A recent article in the Globe & Mail reported on the lack of tenure-track posts in the current economic climate. A similar article in the New York Times appeared a couple of weeks previously. It seems that searches are being cancelled. Tenure-track positions are being downgraded to term positions. Senior faculty are postponing their retirements. And those completing PhDs are panicking, or at least being encouraged to panic by media who have perfected the art of fear-mongering.

It’s the economy, stupid. Or is it?

And yet this is not new. When I was working as a policy analyst for SSHRC back in 2004, one of my colleagues looked at historical data on the employment of PhDs and discovered that no more than 50% of them ever went on to tenure track positions. Even at the height of the new universities boom in the 1960s, about half of all PhDs did not get academic positions. And the trend had been roughly flat despite economic ups and downs. It was not at all clear that the general economic climate had much effect on the proportion of PhDs that went on to academic careers.

The reasons for this are complex. Certainly some people complete a PhD but are disillusioned by the process and decide not to remain in academe. Others never had any intention of doing so and go on to successful careers in other sectors — government, business, or non-profit. Some intend to pursue academic careers but have difficulty securing a position. Some take on adjunct and sessional work and are disillusioned by the poor working conditions and pay. Others find equally stimulating work in university administration.

What is surprising is that this is not common knowledge and that we don’t have better systems to support graduate students in their transition from university to careers. Particularly, careers outside academe. In fact, Thomas H. Benton’s advice in his recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go, seems to be the dominant response to the facts of the academic labour market.

Discouraging Dreams

However, Benton’s advice contains this interesting nugget:

[Bright undergraduates] seem to think becoming a humanities professor is a reliable prospect — a more responsible and secure choice than, say, attempting to make it as a freelance writer, or an actor, or a professional athlete — and, as a result, they don’t make any fallback plans until it is too late.

I know that, when faced with a young person proposing to pursue a career as “a freelance writer, or an actor, or a professional athlete”, many of us would discourage that young person. Not only that, but we would think that it was a responsible thing to do. Although we are taking a rather large hat pin to the dreams of that young person, we are usually well intentioned.

When we give this discouraging advice we are “saving” them from a life of economic hardship, rejection, and struggle. We want better for them. We know that very few people make a living as actors, writers, or professional athletes. We know that even people who are very talented and work very hard might not make a living in those professions. So we instruct the young person in “hard economic reality”.

Benton is not alone is proposing that fewer bright young people pursue graduate studies. If an academic career in the humanities is indeed like being an actor, freelance writer, or professional athlete, and he makes a convincing case that it is, why aren’t more of us discouraging young people from pursing this career path?

What about “fallback plans”?

This is where I disagree with Benton and all those who suggest that the solution to the problem is to train fewer PhDs. I agree that bright undergraduates need real knowledge about the academic labour system. They need to know that aspiring to be an academic, especially in the humanities, is more like aspiring to be an actor than it is like aspiring to be a banker or a lawyer.

I disagree about discouraging them.

But then I don’t think we should be discouraging budding actors or professional athletes either. If someone has a passion for a particular field and some demonstrated talent in that area, then the last thing we need to be doing is discouraging them. While being a lawyer or a banker might seem more economically secure, doing a job you do not love and might even resent is soul destroying.

Furthermore, no career is guaranteed to be secure. The recent economic turmoil has not spared bankers. Many jobs are competitive. And those who are passionate about what they do are much more likely to succeed in any field.

A professional sports example

I happen to be acquainted with someone who aspired to be a professional athlete. As a teenager, my university roommate’s brother was an excellent hockey player. He was also academically capable. He won a scholarship to an excellent US university based on that combination, playing hockey and earning a degree. I remember talking to him in this phase of his life and his attitude was that if he could earn a living playing hockey he didn’t care if he ever made it in the NHL.

He went into university with his eyes wide open. He knew he was good. He also knew that he probably wasn’t good enough to have a career in the big leagues. But he was going to play hockey at the highest level he could for as long as he could.

He still has a career in hockey. He supports a family. And he loves his job. He never played in the NHL. But he has a successful career coaching university hockey. And some of the players he’s coached have made it into the NHL.

Should he have been discouraged from pursuing a career as a professional athlete? Absolutely not. He has a successful career as a professional athlete. And while it is not the one most teenage hockey players dream of, it is a lot closer than being a banker.

