- Library honors author with reception
- Book Review: It Works for Me: Becoming a Publishing Scholar/Researcher
- Google Book status conference rescheduled
- AAER call for papers
- Academic Boot Camp, Jan. 4-6, 2012
- How to maximize your productivity
- Early Conference registration deadline May 15
- TAA announces 2011 Council election results
- Featured Member Profile:
Award-winning open textbook author shares the gift of knowledge - Duganne awarded $250 TAA Publication Grant
- Anderson awarded $650 TAA Publication Grant
- Book Review: Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, Second Edition, by Mary Ellen Lepionka
Library honors author with reception
By Dionne Soares Palmer
More than fifty people gathered at the Hillsborough Community College Ybor City Campus Library on April 13, 2011 to celebrate the publication of Professor Jose Carmona’s edited volume, Language Teaching and Learning in ESL Education: Current Issues, Collaborations, and Practice.
Attendees of the late morning reception included faculty, administration, students, and community members. In addition, some of Carmona’s former colleagues made the two-hour drive from Daytona Beach to attend the event. Many of the contributing authors for the book live in countries around the globe and were unable to attend.
As the reception began, Carmona spoke about his background, language teaching and learning, the contents of his new book, and his plans for future projects. This was followed by a question and answer session, during which Librarian and Library Program Manager Jeneice Sorrentino said that many of Carmona’s students were actively asking questions: “I found that interesting because the book is more aimed at educators, but they seemed interested in the writing and publishing process.” After the question and answer session, the attendees enjoyed light refreshments.
The library holds receptions like this one periodically to honor faculty members. “We have an appreciation for books, so anytime that one of our campus faculty members has authored abook, we ask them if they would like us to honor them in this way,” Sorrentino said. Carmona’s reception was scheduled to coincide with National Library Week.
The event was advertised primarily via email. The library created a flyer that was sent electronically to faculty and administrators. Carmona also had a postcard created from the flyer that he sent out to people in the community.
Language Teaching and Learning in ESL Education: Current Issues, Collaborations, and Practice is a collection of articles for teachers and administrators connected to English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction. Carmona said that the book would be ideal as “a supplemental textbook for a teacher training class because it also includes lesson plans so teachers can get current information about what to do in their classes.”
As its title suggests, each of the book’s 22 chapters are dedicated to one of three themes: current research, collaboration, and classroom practices. The chapter that Carmona authored addresses the use of global advocacy in the language classroom, a topic that he said is “fairly new to the ESL community.”
Another unique feature of Carmona’s book is its focus on the application of research in the classroom. “Everything is practical,” he said. “Even the research chapters are practical because teachers can apply the research to their classroom.” Carmona said he commissioned many of the articles from the authors, looking for “innovative stuff that can be applied to the classroom right away.” The applicability of the content is a major part of what makes Carmona’s book such a valuable resource for teacher training.
In addition, the book instructs teachers-in-training on how to create a comprehensive lesson plan. There are also chapters on establishing a gifted ESL program, teaching in multilevel classrooms, and assessment.
Carmona has published several other books related to ESL education as well as a Spanish textbook and a book of poetry. He is currently working on seven different books on a diverse range of topics, including World Citizens: Reproducible Activities for Global Advocacy in the ESL/EFL Classroom, Literature as Mentor: A Practical Guide for Teaching Latino/a Literature of the U.S., and Carnivals of the World: An Expression of Cultural Identity.
Dionne Soares Palmer is a freelance writer located in northern California.
Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet
It Works for Me: Becoming a Publishing Scholar/Researcher
Reviewed by Jose A. Carmona
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It Works for Me: Becoming a Publishing Scholar/Researcher, Shared Tips for the Classroom Professional is an easily read collection of practical tips for the future publishing scholar or researcher. The 122-page manual was put together with today’s busy professional in mind. That is, each chapter is short enough to be read between classes or meetings, on the commute to or from work, or while traveling to a conference.
The book is divided into larger headings such as “Developing a Scholarly Frame of Mind,” “Creating Your Scholarly Plan,” “Overviews,” “Pre-Writing,” “Writing,” “Post-Writing,” “Other Scholarly Matters,” and “New Directions.” The numerous subheadings are written by different scholars in the field, thus giving the reader a well-rounded appeal into “becoming a publishing scholar/researcher.”
