TAA Writing Gym: Heavy Lifters Writing Classes

10 New Classes on Scheduled Release

Structure Your Writing: Develop a Project Management Work Plan | Effectively Managing Multiple Projects: Tending your Garden of Ideas | Get in the Zone: Organization, Clarity, and Flow | Body Building: Structuring Your Article Sections | Methods to the Madness: Creating and Writing Pedagogy | Getting Unstuck: How to Restart When Your Writing Stalls | Performance Boost: Power Up Your Writing Productivity | Maximize Your Results: Getting Your Journal Article Accepted | Trim and Tone: Strategies for Revising and Editing | Marketing Muscle: Building an Author Brand

6 Classes, Immediate Access

Eye on the Prize: Create Goals That Move Your Forward | Be a Team Player: Write For Your Audience | Proper Technique: Organize, Document, and Present Your Research | Lose the Academese: Be Smart Without Trying to Sound Smart | Hone Your Skills: Proof and Revise Your Work | Get Started, Continue Your Draft, and Finish!

Week 1

Structure Your Writing: Develop a Project Management Work Plan

Presenter: Christine Tulley, Professor of English and Founder and Director of the Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing, The University of Findlay

Christine Tulley is Professor of English and Founder and Director of the Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Writing at The University of Findlay. As the campus Academic Development Coordinator, she runs faculty writing groups and offers tenure and promotion application support including effective practices for writing teaching philosophies and persuasive reflective statements. She is the author of How Writing Faculty Write (2018) and contributes regularly to Inside Higher Education on faculty productivity issues. She also serves as a research adviser to Prolifiko, a UK-based writing productivity think tank, and as a dissertation writing coach with Defend and Publish.

Effectively Managing Multiple Projects: Tending your Garden of Ideas

Presenter: Dave Harris, Ph.D., Academic Writing Coach and Editor

Dave Harris is an Academic Writing Coach and Editor with Thought Clearing. He earned a B.A. in Economics from U.C. Berkeley, an M.A. in English Literature from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in Design Theories and Methods from the Department of Agriculture at U.C. Berkeley. He is coauthor of The Universe of Design: Horst Rittel's Theories of Design and Planning (2010). E-mail: [email protected]

Week 2

Get in the Zone: Organization, Clarity, and Flow

Presenter: Margarita Huerta, Associate Professor, Department of Early Childhood, Multilingual, and Special Education in the College of Education, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Need a moment to stretch, breathe, and increase your writing and personal organization, clarity, and flow? This class taps into practical and time-tested advice and resources to help you get “in the zone” so you and your writing can flourish.

Margarita Huerta

Body Building: Structuring Your Article Sections

Presenter: Micki M. Caskey, Professor Emerita, Portland State University

Micki M. Caskey is Professor Emerita at Portland State University whose areas of specialization include academic writing, doctoral education, and middle grades research. She works with doctoral students and early career faculty to support their academic writing and scholarly productivity. Micki is co-series editor of The Handbook of Research in Middle Level Education and The Handbook of Resources in Middle Level Education as well as the former editor of Research in Middle Level Education Online—an international peer-reviewed research journal. She is author or editor of more than 75 publications and 125 conference presentations.

Week 3

Methods to the Madness: Creating and Writing Pedagogy

Presenter: Ann Greenberger, Greenline Editorial Services

Ann Greenberger, MFA, has 23 years of experience in educational publishing. She has been a developmental editor for most of the major college textbook publishers, developing textbooks in education, social sciences, business, literature, and communication. Ann's clients are professors who are writing textbooks and publishing articles in professional journals. She works with authors who are new to the process and those who are seasoned. Ann's focus is on the quality of the writing. She supports authors in producing well-written books, articles, and media. Services include substantive editing, developmental editing, proposal writing, creating and writing pedagogy, writing specifications for photos and figures, and integrating and writing media content. 

Week 4

Getting Unstuck: How to Restart When Your Writing Stalls 

Presenter: Erin McTigue, Professor, Texas A&M University and Founder of The Positive Academic

Erin McTigue is a Professor at Texas A&M University, and Founder of The Positive Academic, through which she mentors and coaches academics in writing and productivity, as well as runs workshops. While at Texas A&M, she co-directed a university-wide writing support program and developed an academic writing course for international students. Erin is widely published, has won teaching and mentoring awards, and continually aims to bring a lightness of spirit to the weight of academia.

Performance Boost: Power Up Your Writing Productivity

Presenter: Dannelle D. Stevens is a Professor Emerita, Faculty in Residence for academic writing, Facilitator, Jumpstart Academic Writing Program, Portland State University

Dannelle D. Stevens is a Professor Emerita, Faculty in Residence for academic writing and facilitates the Jumpstart Academic Writing Program at Portland State University Portland, Oregon. Her degree is in educational psychology from Michigan State. Through working with national and international faculty on the complex tasks associated with balancing teaching, writing and publishing, she developed the key ideas in her fifth book, published this year, Write more, publish more, stress less! Five key principles for a creative and sustainable scholarly practice. She conducts workshops and coaches faculty on writing and career-related choices that lead to a successful career in academe.