Broadening the options

The fact is that one can pursue graduate study in the humanities and social sciences (or even sciences and engineering) even if an academic career is not your goal. Similarly, you can start out with the goal of a career as a humanities professor and change your mind along the way for numerous reasons. I’m pretty sure that my friend’s brother didn’t start out with the goal of becoming a university hockey coach. He played the best hockey he could. He was open to opportunities. And he made the most of the opportunities he had.

What happens if we  take seriously Benton’s point that “they don’t make any fallback plans until it is too late”? Only let’s change “fallback plans” to “other options” because being a government historian, for example, isn’t necessarily a less valuable career. It is just a different career, that requires similar training.

What would the other options look like? What information do aspiring  academics need in addition to knowledge about the nightmare that is the academic labour system? How do we support graduate students as they make the transition into the labour market?

To the extent that we are involved in the recruitment and retention of graduate students, it behooves us to honestly prepare them for future careers which may or may not be like our own.

From 1999-2006 the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Humanities at Work program supported that kind of sustained effort connecting humanities graduate students to businesses and community organizations.  One result of that program is an ongoing e-mail discussion list for non-academic careers in the humanities at WRK4US. And other resources exist to support this goal.

Alexandra Lord, a PhD historian who works for the US federal government, suggests encouraging internships during graduate study, something that could have multiple benefits for careers inside and outside the academy. She also runs a website, Beyond Academe, about non-academic careers specifically for historians.

Some universities are creating specialist positions in their careers offices to support graduate students. Two of these specialist career advisors regularly contribute to the Chronicle’s Career Talk column. The Chronicle also has an excellent Beyond the Ivory Tower series profiling the non-academic career trajectories of PhDs.

Not just humanities

The casualization of academic labour and exploitation of bright, passionate young academics is not limited to the humanities. Social scientists are not immune. Academic science labs and science classrooms are full of untenured PhDs equally disillusioned with the system. It is too easy to fall into the anti-intellectual cultural denigration of the humanities as “useless”. The problems are much more widespread.

In fact, the situation in the sciences might be made worse by the greater availability of research funds from both government and industry. Anyone whose salary is paid out of such “soft” money knows the myth of the secure academic career. Working conditions for such scientists are also affected by the difficulty of arranging maternity leave or even regular salary increases reflecting experience and length of service.

More discussion needed

The fact that one resource for non-academic careers in humanities has a confidentiality statement that begins “Because some academics take a dim view of anyone who seriously considers a nonacademic career, it is important to protect the identities and the writings of your fellow subscribers.” suggests that we have a lot of work to do to fully accept the diversity of paths one might take beyond graduate school and to fully support graduate students in their transition to the labour market.

This post is the beginning of a series on the topic of PhD Careers. I plan to review books, interview people with PhDs who are employed in jobs other than tenure-track teaching and research, and invite guest posts from people with insight on this issue. Subscribe to the blog either in a feeder or as an e-mail newsletter to keep informed about this discussion.

Subscribing to the newsletter also gets you a free copy of Publish 0r Perish?, my e-book about academic publishing. Read an excerpt here. Because, if you do want to pursue that career as a professional athlete humanities academic, you might find the information useful.

I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up my mother was big on finishing one project before starting another. And I notice a lot of cultural pressure not to give up on things when they get difficult. To push through the tough spots.

But in my life, I’ve found that this kind of advice isn’t very helpful.

Seriously, what tends to happen when we get stuck and try to “not give up”, “push through”, “drive on”, or whatever, is that we start feeling guilty and inadequate. And we get paralyzed.

Instead of actually finishing the thing we are working on, we get stalled. And because we think it would be weak to just stop that thing and switch to another project, we don’t do anything. We stare at a page. Or we do something else because sitting down to write is so daunting (or painful, or scary) that we just can’t face it.

And then we feel bad about procrastinating.

Which just increases the negative feelings we have about writing. And makes it even harder to sit down and do it.

Before you know it you are in this nasty spiral of negative thoughts. And a lot of those thoughts are about how you just aren’t smart enough to be a successful academic. Or that you don’t have what it takes. And when that starts to feel too awful, you’ll turn your attention to Them and their demands, which are unreasonable.

Stop this spiral, I want to get off!

As laudable as it sounds, finishing one thing before you start another is not efficient and effective for many people. If it’s working for you keep doing it. And stop reading this post and get on with your writing.

But if the beginning of this post sounded like your life, here’s a permission slip to leave that unfinished paper in a folder for a bit and start something else.

