Revising and Submitting for Publication (San Juan, Puerto Rico)

You’ve collected and analyzed your research data. Perhaps you’ve presented some of your findings at this conference. Now it’s time to write up your findings and share them with the academic world. For many of us, however, drafting a manuscript can be one of the most difficult steps in the research process. And sometimes, our best efforts to revise and resubmit are not successful. Why is that? This workshop will begin an overview of the main reasons that manuscripts are rejected and offer tips for addressing those shortcomings and producing a publishable paper for a specific audience.

This workshop is ideal for those who have a writing project they want to work on – regardless of the stage in their writing process. Participants will apply the principles of academic storytelling to address the goals of the author-researcher and the demands of the editor/reviewer and the reading audience. That means identifying the key message and how to shape that message for the intended audience in a particular outlet – be it a journal, news article, op-ed, press release, and other non-text-based outlet. Participants will dig into important but sometimes overlooked elements of a manuscript such as drafting a good title, choosing appropriate keywords and writing a strong abstract. Software tools and strategies for editing, proofreading and polishing a final draft will also be discussed.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Come prepared with identify a key message you want to write about during the workshop. If you’re currently drafting or revising a manuscript, bring that along as well. You will be able to engage more actively in-class exercises if you bring a Wi-Fi enabled laptop with MS Word (or other document-editing software) and Adobe Acrobat (or other PDF-viewing software).

Saturday, January 11