Hello Manuscript Workers!
When I work with scholarly authors to prepare their book manuscripts for submission to publishers and peer reviewers, one of the most important things we attend to is the central argument of their project.
The central argument is crucial to get right, because it's often one of the first things an acquiring editor will look for when deciding whether they want to pursue a submission they've received. The argument you choose for your book also dictates nearly everything about the way you write it, from the evidence you include to the underlying structure of the text. If your argument isn't well conceived, every single step of writing your book and getting it accepted for publication becomes harder than it has to be. So we need to make sure the main argument is solid before we do almost anything else.
The length and scope of a book manuscript can lull you into believing that you’ll be able to include everything you’ve ever discovered or thought about your research topic. You’ve spent so long immersed in your research that you understandably have several arguments or points you want to make. Yet, to make your book’s reason to exist cohesive, you’ll need to home in on one main point to drive the entire manuscript. You can then consider which of the other points you’ll position as subarguments to support the driving thesis. These subordinate points will become the main arguments of individual chapters or sections of chapters.
When determining which argument to emphasize as the core thesis of your manuscript, watch out for particular types of claims that authors often confuse with main arguments. These types of claims include premises, implications, exhortations, and what Wendy Belcher calls “claims for significance.” A claim based on research others have done or on readily observable facts is more likely to be a premise that sets up your argument rather than an original thesis that could serve as the main argument for your book or article. A claim that logically follows from another argument in your text, but isn’t directly supported by evidence within the text, is probably better thought of as an implication than as a main argument. Premises and implications of your main argument will naturally appear in your text, but be sure to frame them accurately as premises or implications so that readers don’t expect to see extensive material devoted to proving them.
Authors also sometimes mistakenly believe that their text should be driven by a normative exhortation. Consider the differences between these two claims:
Claim 1: You should stop doing X because it leads to Y.
Claim 2: Doing X leads to Y because of A, B, and C.
The first claim advances an opinion about a desired course of action, whereas the second claim establishes a truth that is proven by research. The second type of claim is usually more appropriate as the main argument of a scholarly text. The second claim also leaves the reader to decide how they will act on the information conveyed. If you want to advocate for readers to take a particular course of action based on your research, readers will be most amenable to that in the concluding chapter or section, only after spending the bulk of the text absorbing the scholarly argument and its supporting evidence. Expectations around argumentation vary by field, with authors in some fields being more likely to state a normative position than in others. It may be helpful to consult several comparable texts that speak to your intended readership and come to your own decision about what’s right for your manuscript.
Claims for significance don’t work as main arguments, either. Such statements often show up in the form of, “I argue that X is understudied and merits further attention,” or “Previous studies have looked at X from Y angle but I argue that we must approach it from Z angle.” Those are valid claims, and they may explain your motivations for conducting your research, but they usually aren’t the most interesting thing about your project or the most urgent idea you want readers to take away from your text. Your actual main argument is probably about what you found when you paid attention to X or approached it from Z angle.
After identifying the true main argument of your manuscript, you may find that some of the other points you wanted to make don’t work as supporting arguments for the main argument. Even if such points are sound and relevant to the topic of the text, they may pull the manuscript in too many different directions. Don’t be afraid to cut them loose. Tangential arguments and the evidence that supports them can often be put to good use in other publications. You may be able to generate a whole additional book concept or series of journal articles out of your extraneous arguments.
Could you use some help figuring out if your book's argument is the right one to build your manuscript around?
My Manuscript Development Workshop provides a space where you can both learn how to make your project more likely to succeed with publishing gatekeepers and get personalized advice on your manuscript's specific argument, evidence, structure, and style. You'll also leave the course with a detailed, step-by-step revision plan that will help you advance your manuscript toward the next stage of publication—whether you're still pre-submission, working through reviewer feedback, or putting the final touches on before your text goes into production.
While I often work with book authors, the Manuscript Development Workshop has been very effective for writers of journal articles and single chapters, too. Regardless of the type of project you're working on currently, you keep full access to the curriculum after the course ends, so you can use it to work through your current project and revisit it for future projects of any length.
The Manuscript Development Workshop starts on Monday, November 2nd, and meets weekly through the month of November (5 sessions total, all recorded if you can't attend live). If you are planning to complete a revision of your manuscript over winter break, this program will be the perfect preparation to set you up for success. Hope to see you there!
You can reply directly to this message with questions or suggestions. Thank you for reading!
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This newsletter is coming to you from Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD, professional developmental editor and publishing advisor. I offer practical tips on writing and publishing scholarly books, centering the humanity and agency of authors and publishing professionals throughout the process.
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