Research-Based and Anecdotal Tips
for Improving Scholarly Productivity

Tips for Selecting a Research Topice

1. Choose a topic that you know a lot about, you care about, and is novel.

2. Look ahead and determine where a professional conversation might be in a year or two.

3. Read to stay in touch with mass media in order to spot trends and emerging issues.

4. Follow local, state, and national legislation.

5. Stay in touch with professional organizations.

6. Recognize the merits of research that your discipline would consider an applied focus.

7. Find links between the upper division courses you teach and what you research—student questions and comments can trigger new ideas.

8. Take risks, pursue innovative paths toward scholarship—after you garner credentials.

Tips for Time Management

9. Write in brief, daily sessions--start slowly by writing in fifteen-minute sessions, and gradually build up to two-hour sessions.

10. Set and maintain firm limits on the length of your writing sessions.

11. Make writing a moderate priority—do not do it during evenings, weekends, or vacations.

12. Avoid marathon writing sessions.

13. Through self-examination and trial and error, determine your best time of day to write.

14. Don't find time to write…just do it. Don't find time…make time.

15. Make differentiations between "important" other tasks and "urgent" other tasks that interfere with writing.

16. Recognize and acknowledge what is being sacrificed to make writing time.

17. Professional "balance" has less to do with the relationship between different types of work, and more with their integration.

Tips for Setting and Sharing Goals

18. Set immediate and long-term writing goals and write these down.

19. Set goals with balance in mind—overly aggressive writing goals are at the heart of burnout.

20. Break the article into short segments, and target completion of individual segments.

21. Compliment and/or reward yourself when you meet your goals.

22. Do not place unrealistic demands on yourself to write under perfect conditions and in a novel, significant fashion.

23. Make your whole plan for research and writing public.

24. Have others remind you to write.

25. Make social contracts with others to write.

26. Hold yourself accountable to others.

27. Make writing something you do before you give yourself access to something you prefer to do—reward yourself.

28. Chart when you will write and how much you accomplish.

Tips for Collaborating with Others

29. Work on multiple research projects simultaneously.

30. Find a mentor:

  • approach a colleague who is an accomplished writer;
  • choose someone who has published in a variety of journals; and
  • choose someone whose writing style is similar to yours.

31. When collaborating, discuss issues early in the project and set guidelines for collaboration.

32. Share early drafts with trusted colleagues.

33. Start conversations on campus and in disciplinary and interdisciplinary groups about work that the community sees as worthwhile.

34. Educate your colleagues about the nature and significance of work you are doing.

35. Make yourself available to colleagues, rather than expecting them to catch up with you.

36. Network with local and national colleagues.

Tips for Managing the Writing Session

37. Establish one or a few places where you will do most of your scholarly writing:

  • should be a place where you will not think about doing other things; and
  • make the writing spot comfortable, but free from temptations.

38. Assemble necessary tools (dictionary, reference material) prior to beginning a writing session.

39. Avoid temptations to begin the writing session by first cleaning the writing site—organize it at the end of your session.

40. Limit social interruptions during your brief, daily writing sessions:

  • close the door;
  • posting a writing schedule on your door;
  • communicate with others that interruptions must be limited; and
  • unplug your telephone.

41. Overcome self-consciousness by writing quickly and without editing (freewriting):

  • freewriting establishes momentum;
  • ideas will begin to flow; and
  • freewriting can be fun.

42. If you begin to get uncomfortable with your writing, revisit freewriting to remind yourself how to cope with impatience.

43. Each writing session should account for "getting in" and "getting out"—stop in the middle of a paragraph to make it easier to begin writing next session.

44. Don't finish the literature review first—read as you write and write as you read.

45. Engage in frequent "mental writing"—think, doodle, sketch, make notes and ideas will begin to jell; a sense of organization will emerge.

46. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.

Tips for Formatting and Style

47. Spend inordinate time on the abstract—it is often the key to determining if your article is read, once it is published.

48. Organize each paragraph, section, and paper around a key sentence.

49. Always report descriptive statistics before inferential statistics, accompany means with standard deviations.

50. Distinguish between a finding, a conclusion and a recommendation.

51. Write the introduction after the rest of the paper is completed.

52. Questions to ask yourself to initiate an effective introduction:

  • In one sentence, what is the purpose of the document?
  • What surprising information is conveyed in the document?
  • Do the results contradict expectations?
  • Did the people that you interviewed say something shocking or highly interesting?
  • Did your survey reveal an expected attitude on the part of respondents?

53. Be very generous with headings and subheadings.

54. Keep subjects and verbs close together.

55. Keep modifiers (adjectives and adverbs) close to the words they modify.

56. Keep pronouns close to their antecedents.

57. Use an active voice when writing.

58. Be sensitive to gender specific language.

59. When writing effective conclusions, consider these questions:

  • What are the broad implications of your work?
  • What recommendations can you make based on the material you have presented?
  • Would it be appropriate for you to speculate on what will happen next?
  • What do you want readers to do once they have reviewed your document?
  • Should they agree with you about the validity of the argument or theory?
  • Should the reader change their teaching practices?
  • Should they pour their creative energies into examining an innovative research question?
  • Did you pose a question in the introduction that can now be answered?
  • Is there a way of extending the metaphor that was presented in the introduction?

Tips for Submission

60. Select a journal whose audience has an interest in your topic.

61. Contact the editor of the journal before submitting—this will increase the recognition value of your submission and might lead to other potential writing opportunities.

62. Read several issues of a journal to gain insight into the acceptable style, topic, and length of manuscript.

63. Read suggestions to contributors.

64. If you have a question, call or write to the editor.

65. Send a query letter to determine if your topic will be something the editors will consider:

66. keep the letter brief;

67. tailor it to the interests of the journal's readers;

68. succinctly describe the contents of the manuscript—do not summarize it;

69. note the length of the article if the manuscript is finished; and

70. state why the topic is important.

71. Revise your manuscript to conform to the journal's format.

72. Be sure that you have correctly followed the journal's submission requirements.

73. Do not be vague in who you address your submission to—even if that means having to call the publisher to determine who you should address it to.

74. Do not try to catch the editor's eye by using colored paper, decorations, non-traditional typeset, etc.

75. Use good quality, white 8 ½ x 11 paper, and make sure the type is plain, clear, and dark.

76. Double-space text.

77. Use standard size print (12 point).

78. Use standard size font (Times).

79. Use one-inch margins all around.

80. Print on only one side of the sheet.

81. Do not send business cards—if you must, only use your name, address, and phone number.

82. Do not staple or bind your manuscript--paper clip short manuscripts, and put a rubber band around large manuscripts.

83. Put an identifier (paper title) on every manuscript page.

84. Type your full name and address on the cover letter, self-addressed stamped envelope, first manuscript page, and any clips, photos, illustrations, or other material you are including.

85. If photos are included, prepare them in accordance with the editor's instructions, writer's guidelines, or journal style sheet.

86. Never send anything that cannot be replaced.

87. Include the following items in the cover letter submitted with the publication:

88. demonstrate that you are familiar with the editor and journal;

89. address the editor by name and relate the current submission, if possible, to earlier works published by the press;

90. offer a dynamic overview of your project and its significance;

91. explain how your work contributes to scholarship;

92. explain your qualifications for doing the work and, if possible, mention other publishing credits;

93. while you certainly want to avoid the impression that you are submitting a rough draft, you may find it useful to express your willingness to make any changes that the editor or editorial board deems necessary.

Tips for Editor Feedback

94. Develop a thick skin, a really thick skin.

95. Anticipate criticism—let others do some of the anticipation for this.

96. Find ways to agree with and learn from criticism.

97. Resist the temptation to indulge in scripts of victimization.

98. A rejection letter may not be a comment on the quality of the manuscript.

99. A rejection might mean that a journal has a sufficient number of articles on the topic of question, but your manuscript might be right for another journal.

100. If accepted, expect changes.

101. Consider feedback with an open mind.

102. Keep in mind that editors can be wise counselors and good teachers.

103. Read reviews.

104. Reread reviews while comparing them to your manuscript.

105. Put reviews and the manuscript aside for at least a day—do other work to get past the emotional response.

106. Consider how you will respond to each point.

107. Revise according to the recommendations and/or write a brief response/rationale for points you prefer not to change.

108. Return revisions promptly.

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