In “Creating Your Scholarly Plan,” the authors share their own experience as they revisit such familiar themes as making a conscious move to become a scholar, setting a small goal, moving to larger goals, engaging in the actual process of writing “every day,” to finally learning “how to do market research.” By providing the reader with the authors’ own experiences within each subtheme, a novice scholar can be enlightened to come up with his or her own idea which, in turn, is what makes this volume helpful.
The “Overviews” unit, consisting of smaller articles by different scholars inside and outside the field of publishing, is a particularly interesting part of the book. It is this valuable section that provides the reader or new scholar a complete overview of strategies for becoming a publishing scholar and researcher. This smorgasbord of tips and information ranges from writing for academic journals to maintaining scholarship in a teaching-focused institution to writing your first book to the most fascinating article in this section, “When Life Intervenes: How to be Academically Productive While Being Biologically Reproductive,” depicting tips for women who need to balance their writing with their families. The wealth of information found in these pages is as varied as the expertise depicted by the authors.
The next three units of the book, also authored by researchers in the field, include pre-writing, writing and post-writing units, the specific steps necessary to accomplish a publication. Some of the subchapters in these units include: “Identifying Emerging Topics of Scholarly Interest in the Discipline,” How to Get Involved in Research,” Writing Book Chapters for Publications,” “A Timely Trifecta,” “Submitting a Manuscript…,” Turning Rejection Letters into Positive Advice,” etc. However, some of the most helpful chapters in these three sections include: “Differentiating Journals,” a chapter discussing how to select a journal, but more importantly, how to obtain formatting programs and examining the journal’s impact factor. Another useful article in the “writing” section, “A Research/Scholarly Paper Outline,” actually points out the sections needed in such articles with the similarities and differences between a student research paper and a scholarly work. A third article from the “post-writing” section, “Applying Wagnerian Opera Theory to Scholarship: It Isn’t Over Till…,” the author discusses her personal experience when an article was accepted with revisions; through her own mistakes, the reader learns what to do and what not to do when an article needs revision. “A manuscript isn’t published until it is published.”
Under the “Other Scholarly Matters,” section, the authors add tips on collaboration and mentoring in writing. There are the top ten reasons to “collabowrite,” five strategies for successful co-authoring, steps to the benefits of virtual collaboration, successful international learning communities, writing and publications groups including adding students to the group, finding a mentor, and many other articles of high interest to the reader.
The final section of the book, “New Directions,” focuses on the evolving publishing world. Sections here include how the field has been shifting, creating SOTL (the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning), a scholarship of service model explanation, publishing in other disciplines, and young adult literature as a publishing venture, among others.
The only small problem found in this manual is that the reference pages following each article have not been standardized. Even though reference was made as “to preserve the authenticity of the articles” in the introduction to the book, it seems that by doing this, it fails to teach the new scholar one more important aspect of designing an edited professional edition of articles written by many authors.
It Works for Me: Becoming a Publishing Scholar/Researcher. Shared Tips for the Classroom Professional grasps the interest of both new and seasoned writers, enlightens with a variety of real experiences in the field, and generates more questions from the reader left wanting more. It is not surprising if another volume is published in the future adding to the ever changing publishing world.
About the Reviewer
Jose A. Carmona is the author of 7 books, including four textbooks, and many articles and book reviews found in journals and magazines in the U.S. His latest book, Language Teaching and Learning in ESL Education: Current Issues, Collaborations and Practice, was recently published by Kona Publishing and Media Group’s Higher Education Division. This professional book may also be used as a supplemental textbook in teacher training classes. Currently, he is teaching in the English for Academic Purposes program at Hillsborough Community College. He is currently working on seven additional books.
Google Book status conference rescheduled
The status conference for the Google Book Settlement has been rescheduled to June 1, 2011.
AAER call for papers
The Association for the Advancement of Educational Research (AAER) is seeking papers for its AAER National Conference in Hutchinson, Island, Florida, November 1-6, 2011. The submission deadline is June 30, 2011. Proposals are sought in five presentation formats: research papers, discussion groups, symposia, roundtables, and poster sessions. For more information, visit www.aaer.org
Academic Boot Camp, Jan. 4-6, 2012
The International Alliance of Teacher Scholars' Academic Boot Camp (ABC) will be held at the Kellogg West Conference Center at CalPoly Pomona (CA), January 4-6, 2012. ABC is a three-day, intensive, hands-on seminar and workshop on principles and practices for designing and conducting effective learning experiences, including f2f and online courses, clerkships, workshops, and other activities. ABC participants will receive the ATS Certificate in Course Design. Visit the IATS website for more information.