Week 5

Maximize Your Results: Getting Your Journal Article Accepted

Presenter: Mary Beth Averill, academic writing coach, editor, and author of How to Become an Academic Coach

Mary Beth Averill has been coaching and teaching academic writers for over 30 years. She wrote a dissertation in biology and an MSW thesis. She is the coauthor of How to Become an Academic Coach. The second edition of her second book, Scaling the Ivory Tower: Your Academic Job Search Workbook, is now available as well. As an adjunct Professor at the Smith College School for Social Work, she taught Research Methods and Writing for Professional Publication. You can contact Mary Beth at [email protected].

Trim and Tone: Strategies for Revising and Editing

Patricia Goodson is Presidential Professor of Health Education in the Department of Health & Kinesiology at Texas A&M University. At TAMU, in 2007, she created and implemented a writing support service for graduate students, titled P.O.W.E.R (an acronym for Promoting Outstanding Writing for Excellence in Research). She has authored two academic books, including: Becoming an Academic Writer: 50 Exercises for Paced, Productive, and Powerful Writing, published by SAGE. 

Week 6

Marketing Muscle: Building an Author Brand

Presenter: Christina J. Inge, Instructor, Digital Marketing & Data, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education, Founder and CEO, Thoughtlight

Christina J. Inge teaches digital marketing and data at both the Harvard University Division of Continuing Education and the Northeastern University College of Professional Studies. She's the author of Fundamentals of Marketing Analytics, from Flatworld. In her day job, she runs the mission-driven marketing and communications agency, Thoughtlight, which she founded in 2014.

Immediate Release

Eye on the Prize: Create Goals That Move Your Forward

Presenter: Susan Robison, Psychologist, Faculty Development Consultant, Professor Destressor

Learn how to create a Workout Plan with effective writing goals that will keep you moving forward. This class will also introduce a 5-minute writing warm-up that you can use each time you sit down to write, as well as share how to create "cool-downs" that will set the bar for your next writing session. It will emphasize what Workout exercises differentiates those who accomplish their goals and those who get stuck.

Susan Robison is a former professor of psychology and department chair at the Notre Dame of Maryland University. She provides faculty development and productivity coaching at higher education conferences and on college campuses. Her mission is to help faculty increase their productivity and work-life balance. Her book, The Peak Performing Professor: A Practical Guide to Productivity and Happiness was published by Wiley in October of 2013. While she didn’t enjoy writing it, she is enjoying having written it. Her most current writing project was serving as a co-editor on a special topics issue on Coaching Skills for Academic Leaders published by the Journal of Excellence in College Teaching in which she only had to write a little and mostly enjoyed helping other people write.

Be a Team Player: Write For Your Audience

Presenter: Michael Greer, Educator, Editor, Author

Learn how to revise your work to meet the needs of different audiences. This class will focus on ways to identify who your audience is and what they expect from your results. Learn which muscles to strengthen for a winning performance.

Michael Greer is an educator, editor, and author who has been working in higher education for over 20 years. He worked as a development editor at Pearson for 15 years before starting his own company, Development by Design, and has recently published his first textbook specifically for smartphones in collaboration with Gadget Software (using their virtual publication vPub™ technology).

Proper Technique: Organize, Document and Present Your Research

Presenter: Eric Schmieder, Computer Technology Author

Learn techniques for organizing, documenting, and presenting your research that will make the process of writing easier. This class will focus on easy-to-use strategies and techniques that result in greater performance. Develop core strength in areas that will support the rest of the writing process.

Eric Schmieder has taught computer technology concepts to curriculum, continuing education, and corporate training students since 2001. A lifelong learner, teacher, and textbook author, Eric seeks to use technology in ways that improve results in his daily processes and in the lives of those he serves. His latest textbook, Web, Database, and Programming: A foundational approach to data-driven application development using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, MySQL, and PHP (1e), is available now through Sentia Publishing. He is also TAA's Membership Marketing Manager.

Lose the Academese: Be Smart Without Trying to Sound Smart

Presenter: John Bond, Publishing Consultant, Riverwinds Consulting

Learn why you shouldn't incorporate academic jargon, or "academese" into your journal article or textbook, how to identify when you are, and how to write instead. This class will focus on proofreading techniques that help you identify the problem areas in your writing where cuts can be made. Trim down your writing to a lean manuscript that’s less talk and more action.

John Bond is a publishing consultant at Riverwinds Consulting and the host of the YouTube channel “Publishing Defined.” He has been in scholarly publishing for 30 years. In his career, he has directed the publishing of over 500 book titles and 20,000 journal articles.

Hone Your Skills: Proof and Revise Your Work

Presenter: Barbara Price, Senior Development Editor, Higher Ed Science Textbooks and Courseware

Learn strategies for proofing and revising your work throughout the writing process. This class will focus on proofing and revision processes that can be applied as early as your first draft. Tone and shape those early efforts into a strong finished product.

Barbara Price is presently a senior development editor for the largest publisher of higher ed science textbooks and courseware in North America. She helps both experienced and novice authors achieve their writing goals, whether these goals are preparing the first draft manuscript for a new textbook, revising an existing textbook, creating effective scripts and storyboards for video, or taking the initial step of preparing a book proposal. In addition to editing, Barbara has also scripted science films for Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, been a writer for Saunders College Publishing/Harcourt, and is the author, editor, and content developer of science curricular materials for school markets.

Get Started, Continue Your Draft, and Finish!

Longtime dissertation coach, editor, writing consultant, author, and writing and meditation workshop presenter, Noelle Sterne has published three books and over 600 pieces in print and online venues. She helps students deal with often overlooked and crucial nonacademic difficulties in her Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles.