Includes bibliographical references and index.

''Wendy Laura Belcher's Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success is a revolutionary approach to enabling academic authors to overcome their anxieties and produce the publications that are essential to succeeding in their fields. Each week, readers learn a particular feature of strong articles and work on revising their articles accordingly. At the end of 12 weeks, they send their articles to a journal. This invaluable resources is the only guide that focuses specifically on publishing humanities and social science journal articles.

Key Features:

Demystifies the academic publishing process: This workbook is based on actual research about faculty productivity and peer review, students' writing triumphs and failures, and the author's experiences as a journal editor and award-winning author.

Proceeds step by manageable step: Within the context of clear deadliness, the workbook provides the instruction, exercises, and structure needed to revise a classroom essay, a conference paper, a dissertation chapter, a master's thesis, or an unfinished draft into a journal article and send it to a suitable journal.

Targets the biggest writing challenges: This workbook focuses squarely on the most difficult tasks facing scholarly writers, such as getting motivated, making an argument, and creating a logical whole.

Has a proven record of helping graduate students and professors get published: This workbook, developed over a decade of teaching scholarly writing in a range of disciplines at UCLA and around the world, has already helped hundred publish their articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Writing Your Journal Article in 12 weeks can be used individually or in groups and is particularly appropriate for graduate students in professional development courses, junior faculty orientation workshops, post-doc groups, and journal articles writing courses'' (Book Cover)

CONTENTS:

Introduction: using this workbook

Goals of the workbook

History of the workbook

Pedagogy of the workbook

General instructions. Using the workbook according to temperament, discipline, or career stage. Using the workbook by yourself, with a writing partner, in a writing group, for teaching, or with coauthors. Giving feedback.

Week 1: Designing your plan for writing

Instruction: Understanding feelings about writing. Keys to positive writing experiences. Designing a plan for submitting your articles in 12 weeks.

Exercises: Selecting a paper for revision. Choosing your writing site. Designing your writing schedule. Anticipating and overturning writing obstacles.

Week 2: Starting Your Article

Instruction: Types of academic articles. Myths about publishable academic articles. What gets published and why. Abstracts as a tool for success.

Getting started on your article revision

Exercises: Hammering on your topic. Regarding your paper. Drafting your abstract. Reading a model article. Revising your abstract.

Week 4: Selecting a Journal

Instruction: Good news about journals. The importance of picking the right journal. Types of academic journals: non-recommended, questionable, and preferred. Finding suitable journals.

Exercises: Searching for journals. Evaluating academic journals. Matching your article to suitable journals. Reading revelant journals. Writing a query letters to editors.

Week 5: Reviewing the Related Literature

Instruction: Reading the Scholarly literature. Types of literature. Strategies for getting reading done. Identifying your relationship to the related literature. Avoiding plagiarism. Writing about other's research.

Exercises: Evaluating your current citations. Identifying and reading the related literature. Evaluating the related literature. Revising your related literature review.

Week 6: Strengthening Your Structure

Instruction: On the importance of structure. Types of structures. Article structures in the social sciences and humanities. Solving structural problems.

Exercises: Outlining a model article. Outlining your article. Restructuring your article.

Week 7: Presenting Your Evidence

Instruction: Types of evidence. Forms of proof in the humanities and social sciences. The importance of strong and convincing evidence.

Exercises: Writing your methodology. Writing the results or findings. Revising your discussion of the evidence.

Week 8: Opening and Concluding Your Article

Instruction: On the importance of openings. Revising your opening and conclusion.

Exercises: Revising your title. Revising your introduction. Revisiting your abstract, related literature review, and authors. Revising your conclusion.

Week 9: Giving, Getting and Using Others' Feedback

Instruction: On taking the time. Types of revising. The rules of editing. The Belcher diagnostic test (cutting, adding, and substituting). Editing your article.

Exercises: Running the Belcher diagnostic test. Revising your article with the test. Correcting problem sentences.

Week 11: Wrapping Up Your Article

Instruction: On the perils of perfection. Finalizing your article.

Exercises: Finalizing your arguments, related literature review, introduction, evidence, structure, and conclusion.

Week 12: Sending Your Article!

Instruction: On the important of finishing. Getting the submission ready.

Exercises: Writing the cover letter. Preparing illustrations. Putting your article into the journal's style. Preparing the final print or electronic version. Send and celebrate!

Week X: Responding to Journal Decisions

Introduction: An exhortation. Waiting for the journal's decision. Reading the journal's decision.

Instruction: An exhortation. Waiting for the journal's decision. Reading the journal's decision. Types of journal decisions. Responding to journal decisions.

Exercises: Evaluating and responding the journal decision. Responding to a revise and submit notice. Planning your revision. Revising your article. Drafting your revision cover letter. Requesting permissions. On the importance of persevering.

Works Cited

Recommended Reading

Index

About the Author