How to maximize your productivity
By Dionne Soares Palmer
Writing productivity experts Jayne London and John Soares urge writers to follow a handful of simple and effective steps, such as breaking projects into small chunks, setting deadlines, and minimizing interruptions, in order to maximize productivity.
London is an associate coach for Academic Ladder, a company that focuses on dissertation, academic career, and tenure coaching. She and her colleagues base their productivity training on research that demonstrates that, despite what many in academia may think, the most productive academic writers are often those who write in short but regular sessions.
“We help people to understand that they can get a lot done in 30 minutes,” London said. “Staying engaged with one’s work on a consistent basis is what is most important. That’s when good writing happens.”
In order to write productively in small chunks of time, London suggests breaking projects down into small, manageable pieces that can be completed quickly. Writing in short bursts also requires careful planning. “At the end of each of your writing sessions, you need to make a specific plan for what you’re going to do in the next session,” London said. “If you only have 10 or 15 minutes to write, you need to know exactly what you’re going to work on.”
"Find the most efficient pattern of getting the work done for a project and then repeat that pattern,” said John Soares, author of Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers. “The brain gets accustomed to routines and you’ll find that there are some things you will start doing automatically (and faster) once the routines kick in."
London also recommends freewriting first and revising later rather than trying to polish ideas as they arise: “We emphasize that you first have to articulate your ideas to yourself and then go back and articulate them so others can understand.”
Another aspect of productive writing is replacing any negative self talk with positive thinking. Negative self talk “really makes writing a very depressing activity and we’re not able to get to our best work if that’s what we’re saying to ourselves,” London said.
Soares, a highly successful textbook supplements writer, blogger, and author of Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers, recommends that writers develop routines for their work. “Find the most efficient pattern of getting the work done for a project and then repeat that pattern,” he said. “The brain gets accustomed to routines and you’ll find that there are some things you will start doing automatically (and faster) once the routines kick in.”
He also suggests setting a deadline for each part of a project to motivate oneself to finish the work within a certain schedule.
Many academic writers need to read other materials before they write, and Soares recommends learning to speed read in order to minimize the amount of time spent reading in preparation for writing.
Another major part of being a productive writer is capturing ideas before they slip away. Soares uses a digital recorder to keep track of ideas he gets while he is away from his computer and listens to them later. “It’s crucial that you review your ideas and decide which ones you will implement,” said Soares. He goes through this process weekly.
In addition, it is vital for writers to back up their files regularly to avoid losing their work. “Do this on a daily basis,” Soares advised, “and it’s better to do it more frequently, like every couple of hours or so.” This practice ensures that writers won’t lose valuable time having to rewrite lost documents.
Finally, both London and Soares stress the importance of minimizing interruptions during a writing session. “Whenever something distracts you from your writing, your concentration is broken and you lose time as your mind tries to recover that productive state you were in,” Soares said. This means writing must be a top priority in order to achieve maximum productivity. “If writing is important to you, you have to schedule time for it and protect the time you set aside to write,” London said. “That might mean closing your door, turning off the internet, shutting down email, etc.”
To learn more tips from London and Soares about maximizing your productivity as an academic writer, visit www.academicladder.com and productivewriters.com.
Early Conference registration deadline May 15
Register for the 2011 TAA Conference before May 15 to receive $50 off your conference registration.
TAA announces 2011 Council election results
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Education author John Wakefield has been elected TAA vice president/president-elect. Wakefield will serve a two-year term as vice president beginning July 1. Current TAA vice president/president-elect, Mary Kay Switzer, will take office as TAA president on July 1.
Geography textbook author Robert Christopherson and authoring attorney and literary agent Michael Lennie have been elected to serve on the TAA Council. Both will serve three-year terms starting July 1.
This will be Wakefield's second term as TAA president. He previously served from 2005-2008. He served as vice president from 2004 to 2005, and treasurer from 2002-2004. He currently serves on the Council as an at-large member.
Wakefield is a professor of Education at the University of North Alabama. His early research was on creativity, and his first book was titled Creative Thinking: Problem Solving Skills and the Arts Orientation (Ablex, 1992). He is also the author of Educational Psychology: Learning to Be a Problem Solver, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1996. He spent several years in higher education administration as dean and assistant vice-president for academic affairs. Although he continues to teach and publish in psychology, his scholarly interests have expanded to include educational history.