You are smart enough for this job. And you do have worthwhile things to say. And pursuing your goals will magically meet Their demands. (If you haven’t read Publish or Perish? yet, you might want to do that. It’s free. And it says a lot more about why this is true.)

Multiple projects can lead to more finished projects

I first discovered this in relation to knitting. And it also applies to writing. It doesn’t matter if you don’t knit. One creative project is much like another. And writing an academic article is a creative project. So stick with me here while I go through an extended analogy.

I have had various points in my life where I have stopped knitting altogether for several years. Looking back, I realize that sometimes this was because I got bored or frustrated with a project and put it down. And because I thought I couldn’t start another project until that project was finished, I didn’t start another project. But I didn’t pick up the project in progress either. I just didn’t knit.

I know academics that have done the same thing. They have months or even years when they just don’t write.

A few years ago I started knitting again. And I met a whole new community of knitters online. And many of those knitters had several projects on the go. Some of them had unfinished projects in their knitting baskets (or cupboards, or under the bed) that had been sitting there for over 20 years.

But they were knitting things. And they finished things.

I tried it. I gave myself permission to knit something else if I didn’t feel like knitting a particular thing. And magically, I started finishing more projects. If I had time to sit and knit, I would pick up the project I most felt like working on at that moment. And I would make progress. It would be closer to finished.

And because every time I sat down to knit I enjoyed it, I found it easier to find time to sit and knit.

If you enjoyed writing, wouldn’t it be easier to find the time?

Think about what you are doing instead. Administrivia? Excessive preparation for classes that you then resent the students for not appreciating? Sitting on more committees?

If you are enjoying meetings more than writing, something needs to change.

Not all time is the same.

Sometimes you have a whole day to devote to writing (or knitting). Sometimes you have an hour. Sometimes you have a week or a month.

And some times of the day are better for creative work than others. Some of us are really productive in the morning. Others are better late afternoon. Others write really well at 2 a.m.

That doesn’t mean that if we have an hour in the wrong time slot that we can’t use it for advancing a writing project. But rather that we can only do our best creative work at certain times of day and that at other times of day we would be better to focus on some of the less creative parts of the writing process. Like proofreading. Or checking references. Or editing.

Not all parts of the project require the same kind of attention

I’m going to go back to the knitting. When I say that I have multiple projects on the go, those projects are not all the same type of project.

Lace is complicated. You have to count and really pay attention. I love to knit lace and find the process almost meditative. But I have to be undisturbed. I can’t knit lace on the bus. Or in the doctor’s waiting room. I need to be alone. No interruptions. And it takes a while to get into the rhythm so it isn’t good for short time periods.

Socks are a different story, especially plain socks where I just go round and round and round for ages. I can knit those almost anywhere, even for very short periods of time. On the bus. In a waiting room. In a meeting. I even know people that knit socks in the dark at the movies.

They are small. They fit in my purse. I can knit comfortably even squished in a bus seat in the winter. I can also knit socks while talking to other people. They are easy to put down and pick up so I can do them when I might be interrupted.

Then there are projects that fall in between. Maybe I need undisturbed time to get them started but once I’ve established the pattern, I don’t mind distractions or interruptions. Maybe parts of a sweater require a lot of concentration but others don’t. And starting a sweater sleeve is much like knitting a sock — small, portable, easy to pick up and put down. But when the sweater gets bigger, it becomes less portable.

Your writing projects are like that, too.

Some stages of a writing project are more intense than others. Sometimes you need a good solid chunk of time to get into it and get the ideas out. Other times, you can work on a small section for an hour and make substantial progress.

Other times, you have a list of little things you need to check that you could work on in 15 minute slots if necessary. You could start on that list during an office hour and not feel bad if students actually come to see you, yet accomplish something if they don’t.

Having several projects on the go, means that you can pick the one most suited to the time available.

And this means that there is more time available for writing. You don’t just have the high quality creative time. Suddenly other bits of your day or week have potential as writing time.

Not only that, but when you get stuck on one project, you don’t have to sit there staring at the page, descending into the spiral of negativity and procrastination. You can put it aside and pick up some other project. A project that is at a more interesting stage. And the fact that you enjoyed that writing time, means that you will continue to make time for writing.

If the key to finishing writing projects is sitting down to write, then whatever you can do to make it more likely that you will sit down to write is a good thing.

Not all aspects of the project are enjoyable

Some knitters have real difficulties with the second sock or the second sleeve. It feels like you’ve already done this and it isn’t so interesting anymore.

