Writing for Scholarly Publication

by Anne Sigismund Huff

Academic writing has its own ground rules and its own creativity. In this practical guide for students and academics, the author takes the reader step-by-step through the entire writing and publication process - from choosing a subject, to developing content, to submitting the final manuscript for publication. The book contains exercises, helpful checklists, exemplars and advice drawn from the author′s experience.

Genres: Writing

200 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 1998

About the author

Anne Huff is Visiting Professor of Strategy and Innovation at the TUM Business School in Munich, Germany, where she is helping organize research on open innovation that crosses traditional organizational boundaries, product-service fusion and leadership systems. She was Founding Director of the Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM), a UK wide management research initiative with offices based at the London Business School, and continues to be a visiting AIM fellow at LBS. She is also a visiting professor in the Communications Department of the University of Colorado, and had prior appointments at the University of Illinois, and UCLA. She earned a BA from Barnard College (philosophy), as well as an MA (sociology) and PhD (management) from Northwestern University.

Her research interests focus on sustained innovation and strategic change; both are seen as dynamic processes of interaction among firms and as cognitive processes affected by the interaction of individuals over time. Recent books include Mapping Strategic Knowledge. Sage, 2002 (edited, with Mark Jenkins), When Firms Change Direction. Oxford University Press, 2000 (with James O. Huff), and Writing for Scholarly Publication (Sage, 1998). In 1998-99 Anne was President of the Academy of Management, an association of management researchers with 16,000 members worldwide; she held associated leadership positions from 1995 to 2001. In August 2003 she received the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division of that association. She serves on the boards of several professional organizations and journals.

Reviews

[TQM Doctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book with the purpose of learning and adopting improved methods to manage my writing. I am often writing to a deadline and feel that the quality of my work suffers. Therefore, I need to learn useful methods to mitigate this problem. I believe Huff’s ideas and lessons will help, especially since she often repeats the same admonitions of my professors.

A new idea Huff taught me was that—in addition to the outline—I should also draft a descriptive title and abstract before I begin working on the body of the article or essay. Huff asserted that this additional work in the beginning helps establish an overall direction that I can use as a writing compass while composing the body of my work. She also reinforced the importance of setting aside a regular time to write and the use of an outline. I know I have heard this advice before, but somehow it now has a more teeth. :)

Huff also introduced and reinforced many other relevant ideas for scholarly writing. Most important, Huff’s book is about writing well enough for journals to publish what we submit. I believe the salient concept she introduced was that we should remember to treat our writing as a conversation since the ultimate responsibility of scholars is to converse and share. From this perspective, writers should identify conversants and “speak to them.” Huff even shares example methods she uses to further the reality of scholarly conversational writing. The concept of scholarly writing as a conversation has been especially relevant to my dissertation.

The most important reinforcement I received from Huff was that I could use writing to think clearly or even to discover what I think. Writing is an effective method to explore new concepts or as a means of efficient learning. Therefore, I am now using a journal and have set aside daily writing time. So far so good! Thank you, Huff!

[Abdul Wahid Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an academic scholar, this book was on my reading list from a long time. I finally finished it and made a ton of notes that will guide me in my scholarly writing always. My notes are digital, so if you need, I can share with you. What attracted me to this pretty slim book was its super expensive price. When I found an AMJ article citing this book, I knew that I had to read this. About the book - I think its quite good and worth reading. It has given a lot of new perspectives. Mainly that science is a conversation and how we interact with existing science is important. Many techniques are suggested which I will definitely be using going forward. Also after reading this book, I feel quite prepared to float a course on academic writing. Anne Huff recommends a lot of other resources and books at the end, some of which are classics and worth reading.

[Avril · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very useful practical guide to scholarly writing.

[Shahdah Mahhouk · Rating 3 out of 5]

not bad

[Ryan Giffen · Rating 4 out of 5]

For someone who has ZERO experience in writing for an Academic Scholarly journal, this book is for you! Huff provides a detailed explanation of the process to academic writing and explains so in a very understandable perspective.