Course outline
Block 1 (Nov 24, Dec 1, Jan 12 & 19: 14:00-15:30): Preparing the Proposal
First workshop: Planning—identifying an appropriate publisher and assessing the workload.
Second workshop: The Pitch (I)—how to describe the field that your book will be part of.
Third workshop: The Pitch (II)—how to expand your contribution into an argument that makes your book competitive; assessing the scale of revision needed to deliver this.
Fourth workshop: Writing the Proposal—not the most exciting writing exercise, but one that requires skill and lean prose; we will be sharing drafts in this session.
Block 2: Revising a Chapter: four Tuesdays in March, 13:30-15:00
First workshop (Tuesday 2 March): Choosing the chapter for revision and planning the work—is new reading or fieldwork required? Will there be restructuring to fit the book’s expanded argument?
Second workshop (Monday 8 March): Macro-revisions—organizing the chapter to deliver a cohesive set of local and wider arguments (with the academic field in mind)
Third workshop (Tuesday 16 March): Micro-revisions—removing the ‘dissertation signposts’ and writing in a more readable style
Fourth workshop (Tuesday 23 March): Nuts and bolts—catching the inconsistencies that will get through a dissertation examination but aggravate an editor / reader.
Block 3 (Tuesdays 13:30-15:00, 25 May, 1, 8, 15 June): Conclusions and Beyond
First workshop: The joy of a blank page—the conclusion is a chance to adopt a fresh perspective on your subject, but what? We will look at how different academic authors have approached the conclusion.
Second workshop: Drafting: participants will share drafts of their conclusion’s opening and the closing—the last words of the book.
Third workshop: Threads—once the conclusion is (provisionally) in place, the task of threading your argument back through the chapters becomes clearer; we will look at this important editing step.
Fourth workshop: Beyond the book—we will look at how you might promote the book’s research and start building networks of readers and reviewers of your book.