From Pitch to Publication: Reflections on a Collaborative Scholarship Journey
Centre for Academic Language and Literacies (CALL), Goldsmiths, University of London
ABSTRACT
May 2023 saw the publication of a book I co-authored with Neil Adam Tibbetts, A guide to in-sessional English for academic purposes: Paradigms and practices (Tibbetts and Chapman, 2023). This was the culmination of a scholarship project that started in 2020. The article presents my narrative reflections on the whole process. Following a chronology from pitch to eventual publication, it considers the challenges and affordance of writing collaboratively, focusing on the key moments that led towards finding our authorial voices. A particular theme is how scholarship is manifested in an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) context, often without dedicated research time, with the attendant challenges of managing workloads and diverse non-scholarship activities. It considers the relationship between research and writing and gaining confidence as a writer-practitioner. Discussion is given to the role of the publisher and editor, in particular to the absence of a blind peer-review process, compared with publication of journal articles. Finding the time to write is a further strand and, in this case, the unexpected size of the project and wealth of data led to renegotiating the deadline for submitting the manuscript.
KEYWORDS: scholarship, publishing, collaboration, co-writing, in-sessional EAP
INTRODUCTION
I am an EAP lecturer employed on a ‘teaching and scholarship’ contract, meaning that I am not specifically allocated time for research. Like many EAP practitioners my work focuses on teaching, learning and assessment, with rather more hazy and ill-defined notions of what constitutes scholarship. I am not contractually obliged to produce scholarly outputs, for example. The meaning of scholarship is rarely articulated in my institution, but for practical purposes I would align it closely with Ding and Bruce’s definition as ‘activities relating to developing and refining one’s overall knowledge of practice in EAP’ (2017, p.111). As part of my scholarly activities in recent years I have co-authored a book, A guide to in-sessional English for academic purposes: Paradigms and practices (Tibbetts and Chapman, 2023), which was published by Routledge. This article offers a personal account of this scholarship journey, of the key events from October 2020, when the initial pitch was made, through the research and writing process, to eventual publication in May 2023. My purpose here is less concerned with issues relating to teaching and learning in the in-sessional context, as examined in the book, but rather with the gestation and development of our approaches and ideas, working collaboratively as co-writers in dialogue with our editor. It is hoped that this narrative reflection may be instructive to practitioners who work within similar EAP contexts, particularly if they are considering – or in the midst of – such a scholarship project, collaborative or otherwise.
Before considering the sequence of events in more detail, it is helpful to explain a little about the book itself. The term in-sessional is a commonly used shorthand within UK higher education institutions to describe courses which support students’ academic language and literacy development concurrent with their main studies. Even where nomenclature differs, in-sessionals are an EAP mainstay: they are often (but not exclusively) delivered as weekly sessions during a programme of degree-level study; attendance is often (but not exclusively) voluntary and self-selecting; syllabus content is often embedded but may be general in orientation; and they have traditionally been directed towards learners for whom English is an additional language, although this is rapidly changing. This brief description presents a picture of extreme diversity, with practices often highly localised according to institutional imperatives. Nevertheless, it is one of the key areas of activity in EAP: what de Chazal (2014, p.33) characterises as one of EAP’s ‘two broad types’ along with pre-sessionals. We believe our book to be the first to focus specifically on practices in this learning context.
In order to highlight aspects of our writing experience that may be of interest to the reader, this article will focus on a number of interrelated matters. Key to this is the development of our roles as co-authors, supported by a sympathetic editor: how the interplay between parties influenced the form and content of the final product. The article is organised chronologically, from pitch to publication, but within this it will consider challenges and affordances of writing collaboratively, particularly within different institutional contexts, constrained by different structures, and where the academic year differs in its rhythm and pressure points. It will reflect upon how the labour of writing has to be balanced against the kinds of workloads typical of EAP, where scholarship allocation may not be optimum or evenly distributed. It will look at how we made decisions regarding textual style and writer positioning (including our shifting notion of what a ‘guide’ book should be). The last main strand will concern our identities as teachers of academic writing, literacy ‘experts’ within our respective institutions, grappling with the novel demands of writing a book. In discussing these aspects, I will be focusing on the kinds of issues that arose and how we worked to overcome them.
PITCHING, PROPOSING AND SIGNING
Neil Tibbetts, my co-author, made a brief initial pitch to Routledge at the end of a feedback questionnaire he had completed reviewing another writer’s book proposal. In answer to the final question, ‘Do you have any interest in reviewing or writing for Routledge?’ he wrote:
I would be very interested in writing something about in-sessional English for Academic Purposes contexts, i.e. academic writing/literacy development in the context of embedded in-sessional courses within universities and interdisciplinarity.
