Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (2:30)

Thanks for having me, Christina.

Dr. Christina Gessler (2:32)

I'm so glad that you're here. You have been on the show before and we will link those episodes in the show notes. But for people who haven't had a chance to meet you yet. Will you please tell us about yourself?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (2:44)

Yeah. So I am a developmental editor and publishing consultant who helps academic authors navigate the book publishing process. I have a company called Manuscript Works, and through that I offer workshops and online programs, and I do most of those virtually. So I'm assisting writers around the world in revising their book manuscripts, drafting book proposals, and learning how to connect with scholarly publishers. So that's me in a nutshell.

Dr. Christina Gessler (3:14)

And you have a previous book that helps people with their writing, and you also offer a lot of those workshops that you just mentioned for free.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (3:22)

Yes. Yeah. So I also wrote the book proposal book, which people may have heard of, as well as a research monograph in a previous academic life. But yeah, the book proposal book and this new book, Making Manuscript Work, are for scholarly writers. And I do have a free newsletter and free public workshops to try to just demystify the book publishing process as widely as possible. So that the lack of knowledge isn't the reason people aren't able to get.

Dr. Christina Gessler (3:51)

Published and the lack of resources.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (3:54)

Correct.

Dr. Christina Gessler (3:54)

Yes, because so many people think they have to figure this out on their own or they have to be able to afford all kinds of private help. And books like this and free workshops that many of us offer, they help close that gap. And we often call that gap the hidden curriculum. But it seems like around the world of scholarly publishing, it's all hidden curriculum.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (4:16)

Yes, because even when you write a book, you know, I wrote, as I mentioned, I wrote a research monograph based on my dissertation. I went through the whole publishing process that got published. I still kind of had no idea what happened and how it happened. And so I sort of made it my business to learn what happened and share it with other authors.

Dr. Christina Gessler (4:34)

And some of that, you know, we hear from seasoned authors is normal. Every time you sit down to write a book, you feel like it's the first time. You don't know if you're going to get to the end. You just sort of white knuckle and get through it. But there's also guidebooks that can help us. There's also information that can help us feel more comfortable that we are going to get to the end. And often there's a feeling that, okay, I wrote an entire manuscript, it must be done. And so the fact that developmental editing might be necessary and all these final edits might be necessary can be an unpleasant surprise for some people. Yes.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (5:09)

Yes. It's so funny you should say that because, you know, I, you know, I follow a lot of writers online And I see people saying like, oh, I hit my word count, now I can send it off to the publisher. And I'm like, no, there's so much more to do before you can do that because you, you know, you wrote that first draft to, to get your thoughts down, to make it make sense to yourself, and now you have to figure out how to make it make sense to your reader. And so that is what the new book make your manuscript work is intended to help people do.

Dr. Christina Gessler (5:35)

And it's such a different concept that all the ideas in your head that you've been putting down on paper that makes sense to you now has to independently make sense to somebody else without you there to guide them.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (5:47)

Yes. Yeah, well, you try to put yourself on the page to guide them, but you have to be really intentional about that.

Dr. Christina Gessler (5:53)

And what that intentionality looks like is a lot of what you're chunking down in this book. How do you describe this book?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (6:00)

Well, I would call it a very practical guide. So it's not sort of philosophizing about the writing process or the publishing process. It is a step by step method to take a writer from a draft that they've managed to produce, however they manage to produce it, to something they can feel really good about sending to a publisher. So, so yeah, I hope, I hope that sort of sums it up.

Dr. Christina Gessler (6:28)

And the book starts right away with the intro, how to develop a scholarly manuscript. And from there the book is divided into different phases and each phase has a certain number of chapters. Right there in the introduction, you start outlining what's going to be in each chapter. So when people come to the, to the table of contents, they're going to get a really clear idea of how step by step, you're going to take them through. One of the lessons in the book is about the importance of a table of contents. So since a book opens with a table of contents, can we talk about the importance and then tensionality of creating a table of contents?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (7:04)

Yeah, absolutely. So as a developmental editor, I am, you know, my specialty is helping people make sure their books are organized and they're reader friendly. And so there's sort of a lot of pressure to make sure my own book meets that standard.

