Writing for Earth Scientists: 52 Lessons in Academic Publishing

ISBN-13: 9781119216773 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 248 str.

Donovan, Stephen K.

Opis

The time has come. You are an Earth scientist. You've spent weeks, months, years working on this project -- now is the time to pull it together for publication. You might be writing an undergraduate or graduate thesis, a research paper for a leading journal, a note for the newsletter of the local amateur scientific society, a book review or an abstract for a specialist geological conference. How do you make the transition from promising unpublished researcher to established academic author? Of course, the phrase 'academic publishing' covers a multitude of sins; monographs, research papers, book reviews, conference abstracts or whatever each requires a different approach. You have to decide what it is you are going to write and where to publish it. There are co-authors, supervisors of your degree, peer reviewers and editors to deal with on the way. But the only way to write like an academic is to write like an academic ... where do you start? You could do much worse than start here.

Spis treści

Foreword xi

Acknowledgements xiii

1 Introduction to Writing 1

2 Publication Diversity 7

3 Theses 11

4 Books and Monographs 15

5 Invited Chapters for Books 19

6 Peer–Reviewed Research Papers 23

7 Short Notes 27

8 Discussions of and Replies to Published Papers 31

9 Book Reviews and Book Reviewing 35

10 Conference Abstracts 39

11 Papers for Non–Peer–Reviewed Publications 43

12 Field Guides 47

13 Title 51

14 Abstract 55

15 Key Words 59

16 Introduction 63

17 Materials and Methods/Localities and Horizons 67

18 Results 69

19 Discussion and Conclusions 71

20 Acknowledgements 75

21 References 77

22 Why Write? (1) 81

23 Line Drawings 85

24 Maps 89

25 Photographic Plates 93

26 Tables 101

27 Co–authors and Others 105

28 Cover Letters 109

29 Submission 113

30 Editors 115

31 Reviewers 119

32 Why Write? (2) 123

33 Reviews 127

34 Revision: Corrections and Resubmission 131

35 Acceptance 135

36 Rejection 139

37 Copyright 143

38 Open Access 147

39 Offprints and Pdfs 151

40 Reading 157

41 Reviewing 161

42 Why Write? (3) 167

43 Productivity 171

44 Space and Time 175

45 Writer’s Block 179

46 Plain English 183

47 The Native English Speaker 187

48 Why Write? (4) 191

49 Editing Journals 197

50 A Space of Your Own 201

51 Contracts, Agents, Publishers and Your First Book 205

52 How Did I Write This Book? 209

Appendix: Book Proposal 213

Index 221

O autorze

Professor Stephen K. Donovan has been publishing on such diverse subjects as Caribbean geology, palaeontology, the history of science, ichnology and academic publishing for over 30 years. He loves research, writing and publishing. This book can be read from cover–to–cover, dipped into when an answer to a specific question is needed or both. The aim is to help all geologists to write improved papers – both better organised and more readable – and to get them published.

Blurb

The time has come. You are an Earth scientist. You′ve spent weeks, months, years working on this project – now is the time to pull it together for publication. You might be writing an undergraduate or graduate thesis, a research paper for a leading journal, a note for the newsletter of the local amateur scientific society, a book review or an abstract for a specialist geological conference. How do you make the transition from promising unpublished researcher to established academic author? Of course, the phrase ′academic publishing′ covers a multitude of sins; monographs, research papers, book reviews, conference abstracts or whatever each requires a different approach. You have to decide what it is you are going to write and where to publish it. There are co–authors, supervisors of your degree, peer reviewers and editors to deal with on the way. But the only way to write like an academic is to write like an academic. . . where do you start? You could do much worse than start here.

There are many books on how to write and be published aimed at research students and other aspiring academics. Many of these are readable, comprehensive and provide good advice. This book is composed of numerous short chapters on this subject, all directly relevant to one or more aspects of academic publishing and aimed particularly at the Earth scientists in the broadest sense. Geologists will be encouraged to use the book as much as a reference as a reader, ′dipping in′ to the chapters that contain relevant tips, hints and comments to enable them to improve the paper that they are currently writing. The book is intended to be informative, readable and, above all, of practical application for all readers. In summary, the volume will be a readable compilation investigating many facets of academic publishing relevant to the Earth sciences. It will be of particular interest to postgraduate students, postdocs and new academics.