"Writing an academic book is a daunting task. Where to start? This workbook.
So, you’ve written a dissertation. Congratulations! But how do you turn it into a book? Even if you know what to do when revising your dissertation, do you know how to do those things? This workbook by Katelyn Knox and Allison Van Deventer, creators of the successful online Dissertation-to-Book Boot Camp, offers a series of manageable, concrete steps with exercises to help you revise your academic manuscript into publishable book form.
The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook uses targeted exercises and prompts to take the guesswork out of writing a book. You’ll clarify your book’s core priorities, pinpoint your organizing principle, polish your narrative arc, evaluate your evidence, and much more. Using what this workbook calls “book questions and chapter answers,” you’ll figure out how to thread your book’s main ideas through its chapters. Then, you’ll assemble an argument, and finally, you’ll draft any remaining material and revise the manuscript. And most important, by the time you complete the workbook, you’ll have confidence that your book works as a book—that it’s a cohesive, focused manuscript that tells the story you want to tell.
Indispensible to anyone with an academic manuscript in progress, the prompts, examples, checklists, and activities will give you confidence about all aspects of your project—that it is structurally sound, coherent, free of the hallmarks of “dissertationese,"" and ready for submission to an academic publisher.
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Introduction: The What, Why, and How of This Workbook This Workbook’s Origins An Overview of the Work You’ll Do How This Workbook Invites You to Work Practice 1: Prioritize Action Practice 2: Aim for Progress, Not Perfection Practice 3: Reflect Intentionally and Capture Doubts Practice 4: Build Confidence by Asking Challenging Questions What You Won’t Do in This Workbook Decide Whether to Publish a Book or Articles Answer Questions about Your Book’s Publishability or Your Argument’s Significance Complete Your Book Manuscript Copyedit Your Book’s Prose Identify Your Book’s Target Audience and Possible Publishers Draft Your Book Proposal Gain Procedural Information on Publication How to Use This Workbook Completing the Workbook Exercises Recommended Pacing A Final Note: You Aren’t Alone! Chapter 1: Considering Your Book on Its Own Terms What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 1 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Describing Your Book on Its Own Terms Step 2: Understanding the Alignment Between Scope, Claims, and Evidence Step 3: Troubleshooting Misaligned Claims, Scope, and Evidence Step 4: Freewriting to Assess Your Book as a Book Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 2: Reviewing Your Book’s Organizing Principle What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 2 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Recognizing Organizing Principles Step 2: Identifying Your Book’s Current Primary Organizing Principle Step 3: Imagining All of Your Book’s Potential Organizing Principles Step 4: Stating the Implied Questions Step 5: Choosing Your Organizing Principle Step 6: Reflecting on Your Organizing Principle Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 3: Drafting Your First Book Question What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 3 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Understanding Book Questions Step 2: Stress-Testing the Actors and Actions of Your Book Question Step 3: Revising Your Question Word Step 4: Checking Your Book Question Candidates Against Your Chapters Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 4: Drafting Your Remaining Book Questions What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 4 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Selecting Other Book Questions Step 2: Brainstorming Questions Related to Book Question 1 Step 3: Stress-Testing and Answering Your Book Questions Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 5: Revising Your Book Questions What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 5 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Checking Actors and Actions Step 2: Stress-Testing Your Terminology Step 3: Assessing Conceptual Relationships Step 4: Projecting Your Chapter Answers Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 6: Assessing Your Chapters on Their Own Terms What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 6 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Producing Chapter Snapshots Step 2: Surveying Your Chapters Within Your Book Step 3: Assessing the Alignment Between Your Chapters’ Evidence, Scope, and Claims Step 4: Evaluating Your Chapters’ Corpus Step 5: Adding Metacommentary Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 7: Checking Your Chapters for Parallelism What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 7 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Identifying Constants and Variables Step 2: Evaluating Your Book’s Variables Step 3: Handling Outlier Chapters Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 8: Crafting Your Book’s Narrative Arc What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 8 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Describing Your Chapter Order Step 2: Playing with Chapter Order Step 3: Settling on a Final Chapter Order Step 4: Identifying Narrative Interest Step 5: Laying Out Connections and Shifts Between Consecutive Chapters Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 9: Producing Your Chapter Answers What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 9 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Transforming Your Templates into Chapter Answers Step 2: Collecting Your Key Terms Step 3: Scrutinizing Your Terms Step 4: Noticing and Revising Optional Step 5: Expanding and Condensing Your Chapter Answers Step 6: Producing the Rest of Your Chapter Answers Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 10: Revising Your Chapter Answers as a Group and Refining Your Book Questions