Triple your productivity. Write winning grants and publish in better journals. Write prose that is clearer, better organized, and more compelling.
Many grant, book, and journal writers are educated at the School of Hard Knocks, but it’s not the only school, or even the best. Even when you can't work harder, there are important ways to work smarter. Much is known about how to become a better academic writer–and anybody can.
Workshop participants who followed these steps were studied and 95% of almost 100 participants reported that their writing improved. The average participant also increased the number of grant proposals and manuscripts submitted from a rate of two per year to nearly six.* You can too. Ten elegantly simple steps will show you how.
Write
Step 1: Write daily for at least 15–30 minutes.
Step 2: Record your minutes spent writing.
Step 3: Write informally from the first day of your project.
Step 4: Organize your grant or manuscript based on an exemplar.
Revise
Step 5: Find or write key sentences.
Step 6: Using key sentences, make an after-the-fact outline.
Step 7: Seek informal feedback before formal review.
Step 8: Respond effectively to feedback.
Step 9: Read your grant or manuscript out loud.
Step 10: Kick it out the door, and make ’em say, “Yes!”
Workshop Formats
Publish & Flourish is a highly interactive virtual two-hour workshop in which the ten steps are introduced. It features an open-ended question in chat, eight poll questions, and about a dozen questions from the audience. Participants leave with new tools to apply to grants and manuscripts.
Publish & Flourish: A Workshop and Writing Retreat is a virtual four-part series. A couple of steps are introduced each day and participants spend the rest of the time applying those steps to a grant or manuscript that they bring to the workshop. This four-part virtual workshop and writing retreat meets for 90 minutes four times over the span of a week or once a week over four weeks.
The advantage of the four-part workshop is that participants apply the steps during the workshop itself and, having tried the steps, adopt more of them.
The advantage of the four-week version is that participants are invited to write daily and record it in a shared spreadsheet. The shared accountability results in participants writing an average of four times a week for 30 minutes and increasing their productivity by a factor of 2.7.* The four parts of the workshop are described below.
Part 1 • Write Daily
Only 12% of scholars succeed in writing daily, and they greatly outperform those who don’t. But how do you get started and keep going? Learn how to break out as a writer.
Part 2 • Organize Around Key or Topic Sentences
Organizing around key or topic sentences is essential to clear writing, but it is not easy until you know the drill. Learn how to organize effectively by writing key sentences.
Part 3 • Outline after You Write by Making a List of Key Sentences
After drafting your grant or manuscript, check its organization by making a list of key sentences and studying that list for cohesion and logic.
Part 4 • Seek Informal Feedback before Formal Review
One study found that after peer review, manuscripts improved in 33 of 34 measures. Why not get that kind of serious feedback informally before formal peer review? This session demonstrates how.
It’s hard to put the finishing touches on a grant or manuscript—and send it off for review—but that’s exactly what scholars must do. Come learn how to polish your grant or manuscript to a fine shine.
*Gray, T., Madson, L., & Jackson, M. (2018). Publish & Flourish: Helping scholars become better, more prolific writers. To improve the academy: A journal of educational development, 37, 243-256.
About Coaching
Immediately following the workshop, participants begin to apply the principles to their scholarly writing. They then have a chance to share their discoveries with colleagues who are overcoming similar hurdles in one-hour coaching sessions with Tara.
These powerful coaching sessions provide the accountability, structure, and momentum to help the plans of participants become permanent.
What Participants Say
About the Workshop
Your methods changed my writing life. For the four years before the workshop, I wrote or revised 44 pages a year, but in the four years after, I wrote or revised 220 pages per year—five times as much!
I have adopted the 15 minute model along with other suggestions from Tara Gray. It has been about two weeks and I have hammered out a publication for submission and started the next one.
I decided to try these steps on a paper I had been trying to put together for five years. Four weeks later, the paper is out for review.
The last two manuscripts I submitted were accepted without revisions! I attribute my success to the steps I learned from this workshop.
The workshop will give you a great framework for creating and revising your writing for the rest of your life.
About Coaching
Coaching provides personal advice you can apply from day one.
Coaching is a judgment free zone: it is hands-on, precise, and rigorous.
Coaching is hugely helpful. Tara makes writing easy.
Coaching is practical and hands-on. It is personalized, collegial, and concise.
Dr. Gray provides strategies and solutions to overcome challenges. She has made writing fun and non-intimidating.
Dr. Gray has a wealth of experience in writing and scholarly productivity. Anything she puts out is a must read or must attend.
Domestic Workshop Fee Schedule
With Textbook & Academic Authors Co-Sponsorship
Textbook & Academic Authors (TAA) will co-sponsor a limited number of virtual workshops for faculty anywhere in the 50 United States.
With TAA co-sponsorship, the fee is $1,000 for the virtual two-hour workshop and $4,000 for the workshop and writing retreat.
Fees include:
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A virtual workshop or workshop and writing retreat
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Up to 65 one-year TAA memberships
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Tara Gray’s 2020 eBook for each registrant: Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar
For either workshop, TAA will handle registration by providing one registration link to facilitate the delivery of the workshop login details, the TAA membership, and the eBook.
TAA will provide publicity to promote the events and memberships together.
TAA prefers to reach as many scholars as possible so all-campus workshops with all-campus publicity are preferred.
TAA is a non-profit, 501c(3) devoted to helping textbook and academic authors thrive. For more information on TAA and the resources available through membership visit TAAonline.net.
For international workshops or for domestic workshops without TAA co-sponsorship, see the fee schedule below.
International Workshop Fee Schedule
Without Textbook & Academic Authors Co-Sponsorship
For virtual workshops given internationally or domestic workshops without TAA co-sponsorship, the fee for the workshop is US$2,000 and the fee for the workshop and writing retreat is US$5,000. For these events, Kindle versions of the book, Publish & Flourish, can be purchased for US$10.
Coaching Fee Schedule
The fee for virtual coaching for groups of four participants is $75 per participant.