Dear Reader,
In case you haven't heard yet, I'm offering a new course for scholarly writers!
The Developmental Editing Workshop for Scholarly Writers will teach you how to apply the skills of professional editing to your own academic writing projects. You'll learn the most important issues that factor into manuscripts making it through the publication process smoothly, and you'll gain tools to identify what your draft needs in order to be more successful with peer reviewers, publishers, and readers. You'll leave with an effective plan for getting your draft off your hard drive and further down the road to actual publication (and you might even get a renewed sense of enthusiasm for your project and a needed confidence boost along the way).
I've designed this course for writers who want the benefits of working with a developmental editor but don't have the budget, time, or inclination to turn their manuscript over to a stranger. The added value of this course is that it won't just help you with your current draft, it also will teach you skills you can apply to your future writing and to the writing of your students, mentees, and colleagues. These skills are helpful at any point in your scholarly writing career, whether completing your dissertation or publishing your umpteenth article, chapter, or book.
One question I frequently receive from scholarly authors is when in the writing and revision process it would be best to work with a developmental editor to make sure their manuscript's argument, evidence, structure, and style are working well. My answer to that question is the same as the answer I would give if someone was wondering about the right time to participate in the Developmental Editing Workshop.
In my forthcoming book, Make Your Manuscript Work, I lay out the “three moments for manuscript development” that occur in the life of any scholarly text destined for publication:
- Moment 1: preparing for initial submission to publishers
- Moment 2: revising after receiving feedback from preliminary readers but before receiving publication approval, for example, responding to peer reviews in hope of acceptance
- Moment 3: preparing the final manuscript to go into production after it has been accepted for publication
If you're at any of these moments right now, it's a good time to give your draft a developmental edit.
At all three moments, you should be evaluating your text critically to make sure it’s working as you want it to be along those four key dimensions of argument, evidence, structure, and style. However, at different stages you may have different developmental priorities. When preparing a manuscript for initial submission to publishers, you may be focusing closely on argument to make sure the purpose and contribution of your work are coming across clearly. When revising in response to peer reviews, you may have specific pieces of evidence and analysis to develop further based on the reviewers’ comments. When finalizing your text for publication, you may be determined to get the structure and style just right for your intended readership.
My course is designed to be helpful regardless of which stage of development your manuscript is at. In fact, the first lesson in the course will have you identify where you even are in your publishing trajectory and clarify which readers it’s most important to connect with at your current stage. Then I’ll provide you with a systematic method for reading your draft like an editor would and evaluating your text’s strengths and opportunities for development. You’ll leave with a step by step editorial plan to get your manuscript to the next stage of its publishing journey.
Granted, the course may not be well-timed for every project. If you’re still not sure what you want to write about or if you haven’t collected and analyzed any evidence yet, it’s probably too early to be thinking about developmental editing. Don’t worry, I’ll be offering the course again in the future.
The course also doesn’t drill down to things like language editing, line editing, and copyediting. If you’re looking for help polishing your sentences or better understanding English grammar, developmental editing isn’t what you need.
But if you are looking for guidance on the big-picture aspects of your current writing project—if you want a concrete framework for improving your manuscript in ways that will make the biggest difference to publishers and readers—I’d love to have you join the Developmental Editing Workshop as a founding participant next month.
As always, I deeply appreciate it when you forward these newsletters on. Social media is stressful and has less reach these days, so I'm leaning into this newsletter as my main way of communicating with scholarly writers. If you know a writer who needs support with a manuscript in progress and you think developmental editing might be helpful for them, please feel free to spread the word about what I do!
Coming up at Manuscript Works
More free resources for academic authors
Additional support
Use my time-tested curriculum to bring structure and motivation to your book writing process. The Book Proposal Shortcut takes the guesswork out of writing an outstanding pitch for university presses and other academic publishers.
Every author who enrolls in the Book Proposal Shortcut also gets complimentary membership in the Manuscript Works Author Support community, a private hub for ongoing support in your scholarly book publishing journey. Inside this community you'll get honest advice about publishers, peer review, offers and contracts, as well as join live Q&A sessions with Laura Portwood-Stacer and your fellow Manuscript Works authors.
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See you soon,