Dr. Christina Gessler (7:21)

So.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (7:22)

Yeah. So the table of contents is really the first. Well, the COVID and the title are the first invitation to your readers. Right. But authors don't have a ton of say over their covers and titles sometimes. But then the table of contents is like where somebody's going to look immediately after picking up a book or maybe if they're searching on a online retailer, they might look at the table of contents and that is going to tell them exactly what they will find in this book and the journey they're going to go on from the first chapter to the last. And so yeah, for this book, because it is such a step by step method, the table of contents breaks down each step so that you can actually get an overview of the method from just looking at the table of contents. And one of the things that fortunately my publisher was amenable to was actually the table of contents also includes the sections of the chapters, so you can see it broken down to even more granular steps and just have a real good sense of what you're going to have to do when you edit your own book. Because that's one of the things that as a person who sometimes has a little bit of anxiety around writing and publishing, not knowing what's going to happen can be the most anxiety provoking thing. So what I try to do for writers is even though we can't take all the anxiety out of the process, I can at least say this is what's going to happen. This is what the general shape of it is going to look like. Now you decide like how you want to engage with that.

Dr. Christina Gessler (8:47)

And anxiety is a natural part of leveling up or putting yourself into a, in a, into a new unknown. So we won't get rid of the anxiety completely, but we will find a way to manage it so we can keep going. Phase one is called Clarify your mission. What do you mean by mission?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (9:07)

Yes, so mission. I basically mean why are you writing this book? So make youe Manuscript Work is a guide to editing, you know, any kind of scholarly writing. But I, to keep it concrete, I talk about books and most of the people I work with are writing books. So that's a really big project that involves a great investment of time and resources. And so I think it's really important to know why you're doing that. A, to decide if you even really want to do it, to decide if a book is the best way to achieve what you're trying to achieve. And then to also have sort of like a north star so that you know what you are trying to end up with at the end. And that will keep you going, keep you motivated and help you decide what you need to do further, like what further investments you need to make in this project to make it successful. So, so that's why we start with clarifying the mission. And that can be done pretty quickly. You know, it Might only take you an hour to kind of figure out what am I doing here? Why do I want to do it? You know, it's something you could do while you're on a walk or taking a shower or something like that. But I do think it's really important to do that, to get in touch with that before you jump into revision and editing and talking to publishers and all of that extra stuff. That takes a lot of work.

Dr. Christina Gessler (10:28)

Chapter one is the three moments of manuscript development. And as I alluded to earlier, when you think you're done, you're not done. And so this book takes us into three key places where you need to be prepared for the fact that you're not done. And one is before submission to publishers. As you mentioned earlier, when people say, I hit my word counter, I finished my draft, I'm ready to send it off, your gut instinct is to yell into the void, no. So what does it mean that you need to do this manuscript development before you submit it to the publishers? How do you know that you're not ready?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (11:05)

Right. Well, I guess just to sort of reiterate what I said before, you know, a first draft is the draft for the writer and you might luck out and produce a first draft that publishers love. But in a lot of cases, writers aren't thinking about what publishers love or what publishers are looking for when they are doing their initial draft. And that is fine. That is as it should be. You shouldn't necessarily have that pressure on yourself while you're just trying to get words on the page. But if you want to be successful in engaging publishers interest in your work, you may need to do a few things to that manuscript to make sure it is hitting what I call the four scholarly pillars. I mean the four pillars of scholarly writing, which are argument, evidence, structure and style. So any manuscript for publication is going to need to be strong in those four areas for a publisher to want to invest their time and resources into publishing it. And so if you haven't checked your draft for those four aspects and make sure that it's strong there, then you might be setting yourself up for, you know, a little bit of failure early on. So what I want to help writers do is eliminate that step of the failure step and help them feel really good about what they are sending to a publisher so that they can move on to the next steps of the publishing process more quickly.

Dr. Christina Gessler (12:32)

And having a clear roadmap of what it's going to look like really helps people know how far they are in the journey. Yes, it's wonderful that you completed your first draft. And Anne Lamont famously has a word to describe for straps, and it's not complementary, so. And she's published many books, so that should take the pressure off people if they thought their first draft was fantastic. And it needs so much more work. It's absolutely a normal part of the process. And so it has to get ready to go to the publisher. And that's where you're really getting your draft ready with the publisher in mind. After the publisher has it, they send it out for a peer review. Peer review is going to come back with probably things you don't want to hear and some things that are really helpful and some things that might be confusing. Nonetheless, you now have to work on your draft again to address peer review. Can you talk about that?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (13:20)

Yeah. So that would be the second moment for manuscript development. And I think as writers, we, you know, of course, our hope is that the peer reviewers will say, this is great. No changes recommended. But that rarely happens for good reason, because peer reviewers have helpful external insights to bring. And so writers should be prepared for developing their manuscript further at this phase. That is a normal part of the process. It doesn't mean you did it wrong in the first moment. It means you are now part of a editorial and publishing process that is intended to make your manuscript better for the readers you ultimately want to reach. So there will be this built in time to revise and edit with the input of your editor and your peer reviewers and the other sort of experts who have had a chance to look at your manuscript.