Christopherson has been a TAA member for 23 years, and served on the TAA Council from 2001 to 2005. He was TAA Treasurer from 2004 to 2005. In 2005, he received a TAA President's Award in appreciation of his service to TAA. He has won two TAA Textbook Excellence Awards and was inducted into the TAA Council of Fellows in 2009. He presents a region-specific "Geo-Primer" to kick-off TAA's annual conference each year.
He is professor emeritus of geography at American River College, where he received many teaching awards from local, state, and national organizations. He is the author of Geosystems, An Introduction to Physical Geography, eighth edition, Elemental Geosystems, seventh edition, Geosystems Canadian edition, second edition, and Applied Physical Geography, eighth edition, the market-leading texts in the US and Canada in his field, all published by Pearson.
Lennie is a charter member of TAA and was president of the TAA Foundation. He served on the TAA Council until 2008. He is a frequent speaker at TAA conferences.
He is an attorney and literary agent with Lennie Literary & Author's Attorney. He has 40 years of experience specializing in the representation of authors. He represented the authors in the historic case of Buffington v. Macmillan, which Publishers Weekly called "one of the largest settlements ever awarded to authors."
Featured Member Profile:
Award-winning open textbook author shares the gift of knowledge
By Dionne Soares Palmer
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The ability to offer access to their textbook free online was what inspired Talya Bauer and her coauthor Berrin Erdogan to publish with Flat World Knowledge under a Creative Commons open license.
Students can read a web-hosted version of Bauer and Erdogan’s complete, peer-reviewed book, Organizational Behavior, for free online, or purchase a softcover print book, e-book for devices like the iPad and Kindle, audio book, PDF download and interactive study aids. Faculty who adopt the textbook can edit down to the sentence level, add their own section, move or delete chapters and insert videos and hyperlinks. The book offers an instructor’s manual as well as lecture slides and a test bank.
“I knew I wanted to write a textbook on organizational behavior,” said Bauer, a professor of management at Portland State University. “But I also knew I wanted it to have an impact rather than just sitting on the shelf of a few faculty members’ offices. Writing an open textbook that also had a print option seemed like an ideal choice.”
Organizational Behavior received a 2011 Textbook Excellence Award from TAA.
“I think that what’s special about an open book is that it is the gift of knowledge,” she said. “Instead of charging $100 or $200 for access to the knowledge, anyone who is interested can benefit from it for free online.”
She chose to publish with Flat World Knowledge, she said, because they were looking to do something no one had done before. ”By offering a high quality product that is peer reviewed, professionally edited, has all the teaching supplements available AND is offered for free online, they are really pioneers,” said Bauer. “Being part of a team like that was an exciting opportunity.” In addition, she said that when she and Erdogan asked tough questions, the team at Flat World Knowledge had good answers for them as well as experience in the traditional publishing world that would help them succeed.
“We were one of the first books Flat World published, so there were some growing pains in terms of the process but those have been worked out by now,” Bauer said. “On the other hand, we really got to have our fingerprints on all aspects of the process and content so we were given more creative freedom than we probably would have had with a traditional textbook experience.”
The online version of Organizational Behavior is easily searchable. Bauer and Erdogan incorporated opening and closing cases as well as ethical and cross-cultural implications for each chapter. “We also made sure to add ‘Organizational Behavior Toolboxes’ throughout the book that include tips on things students can do right now to help them be more successful in applying organizational behavior to their lives,” Bauer said. The book has received positive feedback regarding the effectiveness of these features.
While open textbooks are unique in several ways, the writing process was very similar to writing a traditional book, said Bauer. “Honestly I don’t think the process on our end was much different from that of what other colleagues have described their writing experience to be,” she said. “We worked through each of the stages of a traditional textbook development experience. The difference was on the back side when our Word document was transformed into a great online resource that anyone can use for free. The fact that our work is available to anyone who might find it useful is a great feeling.”
Bauer and Erdogan were also very involved in the production of the supplements for their open textbook. They wrote the instructor’s manual themselves, and they collaborated on the development of the lecture slides. Someone else developed the test bank, but Bauer and Erdogan edited the questions.
For other authors considering authoring an open textbook, Bauer suggests starting with a clear vision of your text: “We found our outline to be an important roadmap along the way. So, while the book evolved, it was critical to have it to start the process.” She also said that experience with teaching the course for which a textbook will be used helps authors “understand what works for students and what doesn’t.”
In addition to Organizational Behavior, Bauer has coauthored three additional open textbooks with Flat World Knowledge. She teamed up with Berrin Erdogan and Mason Carpenter to write Principles of Management in 2009. She also collaborated with Jeremy Short, Dave Ketchen, and illustrator Len Simon to create the management graphic novels Atlas Black: Managing to Succeed (2009) and Atlas Black: Management Guru (2010).
Bauer has a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources from Purdue University and joined the faculty at Portland State University in 1994. She conducts research in the areas of new hire onboarding, recruitment, selection, overqualification, mentoring, and leadership and has served as a consultant for government organizations and Fortune 500 companies. Bauer is also currently serving as the editor of the Journal of Management.
Dr. Bauer is passionate about the field of organizational behavior because of the impact it can have on people’s lives. “Organizational behavior is important in so many ways,” Bauer said. “It deals with the individual, groups, and organizations. Since adults spend so much of their lives at work, striving to make the workplace as psychologically healthy and effective as possible is a great way to spend one’s career. I enjoy the research I do on Organizational Behavior and love bringing it to life for students.”
Read the online version of Organizational Behavior
Dionne Soares Palmer is a freelance writer located in Redding, California.
Duganne awarded $250 TAA Publication Grant
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Erina Duganne, an assistant professor of art history at Texas State University, has been awarded a $250 TAA Publication Grant.
The grant will cover costs incurred in reproducing photographs for her article, "The Kamoinge Workshop in Context: An Interview with Louis Draper, Albert Fennar, and Beuford Smith," which will appear in the Spring 2011 issue of the Journal of the Society for Photographic Education.
"I was absolutely thrilled to learn that I had received a TAA Publication Grant," said Duganne. "As an art historian, images are central to the research and writing that I do. However, with the rising costs of reproduction as well as copyright fees and with university departments increasingly unable to assist with covering these costs, publishing scholarly articles and books that include visual images have become more challenging. Receiving a TAA Publication Grant has been critical in my effort to publish my research with the images that are so integral to it.”
Her article consists of an interview, excerpted from a series of conversations she conducted as part of the research for her recently published book, The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography. "In it I discuss with three members of the African American photography collective known as Kamoinge Workshop their involvement with this group during the 1960s, the complex relationship that its members shared with Harlem both as a geographic site and as subject matter, and dissent within the group over subject matter and approach to the representation of blackness in photography," she said.
The grant will cover the costs incurred reproducing photographs by each of the artists featured in the article. "The images were a central component of the article since they are not only discussed within the interview but also allow readers to have a sense of range of images taken by these relatively unknown African American photographers," she said.
Duganne teaches courses in the history of photography, the history of American art, and the history and methodologies of art history as well as courses on race and its representation and popular culture. She is the author of The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography (University Press of New England, 2010), an examination of the historically specific ways in which the self has been experienced, conceptualized, and reflected in relation to photographic representations of race in postwar America. Her essays have also appeared in the anthologies New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement and Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation as well as in the exhibition catalogue Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in Pain for which she served as a co-curator. Most recently, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at the University of Potsdam during the 2009-2010 academic year.
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TAA Publication Grants are open to member and non-member authors. Authors can apply for a Publication Grant of up to $1000 to cover the cost of publishing already accepted journal articles, or for the preparation of artwork or other charts, diagrams or images to be included in accepted articles or academic books.
Anderson awarded $650 TAA Publication Grant
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Leslie Anderson, a doctoral candidate specializing in nineteenth-century Danish painting at the City University of New York, has been awarded a $650 TAA Publication Grant.
The grant will cover the costs of making photographic images of nine artworks in DANISH museums to be included in her article, “Painting Instruction: C. W. Eckersberg and Artistic Labor in the Danish Golden Age.”
"I am delighted that TAA would support the work of a doctoral candidate," said Anderson. “Access to funding is limited for emerging scholars. Without this publication grant, I would not have been able to afford the Exorbitant cost of high-resolution images for my article. Thus, TAA has provided the financial support necessary to disseminate my research.”
Anderson’s article will be published in the summer 2011 issue of the journal Athanor XXIX. It addresses transformations in pedagogy at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. “C. W. Eckersberg’s (1783-1853) tenure as professor at the Academy, which began in 1818, marked a shift in the program’s curriculum,” she said. “Eckersberg’s pedagogical contributions included supplementary instruction in painting from life under natural light, plein air (‘open-air’) sketching excursions, and tutorials in the science of perspective.”
Coinciding with Eckersberg’s curricular expansion, students of the mid-1820s and 1830s depicted artistic labor in various formats, said Anderson: “I argue that the representation of artistic tools and instructional aids in these portraits celebrate the Academy’s new pedagogical inclusiveness. Close examination of these images is central to my methodological approach.”
Anderson holds a B.A. in history and a M.A. in art history from the University of Florida. Her dissertation is titled “Picturing Pedagogy: C. W. Eckersberg, the Royal Academy, and Artistic Labor in Denmark’s ‘Golden Age.’” She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including a Chancellor’s Fellowship from the Graduate Center (CUNY) and two President’s Grants from the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies. Recently, she was awarded the Anthony Jung Prize for the Best Paper by a Graduate Student at the 35th Annual European Studies Conference.
She has also published an article in the Oregon Art Review titled “Sanford Robinson Gifford’s Views of Mount Merino and South Bay: A Visual Record of Change in Fluvial Geomorphology”. She has taught at several institutions, such as Brooklyn College, Parsons The New School for Design, and Saint Leo University, and she served as a curatorial intern at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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TAA Publication Grants are open to member and non-member authors. Authors can apply for a Publication Grant of up to $1000 to cover the cost of publishing already accepted journal articles, or for the preparation of artwork or other charts, diagrams or images to be included in accepted articles or academic books.
Book Review:
Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, Second Edition, by Mary Ellen Lepionka
Reviewed by Keith H. Whitworth, Ph.D.
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Writing and Developing Your College Textbook is a must read for anyone considering or in the process of writing a textbook. The book is chocked full of practical advice and even seasoned writers will glean insight and nuggets of wisdom from her 25 years of experience as a college instructor, curriculum developer, and professional development editor in educational publishing. The book focuses less on the theoretical and more on the practical aspects of developing and writing a college textbook.
Lepionka’s chapters address the fundamentals of the college textbook industry as well as specific nuances such as creating useful chapter apparatus and developing successful feature strands. She describes how to interest a publisher in your manuscript and how to sign a mutually lucrative contract. The chapter pertaining to contracts provides helpful and detailed information on the language of contracts. New authors will find this chapter to be enlightening as she demystifies the contract process and provides additional resources for legal and expert advise. All chapters provide additional resources, checklists, recommendations, or samples of documents.
The majority of the chapters pertain to the mechanics of writing and developing a textbook. For example, controlling the length and managing one’s schedule is stressed as being a key to successfully completing a textbook within budget and on time. Industry specific terminology is introduced, such as the term length creep, endmatter, and metavoice. Although not specifically stated by the author, understanding the industry jargon is important to new authors as it may relieve some anxiety during the contractual and development phases. Furthermore, understanding the publishing process from beginning to end provides novice authors needed and relevant information to successfully complete a textbook.
Lepionka’s book may empower some writers while discouraging others, or possibly a combination of the two. Having only contributed to a textbook, and not having written my owntextbook, I experienced both a sense of empowerment but also some discouragement. First, I now consider the book as my bible and reference tool for developing and writing a textbook. I expect to refer to her book at every stage of the process and utilize the resources, checklists, recommendations, and sample documents provided within the chapters. I consider it serendipitous that I cameacross this book at the beginning of the process of writing an introductorysociology textbook.
The book provides a tremendous amount of detail as to the process of writing and developing a textbook. The process looked more daunting as I progressed through the book, and a few times I even felt slightly discouraged. Fortunately, Lepionka offers encouragement for the arduous task, and a plethora of practical tools to succeed in writing a successful textbook. She closes her book with, “I wish you the best of luck. Yes, you can do it, and yes, it’s worth it.” The majority of readers will find this book to be encouraging, practical, and indispensible in the process of developing and writing a successful college textbook.
About the Reviewer
Keith Whitworth is an Instructor of Sociology at Texas Christian Universitywithin the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He has taught within the department for 12 years and has been a guest on CNN, NPR and local television, and has been quoted within national media such as U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, and BusinessWeek.com. His expertise on how technology impacts society resulted in providing content for an existing Introductory Sociology textbook. He is currently negotiating with a major publishing company to co-author his first textbook.
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