Thread by @mvsbach

Part of my summer reading is @WmGermano 's book on getting your dissertation published as a book. Here are my key takeaways:
1. "Writing isn't a record of your thinking. It is your thinking" (28) so you have to write to think, come up with ideas, research. etc. (1)

My takeaway here is that we should not think of our writing as a separate activity. Keep writing, reading, thinking, exploring everyday.

2. "avoid telling the reader that what you have has been, astonishingly, overlooked"
"Better by far to have an excellent command of mechanics, a sense of storytelling, and a clear understanding of your material" (32)
In my own words, do rather than defend (3)

3. If you "can learn to enjoy revising, you will have discovered one of the tricks that can animate your professional life" (36)
I have a long way to go... (4)

4. Do not let a dissertation revision take longer than 6 months or a year and a summer if you have a job.
Get it done, if you can't, move on.
"Remember that you didn't decide to become a professional scholar because you had only one narrow subject to mine endlessly" (38)
(5)

4 (contd) "Don't forget that you are much more than any one writing project, including your dissertation" (39)
(6)

5. Do not wait to revise the dissertation until you have 'time'
"Time (this is not a physicist speaking) is something we make. Make time to get the revision finished." (39)
(7)

if you can't seem to get to it, identify what is stopping you and "go after that roadblock" (39)
(8)

6. Better responses to why you can't write is:
"1. I believe in what I wrote
2. I want to share something that has value to others
3. I want a professional life in the academy" (43)

Do you hear cheerleaders in the background? I do.
#wecandothis

7. There are many paths you can take with your thesis:
1. If it's not good, or you do not like it all something else, "do not resuscitate" (44). Move on to another project.
2. Publish one or several strong chapter(s) in a journal.
3. Publish dissertation as a book
(10)

7 contd
there are different possibilities under the 3rd option:
A. your dissertation can be revised substantially or lightly
B. take one good idea in dissertation and do more research to write a book
C. divide dissertation in two and publish one or more books (44-45)

(11)

8. Think about "audience, voice, structure and length" (61)
Identifying the audience and writing in an appealing way to the reader are both necessary. A book's components and narrative need to be clear and no book works if the author doesn't know when to stop talking
(12)

9. "the dissertation is the historical record of others' ideas, supplemented by your own important insights; the book is the narrative thinking on the subject, but primarily its your thinking, even though it is supplemented by the historical record of others' ideas" (75)
(13)

9 contd "If this generalization is valid, it means that a young author can't write a book without risking intellectual self-exposure. The risk, by the way, is one of the important parts of being a writer [...] And it isn't the risk of being found wrong, ...(75)

... "for scholars are always moving an idea along by fits and starts. It's the risk of finding you have nothing to say. Learning to take that risk, even to want to take that risk, is part of a scholar's development" (75)
We need to take more risks. Don't be scared?!
(15)

10. "Highly intelligent people are adept at a lot of things, including making excuses for avoiding things they know they need to do. Even telling yourself that you need to do more reading is sometimes just an excuse not to do the hard writing" (77)
I am guilty of this, so much!

11. "Revising a dissertation is more like building a house, knowing where it should stop and the sky begin" (77)
It is not like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You need a schedule and deadlines.
(17)

12. This was a surprise to me: An introduction SHOULD NOT include a roadmap of what the book chapters will do. (84) -> I just removed mine.

Who agrees, who disagrees?
(18)

13. Voice teachers say notes are like pearls on a string. Each pearl is independent yet connected to the note before and after.
"Chapters are your pearl-like notes. Paragraphs are, too. Listening to your own writing out loud is the best way to hear what it sounds like"(95)
(19)

14. "Walk through the chapters and notice where you get tired" (95)
(20)

15. Before you set out to revise your dissertation into a book, practise writing summaries of your dissertation. Not an abstract but a summary with flesh on the bones and feeling behind the words (99)
(21)

16. "A manuscript that gives the appearance - however superficially - of having been thoroughly organised will give the impression that it is thoughtful in other ways, too"(101)
so take some time on that table of contents and titles of the book parts.
(22)

17."Reading a long chapter can sometimes feel like being told a story, or a lot of stories one after another, by a speaker breathless with excitement. But slow the speaker down, pause between episodes, and suddenly the point of it all becomes clearer"(112)
i.e. Create subheadings

18. some words of encouragement:
"if you can write one terrific paragraph, you have it in you to write an entire book" (116)
(24)

19. "the more clearly you write, the more clearly you are thinking"(117)

This makes me realise that I have some way to go...
(25)

20."Some powerful thinkers write in terribly difficult prose, but it becomes a disservice to the academic community when complex writing is presented as the norm, or an even an obligation"(119)
I struggle with this, so much. Fancy words do not make me (even look) more intelligent

21. SO REMEMBER "Jewels can hide in thickets of difficult prose, but the writer of a first book should think in terms of clarity, clarity, clarity" (119)
(27)

22. Many grads are uncomfortable with I, but we shouldn't be. Don't use we unless you're actually several authors. Avoid the passive voice, too. Use active words and everything that @DeirdreMcClosk says in her book on economical writing.
(28)

23. "Look at the revision as the opportunity to find out who your writing self is" (122)
(29)

24. Clean up your footnotes and references, you need a lot fewer than you think (123)
(30)

25. The passive voice makes the writing exist in an imagery world where things have things done to them. The active voice, on the other hand, says I do this. If I'm wrong, argue with me, "but take me at my worth" (129)
(31)

26. Do not write a snowglobe, write a machine. Write as if writing is doing work and think of writing as a tool. A machine requires you to put it to use and does something to the user. A book should change the reader's view of world. Strive for that in your book (137-142)
(32)

sidenote:@WmGermano 's wit is great:"You can awake one morning from uneasy dreams to find that you have been transformed into a prof., a curious anomaly within a society impatient w/ intellectual probs & what appear to be the narcissistic battles w/in the academic community"(150)

27. He urges us to "think of the task of revising the dissertation as an exercise in relearning how to write, that is, how to think with words as a tool of expression and communication"(151)
(34)

28. "a better writer becomes a better thinker" (151)

29. "like physical exercise, writing is a tiring thing that gives you more energy after you've done it. Writing is a risk, and risk is exciting, and excitement is something you will fight to sustain in your professional life as you age and your students don't"(152)
(36)

30. "Writing is a lifelong occupation, an avocation, a battle, and in it we find out what we think and who we are"(155)

end of thread