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Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success

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Professor Wendy Belcher has written a tour de force that compiles a series of detailed steps for publishing an academic article. Her methods for writing, revising, submitting, and responding to editorial decisions are straight forward, organized, and well supported by carefully collected data gained through years of experience talking with writers and teaching scholarly writing around the world.
The book has one strength not usually found in such "how to" books on writing. Writing your Journal Article in 12 Weeks provides academic writers with what we have been waiting for: the tools to address our anxieties about writing and being evaluated by other scholars. Belcher successfully demystifies the process for submitting manuscripts and understanding editors' decisions regarding revision and rejection. At the same time, she bolsters academic writers' confidence with the assurance that the paper can be published. I cannot think of any book on academic writing that is as helpful and encouraging as this one. I plan on sharing it with all of my professional colleagues who deal with the ongoing challenges of scholarly writing and publishing.

Just wanted to chime in here. None of the reviews thus far have mentioned the fact that the author has organized this book in such a way that it could be used to teach a grad class on academic writing, or research methods. While it doesn't deal with "research methods" in any discernible way, it would provide a useful framework (covering topics like how to write a literature review) to teach a semester-long class for university seniors or master's level students seeking to write an article in the social sciences. And of course it will help you with your own writing as well. However, it's really written for beginners. I was hoping for a guide for more seasoned pro's which might help you identify tricks and shortcuts to write more productively, but it doesn't really do that.

This hefty book (350 letter-sized pages) takes the reader through designing a writing plan, starting the article, selecting a journal, reviewing the literature, writing the article, getting feedback, editing the article and sending it out. Week X, which happens when you get the response back from the journal, is about dealing with the journal's response to your submission. Each chapter presents a lot of information in the instruction section along with workbook questions to fill in. The Daily Tasks section that follows tells the article writer what to do on a day by day basis. While this book may be too structured for successful academic writers, it's a good starting point for new writers and academics having trouble getting articles accepted.

I actually did use it to teach a graduate seminar on how to write a publishable article (or really, how to revise a seminar paper into a journal article, since it takes much longer than 12 weeks to write a humanities article from scratch). It would be perfect for a 15-week semester, as I would recommend at least 2 weeks for the literature review section. I teach on the quarter system so it was a bit of a tight squeeze. But in my evaluations the grads said that the book was enormously helpful, if somewhat patronizing in tone. Out of 9 students, I had 4 sending articles out, 4 decide (correctly, I think) that their piece wasn't worth sending out but happy to have changed their writing habits for the future, and 1 realize with horror when he did the literature review chapter that he'd plagiarized substantially through poor note-taking.

So overall, this book really demystifies the writing process, and makes writing into something you do daily, like showering or getting dressed, rather than an occasion for drama and self-doubt. She builds in accountability charts, which are great -- this time around I think I will pair students and have them turn in their charts to one another rather than to me.

I bought this book because I have checked it out from the library six times already. It's well-organized, although you may decide to use a different order. It's got good hints for organizing your writing and your life.

This is NOT a book about how to force yourself to write for eight hours a day, six days a week. It is NOT a book about how to do research. It IS a book about how to write up the research you've done.

I'm a grad student, so my needs are for current classes and future professional writing. Everyone I have shown it to in school immediately writes down a citation so they can get it, too.

I'm a big believer in her methods, and I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs to write in an academic setting.

So far I'm very pleased with the content of this book. The author's writing is very honest and down-to-earth, and as a workbook it contains elements for planning one's writing routines that really seem to have the potential to improve my productivity as an academic writer.

How ever, and this is for me a big problem, the books is not a good Kindle book. The reasons are the following:

1 Navigating between the referenced authors and the list of cited works is a nightmare, as one has to first create a mark at the beginning of the bibliography, and then browse page by page in order to find the cited work. In other words, there is no possibility to position the pointer on a reference and then be directly sent to its location in the bibliography.

2 One has no way what page number one is reading, and since the author makes references to content on specific pages, trying to find it can be really very time-consuming, which is a night-mare when you're an academic have too many different books to read.

3 One of the cited authors ("Diaz-Morales 2007, on "Location 806") is NOT in the bibliography.

This book is incredibly helpful. I have used it myself and assigned it to students. Excellent for graduate students or assistant professors who need a clear practical plan to get papers out for publication. It has many helpful hints that even those of us lurking in academia for a long time can learn from. Written in a very comforting and encouraging tone.

I think this book's greatest strength is the writer's ability to break down writing tasks for you each day in order to get your article out in twelve weeks while still juggling other responsibilities. I think most people tend to overload themselves, then feel stress when they don't meet their writing goals. Belcher presents very simple, hourlong, meet-able goals for each day. Each week has 5 days' worth of tasks that you can spread out as needed. It's great to not have to think too hard about scheduling an hour's work for myself every day -- I can just look at the book, do what is suggested, and move on with my other work. Would recommend to anyone trying to balance teaching and publication, and especially to anyone who stops writing when the grading comes in.

Writing articles can sometimes go quickly and sometimes can drag out for years. Belcher's 12 main chapters (one for every week) are filled with tips, techniques, ideas, tables, her experiences, and forms to fill out. For example: I always tell my dissertation students that they should work on it every day. Belcher has forms that prod the writer to schedule time every day; every week. The 350 large (8.5x11 inch) pages are crammed with directions to get you there in 12 weeks. Seriously, some tasks can take longer than a week (like Week 5: Reviewing the Related Literature), and others can be done in a shorter span (like Week 8: Opening and Concluding your Article). This book can be applied to other types of writing: for example: writing for conferences. Overall: It is well organized, easy to read, and there are no other books like this. If you need structure in your writing life, buy it.

I purchased this book after reading the reviews that had been posted by others who had purchased and used this book. Overall, opinions were positive and I found that they were well founded in their praise. Belcher presents the steps for successful journal article writing in clear, concise and, the most valuable, workable steps. Thanks to the reviewer who recommended a hard copy of the book rather than the Kindle edition as this is a text that doubles as a workbook.

Belcher discusses the most frequently cited obstacles to writing, beginning with not having enough time. This discussion touches on every issue I have personally encountered or have heard about from my colleagues. There is an excellent bullet point list for writing the abstract. The book is filled with practical information about successful journal article publication. This is an excellent book.