Dr. Christina Gessler (14:13)

And then there's one more step you have to do, which is looking at your manuscript development again after you've received the approval for publication. So why do we have to go back to it again?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (14:26)

Yeah. So this was maybe something that surprised me when I first became a developmental editor, like a professional freelance developmental editor who helped authors with their books. I had a number of clients come to me after their work had been approved for publication. So if, if you're used to the journal publishing process, often, you know, once the peer reviewers say, yes, accepted, there's very little for you to do. At that point, you. You're like, yay, I can be done with this now. But in book publishing, there's, there's a little more leeway there after the manuscript is accepted, after the publisher says, yes, this has satisfied our peer reviewers, or they've said they trust you as the author to now make any needed changes. Now the author is kind of on their own to get the book to get the manuscript to where they will feel really good about everyone in the world being able to read it. And, and often there's not a ton of editorial guidance that has happened on the publishing side. Yes, you have peer reviews in hand. We all know peer reviews can vary in their depth, in their level of detail, in the helpfulness of the suggestions. You know, sometimes they're identifying a problem, but not really guiding you to a solution. And so, you know, at this last stage when, you know, maybe you've hit the, the, the bare minimum of what the publisher deems acceptable, a lot of writers still want to take it up a level and still have it feel really solid, to connect with their readership and, and to fulfill any of the career and personal goals they had for their book. Maybe they want this book to win awards. Maybe they, you know, want to get tenure with this book. Maybe they want to get a greater public profile from this book. And so often there's more that they want to do to the text. So that's what this moment three is about, is about really taking it to the final level and making sure it will connect with the readers you care most about reaching.

Dr. Christina Gessler (16:34)

You spoke earlier about these four pillars that are so important, and one of them is the argument. So often people are confused with the idea of having an argument, with defending why your book needs to exist. And I can understand why they seem like synonyms, why they're kind of tangled in our, in our neural wiring, in our brains. But when you're talking about the importance of an argument and making an argument, it's not what we think of as being argumentative or defending yourself or winning some kind of point. It's this overarching thing that glues your book together. Can you talk about how we need to comprehend argument when we're talking about scholarly book and how to know if we have one?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (17:17)

Yeah. So an argument is an original claim about your subject matter that grows out of the research you've done. So it's not just a presentation of the research. It's not a description of what you found. It's your kind of unique take on what you found. And so, you know, like you said, it doesn't need to be antagonistic, doesn't necessarily need to be trying to disagree with other people. Maybe nobody has really written about what you've written about, so there's no one to argue with, you know, in a literal sense of arguing. But the argument is that, you know, strong claim that maybe could be disagreed with someday, that you are then going to support I don't want to say defend because I don't want people to feel defensive about it, but you're going to support it to show the reader why this claim you're making is true.

Dr. Christina Gessler (18:14)

When did making plans get this complicated?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (18:17)

It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the.

Dr. Christina Gessler (18:20)

Secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (18:30)

A meme or milestone.

Dr. Christina Gessler (18:32)

All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (18:37)

Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply.

Marshall Poe (19:10)

Limu Imu and Doug here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

Dr. Christina Gessler (19:27)

Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

Marshall Poe (19:30)

Cut the camera. They see us.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (19:32)

Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com.

Marshall Poe (19:34)

Liberty liberty liberty liberty savings fairy underwritten.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (19:38)

By liberty mutual insurance company and affiliates.

Dr. Christina Gessler (19:39)

Excludes Massachusetts and you assure people that not everyone knows what their argument is or where it is. We get into that on page 58 and 59. You say it's normal for a scholarly author to not actually know what their book's argument is until after they write a full draft of the manuscript. And you want to say sometimes it takes someone like a developmental editor to help them realize that they're not really arguing something. And so you assure people this is really normal. You say, don't worry if your book's argument isn't clear yet. That's what these manuscript development processes are for. And one of the things you say is, if you're not sure yet what argument your text is making, look for clues in the manuscript itself. What are the clues that they're looking for?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (20:25)

Laura yeah, so yeah, I will just echo you to say it is really, really normal for people to not know what they're arguing. And to be honest, you can sometimes get a book published without a really clear argument, but that book will not be as impactful as you probably want it to be unless you have that sort of core point you are trying to make and leave your reader with. And so, yeah, because it's so common for people to not come out and state their argument up front. As a developmental editor, I learned to sort of read between the lines of their text to figure out what they were trying to argument what they were trying to argue. So in this book, I'm trying to help writers do that for their own text. So I have a method for reading a text like an editor that I share with writers in this book. And one of those things is to just as you go through the text, underline anything that looks like an argument or a claim or something that's not just pure description. And so once you've sort of underlined it throughout your text, you can start to see like, oh, here are the things where my voice is coming through, where my interpretation is coming through. And you know that if it's still not clear enough, you can take all of those passages you underlined and put them on a separate sheet of paper and then start to see like, okay, like this claim is a really big one. This could actually be sort of an overarching claim for a lot of the other points I'm making. Maybe that's the main argument I'm trying to prove with this book. So often, you know, the argument is there, it's sort of implicit. Sometimes people say it on the last page of the hundred thousand word manuscript because it took them that writing process to figure out what they think. And then, you know, part of developing the manuscript is pulling it out, making it really clear and strong and forceful, and then put it on the first page of the manuscript.

