I recently directed a scholar by drafting her second book. Her manuscript is almost done, and our work involves providing a powerful pitch for some university media published in her field. When she shared with me the last part of her book proposal for feedback, she observed with satisfaction that the proposal did blend together, but the difficult part would do everything possible to revoke the project. If she only knows how many times I have seen the “difficult part” is the step that keeps people from realizing the success of their publication they deserve.
As a professional development editor and publishing consultant, he has helped scholars print books and articles over the past decade, and I have carefully designed it in the struggle of academic writers. The time for research and writing in other professional obligations (such as teaching and service) and personal commitments (such as childcare, elderly care and self-care), not to mention national and global unrest, is not small. Those who completed the academic manuscript under these conditions should be applauded. But then, writers who have accomplished a lot of achievements face another obstacle: persuading the news or diary to publish the text they wrote.
A common response to this barrier is to find ways to delay face-to-face. I see writers trapped in endless revisions, walking back and forth about which quotes, patching up sentence structures and word choices, waiting to contact the publisher until they land on the perfect job seeker cover letter.
The truth is that the details of the first submission are not as important as the authors think, especially among book publishers. You do want to do your best to show that you value the editor’s time and the time of peer reviewers who will consider your work’s publication. However, it is expected that your manuscript will develop with peer reviewers’ opinions and polished words and sentences will occur during the final revision and replication phase. Therefore, the author’s goal when submitting a publisher should not be a perfectly finished text, but a “good enough” manuscript that allows the news or diary to seriously consider whether they want to provide a larger platform for the author’s ideas.
But what constitutes “good enough” in the eyes of academic publishers? The first standard publishers are looking for a sense of fit with their existing products. Actually, it has nothing to do with the quality of your writing. It’s more about whether the theme, method and theoretical framework of your work has been widely welcomed by the news or journal.
To ensure that your manuscript is good enough in the right field, do assignments on your target news or diary’s recently published assignments. Identify who you are writing for and find out where these readers are already gathering. The risk of rejection decreases exponentially when you send the manuscript to the correct location.
Turn to your manuscript itself, before sending it to the publisher, you should evaluate it in what I call the four pillars of academic writing: argument, evidence, structure, and style. Academic manuscripts must have a solid foundation in all four fields to be successful in the publishing process, as each fundamental aspect of this article has the potential to make or undermine the opportunity for peer reviewers to accept or break the text well and to obtain approval for publication and ultimately in the academic field of the author and beyond.
Your argument is the main claim that drives your text and wants readers to accept it. Did it be clearly stated at the beginning, and does it still exist throughout the text? Your evidence supports the reader’s argument. Do you have enough evidence and have you analyzed it effectively to guide your readers to accept the point you want to accept?
The structure of the manuscript supports the reader to encounter your evidence and absorb your point of view in a logical and engaging order. Structural issues include the way you organize text into chapters, sections, and paragraphs, and how you use titles, titles, transitions, and other logos to move your readers. Have you considered why the components of the text are organized in the way it is, and have you used the appropriate prompts to make the reader obvious to structural logic? By style, I mean the overall performance of your writing, including how your attitude toward readers and topics are displayed on the page. Depending on the publishing site, the style of the academic manuscript may be informal, formal, enthusiastic or transcendent. Consider the most important readers’ most effective approach and ensure style consistency in the text.
After handling large picture transactions, you will want to double-check that everything in the text is accurate and that sloppy mistakes will not interfere with the reader’s understanding of what you want to say. However, resist the temptation of temptation with superficial details. Nowadays, everyone’s time, labor and mental perseverance are limited, so limit your time to your place and they will bring you the greatest return on investment.
Trying to reframe the editorial and publishing process in your mind is not to see it as a set of confrontational gatekeeper encounters, although sometimes it may be, but as a process designed to keep your work best before it is published. When entering the process, your manuscript doesn’t have to be perfect, as you will operate through several development cycles before considering it. There will be multiple opportunities to improve it, and editors, peer reviewers and supporters will help with it.
The prospect of hitting “send” on a manuscript can be incredible, but your ideas can’t reach anyone, let alone if you don’t put them there, let alone do a good job in the world. You will eventually have to let go of the manuscript so that the work can be done.
Suspicion is natural. You may be worried that the readers you respect will have reasonable objections, or that you missed something important. Perhaps you are also worried about exposing yourself to criticize or reject based on your thoughts, identity, background, or political beliefs. Such fears are legal, especially for scholars who are marginalized in the academy. Name these fears and acknowledge that you have the right to feel your anxiety. Then, assess whether the actual risk is worth silence by not putting your work there at all.
