The Academic Career Handbook [Hardcover]

Loraine Blaxter (Author), Christina Hughes (Author), Malcolm Tight (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1998 | ISBN-10: 0335198287 | ISBN-13: 978-0335198283

Designed for those working, or seeking to work within the higher education system, this handbook has a particular relevance for those who are just starting, or even, those seeking to start, an academic career. It also has much to say to those in more established positions who want to think about their career or want to support younger colleagues in their career decisions. The text offers guidance on the craft of performing five key tasks: networking, teaching, researching, writing and managing. The book is designed to be accessible, and entertaining with useful advice and critical viewpoints juxtaposed.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...tells you everything you need to know about academic careers, including the vital components of networking, teaching, researching and writing...accessible, with lots of 'handy hints' and useful pointers to other material and experience" - Health Service Journal "...provides a readable and well-researched guide, picking its way meticulously through every detail of academic lifein 220 pages. The authors analyse each role in some detail, providingtips and quotes from numerous useful sources...This book's healthy strand of realism is illustrated by a list of positive verbs that the authors recommend you to start using if you want to achieve academic success " - New Scientist --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Loraine Blaxter, Christina Hughes and Malcolm Tight, Department of Continuing Education, University of Warwick

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Open University Press (July 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0335198287
• ISBN-13: 978-0335198283
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,984,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful and friendly guide to career development, April 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Academic Career Handbook (Paperback)

This is a book intended for early-career academics and advanced students who are thinking about taking up an academic career. Apart from the introductory chapter, the book deals with the nature and development of academic careers (3 chapters), and academic roles and tasks (5 chapters, on networking, teaching, research, writing and managing). The authors have drawn extensively from research into academic activities and careers, the 'advice' literature for neophyte academics, and their own experiences. The book therefore taps into a broad range of sources on most aspects of academic life and how to make and get the most out of it. A lot of the detailed material is contained in about 120 'boxes' distributed throughout the book. Each box contains a set of numbered or bulleted points or tips, or a collection of short quotes from academics, often from external sources. A typical strategy for dealing with a topic is to describe an issue (such as departmental politics), or to define some concept, in the body of the text and then refer the reader to boxed pointers or suggestions. In this way, the book presents a distillation of information from the wider literature. I found this quite an effective strategy. The coverage of the book is wide, and the style is mostly descriptive, friendly and informative. The flavour is decidedly from the UK perspective. Specific conditions and contact details of research grants bodies are of limited use outside the UK. The focus in Chapter 2 is on the UK higher education system (subsectors, enrolments, league tables and salary scales), again of more local value. Most of the issues and advice can, however, be readily translated into and interpreted within an Australasian context. Each chapter contains an annotated list of published resources, making it possible for the reader to go into depth on issues that are important to them. At the end of the book, the authors list about 30 (mostly British) organisations together with national and international journals that work towards the betterment of higher education generally. A comprehensive bibliography and a good index conclude the volume. Overall, the book makes an excellent contribution to helping budding academics develop a sensible perspective on the nature of academic work. It is a source of useful, practical ideas on becoming an academic and developing a sense of career. The tone is positive throughout, and the book is likely to be referred to repeatedly as various issues and phases arise during the course of academic life. Of course, in a book of this length (or any fixed length for that matter), choices have to be made as to what to include and what to exclude. My wish list would have included more specific advice on how to organise and manage time, on how to make decisions in favour of long term career advancement at critical choice points, and on how to balance competing claims on one's personal resources from both within and outside the institution. Blaxter, Hughes and Tight have put together a helpful, up-to-date handbook, which deserves to be available in every higher education institution. (Reproduced with permission from HERDSA News, Nov 1998, p.22.)