2010 TAA Conference on Text and Academic Authoring

Ramada Mall of America Minneapolis, Minnesota

June 24-26, 2010

Textbook Track Session:

Janet Belsky Kevin Patton

The Second Time Around: The Do’s, Don’ts and Maybes of Preparing a Second Edition

Day/Time: Saturday, 11:15 - 12:15 p.m.

Presenters: Janet Belsky, Professor, Psychology, Middle Tennessee State University; Kevin Patton, Professor of Life Science, St. Charles Community College

It's time for the next edition. Now what do you do? From avoiding common pitfalls, to judiciously responding to reviews, from managing chapter sizes, to dealing with cutting, rewriting, and planning your time — Belsky, author of the 2008 Texty-winning, Experiencing the Lifespan, gives a first person account of the joys and heartaches involved in revisiting a textbook the second time around. Patton, author of two McGuffey longevity award winning texts, then follows up with the long view to suggest practical tips for planning an ongoing cycle of revisions.

About the Presenters:

Janet Belsky has spent the past 25 years writing textbooks in developmental psychology. She is the author of The Psychology of Aging (Wadsworth, 1999, now in its third edition); The Adult Experience (Wadsworth, l997); and, most recently, Experiencing the Lifespan (Worth Publishers, 2007), which won a 2008 Textbook Excellence Award. In addition, she wrote Here Tomorrow (Johns Hopkins Press, l988), a book describing the social science findings on aging for older adults. Dr. Belsky, a professor in the Psychology Department at Middle Tennessee State University, is currently preparing the second edition of Experiencing the Lifespan, and in the process of planning her next writing project, a textbook on child development.

Kevin Patton has been writing textbooks and other educational content in human anatomy and physiology for several decades. Among his publications are Anatomy & Physiology (now in its 7th edition), Structure and Function of the Body (five editions), The Human Body in Health and Disease (5 editions), and Mosby’s Handbook of Anatomy & Physiology. He is Professor of Life Science at St. Charles Community College and is the founding Director of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS) Institute ... and is always in the middle of revising something or other.. Read more about Kevin in the Notable Author article about him: Click here