And sometimes when you put down a project in frustration it is still in the knitting basket several years later.

Sometimes you have to take the time to spread all the WIPs (Works in Progress) out on the floor and figure out what needs to be done to get them out of the basket. This should be done at least annually.

With academic writing projects, that might be a good activity for transitioning from the teaching dominated winter to the research dominated summer. But whenever you choose to do it, make sure that at least once a year you take an inventory of what projects you have underway and what needs to be done to move them to finished.

You don’t have to finish everything. Hopefully by having the freedom to work on multiple projects at once, you have found more time to write and you have a lot of things on the go. If one or two of those are really not working out, abandon them. Do the equivalent of ripping them out and putting the yarn back in the basket for a different project.

If there are projects that are stuck, try to work out how to get them unstuck.

Is there some aspect of this paper that is not in your area of expertise but is essential to the argument? Find a colleague with the necessary expertise and ask them to collaborate with you.

If you can’t figure out what is blocking you, get some feedback on the draft. Present it at a conference. Or at a brown bag seminar in your department. Send it to a couple of trusted colleagues and ask them for comments. Arrange to go out for a beer with a colleague or a graduate student and talk about the ideas you are working with in this paper.

If the next phase of a particular project is one of the more mundane aspects of preparing a paper for publication, seriously consider hiring a research assistant to do that work. Proofreading. Checking references. Updating the literature review. Fact checking. All of these are within the capabilities of your graduate students and are excellent training in the realities of academic work. No graduate students? Senior undergraduates are capable of some of these things. Acknowledge their contribution in a footnote on the first page.

Good enough is enough

We’ve already talked about this. Some of those papers will be fine. There will always be things you can do to them but at some point you have to let them go.

When you get to good enough, ask a colleague to read the paper and provide feedback. Do the same for them. If there are no major problems, send it off. You will have an opportunity to revise it when you receive the editors and reviewers comments.

And you have other papers to work on while that one is out for review.

Your aim is to have papers in all stages of the process at all times. This is the best way to have a steady stream of things coming out.

Other posts you might find helpful:

Charlie Gilkey, Productive Flourishing, on Heatmapping Productivity

Charlie Gilkey, Productive Flourishing, on Getting to Good Enough

Havi Brooks, The Fluent Self, on the Truth About Procrastination

If I knew then what I know now. A series in which I look back at my own academic career and talk about things I would do differently. The rest of the series can be accessed here.

This week, publishing in the wrong places.

First, a bit of background. I’m a feminist sociologist. My research was about gender and family. As I used to tell my students, I know a lot about housework in a way that my mother thinks is totally useless. So the example here is about housework but it can be applied to any field.

Publishing in “safe” places

The paper that I am most proud of is a critique of the way housework is conceptualized in most sociological work on the subject. I presented Understanding Gendered Inequality: Reconceptualizing Housework at a small conference where I received some good feedback and participated in some very interesting conversations. It was exactly the kind of conference you wish was more common. All about the intellectual stimulation and sharing ideas.

The conference organizers were putting together a special issue of Women’s Studies International Forum and asked if they could include my paper. I was excited. What a wonderful confirmation of the value of my argument. I accepted readily.

Publishing in the special issue was safe. There was no uncertainty. I had been invited to submit the paper by the editors. They knew what was in it. They thought it was good enough. They might give feedback and ask for revisions but the paper would definitely be published.

I didn’t understand a lot about impact at the time. But I knew that Women’s Studies International Forum is a peer-reviewed journal. It is a well respected women’s studies journal. There was a review process for the special issue though I didn’t ask much about it nor understand what the significance of that would be. But I didn’t think that I was publishing badly. And I wasn’t.

If I knew then what I know now

Women’s Studies International Forum is a well respected journal. My article has been cited. By people who are not my friends and relations. Clearly it has had an impact on the advancement of knowledge albeit a small one.

The conference was excellent. The conference organizers and editors of the special issue had very good intentions and they put together a good special issue. But …

The debate that I most wanted to influence with that paper was not the debate in women’s studies. It was the general sociological research on the division of household labour.

That debate is not happening in Women’s Studies International Forum, and never has been. Most of the sociologists researching the division of household labour do not read Women’s Studies International Forum.

The journal that is most likely to have an impact on the advancement of knowledge in this particular area is the Journal of Marriage and the Family.

Before you get all “who does she think she is” on me, I readily admit that I have no idea if my article is good enough to be published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family (JMF). I will never know. I never submitted it there. At the time I didn’t even consider sending it there.

