“Doctoral study and getting published”; new book in the making

Richard Fay and I are very happy to announce that Doctoral Study and Getting Published: Narratives of Early Career Research, is now available for pre-order.

The book, which is part of the Surviving and Thriving in Academia series, brings together theoretical contributions and narratives about how early career researchers in the University of Manchester Language Teacher Research Network (Lantern) community, have engaged with publishing during, after and as part of their PhD studies. Through these narratives, and using ecological theory as a theoretical lens, we try to show how Early Career Researchers (ECRs) grow into academic and professional roles, in a process of ‘academic becoming’.

We are incredibly grateful to all the friends and colleagues in Lantern who shared their stories and thoughts with us, sometimes exposing vulnerable aspects of their academic becoming or sharing emotionally intense experiences. We strongly believe all the storied experiences will resonate strongly with the intended readers of the book, doctoral students and ECRs, and that they will all benefit from engaging with the contributions in the book.

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Overview of the volume

The book begins with two introductory chapters that present the book and discuss the challenges ECRs face in publishing. Following that, there are five sets of narratives focusing on different aspects of academic becoming. These are:

• finding or constructing a researcher identity;
• experiencing writing for publication;
• working with co-authors and peers;
• becoming part of an academic community;
• engaging with reviewers and publishers.

Finally, the book concludes with an ecologically informed commentary that brings together the salient themes of the book.

Introductory chapters

Richard Fay and I (Achilleas Kostoulas) begin the volume by presenting the two theoretical frames that hold together the volume: narrative and ecological theory. The chapter also includes introductions to us, as editors, and to the Lantern community, who provide the voices in this polyphonic volume.

In Chapter 2, “Local and global challenges for early career publishing” Jane Andrews presents a bibliographical overview of the ECR publishing landscape. This comprehensive and up-to-date review outlines the external pressures to publish and the challenges ECRs face while publishing, as well as good practices that can support their endeavours.

Finding or constructing a researcher identity

For many ECRs, becoming an academic is a process of discovering, rediscovering or constructing an identity. As the two narratives in the first section of the book show, these identities are often diverse and complex syntheses of the ECRs backgrounds and aspirations.

In the first narrative of the volume, Magdalena De Stefani talks about how her PhD and post-PhD work made her realise the entanglements between her professional and academic identities. She also narrates how she eventually learnt to build on this hybrid identity while working with teachers in her professional setting and publishing in (and with) the academic community.

Chapter 4, Where are you from?, by Eljee Javier, also addresses the question of developing an academic identity. Eljee’s story focuses on questions of ethnicity, racism and normative expectations associated with being a native speaker of English. She narrates how these questions, framed by (what was then) the nascent field of raciolinguistics, drove her PhD and eventually became an important theme in her professional identity as an academic.

“My research interests stem from a critical encounter early in my career, where my applications for English language teacher posts outside of Canada were turned down because of my ethnicity as a Filipino-Canadian. […] I first coined the term VEMNEST [Visible Ethnic Minority Native English Speaking Teacher] in 2007 in an assignment during my postgraduate studies at The University of Manchester.”

Eljee Javier (University of Sussex)

The experience of writing

One of the drivers of academic identity development is the process of writing for publication. In the first two narratives of this section, Jessica Bradley and Edd Aspbury-Miyanishi tell the story of how they discovered what they wanted to say, and who they wanted to be, through writing. Following that, Magdalena Rostron shares some insights into making the writing process more structured and effective.

Jessica Bradley introduces the second part of the volume by writing about how writing (including semi-private writing for her blog) helped her develop what she describes as a ‘writerly identity’. Using extracts from her blog, she provides a window inside the mind of a developing academic, for whom private feelings and public expectations interweave with each other.

In Chapter 6, A garden of forking PhD paths, Edd Aspbury-Miyanishi walks us through his PhD by publication. His narrative shows how he dealt with complications arising from the pandemic, and how his writing agenda evolved as he worked his way through the PhD, eventually becoming something very different from what he had originally envisaged.

“The PhD thesis I submitted in 2022 bears very little resemblance to the one I envisaged in my proposal”

Edd Aspbury-Miyanishi (University of Leeds)

Part B of the volume concludes with a thoughtful piece, entitled Publish, not perish: Developing a purposeful approach to doctoral publication. In this chapter, Magdalena Rostron extracts guidelines for academic writing from her extensive experience as an academic tutor, which can help ECRs manage the challenges of publishing.

Engaging with co-authors and critical peers

Writing for publication is often a collaborative process, which means that ECRs have to learn how to work with each other, and with more knowledgable colleagues, as well as navigate complex power dynamics. Siti Fitryah, Dylan Williams, and Khwan Tantiniranat narrate how engaging with other academics shaped them and their trajectories of academic becoming.

In the first of the three narratives that make up Part C, Siti M. Fitriyah tells the story of how she published her first collaboratively written article during her PhD studies. This story showcases how she engaged with the dynamics of working with more senior academics, from her perspective as a ‘newcomer’ to the university, and used this collaborative opportunity as a “safe scaffold” for her first publications.