He had taken on the position of coordinating large-scale postgraduate in-sessional provision at a large university. This contrasts with, and perhaps complemented, my own role in a much smaller institution which encompassed a range of EAP activities, of which in-sessional was only part. When Routledge responded positively to Neil’s suggestion, we agreed to work together to try to take the project forward. From his brief comment above, the publisher set up an online discussion, after which we were invited to complete a detailed questionnaire, which formed our book proposal.
The questionnaire for prospective authors required not only a rationale and synopsis of the proposed content of the book, but also detailed responses to numerous aspects we may not have otherwise considered. Within this, we articulated what we perceived the need for the book to be, provided a ‘soundbite’ blurb for the back cover, and explained how long we thought our content would remain up to date. We provided further detail on our target readers, whether it would have international appeal, its differentiation from other EAP books, whether it might feature on course reading lists, and suggested our own timescale for delivery. The completed questionnaire proved to be a substantial document, around 4500 words. I provide the details above to illustrate how searching this part of the process was and how rapidly completion of this questionnaire took us from a one-sentence suggestion (in May 2020) to a detailed, thought out proposal (October). The nature of the questioning was instrumental in encouraging a richly detailed and multi-faceted response. It forced us into a deeper and more critical awareness of our subject, in order to provide evidence for the book’s potential and encourage the publisher’s investment. The book may not have taken its eventual form without the rigour imposed by this.
We were also invited to submit a sample chapter along with the proposal, which we had to politely decline as we had done little in the way of concrete research by then: a chapter was clearly beyond our abilities at that stage. We were also asked to put forward two reviewers for the proposal. Unlike the rigorous, blind review process required when journal articles are submitted, these were reviewers suggested by, and known to, ourselves. This came as a surprise to me; I have blind reviewed anonymous article submissions and was acquainted with the process of writing for journals. This book publishing process was new and unfamiliar.
In our proposal, we had put forward a case that a book on in-sessional activities was timely. Late 2020 was a period when discussions about in-sessionals came up with increasing regularity, on for example the BALEAP JISCMail list. Practitioners often used forums to share news of changes in in-sessional provision within their own institutional contexts: a restructuring, a change in their remit, a greater or lesser disciplinary focus. A broad trend was that these changes shifted away from a generic skills-informed approach towards provision more fully embedded and collaborative with disciplinary experts, something hoped for by Wingate (2015) in her book, Academic literacy and student diversity: The case for inclusive practice. This spotlight on collaboration was by no means momentary: the tendency towards a more integrated approach to provision, and the issues this raises, has more recently been highlighted in, for example, Godfrey and Whong’s anthology What is good academic writing? Insights into discipline-specific student writing (2022). In our proposal we articulated what we saw as an opportunity to shed light on the varieties of in-sessional activity extant, offering guidance to practitioners working in this field about research-informed good practices. Given such a fluid context, we initially pitched our project as a ‘handbook’ for practitioners navigating in-sessional contexts.
What seemed like a stumbling block was that our articulation of the purpose of the book was not fully accepted by our reviewers. One of them questioned not only the veracity of our claim that the in-sessional context was unique and important enough to devote a book to, but also whether there was even an audience for it at all. By this time, we had been assigned an editor. Unsettling as the reviewers’ feedback was, it is testament to our editor’s belief in the proposal that this feedback did not derail the project. Unlike the binary accept/reject outcome common to a blind-reviewed article submission, it was again apparent that the processes here were rather more flexible, informal, and relationship-informed. In our situation, authors proved to be rather more empowered than reviewers. In responding to the reviewers, our editor encouraged us to identify the aspects of our proposal that may have led them towards their particular responses. It was seen as an opportunity to finesse the articulation of our ideas, to improve the clarity of our proposal, more than its substance. Effectively, we had to respond to how a reviewer may have reached conclusions that were markedly different from our intentions: a contrast to the rather more stringent processes common to research articles. These responses drew the review process to a close: they were seen as a polite way of engaging with reviewers’ input while moving on to the next stage. No further dialogue with external experts, beyond authors’ own research interviews, was encouraged or sought. This experience is largely indicative of how our relationship with the editor progressed. Even though we were effectively feeling our own way, having never written a book before, our editor responded with excitement and enthusiasm, empowering us as the experts throughout. This is not to say that she did not critically respond to ideas (as we shall see) or did not generate their own helpful suggestions, but from the start we were accorded a high degree of trust, which is perhaps surprising given our own limited publication history. Overall, this sense of affirmation and respect helped build the confidence of relatively novice writers.