Dr. Christina Gessler (22:24)

You also give people some exercises to do throughout the book. And there's very extensive back matter. The book itself comes in at about 155 pages and you have about that many pages again of back matter. That's very instructional. So as you're reading these things, if you think I don't really get what that looks like, good news, you can go to the appendix and she has plenty of examples and they're annotated for you. And you can see what it looks like in real life. When I was reading this, it reminded me of a book called On Writing by Stephen King. And while I have not read anything else he's written because I get scared easily, I really appreciated how he showed the manuscript that he submitted to his editor, his editor's comments, his editor's edits, and then what it looked like afterwards because it really Showed the journey that you don't just mail something in that he wrote back in the mail things in days to off and think, okay, you know, they'll be happy with it. And you don't just send it off and think someone else will do all the fixing for you. There's a whole process and that I was reminded of that babe with me again, when I was looking at your back matter. How did you decide to be intentional about showing examples and how did you choose what kind of examples to use?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (23:41)

Yeah, so, I mean, I'm a very practical person. My day to day job is teaching people the kinds of things that are in this book. And so I know from being a teacher, being an instructor, that concrete examples are gold and it can be really hard to apply some sort of abstract principle without seeing what that actually looks like. And so I knew there had to be that in this book. As far as selecting the editorial materials to share that, you know, can be tricky because you don't, you know, sometimes, you know, while I do think examples are really helpful, I have read other writing books where the examples overwhelm me because there's so much to sort of hold in your head. Like you're like learning about this new project and figuring out how they're applying to the method to it. And if there's like 20 examples of that, it can be sort of overwhelming. So I wanted to take one project, one book project, and sort of follow it through this method from start to finish. And so I selected one from one of my clients, Dr. Hal Strengard Jensen, who wrote a book called Sesame Street A Transnational History, which is a very intriguing and interesting book that I hope many people will read. And so I selected her as one because I have worked with her across all stages of the process, but also because the subject matter is engaging in itself. So I thought readers might sort of enjoy seeing how her book went through this process of being developed across these moments of the publishing process.

Dr. Christina Gessler (25:25)

And they can see in the margins what developmental editing notes actually look like. And as people go through the back matter, as you said, it can be overwhelming to start connecting all the dots. So you signpost everything you say, you know, this is in chapter six, or there's more about this in chapter five. So people can slip back and forth and layer in their knowledge in a way that's intuitive for them, because as you said, it's from teaching, you know the importance of examples and you know, the importance of people being able to onboard at their own pace so they don't get overwhelmed. For people who are really worried about this find your argument thing, page 59 and 60 have some assessment questions where you can sort of get started. And it can help you figure out if you've got your argument articulated close enough to the beginning of the text. Can you talk about the problem where you can end up a third of the way through a book and you're like, oh, this is what they're arguing?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (26:21)

Yeah, I think. I think you kind of summed it up that sometimes it does become clear later on and part of the reason for these assessment questions. So I don't know if we explained, but in the book, I offer 18 of the most common developmental issues that people have or aspects of their text that they have the opportunity to develop further and may want to develop further. And so some of those have to do with argument, some have to do with evidence, some structure and some style. But for each one of those, I offer assessment questions because. And again, I kind of learned this from teaching the material. Sometimes I would work with writers who would say, okay, well, the peer reviewers told me my argument wasn't clear, but it is clear that's not an actual problem. And so I kind of was like, okay, well, how can we figure out what it is that's not landing with the peer reviewers? How can we ask some evaluative questions of the work to dig deeper, to maybe unsettle our certainty that it's as clear as we think it is? And so for the example you brought up about giving the text an argument, you know, I want the writer to ask, does this text have an argument and where is it? Because that is often the thing that makes them realize, oh, it's on page 75. Maybe that's why the peer reviewers missed it. So let me pull it up to the beginning. So that's why I offer the assessment questions. I don't think everyone is going to need to go through and answer every assessment question, because there's a lot of them. But for the things that are sticking points for you or that you're getting mixed feedback on or the peer reviewers aren't understanding, I'm hoping these assessment questions will help you really figure out how to address the feedback you're receiving.

Dr. Christina Gessler (28:11)

You can read the book cover to cover in order. You've very intentionally ordered the steps to go through in a logical progression from A to Z. Or you can do what I'm doing, which is leap into what the most common problem is that's plaguing you, and get right to how to tackle it. Because sometimes the thing that's worrying us the most, if we don't clear that, we can't take in the rest of it. And so where we are right now is in phase two of the book. Assess your text. This is where you're diving into the argument. The previous chapter was chapter two, Delineate your goals, timeline and capacity. And that chapter really helps you work on clarifying all of those things so that you can stay on track and figure out what your track is really to get to done. And it has questionnaires to help you. But understanding what your goals are, understanding what your timeline is, understanding what your capacity is, is really key to getting your book done. Frankly, in phase two, you're learning more to read a manuscript like an editor, you're looking at opportunities to develop your argument. You're making sure your text has an argument, and then you're going to do something really important, which is called make your argument point portable. And you get into that in on page 63. I also do developmental editing. And so we know that sometimes when we use these terms, people don't know what we mean. And it can kind of make them panic. Like, what do you mean portable? I, I do history. I don't know what this will mean for science. So can you go ahead and unpack what we mean by a portable argument and how you make it portable?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (29:44)

Yeah. So, you know, so when you're making an argument, you know, if you're writing a whole book about something, you don't want your argument to just be simply, well, you know, this thing over here is related to that thing over there. Right. You want to talk more about how or why this thing has a particular impact on that thing, or what is the consequence of the relationship between those two things. You want to not just answer the what question, but also the how and the why. And that kind of argument is stronger for a book because it raises implications that readers can apply in other research contexts. So even if they're not looking at the same things you're looking at, when you unpack that relationship and why it is the way it is, people can start to see, use that as a lens to look at other things that they're studying, which is what you want for a scholarly book, you're trying to contribute to future scholarship, both on your topic and in your field, but not on your topic necessarily. So making your argument portable is really turning it into a tool that can be used by other readers, other scholars to interpret their own research and make their own claims. So, yeah, and it's not like you have to say, well, this explains everything in the field of anthropology or whatever field it is. It's more that you're just constructing your argument in a way that it could be applied by other people to other situations. And then you kind of let them have it impact the field, if that makes sense.

Dr. Christina Gessler (31:23)

And you give an example there, a short one that's embedded in the text, which is from Dr. Oliver Hanson's book on trans technologies from MIT Press. It's a book that we covered here on air. But you worked with him on the development of the book. And so it takes us into how he was making a portable argum so people can see not only his statement of the portable argument, but then your analysis of why it's portable and what that actually means. And then you offer some assessment questions that go with it. The book, as you said, also gets into structural things, things like length of the text, topic sentences, chapter formatting. And we see that again in the back matter, where there's places where you just write long sentence. And I think it's really helpful to have those things pointed out to authors, because it's about readability. Not everyone can or will hire a developmental editor. So you give people other options. And you talk about an option for that might be finding your supportive readers. And you say there are three types of supportive readers. Can you unpack what that means for listeners?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (32:29)

Yeah, so. So one of the things I have also found and sort of teaching people this method is editing your work. And this does offer a method for, like, getting a more editorial distance from your work so that you can read it not as the writer, but as more of an editor. But, you know, at some point we can only go so far as the reader of our own work. We are filling in a lot of blanks as. As the person who thought up the things that we were saying on the page. So at some point to find out if your manuscript works, you have to just give it to people and see if it works. And so there are the scary people you have to give it to, like a publisher, a peer reviewer. And those people will have valuable feedback. But often we want to share it with people who are maybe less scary and who can offer us that supportive feedback before it gets to the sort of make or break decision point. And so that's why in that appendix, I talk about the kinds of people you can turn to for that kind of support. And so I talk about beta readers. Who are they sort of stand in for your ultimate reader that you want to reach. They are not necessarily an expert at your same level. They are not necessarily someone with editorial skills. They're just somebody who is the kind of person you would be writing this text for. It might be like a student or a colleague in another field. And so the beta reading process sort of asks them, how is this landing with you? Are you understanding it? Are there places where it's confusing? Are there places where it really resonates? And that can be really useful information to get from beta readers. I also talk about friendly reviewers. Who are they sort of stand in for those expert readers, like peer reviewers, but they're friendly in the sense that you know them and they are willing to spend their time helping you improve this work, not as part of the formal publishing process of peer review, but just as a person who knows you. And so they, unlike a beta reader, they wouldn't necessarily be talking about their own experience of the text, but they might have some insight into your subject matter, or they may have strong editorial skills to help you sort of untangle your structure and things like that. And so those friendly reviewers are, you know, the people you came up with in grad school, the people you know on Blue Sky. You know, you can find them sort of anywhere, but they're people who you can turn to when you need a critical eye that is still supportive. And then I talk about professional editors like myself and like you, who you can hire to give your work a critical read and to bring editorial expertise. They may not necessarily be a subject matter expert, but they are an expert in the construction of scholarly books and so can help you with that stuff, like pulling out the argument, making sure the evidence is analyzed in a convincing way, making sure the style is consistent, those kinds of things.

