Something I’ve not often shared publicly is that the idea of having my name published alongside my writing was one of the big draws of academia for me. However, as first-gen student-to-faculty, I quickly learned some of the norms of publishing are part of the hidden curriculum of academia. In this to-be-determined number of posts, I want to distill some of the “pro-tips” I’ve learned along the way.
My publications to date range from book reviews to special issue contributions to original research articles.
To offer a quick overview of my publishing experience, since the summer of 2020, I have submitted roughly eleven solo-authored, original journal submissions (a total of eight projects) to various journals in and beyond my home disciplines of Communication and Rhetoric. (I also published a book review in this period and had an existing review from 2018.) This has resulted in four published articles and an essay currently under a second round of peer review and another out for a first round of review (as of 9/25).
This is…a lot. I am not unaware of that fact. Many of my mentors, colleagues, and friends are shocked at how much I write, submit, and publish. I have three caveats:
- I am neurodivergent, and writing is my “special interest,” so it is fun to me. If teaching is threatening to burn me out, I’ll write; if (as the next bullet will note) my personal life is tumultuous, I’ll write. But, given my positionality (working class, first-gen), I don’t like the idea of writing something without a “pay off,” so I submit everything once it’s a polished draft.
- This period of my life was marked by the end of my mother’s battle with metastatic ovarian cancer. I was her main caregiver from 2021 until her passing the following year. (This meant I was at home or “just sitting” often and would fill the time with researching and writing.) I also processed my grief, in part, by feeling as though I was moving forward via writing. That increased my frequency/output.
- At some point, publishing got filed as “a game” in my neurodivergent brain, and I’m pretty competitive (Aries Sun, Rising, and Mercury). So, that also increases my output. I do not think this is a “wise” (or necessarily unwise) or accurate way to view publishing—it’s just how my brain catalogued it.
Is the ~1 article per year, or even the 3 publications in the same year, “normal”? No (not in my discipline). Is it sustainable? Not really. I’ve also slowed down just as a by-product of other shifting responsibilities. That said, it’s possible. You’ve just got to play the game. 😉
My own experience necessarily will inform this series, making it most applicable to disciplines such as Communication, Rhetoric, Media Studies, Gender Studies, or similar fields in the humanities/social sciences. Likewise, many things will likely be missing from this guide, as I have tried to limit my advice here to topics with which I’ve had direct experience. Thus, topics like co-authoring, proposing/editing a special issue, IRB approval alongside a journal article, etc., are not covered.
However, the contents of this guide contain the “nuts and bolts” information that will jump-start any emerging scholar’s record. My goal for this series is to present an overview of what publishing entails, the nature of journal articles, the submission and review processes, and anecdotal evidence from my own experiences in publishing.
My biggest piece of advice is to just submit the essay.
Nothing is ever going to be a “perfect draft”; there will always be edits and revisions (there are grammatical errors in some of my published articles). You’re only going to truly “learn” the process by doing; no one shows up “ready” to publish. If the draft is in the state you would send it to your mentor or dissertation/thesis committee, it’s probably in a good enough state to submit. The more experience you have with peer review, the more confident you’ll feel going into it. But, you must start doing it to gain that confidence.
Feel free to comment on any topics you’d like to see me cover and/or any questions you have!
Myles W. Mason, PhD 
Leave a comment