In the event, our ‘finessed’ proposal was given the green light very quickly. Our ‘handbook’ had now become ‘a guide,’ but aside from this there were few suggestions from the editorial board as to how the book might proceed. Our proposal by implication was deemed sufficient for a contract to be signed. This took place in January 2021, with a deadline for submission of the completed manuscript by May 2022. Following the signing of the contract, communication with our editor was largely casual and ad hoc in nature. This may be a reflection of her faith in us, based on a well-received proposal, but the essential fact was that that the manuscript was wholly our responsibility, which felt somewhat perturbing as at this stage we had not written anything definitive. From here on, the editor took a hands-off role, able to advise on audience and common approaches to organising such a book, but with less to add concerning content. EAP was just a small part of her editorial remit, and so we were accorded a lot of freedom: this was our field of expertise. When we asked whether we should submit any interim work for feedback or discussion, we were essentially told that it was now contractually our responsibility to simply deliver a completed manuscript by the deadline. This was not as unhelpful as it might sound, and indeed our editor did offer advice at key junctures that was invaluable in taking our manuscript forward. However, it took some trial and error for us to find our most effective way of collaborating.
COLLABORATIVE WORKING PRACTICES
Having signed the book contract, both Neil and I were very much in the midst of the academic years, with all of the attendant pressures typical to EAP. We were already locked into our respective teaching, coordination, and developmental duties with little opportunity to create substantial scholarship space until the summer. Neither of our contracts offered research time and, as noted above, scholarship itself is ill-defined at my own institution. Ding and Bruce (2017, p.112) note that, ‘[scholarship] activities involve a considerable personal investment and time commitment,’ and we were under no illusions that this project would take us well beyond our contractual working hours. We had to be personally invested from the start.
We began research on a number of fronts: acquiring and reading relevant books and articles, reflecting and noting our own experiences, and most interestingly initiating dialogues with practitioners working in a range of in-sessional contexts. These began as fairly casual discussions with individuals within our professional networks, recorded so that both authors could access the discussions. We were soon generating a lot of data, both primary and secondary, which quickly necessitated a more controlled, systematic approach. The casual conversations within our networks quickly became semi-structured interviews conducted with practitioners and researchers working in a diverse range of contexts in the UK and beyond. We developed an approach to interviewing based on an agreed bank of questions, which form an appendix to the book (see Tibbetts and Chapman (2023, pp.224-225) for the list). We set up a secure, password-protected shared repository for material that only we had access to.
We shared responsibility for conducting interviews, which typically lasted between 45 minutes to an hour, with the non-participatory co-author taking responsibility for transcription. As we were generating reams of transcribed interviews, it became apparent that we had more data than we could easily manage in the time we could dedicate to the project. Interviews could not easily be transcribed, coded, and compared in the time available to us. In order to make sense of the wealth of data, we coded manually by performing key word searches on themes emerging in the transcripts, but also made use of NVivo, software designed for the analysis of large amounts of unstructured data. By necessity, we scheduled regular online meetings as a means to track our progress and keep the project live, to make links between interviewees’ comments, share insights from our reading and identify connections, all the while reflecting on our own experiences. It became obvious that substantial reading, planning and research needed to take place before work on the manuscript could begin. But as this period stretched over several months and the deadline inched inexorably closer, I began to get concerned that the project could be greater than the time we could realistically dedicate to it.
FEARS AND DOUBTS
Aside from managing a wealth of information in the time available, I also developed a fear about our book not being able to say anything particularly novel, that we were in danger of simply reviewing published literature that is already widely known. This was heightened by some interviewees’ comments suggesting that so much that seemed particular to in-sessional practice was rather simply how EAP used to be before external factors necessitated the field becoming more entrepreneurial in outlook, with an attendant focus on international student recruitment, institutional gatekeeping, and proficiency testing. Were we in danger of simply rehashing old ground?
We scheduled a meeting with our editor, and it is here that her input really helped us to find our direction and take control of the project. In answer to our concerns, she shared the valuable insight that our readership is likely to be non-researchers, whose practice was teaching and learning-focused. As our book was to be pitched as a guide, our readers may not have had the time or inclination to read the scholarly articles and books that were forming our literature base for themselves. It has often been argued that research and teaching practices in EAP occupy different domains. Citing both Hyland (2016) and Jenkins (2016), Molinari (2022, pp.40) identifies ‘a mismatch between what EAP might be preaching in its scholarly publications and what it is actually teaching in its classrooms.’ As we were on non-research contracts, our editor’s comments were valuable in giving us confidence in an authorial voice of practitioners writing for practitioners.