Marshall Poe (35:51)

It's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app? Some cards are labeled no Ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today. Applying for no Ding Decline cards won't hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved. Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry which may impact your credit scores.

Dr. Christina Gessler (36:18)

Experian get 40% off Abercrombie kids sweatshirts and sweatpants during their coziest sale ever when sweats are all they want to wear. Stock up on sets that are both comfy and on trend. Shop in the Abercrombie Kids app online and in store stores to save up to 40% off all sweatshirts and sweatpants offer valid in stores and online October 8, 2025 to October 13, 2025 in US and Canada. Excludes clearance online Price reflects discount. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (36:56)

Financially savvy Smart move Another smart move.

Dr. Christina Gessler (37:00)

Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (37:04)

Home and auto bundling.

Dr. Christina Gessler (37:05)

Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. And one of the things you point out there is wherever you're getting the help from, it's not cheating. And for some reason people kind of conflate this in their mind. And I think it's an important thing to detangle because the idea that we can do it all by ourselves, well, one, it's exhausting. And two, I just don't know any writers who do that. You have pointed out that you're a developmental editor. You're also a published author. But if we dig into the acknowledgments, you've had umpteen supportive readers and you thank many of them by name. And then you get to where, yes, I also talk to people on Blue sky, and it's too many to name. So you're naming right out there that it takes a community. And for you it's about making an intentional community so that it's not noise, but it's nowhere near the idea of cheating. How do you think these got conflated?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (38:13)

Well, I think. I think there's a. I never really thought about it like this, but now that you're bringing it up, I think the thing is that there are like two different kinds of writing in academia. There is the credentialing writing that is like your dissertation or a seminar paper or something where you are proving to an evaluator that you can do it, that you have gained the skills you were supposed to gain and that you are, you know, are now a proven scholar. Books and publications, while they are used as credentials in, in ways that we might agree or disagree with, are really ideally about communicating ideas to a reader. They are not about proving you can do something or proving you learn something the right way. And so I could see how in a setting like writing your dissertation or writing a seminar paper, whoever's evaluating that needs to know you did that yourself. In writing a book that's Just not the point. The point is to produce something that is useful to others and it takes a team to do that. And the book publishing industry knows that and is well aware of that and engages all these different kinds of editorial support. But because that industry has been opaque to writers and they're only familiar with the academic setting, they sometimes don't realize that it is normal, expected, hoped for that you will have a team to help you develop your writing, to make it the best it can be, to serve its purpose, which is not to credential you, but to serve readers.

Dr. Christina Gessler (39:53)

And some institutions have this in house. I have a friend who works at a very large school and they have a department right there, an office where you send your book manuscript and they have a team of people who make sure the typos are gone and all of the, you know, stuff is cleaned up and ready for you to then send off to your press to get it published. They want you to get published and they're aware that you're tired after you finish, you know, your draft. You are. When people are going on social media to crow that they finished a draft, they should. It's exhausting. And there's a way sort of that your adrenaline kind of all leaves in a whoosh. And then to say, okay, now I have to go through and do what I call tweezer edits. You know, find every overused word, find every weird typo, find every awkward sentence construction. I think for people who are under resourced, you know, your school doesn't have this. No one told you that people use this service. I think it's flabbergasting them to know that many schools with money have an in house department where you can just send this and get all these services. Other people take workshops, they look for free resources because they don't have the funds. But no matter how you're getting from A to Z, you're going to need help.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (41:12)

Yeah, for sure. And I think again, maybe this is part of the sort of opacity of the publishing process, but it's also helpful to know that you don't have to do everything at once. So yeah, it's good to give your work a read or if you have that support where people can do that to sort of make sure the errors are gone and you don't overuse certain words and stuff like that's great. It's not usually going to be the make or break thing at that moment. One of initially submitting a book manuscript to a publisher. Publishers are more interested in the big Picture and the big ideas. And they know that those other phases of editing are going to come later. So I hope that's reassuring to people too that copy editing can happen on the last draft. And there are many resources out there to help people with. In my book, I don't cover that. I don't cover copy editing. I don't really cover line editing. I talk about it as a part of the process that will happen after developmental editing. But the back of the book, speaking of back matter, the bibliography is essentially a recommended reading list for those kinds of resources. The ones that will help you with the other phases of the process like the line editing, the copy editing and even, you know, before you get to the writing of the draft, the you know, how to feel better about writing and how to conceptualize a project, you know, because I don't cover those things in this book, I do share in the bibliography, a bunch of resources that I recommend.