What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 10 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Reassessing Your Terminology Step 2: Checking for Parallelism in Actors (and Actions) Step 3: Noticing and Revising for Directionality Step 4: Reviewing Your Final Book Questions and Chapter Answers Step 5: Reading Aloud Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 11: Reviewing Your Book’s Changes and Tying Up Loose Ends What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 11 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Reviewing and Reflecting on Decisions Made Along the Way Step 2: Revisiting, Revising, and Extending Your Chapter 1 Work Step 3: Reviewing Your Book’s Structure and Arc Step 4: Reflecting on Your Chapters and Their Contributions Step 5: Capturing Threads Step 6: Dealing with Background Information Optional Step 7: Synthesizing Dissertation and Book Differences Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 12: Assembling Your Book Argument What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 12 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Writing Your Implicit Lesson(s) Step 2: Turning Your Book Questions into Statements Step 3: Pulling It All Together Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 13: Assembling Your Two-Page Book Narrative What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 13 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Interlude: Transitioning from “Working on” Your Book to “Working in” Your Book Work You’ve Done; What Lies Ahead FAQ as You Reach This Transition Point Am I ready to draft proposals now? Am I ready to talk to editors now? Which chapter(s) should I start with in Chapter 14? What about chapters I still need to draft? When should I plan to draft my book introduction? How long will revisions take? When should I plan to submit proposals? What if I want to change my plan? Chapter 14: Assembling a Chapter Collage What to Expect Time Investment Common Discoveries in Chapter 14 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Gathering Your Materials Step 2: Using Your Chapter Answers to Produce a Chapter Structure and Roadmap Step 3: Assembling One Section by Mining Your Source Material Step 4: Making Notes and Filling Gaps Step 5: Repeating Steps 3–4 for Each Section Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 15: Reverse Outlining Your Chapter Collage What to Expect Common Discoveries in Chapter 15 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Assembling Your Materials and Preparing the Section Step 2: Claim Tagging (Reverse Outlining) Your Paragraphs Step 3: Function Tagging Your Paragraphs Step 4: Generating Your “Honest Outline” of the Section Step 5: Analyzing Your “Honest Outline” and Jotting Notes Step 6: Creating an Aspirational Outline Step 7: Assessing Your Aspirational Outline Step 8: Drafting Topic Sentences to Match Your Aspirational Outline Step 9: Fleshing Out Paragraphs by Drafting or Assembling Step 10: Revising Your Transitions Step 11: Repeating Steps 1–10 for the Other Body Sections Optional Step 12: Macro Revising, Using Targeted Questions Step 13: Adjusting Your Book Questions and Chapter Answers Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Chapter 16: Citing with Confidence What to Expect Common Discoveries in Chapter 16 Common Stumbling Blocks Exercises Step 1: Deciding Whether and Where to Cite Step 2: Deciding How Much to Cite Step 3: Deciding How to Cite Debrief, Support, and Troubleshooting Final Words Acknowledgments Appendixes Appendix A: If Your Book Isn’t Based on a Dissertation Readiness Checklist Appendix B: If Your Scope Needs a Closer Look Appendix C: If You’re Unsure about Your Organizing Principle Question Step 1: Reprising Your Topic Statement Step 2: Review—Who’s Doing What to Whom? Step 3: Checking Against the Question Implied by the Organizing Principle Appendix D: If Your Book Question and Chapter Answer Terms Need a Closer Look Appendix E: If You Want Strategies for Drafting New Work Strategy 1: Close Reading Strategy 2: Asking and Answering Questions Strategy 3: Distilling Your Evidence Base Strategy 4: Dumping Everything You Know Strategy 5: Explaining to Yourself What You See Strategy 6: Talking as Thinking Strategy 7: Using a Topical Outline Appendix F: If You Want Some Tools for Micro Revising Considering the Topic Sentence Considering the Paragraph, Globally Considering Each Sentence Additional Resources for Micro Revising Notes Bibliography Index
Katelyn E. Knox is an associate professor of French at the University of Central Arkansas. She is the author of Race on Display in 20th- and 21st-Century France. Allison Van Deventer is a freelance developmental editor for academic authors in the humanities and qualitative social sciences.
Reviews for The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript
“The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook not only succeeds but excels in guiding scholars through this process of revision. This pragmatic workbook walks an author through clear steps to identify the organizing principle of the book, write and revise the book’s central claims, and then ensure that the chapters actually function well together before the author sends the book to a press. Since scholars often only have one opportunity to convince a press to publish their book, working through this process before sending to editors is crucial—and this is an essential guide.” -- Rebecca K. Marchiel, University of Mississippi “Based on their years of helping academics revise their dissertations into books, Knox and Van Deventer have distilled their incredible depth of knowledge into a beautifully thought-out book that takes you step by step through the process of revising your dissertation. Too many writing books give vague advice without any practical guidance. This is not that book. From advice on crafting your book’s arc and organizing principle to drafting your book questions and producing chapter answers, this book takes all the guessing out of one of the most stressful tasks academics face. This is the best book I have seen on the topic.” -- Wendy Belcher, author of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks
