Webinar Series

TAA webinars are one-hour live, interactive sessions that connect you to experts discussing a variety of topics designed especially for textbook and academic authors. Members can also access 250+ presentations on demand.

How to register for an upcoming webinar:

Members: You can participate in as many sessions as you'd like for free. To sign up, click the Register button below. Read Frequently Asked Questions About TAA Webinars

Non-Members: Join TAA today and receive access to all of TAA's live webinars and 250+ presentations on demand for one full year. 

2021 Spring Webinar Series

Why Your Journal Articles Are Confusing, and How IMRaD Can Help

Date: Thursday, March 11, 1-1:45 p.m. ET

Presenter: Thomas Deetjen, Researcher, University of Texas, and author of Published

Do you struggle to describe your research in writing? Like your crisp research vision inevitably devolves into a disorganized, confusing journal article? Let’s discuss a tool that can help—one with which you’re already familiar, but likely not familiar enough: journal article structure.

In this 30-minute webinar + 15 minutes for Q&A, Thomas Deetjen, author of Published, explores the value of the Introduction, Methods, Results & Discussion—or IMRaD—journal article structure. For each IMRaD section, we’ll discuss:

• its nuance, purpose, and structure,
• tips for using it to empower your writing, and
• common writing mistakes to avoid.

The IMRaD structure is a powerful tool for translating your research into a succinct, clear, and interesting article that your audience will enjoy. I look forward to exploring with you how to do that. Learn more

Are You Ready to Pursue Your Dream of Publication?

Date: Wednesday, March 17, 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. ET

Open to Members and Non-Members. This presentation will be offered live only. It will not be available on demand.

Presenter: Eric Schmieder, Certified John Maxwell Team speaker, coach, and trainer, author/co-author of several computer technology textbooks

Dr. John C. Maxwell says, “Dreams are valuable commodities. They propel us forward. They give us energy. They make us enthusiastic. Everyone ought to have a dream.” What is your dream? Do you have a dream of publishing a book or article, but don’t know where to start? Have you started, but lose momentum? Have you lost hope and set your dream aside?

If you are struggling with moving forward in your dream of publication, you need to join certified John Maxwell Team speaker, coach, and trainer, Eric J. Schmieder for this webinar on how to test your dream and move it forward to reality.

With the right tools, a dream can be put to the test and pass. In this live, 60-minute session, Eric will cover the reasons people don’t identify their dreams of publication, go into a couple of ways to put your publishing dream to the test, and finally, offer you an opportunity to get your dream out of your head and onto paper (literally!) by participating in TAA's new writing accountability program, "Spring Your Writing Forward: Get a Month of Motivation in April". The deadline for signing up for April's session is Mar. 29.

Your Textbook Isn't Being Revised. Now What?

Date: Monday, April 5, 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. ET

Presenter: Donna Battista, VP of Content Strategy, Top Hat

As publishing companies look to manage costs and focus on large introductory courses, many high-quality and high-value textbooks are not being revised. 

In this webinar, Donna Battista, VP of Content Strategy at Top Hat, and previous Pearson Executive, will join us to help authors navigate this increasingly common challenge. She’ll provide guidance on requesting rights back, what to do when rights are reverted, and what options there are to make content available. 

This webinar will be packed with industry knowledge and best practices based on Donna’s extensive experience in the publishing industry. It’s a session you don’t want to miss! Learn more

Effective Organization Strategies for Developing a Textbook Chapter

Date: Wednesday, April 14, 2-3 p.m. ET

Presenter: Eric Schmieder, author/co-author of several computer technology textbooks

Thinking about writing a textbook can be much like planning to climb a mountain. A daunting task that may be overwhelming and require both endurance and strength before even getting started. But what if I told you that like most major projects or journeys, the effectiveness of the whole is really defined by the quality of the small parts that get put together?

In this one-hour webinar, TAA's Membership Marketing Manager and author/co-author of several computer technology textbooks, Eric Schmieder, will share strategies for organizing your content at a chapter level in a way that defines your author style for content delivery. 

Adapted from content in TAA's Writing and Developing Your College Textbook: A Comprehensive Guide, 3e, Schmieder will focus on the organization of content into an effective table of contents through carefully crafted headings and then enhancing the sections with feature strands to engage the reader. Once you have applied these strategies to one chapter, simply rinse and repeat until all of the chapters come together for a finished textbook that exceeds your expectations. Learn more

2021 Spring Webinars - Watch On Demand

Taxes & Authors: What You Should Know in 2021

Presenter: Robert M. Pesce, Partner, Marcum LLP

While it is understandable that most writers would prefer to concentrate their time on their writing, writing is a business and you need to make sure you’re taking care of all of the tax deductions that you should be. 

Robert M. Pesce, a partner with Marcum LLP shares the basic tax information you should know as an author. Watch

2020 Fall Webinars - Watch On Demand

Writing a Dissertation and Beyond: Tips & Tools for Launching and Maintaining Your Academic Writing Productivity 

Presenters: Danielle Feeney, Assistant Professor of Instruction in Special Education in the Patton College of Education, Ohio University; and Margarita Huerta, Associate Professor, Department of Early Childhood, Multilingual, and Special Education in the College of Education, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Writing productivity is important for academics at all levels. For graduate students, in particular, writing is essential for completing a dissertation. Unfortunately, approximately 50% of doctoral students do not complete their degrees, often dropping out during the dissertation writing stage. How can graduate students launch a healthy writing habit in order to complete their dissertations and maintain academic writing productivity as faculty? 

In this one-hour webinar, presenters Danielle Feeney and Margarita Huerta discuss research-based, practical tools and tips that have helped them successfully complete dissertations and launch productive academic careers. They also discuss the versatility of transforming and personalizing these tools to help manage other aspects of academic life and work. Watch

Seven Time Management Strategies to Begin, Keep Working On, and Complete Your Projects

Presenter: Mary Beth Averill, academic writing coach, editor, and author of How to Become an Academic Coach

Most of us have had the experience of finishing a project at the last minute or late, and not being proud of what we have accomplished. Maybe we just couldn’t seem to find the time to devote to the project or we were frequently interrupted. Procrastination is a term applied to putting things off until later, but what can we do about it? In this webinar, we explore 7 proven strategies for getting started, keeping at it, and finishing our projects. Watch

Juggling Multiple Writing Projects…and Completing ALL of Them

Presenter: Christine Tulley, Professor of English and Founder and Director of the Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing, The University of Findlay 

Because of the time it takes to get an article or a book published, productive academics typically work on more than one writing project at a time. The challenge many faculty face is how to keep track of all of the pieces of each writing project and make sure each is completed to a final submission stage. In this 30-minute webinar (short but packed with powerful advice to provide you with more time for writing!), Christine Tulley, author of How Writing Faculty Write and career advice columnist for Inside Higher Education, shares how to develop and use a multiple writing project tracking system that logs all stages of all of the projects and schedules writing time for each to aid in multiple writing project management. Watch 

2020 Spring Webinars - Watch On Demand

A Crash Course in Creative Commons Licensing

Presenter: Danielle S. Apfelbaum, Senior Assistant Librarian, Farmingdale State College, and Derek Stadler, Assistant Professor, LaGuardia Community College

Did you know that over 1 billion works -- including scholarly articles and a growing number of academic textbooks -- have been licensed with a Creative Commons (CC) license?  Though widely adopted, these continually-updated, legally-enforceable tools remain a mystery to academic writers. Many authors are unaware of the permissions afforded to them through the CC licenses, and many are unaware of permissions afforded to users when a specific CC license is applied to their work by an open-access publisher. By the end of this session, attendees will be able to understand how copyright and the CC licenses work in concert to protect author rights while communicating additional permissions to users, identify and interpret each of the six CC licenses, determine how CC-licensed materials may or may not be used without permission in traditional and open publications, and select a license should attendees wish to openly license their work. Watch

Revising Scholarly Manuscripts—Quickly and Well

Presenter: Tara Gray, author of Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar

Organization is the skeleton of a manuscript, its very structure. Get it right and the manuscript works. Get it wrong and it doesn’t. In this one-hour webinar, presented by Tara Gray, author of Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar, you will learn how to organize paragraphs around key or topic sentences and how to organize manuscripts around an “after-the-fact” or “reverse” outline. You will also learn how to solicit and use informal feedback effectively by asking just the right readers for feedback and by asking specific questions, such as, “What one place in the manuscript is least clear? Least organized? Least persuasive? Watch

Drafting Scholarly Manuscripts—Quickly and Well

Presenter: Tara Gray, author of Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar

Writing daily in short bursts of time (at least 15-30 minutes) helps get ideas on paper. A hundred scholars were studied who succeeded in writing 30 minutes a day, four days a week. They tripled their productivity from finishing two manuscripts per year to nearly six. But how to get started and stick with it? This webinar shows you how.

You can also greatly enhance your productivity by free writing or writing rapidly without self-censorship and without revising as you write. Free writing is casual, conversational, spontaneous, disorganized and clear only to you (if that). It is also fun to write! Nonetheless, important ideas emerge that can be easily shaped into a full paper. In this one-hour webinar, presented by Tara Gray, author of Publish & Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar, you will learn how to use these two writing strategies to increase your writing productivity. Watch

An Editor’s View From Journal Article Submission to Publication

Presenter: Micki M. Caskey, Professor, Portland State University

Publishing peer-reviewed journal articles is often considered the gold standard in academia. Yet, what really happens when you submit your article to an academic journal? In this session, Micki Caskey, Former Editor of Research in Middle Level Education Online, an international peer-reviewed research journal, demystifies the journey your article takes during the publication process--from the moment you click on “submit” to the journal’s publication decision. What will improve the likelihood of an “accept” decision? What can you do to avoid the “reject” decision? How do authors celebrate a “revise and resubmit” decision? Micki shares what journal editors want authors to know and do before submitting a journal article that will lead to a successful publication. Watch

Clear Academic Writing Across the Disciplines

Presenter: Caroline Eisner, Certified Professional Coach, Eisner Consulting LLC

We know that for academics and researchers, writing well means being able to write academically in the discursive styles of a specific discipline. Furthermore, when Writing in the Discipline programs are firmly in place, faculty across the disciplines work with students in their courses through assignments and assessments, in-class instruction, and course readings to understand and articulate the disciplinary discourse conventions of that discipline. In this one-hour webinar, Eisner discusses the components of clear academic writing and how these components apply to the discourse conventions across the disciplines. She also reviews what clear academic writing is across disciplines and how to think about, practice, and teach the discourse conventions of specific disciplines. Watch