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Tara Gray
Publish and Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar
Reviewed by Tamara Bertrand Jones

As a first-year assistant professor at a Research I institution, my job is to write. My college and institution have provided a great foundation for my success so all that’s left is for me to get to it. Some days I sit with a black screen, fingers poised above the keyboard, waiting for the words and ideas to flow. Unfortunately, they don't always flow as plentiful as I would like. So, when I was asked to review Tara Gray’s Publish and Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar, I jumped at the chance, eagerly anticipating learning something new. Gray’s book provided me, and gives other writers, a blueprint for academic publishing. The book, while small in presentation, is chock full of tips, tools, and techniques for novice and experienced writers. Her 12 steps are like rehab for the unproductive scholar.

Gray’s first three steps fall in the category of Managing Time. Step 1 helps us distinguish the urgent from the important. Building on the sense of urgency around your writing which is expressed in step 1, step 2 encourages us to write for 15-30 minutes each day. Gray cites research as evidence that writing binges--infrequent writing for large blocks of time--are less productive than consistent daily writing. Step 3 concludes the section by advocating accountability. Writers who wrote for at least 15 minutes daily,recorded their time, and were held accountable for doing so were significantly more productive than peers who binged.

The Writing section includes steps 4 and 5. In step 4, Gray extols the benefits of writing from Day 1 of your research project. Writing throughout the project helps improve your writing and saves times. Another time saving tip, Gray says, is to post your thesis on the wall and write to it. In step 5 she declares, posting the thesis will “help you define, refine, and write to your purpose.”

Steps 6 and 7 center on Revising and include organizing around key sentences (step 6) and using key sentences to form an outline once you’ve completed your draft (step 7). Step 6’s notes on revising and organizing my sentences takes me back to 5th grade Language Arts where Mrs. Childs taught us how to write a paragraph. I needed this reminder to focus my writing. Step 7’s use of key sentences as an after the fact outline helps to check the organization between paragraphs. Gray even includes directions on how to generate an outline using a hidden text function in Microsoft Word (Side note: I tried this and it works!).

The Getting Help section includes steps 8, 9, and 10. Step 8 encourages writers to share drafts of our work with expert and non-expert reviewers. Gray provides a script to use when soliciting feedback. Her most important tip of the chapter…ask about and enforce deadlines and timelines with your reviewers. In step 9, the old adage that “the customer is always right” is modified to “the reader is always right.” In this step, Gray urges us to listen carefully, not take our reader’s criticisms personally, and resist the temptation to explain what you meant. Step 10 reminds writers not to “throw the baby out with the bath water.” Gray instructs us to respond to each specific critique and revise our work if we can. Often different readers focus on and provide comments related to different areas of the text. Gray acknowledges that addressing these focused comments allows the writer to develop a more solid manuscript and reduce “faults.”

In the last section, Polishing and Publishing, the author provides steps 11 and 12. Step 11 requires us to find a partner and read the draft out loud. In this step, Gray believes that hearing our text read aloud highlights problem areas that might otherwise be overlooked. Step 12 follows with Gray’s advice to “kick it out the door” by identifying three potential outlets for our manuscript. In this step, she also provides guidelines for journal selection, including getting your experts involved and testing the waters by sending queries to journal editors prior to submission. These actions help save precious time. Throughout this step, Gray identifies how pride, perfectionism, and fear of rejection can hinder the solid progress we’ve made from working the steps.

Armed with Gray’s 12 steps and a new commitment to publishing and flourishing, research and writing top my 'to do' list each day. I know that I have to invest time and energy into becoming aproductive scholar. I’ve enlisted a trusted colleague to serve as my writing buddy to provide myself with more accountability. We have a writing log, and I look forward to logging many hours. I've become proficient at using the hidden text feature to outline my work and have a non-expert reviewer on call. Gray’s book, no doubt, provides me with the tools for my journey to becoming a prolific scholar and would be beneficial to anyone on their own writing journey.

About the Reviewer:

Dr. Tamara Bertrand Jones is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies atFlorida State University (FSU). She completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Research and Evaluation Methods from FSU. She also holds a masters degree in Higher Education from FSU and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Bertrand Jones has over 10 years of experience in Higher Education administration, college teaching, and research and program evaluation. She is a past President of Sisters of the Academy (SOTA) Institute, an international organization she and six other women founded that promotes collaborative scholarship among Black females in the academy.