Dr. Christina Gessler (42:44)

And as you said, this is about the developmental editing. This is about really getting a very clear sense of your book. And it's not just structure, it's not just mission, it's not just argument, it's not just evidence, but it's, it's also your unique way of, of telling this. It's what makes your book different than the 12 other books that are somewhere in this lane. And so you get into that the style towards the second half of the book, chapter seven is, is opportunities to develop your style. And that comes after chapter six, which is opportunities to develop your structure. There's also appendix A which takes you through the opportunities to develop your structure. So that if you get information back from your supportive readers, if you get information back from your peer reviewer and you think what do they mean my structure doesn't support my evidence? Or what do they mean they think there's something strange about the ordering of my argument. The appendix there breaks it down into the logics behind why we organize things the way we do. So you can kind of separate yourself from your attachment to how you originally wrote it and be like, oh, this is where I really put it in this specific kind of order that helps it flow the best and make the most sense. You also talk about in appendix D that people may be using this book's method to support other writers. You spoke a moment ago about the dissertation phase and I called up a memory of when I was in this small, tight knit dissertation group and we developmental edited for each other, we traded sections, we all hive minded and we helped each other really make sure that we had developed Something enough before we sent it off to our advisors who were incredibly busy and didn't want to read 12 drafts. They wanted us to send something that was pretty good. And so many people in and around academia are trying to help each other with this kind of volunteer, reciprocal labor. And yet often the first time we do it, we haven't had training. How does appendix D help people use the methods in this book to support other writers?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (44:55)

Yeah. So I'll go into a little backstory about the book. I initially wrote and proposed this book as a guide for editors and for, you know, people in academia who are giving editorial feedback, whether it's to dissertation advisors or peers or volume editors or journal editors, all of that. I did end up significantly reframing the book so that it's addressed to writers themselves to work on their own manuscripts. But in doing that, I had to cut a lot of the stuff that was sort of helping people support other writers and. And understand what is most helpful to writers when you're giving developmental feedback. So that's what got put in appendix D, you know, rewritten and reframed so it doesn't feel like it was just sort of removed from the rest of the book and plopped in there. But it's really, it's if, you know, if you're on board with the method that the book teaches about considering your work in this developmental way and you want to help other writers get that kind of support, it talks about how you can apply it and what you might need to keep in mind. You know, one of the really important things that leads to bad feelings around getting feedback is not having aligned expectations about what the feedback will look like, what the purpose of the feedback is, where the feedback giver is coming from. And so I talk about how you can set expectations with writers you're working with so that you have the most productive experience with them. I talk about how to write an editorial summary because I think we're so accustomed to when we give feedback, we just mark up a draft and we hand it back to people. And that is not the best way to communicate holistic ideas about what the draft might need developmentally. And so I really want to spread the practice of writing editorial summaries that don't have to be super formal the way a professional editor might write, but to sort of give a big picture summation of what the text might need and where you're coming from when you're giving that feedback and how you justify it to the author and what suggestions you have for fixing the issues. Because that's really helpful too. If you want to go beyond that beta reader status, then you need to be sort of thoughtful about, well, how can they implement this? Do they have enough time to do that? What would I suggest they do first if they only have time for one thing? And so that's all laid out in appendix D for people who are sort of new to the practice of giving feedback to writers or who are not new to it, but aren't seeing the results that they would like to see from the writers when they go back and revise the text. Often as advisors or feedback givers, you can get frustrated that, well, it doesn't seem like it's landing. They're not doing what I have asked them to do. And so this sort of offers a model for how you can ask in the most clear and productive way.

Dr. Christina Gessler (47:57)

We've touched on what's in phase one and phase two. Phase two also talks about developing your evidence and it has some really helpful sections to help you know when enough is enough. Yeah, you have your, you have your evidence. We're good. So many people, as you've mentioned, have come out of their dissertation, they have come out of grad school and our default is to over explain because we're still imagining that there's a reviewer who's going to judge us. And this is a shift into a reader who's going to absorb information. And so you really help in those sections about shifting into that mindset of okay, you've explained it or you haven't actually explained it. And you've also, you take people through the difference between giving evidence and then tying the evidence into the overall argument, whether it's of the chapter or the section of the whole book. As we go into phase three, this is really where you start planning and implementing edits. As you mentioned, it's not a line or copy edit book, but it does tell you how to track edits, how to implement them, what they look like. And so for that final phase, it's really about helping you get to that final place with your manuscript where it's as good as it's going to get on this final, final draft. The conclusion is let your manuscript do its work. And then we get into the acknowledgments and the four appendices. As you said, the bibliography is a really helpful reading list. You also have notes where you cite other people who inspect inspired you and whose work you, you know, are in conversation with. And then there's an in depth. As we come to the close of our time together. When we get to this conclusion of let your manuscript do its work, what's our takeaway there?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (49:40)

