Book review: Writing for publication: Liminal reflections for academics

The scholarly publication has become a worldwide trend in academia as tertiary education demands academics to write for publication purposively. “Publish or perish” has become a slogan loudly heard in academia. However, there are few references, especially for the emerging academics, about how to position ourselves in the game of scholarly publication. Writing for Publication: Liminal Reflections for Academics written by 12 Professors, Associate Professors, and doctoral graduates of School of Education, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), is therefore a necessary reference for early-career academics, doctoral students, researchers, and teachers in tertiary education. Georgina Stewart, Nesta Devine, and Leon Benade, the book’s editors, are the professors and associate professors in AUT. This book discusses the advantage, disadvantages, and various topics or lenses related to a scholarly publication from the liminal perspectives.

Looking at the title, this book specifically mentioned the word Writing for Publication as the main discussion with the sub-title Liminal Reflections for Academics to show its primary focus. The word Liminal represents the space among the thresholds of knowledge existing in the world of scholarly publication. Indeed, the chapters in the book reflect the circumstances and confusion within spaces during the transitions toward the world of publication. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 discuss the standpoint and positions of writers as individuals with their uniqueness. Five chapters (Chapter 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8) discuss the topics in academic writing which might not be much discussed in other books, such as indigenous research methodology, poetic inquiry, and art in research writing. Two chapters (Chapter 9 and 10) bring the issues of scholarly publication from the psychological perspectives. The book’s last two chapters (Chapter 1 and 11) were designed as references for academics who just started to take the first step to enter the world of publication.

One contribution of this book is the comprehensive explanation of liminality in publication with all the possible advantages and challenges. Amidst the ubiquitous interest of scholarly journal publication, academics might be in a dilemma about how to bring out their voices considering all the thresholds and scientific borders in scholarly writing. The editors wrote, “We are writing from liminal perspectives about a global topic of ubiquitous interest to academics, on which very little is yet published. We want to say things that are not usually said about academic work at these moments.” Some readers might find the liminality in this book confusing because most books discuss scholarly publication from central themes such as mentoring, collaborative writing, and strategies to get published. However, the discussion of liminality might bring the readers liberation from the structural obligations to the space where anything can happen (Turner, 1974, 1982). The liminality perspective has also widely been used to interpret the transitional experiences across the fields (Willson, 2019), such as education (Cook-Sather, 2006) and cultural geography (Andrews and Roberts, 2012). In this book, the liminality concept is used to interpret the transition from students or early-career academics to authors whose works are published in reputable journals.

Another contribution this book gives is the discussion about a publication from many perspectives. Not only does this book discuss scholarly publication from the academic and scientific point of view, but it also discusses the psychological aspect. For example, the impostor syndrome is discussed as a possible psychological response to the increasing demand to publish or perish. The syndrome is explained from the psychological perspective and how it can affect academics mentally and professionally. Other books about scholarly publication mostly explore the strategies to overcome challenges in scholarly publication (see, for example, Jalongo and Saracho, 2016) and linguistic issues in scholarly publication (see, for example, Habibie and Hyland, 2019). In contrast, this book also explores various topics, such as indigenous methodology research, poetic inquiry, art in research writing, and first-person research.

The chapters in this book encourage academics to find their own “colour” and “stand” in the publication world. However, this book is also aware of existing thresholds that hinder academics from writing their style. Therefore, this book explores the space in-between to play the game of scholarly publication. As a real example, this book gave the freedom to each author to write in their style without any format. Yet, each writing still covers similarly essential aspects. The authors want to show how poems, art, and music are written in scientific articles through this book.

Not only is this book informative, but it is also intriguing. This book mentions how the publication has become a business and brought profits for some parties. Chapter 10 talks specifically about the industry in the publication by describing the ugly truth of predator publishers. The author explicitly reminds the emerging academics who might be anxious to publish their works to avoid predatory journals and publishers. The topic of business and predatory journals in scholarly publication might be thought-provoking and make the readers ask the essentiality of publishing our work; this book then asks the readers to take a step back and inspect the primary intention to publish the writing. This book also gives tips on avoiding predatory journals and fraud in the world of publication.

As the book mainly introduces the academics to the reality of scholarly publication, it might appeal to the early-career academics and emerging scholar authors. Chapter 1 and 10 might be a helpful guide for the emerging academics to comprehend several terms before exploring various topics in the world of publication in other chapters. Despite its contributions, this book does not provide explanations of several terms mentioned in the chapter. Several terms might be new for the readers and thus need to be explained. Providing a glossary of the special terms might be helpful for the readers to comprehend the chapters better.

The authors’ intention in writing this book is to provide adage and guidance for the emerging academics whose pressure to publish is increasing. Highlighting the liminal perspectives to discuss several topics is the main feature to inform the readers that confusion and uncertainty in the publication is a normal phenomenon to experience by early-career academics. This book provides information and knowledge about the publication and motivates the readers to strive for the publication.

As the demand to publish or perish for scholars increases in the future, this book can be one of the reliable references to read. This book is suitable to read to gain knowledge about reality in the world of publication which covers both advantages with all opportunities and disadvantages with all the challenges. The scholarly publication will most likely expand its coverage beyond the hard science, and more fields in social science might emerge. With the discussion of various research fields and topics, this book will benefit many academics.