Bibliography
Jun. 13th, 2010 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyThe thesis and the book: A guide for first-time academic authors – edited by Eleanor Harman, Ian Montagnes, Siobhan McMenemy and Chris Bucci
This is a collection of articles first published in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing; the second edition was put together in 2003, updating the original 1976 edition. The articles address the differences between a thesis and a book; the 'deadly sins' of the thesis; how to revise the dissertation and publish the resulting book; how to avoid a 'warmed-over' dissertation; elements of style to expunge and qualities of a book to add; and some basic advice for authors approaching publishing for the first time. There's also a checklist for academic authors, although I personally felt that the items therein were more applicable for science writers than me.
The thing is, that I've done a fair bit of reading around this now, and there wasn't really much here I didn't already know. The tone is rather polemic on occasions, especially on the failings of The Thesis as a genre, and frankly it gets irritating and a bit upsetting to be told that you are inevitably falling into these huge stylistic pit-falls because you are writing a thesis. Now, I know that from time to time I'm a bit apologetic in my style, and that when I come to revising the manuscript up into a book I can kill the bits about what people said in 1900, but those are about the only bad qualities I recognised of myself here. I have, I hope, got a Genuine Big Thing to say that I think will translate into a Genuine Big Contribution for a book to make, and most of the articles here seem to say 'make sure you have one of these before you pursue this book idea any further'. I thought the whole point of a dissertation was finding one of those Big Genuine Things, although I know it doesn't always work out. Ho hum.
So, I think overall I'd recommend William Germano's books on the same subject instead. At least you feel as if he's supportive of the idea you might want to publish.
This is a collection of articles first published in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing; the second edition was put together in 2003, updating the original 1976 edition. The articles address the differences between a thesis and a book; the 'deadly sins' of the thesis; how to revise the dissertation and publish the resulting book; how to avoid a 'warmed-over' dissertation; elements of style to expunge and qualities of a book to add; and some basic advice for authors approaching publishing for the first time. There's also a checklist for academic authors, although I personally felt that the items therein were more applicable for science writers than me.
The thing is, that I've done a fair bit of reading around this now, and there wasn't really much here I didn't already know. The tone is rather polemic on occasions, especially on the failings of The Thesis as a genre, and frankly it gets irritating and a bit upsetting to be told that you are inevitably falling into these huge stylistic pit-falls because you are writing a thesis. Now, I know that from time to time I'm a bit apologetic in my style, and that when I come to revising the manuscript up into a book I can kill the bits about what people said in 1900, but those are about the only bad qualities I recognised of myself here. I have, I hope, got a Genuine Big Thing to say that I think will translate into a Genuine Big Contribution for a book to make, and most of the articles here seem to say 'make sure you have one of these before you pursue this book idea any further'. I thought the whole point of a dissertation was finding one of those Big Genuine Things, although I know it doesn't always work out. Ho hum.
So, I think overall I'd recommend William Germano's books on the same subject instead. At least you feel as if he's supportive of the idea you might want to publish.