In Chapter 7, by Dylan Williams, we follow the story of a series of publications that began before Dylan’s doctoral studies. In his narrative, Dylan recounts how his academic identity “was shaped” over time by helpful academics, like his supervisor and PhD examiners. He also discusses the benefits of learning from their feedback.

“I soon discovered that the exhilaration of submitting a paper was not long after tempered by the reality of the academic publishing world”

Dylan Williams (Queen Mary University of London)

Finally, Khwan Tantiniranat‘s chapter provides readers with an account of how she experienced the unavoidable ups and downs of academic publishing and how her academic network helped her as she made her way into academia.

Building or joining an academic community

The topic of working with others continues in Part D of the book, which explores how Min Huang, Rui He and Paul Breen managed to join or build communities of practice around their academic publishing pursuits.

In her chapter, Min Huang narrates how her academic publications emerged from the affordances within her academic community, and how this developing researcherhood is inextricable from her sense of belonging.

“I recognised that publishing from the PhD requires a clear purpose for each article, a purpose that is different from the purpose of a PhD thesis”

Min Huang (The University of Manchester)

In the second narrative of Part B, Rui He problematises the invisible rules and expectations of academic communities and tells the story of how she developed a healthy balance between personal and professional life. The chapter also includes a presentation of the ‘LOOP’ heuristic, which she developed to help her decide which publication profiles are closer to her priorities and avoid becoming overwhelmed.

In Chapter 13, Paul Breen shares insights from the development of a Community of Practice in his workplace. His narrative is intertwined with thoughtful reflections on the role of English for Academic Purposes in academia, expectations from academics, and ways to challenge systemic injustices in the publishing ecosystem.

Engaging with publishers

The final part of the book looks into the challenges of working with peer-reviewers and publishers. In their contributions, Duygu Candarli and Felix Kwihangana share their publication strategies and the rationale behind them. Next, Mira Bekar and Paul Smith discuss the ways in which they navigated the differences in perspectives between them, as authors, and reviewers, as critical readers of their work.

Chapter 14, by Duygu Candarli, raises a number of dilemmas that ECRs face as they publish their research (e.g., should one focus on writing a research monograph or publish more articles?) and discusses the emotional aspects of engaging with reviewer feedback.

Taking a different tack to engaging with reviewer feedback, Felix Kwihangana tells the story of how he set himself ambitious goals regarding his publication outlets, in a deliberate attempt to learn more from the reviewers’ comments. In his chapter, he explains how this strategy of “seeking constructive rejections” helped him manage the effects of the ‘publish or perish’ culture.

“In my search for constructive rejections, I discovered a lot about the academic publishing journey and myself as an aspiring academic. What I considered to be low-stake writing ended up on my CV […] when applying for jobs, though how this affected my employment chances remains unknown.”

 Felix Kwihangana (King’s College London)

In Chapter 16, It is not easy to learn about your academic self through the eyes of reviewers Mira Bekar uses a Labovian theoretical lens to walk readers through the ‘complicating actions’ in the publishing trajectory. These can occur when there’s a mismatch between how authors perceive their papers and how reviewers read them. Using multiple examples of frustrating interactions, Mira shares the lessons she learnt from the process.

The last narrative in the collection, It’s not about me, by Paul V. Smith, describes the experience of publishing about a controversial topic. Like Mira in the previous chapter, Paul discusses the misalignment between the authorial and reviewer readings of the text and talks about how the dynamics of co-authorship shaped the experience.

Concluding comments

Doctoral Study and Getting Published concludes with a second contribution by Mira Bekar, who synthesises the fifteen preceding narratives through an ecological lens, and teases our salient themes, such as self-doubt, survival strategies and adaptation.

An afterword

Richard and I have known each other for more than twenty years now. And yet, in all this time, this is the first publication we have ever done together. I think that this is because, following my PhD, I focused more on instrumental publishing, i.e., the kinds of publications that aligned more closely with the agendas of the university departments where I worked (or wanted to work), while Richard engaged with the kinds of publications that more meaningfully connected to things that matter. Editing this book is one step in that direction for me as well.

Some of the themes that recur in Doctoral Study and Getting Published are those of academic becoming, adaptation to adversity and resilience against the pernicious effects of the ‘publish or perish’ culture. These are, in themselves, inspiring thoughts, and I hope that they resonate with readers. But, for me, the book also resonates in a different way.

Growing through and toward connections

In a talk about resilience that I gave some years ago, I quoted Judith Jordan, who said that “we grow through and toward connection”, by embracing vulnerability and developing empathy. This is harder to do when working with abstract data, or maintaining professional distance as one must when doing other types of research. As I worked the narratives in this collection, I had the opportunity to re-engage with familiar stories by people I already knew well, to re-discover similar experiences in the narratives of new friends, and to revisit their –and my– growth from a new vantage point.

I still think that The Intentional Dynamics of TESOL is the best monograph I’ve written as a researcher; but the narratives in Doctoral Study and Getting Published make it one of the best books I’ve read in a while. And the experience of bringing this book from inception to publication with Richard Fay is one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in academic writing.

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