across the literature. That’s what I (and others) call citation tracing. A paper I was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Write No Matter What: Advice for Academics (Joli Jensen) – my reading notes
Slowly but surely I’ve been amassing a small library of academic writing books. Not because I love dispensing advice, but because a lot of people ask me to recommend books, and others suggest the ones...
View ArticleClik here to view.
125-250 words, 15 minutes: Setting small writing goals to build an academic...
I have been travelling non-stop since January 2018 even though I had promised myself I would not do this ever again. But my scholarly research takes me to a number of places, including San Francisco...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thinking Like Your Editor (Rabiner & Fortunato) – my reading notes
One of the things I’ve learned through the years is that there is no single panacea for anything. In the line of research I do (comparative public policy), I always find that there are so many...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Writing (Stephen King) (my reading notes)
I’ll say it upfront: I HATE memoirs. I also hate the rhetorical moves that come with writing these memoirs. Even more so, I totally despise how some amazing and well-renowned authors use these...
View ArticleWriting the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach (my reading notes)
I like inexpensive, easy-to-read, fast-paced, nimble books. Writing the Doctoral Dissertation: A Systematic Approach by Davis, Parker and Straub is exactly that kind of volume. My only complaint with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation (my reading notes)
I have to admit that from the title, I was expecting a really powerful book, and while I liked it, it really didn’t feel like Joan Bolker’s Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day nor Patrick...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to write a book chapter
I was asked by Dr. Joanna Brown for guidance on how to write a book chapter. I wouldn’t say I’m the ideal person for this task, but since I have published many of these for several edited collections,...
View ArticleHow to write an abstract for a paper
I’ve been teaching small workshops for my lab on how to do scientific writing. Doing these short, quick courses helps me provide them with insights on how I write my own papers, and how they can write...
View ArticleWriting for Peer Reviewed Journals: Strategies for Getting Published...
While I’ve followed and interacted with Dr. Pat Thomson (University of Nottingham) for a very, very long time (and I really like her), I haven’t read all the books she’s published. She’s someone who...
View Article