Submitting to a prestigious journal is scary

When faced with a sure thing, I didn’t even stop to consider it. I was only thinking of “getting published”.  It was a refereed journal. Surely it counts?

I had forgotten that the point of publishing is to take part in intellectual debates and maybe even influence them.

I got distracted by the fact that the people who judge us (for hiring, for promotion, for the Research Assessment Exercise, or whatever) count our publications. And seem to value refereed journals over other things.

I didn’t fully understand what they were counting. Or why they valued refereed publications. I didn’t really understand impact.

More importantly, I lost site of my intellectual purpose.

What is the worst that could have happened?

When I’m contemplating something scary, I like to think about the worst case scenario. It often helps get things into perspective.

In this case, I could have sent it to JMF and been rejected.

Compared to the high of presenting it at a conference and having more important people in your discipline tell you that they like it and offer to publish it, that might feel like a kick in the guts. Were they lying? Was it really no good at all? Are the people at the conference really a bunch of losers? Scary. Why would I turn down a sure thing to face this possibility?

Furthermore, that might have taken 6 months to a year. Months in which I don’t have that publication on my CV for people to count should they need to count things. And then my sure thing is gone. The special issue will have a different article in it and might even be in press. So then I would have had nothing.

Sounds awful. A crazy idea. Why would I even consider it.

The worst case scenario is not as bad as it looks

Even in that worst case, I would have had reviewers comments on the article from reviewers in the field that I was trying to influence. I would have gained valuable information about how to have an impact on the advancement of knowledge in that particular field.

This might have led to a different paper, further development of my ideas, or publication in a different journal that might be somewhat less prestigious than JMF but more widely read by mainstream sociologists studying the division of household labour. And thus higher impact.

And I could still have submitted the article to WSIF later. Unless their special issue process is really weak, I should have had a good chance of having the article published in a regular issue.

What is the best thing that could happen?

And let’s not forget. My article might have been accepted (with or without revisions). And in that best-case scenario, the likelihood of having an impact on the way that research on the division of household labour is conducted would have been much higher.

What difference does that make? Well, it might have made a difference to my promotion prospects, or to the result my department had in the Research Assessment Exercise, or to my ability to secure a research grant. But more importantly, it would have influenced the people that I most wanted to influence.

I wrote that paper to raise those questions amongst researchers in that field and to influence the way that they designed their studies.

I didn’t write that paper for promotion, or to get a grant, or to improve my department. I wrote that paper because I thought that there were serious conceptual weaknesses in almost all of the research on the division of household labour. And I wanted other researchers to address those weaknesses when they design new studies.

What this means for you

You write papers for similar reasons.

You have important things to say to other researchers in your field. Your findings or insights are important. You have an important contribution to make to the debates in your field.

The point of publishing your research is to communicate with other researchers, researchers you might never meet in person. The point is to make an impact on the advancement of knowledge. In order to do that, you have to publish in the place that is most likely to have the maximum impact.

Journals are better than edited books because they are abstracted and indexed and searchable by article. Even people who don’t usually read that particular journal might come across your article if they are doing a database search for literature on a relevant topic. Well respected journals in your field, with a large international readership are likely to have a higher impact because more people in your field are likely to come across your article whether they are specifically looking for it or not.

It is terrifying

Definitely. You are not wrong to be scared. What if you aren’t good enough? Isn’t it presumptuous to even send it there? What if you get rejected? What will people think?

But most of the really good things in life are terrifying.

Do what you need to do to calm down that fear.

• Get the opinion of a respected colleague. If someone has asked you to submit it to their special issue or edited collection, take that as confidence in the quality of your paper.
• Write down the worst case scenario, the realistic options, and the best case scenario.The most likely outcome is “revise and resubmit”. This is not a rejection.
• Remember that the review process is blind. Only the editor will know that your name goes with that paper and they see so many papers, they are unlikely to remember all the rejected ones.

Take a deep breath and send it off.

Good luck!

I have written more about impact and the fear associated with writing and publishing in my e-booklet Publish or Perish? You can read an excerpt here, and the whole thing is free if you sign up for the newsletter.

I recently attended a production of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Belle Moral. I highly recommend this play. It isn’t light entertainment (though it is funny), but it is an excellent contemplation of science, art, knowledge, and so on. Well worth it. (It has also been published.)

This post isn’t really about the play, though. It is about the author’s note in the program.