Yeah, I think that kind of goes back to, what are your goals for this book or this text that you're writing and hope to publish? And again, and also going back to the idea of anxiety. I work with so many writers who, you know, I've worked with them, I've seen how good their stuff is. I know how it stacks up to other stuff that's getting submitted because I see a wide range, and so I can tell somebody, this is great. You've done a lot here. You've gotten to a standard where publishers are going to want to see this. It can be hard for people to accept or to be ready to put themselves out there and risk the rejection. That could still happen even if you do everything right, because publication decisions aren't always about the quality or the merit of your scholarship. And so my sort of exhortation at the end of the book is, you set up all these goals for your work. We did that in chapter one. You can't achieve any of those goals if you don't send this out. If you don't let external readers see it and decide if it works, help you make it work better. So. So it's really just like, if it's going to work, you got to let it go do its work. And. And I acknowledge all the reasons why that feels really hard to do. I don't want to invalidate that, but to help remind people of why you're doing this in the first place and to just go out there and. And at least make an effort, make a try at it.

Dr. Christina Gessler (51:13)

I think there is a belief that you'll not have a certain set of feelings that you don't like when. When it. When the work is done, that somehow the signal that it's done is that these feelings that you have not enjoyed having on this journey will finally go away. And I think part of what that section is acknowledging is that you'll send it off while still feeling anxious because there's still an unknown out there. But it doesn't invalidate the goals or the process or the quality of your work. It's, I think, this false expectation about certain types of really good feelings we're going to have when we're done. And we may or may not have those.

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (51:48)

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think maybe I'll write about that in the next book of the sort of reality of like, okay, I published the book and it didn't fix my Life magically. Now what do I do? Yeah. And I think also I hope it helps people to know that those feelings are an organic part of the process. And maybe some people don't experience them. I don't know those people. But even things like, well, I'm afraid of what the peer reviewers are going to say, they're going to say something. So what I hope this book helps people do is then take what the peer reviewers say, not take it personally, figure out how you act on it to get to the next step to meet that goal that you had, the editorial feedback and all of that. It's part of the process. So we just need to accept that it's going to happen and trust ourselves that we will be able to respond to it. If they say, oh, you didn't talk enough about this, that's not the worst thing you ever did, now you just know, okay, I need to talk about that, and here's how I'm going to do it. And now I can move this along to the next step. That's something I'm always telling people. Like peer reviewers are going to say things. You are going to get negative feedback. It's how you then think about it and handle it and act on it. That is going to be what makes the difference in succeeding or letting your work sort of die there.

Dr. Christina Gessler (53:07)

And as you said, the book has these tools so that you're not alone when the peer review comes back. You're. You're not saying, I don't know what to do, or now what. Or you may be, but you can then dive into the book. It has a table of contents, it has an index. You can look up your problem and you, you can start implementing tools and trying it, and you can see examples in the back of, of what that might look like. We're starting to come to the close of our time together. I want to ask you, what do you hope this episode sparks for listeners?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (53:36)

Well, I hope they will read the book so they just got a taste of what's in there. I hope that they will actually sort of get it from their library or go purchase it and keep it handy as sort of another source of support in the writing process and feel hopefully empowered to get it done, to make their manuscript work, to have it do the work they want it to do in the world. Because, you know, we're all here because we want to do something. We would pick an easier line of work if we didn't, and a more rewarding one, perhaps. So I hope this is just a resource people will use to take some of the suffering and anxiety out of it to actually achieve what they are here to do.

Dr. Christina Gessler (54:23)

And finally, what do you hope listeners take away?

Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer (54:26)

I hope people will take away that it is a process, that there there will be more work to do after you finish writing that draft. But everyone has to do that work. It doesn't mean you messed up. It just means that you are a writer who is now, you know, becoming a professional writer who is going to be published. And so I hope people take away that they can do it and that this book can help them.

Dr. Christina Gessler (54:51)

Thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Laura Portwood Stacer, and sharing from your book, make your Manuscript Work, A Guide to Developmental Editing for Scholarly writers. You've been listening to the academic life. I'm Dr. Christina Yesler, inviting you to please join us again.