Belle Moral: A Natural History has its origins in an earlier play of mine called The Arab’s Mouth … After The Arab’s Mouth premiered [in 1990], I knew that it was not quite finished and, in keeping with my experience as a playwright and collaborator, I fully expected to return to it.

Have you ever felt like that? I think of those academics who want to publish their thesis as a book. I got mine out within a year of graduating. Out. As in, an actual book that you could buy in a store. I moved the methodological discussion to an appendix. I split one chapter into two. I sent the manuscript in. Done.

But I have met a lot of people that can’t seem to do that. They feel the need to revise whole sections. Update this and that. They now feel that the argument needs to move on. Sometimes a book comes out. But often it never does.

The thesis, despite having been good enough for the committee, feels “not quite finished”. And because of that, they don’t send it to a publisher but keep it in the “to do” pile.

I’m sure this happens with numerous articles and book manuscripts every day. The desks of academics across the country (indeed the world) are littered with pieces that are “not quite finished”.

But MacDonald had her “not quite finished” play, The Arab’s Mouth, produced. And published.

Good Enough to Publish

Does something have to be finished to publish? Doesn’t publishing something that is “good enough” but “not quite finished” suggest that we are lowering our standards? Are we not in pursuit of excellence? Should we not publish only “excellent” work?

I haven’t seen The Arab’s Mouth. But I have no reason to believe it is not an excellent play in its own right. The author’s note makes it clear that Belle Moral, despite having its origins in that earlier work, is a very different play. Also excellent.

The evolution from The Arab’s Mouth to Belle Moral passed through an excellent novel, Fall On Your Knees. I have read the novel. It addresses very different themes from Belle Moral. The novel and the later play may have their origins in the same original work, but they are very different, and equally excellent products.

And yet, from the author’s perspective the earlier play and, presumably, the novel felt “not quite finished”. I am very glad that she produced/published them anyway. The world would not be a better place had she kept them in a folder until the “finished” piece was ready.

Research does not “finish” with publication

The question of “not quite finished” work is not one of the excellence or otherwise of the product (be it a play, a novel, an article, or a research monograph). It is a question of process.

Each of us has a program of research. A big research question or direction that we will pursue over several years. The research does not end with a publication. Publication is part of the process.

We will pursue specific questions or paths within that larger program. We will develop particular ideas. We will investigate a particular source. Interview particular people. Interpret particular texts.

And at every stage of the process we have things to contribute to the conversation. Publication is how academics contribute to academic debate.

Our work continues. We keep working on those ideas. We develop them. Our work advances.

And others pick up our ideas, from our publications, and take them in other directions. They bring them to their own texts, interview subjects, archives. They develop them in new directions. And publish their contributions to the conversation.

Our work is never “finished”

The questions we are pursuing are too big for that. Each step of the process raises new questions. Suggests new directions.

Publishing is about making a contribution to the advancement of knowledge. Entering into the conversation. Engaging in debate.

The standard of entry into academic debate is high. If you have been awarded a PhD, you have been judged capable of meeting that standard. You are “good enough” to participate.

The debates to which you want to contribute will be better for your participation in them. Frequently. At all stages of the process.

When faced with the product on your desk the question isn’t, “Is it finished?” The question is, “Is it good enough?”.

What does this mean in practice

If you were to look at all the unfinished pieces on your desktop (either the piece of furniture or the computer), where would you start? What should you write next? Where will you publish it?

I’ve written an e-book that can help you with those decisions. Gain a better understanding of how your publication list is judged by others and reclaim your audacious goals to make important contributions to debates in your field.

Publish or Perish? will change the way you think about writing and publishing. Read an excerpt. If you like it, sign up for the newsletter and receive the entire e-book free.

Although I decided that the academic life wasn’t for me, the experience has provided the foundation on which my current business is built. I’ve been where you are. Or somewhere like it.

I was a reasonably successful sociologist. But I didn’t do everything right. None of us does. We all make mistakes. The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful is what they do with those mistakes.

I don’t know about you, but no one really told me how academe worked. I knew bits of it. I got some good advice from time to time. And sometimes I knew there was information I was missing and I asked for it. But I didn’t always find it.

So I learned about how a successful academic career works by trying things and making mistakes. Mistakes helped me sort out the myths from the solid advice. Mistakes helped me see what the better path might have been.

Not all of my learning happened that way. But some of it did. I’ve decided to do a series of “If I knew then…” posts to share what I learned with you so that you can learn from my mistakes, too.