A further doubt was that given in-sessional courses’ extremely situated and context-dependent nature, were we able to actually say much with any definitiveness? Our ongoing interviews with practitioners were presenting a picture of great variation, as in-sessional courses responded to localised concerns. These may be the degree of disciplinarity in provision, its embeddedness with ‘parent’ degrees, or structural imperatives, including how each institution conceptualises its in-sessional practices, the positioning of its EAP centre and how empowered it is. Rather than attempt to overgeneralise about highly contextualised practices or overly equivocating in our recommendations, the editor’s guidance again enabled a breakthrough: to bring what she called the ‘voices from the field’ (i.e. insights from the ongoing interviews we had been conducting) into the text itself. Integrating carefully selected quotes from interviews into the text enabled us to be more representative of the great diversity of practices and to exemplify key aspects from the literature. This also helped us to demonstrate the complexities inherent to in-sessionals, highlighting the work as a serious Academic Literacies-informed endeavour as more valuable than a deficit-informed generalist pedagogy (what Wingate (2015) disparagingly terms an instrumental ‘skills approach’).
Thus, even though the editor had limited expertise in the subject of the book, some of her interventions played a significant role in the ultimate form the book took. As our ideas took shape, a key thesis emerged that beyond the institution, and sometimes even within it, in-sessionals are often hidden from view: they mostly fall outside Quality Assurance oversight, they are rarely credit-bearing or assessed, and course outcomes and content are unlikely to be publicly articulated. By incorporating authentic voices, we were able to bring such occluded practices to light. Depending on one’s working context, it is not unusual for in-sessional practitioners to be teaching in relative isolation, with limited opportunities for sharing, feedback or guidance among peers. In fact, some initial feedback on the published book indicates that some readers found reassurance in the prominence given to practitioners’ voices, that these could offer means for navigating and possibly renegotiating less than ideal aspects of readers’ own working contexts. This approach seems to have afforded some agency for change and improvement.
A KIND OF WAKEFUL INACTIVITY
Even having found our approach, literature research and practitioner interviews continued to take precedence over writing. Ultimately, we interviewed fifty practitioners and academics in the UK and many other countries. Even though practitioners were often dealing with similar issues, we found it difficult to curtail the interviews as we never achieved anything like saturation (a concept originally introduced to qualitative research by Glaser and Strauss (1967) to identify the point at which no new insights emerge from the data). The process sometimes seemed circuitous, yet each interviewee added something unique and insightful from their own contexts: nuggets of insight that generated further avenues for research which might be relevant to our readership. Nevertheless, as the pressure of the deadline approached, we became increasingly aware of not having started actually writing the manuscript. One year on from signing the contract, it sometimes seemed like we had little to show for the considerable work we had put in. But what felt like inactivity engendered a form of wakefulness: the slowly gestating book occupied a persistent background voice in our minds, a necessary but stressful constant bearing down upon us awaiting eventual expression on the page. What sometimes felt like inactivity was rather a period of processing and sorting, of testing out ideas, and ultimately finding our way forward.
As co-writers, we met online for regular discussion, but mostly with little actual product to show for all the work put in. But this did serve to keep the various strands of the book live. Our discussions were iterative in nature: we were able to chip away at and refine our ideas, and to eventually reach consensus, albeit sometimes indirectly. A key decision we made was to apportion responsibility for the writing of different chapters, to enable independent work. To help facilitate this, regular conversation helped to arrive at a consistent writing style. We shared interpretations of literature and findings to help ensure we did not contradict ourselves within different parts of the book, even where what we were reading, our beliefs and working experience markedly differed.
During this period, we undertook giving a number of conference papers, sometimes shared, sometimes individually. These included internal learning development conferences within our own institutions and others, such as those organised by BAAL and the Norwegian Forum for English for Academic Purposes Conference (NFEAP). It was immensely helpful to articulate particular aspects of the book and to be in the position of getting feedback on our developing ideas from a wider circle than just the two of us. This was not restricted to conference Q&As, but also provided valuable opportunities for informal critical conversations about the project with colleagues at other institutions. These casual and unrecorded conversations focusing on the book’s approach were a useful counterpoint to our recorded interviews concerning in-sessional EAP. In the absence of a rigorous peer-review process, conferences provided early opportunities for the airing of our ideas. Through these interactions, it was inevitable that the focus would subtly change from our original proposal. If there is something to be learned from our naïveté entering into such a large project, it is not to remain completely wedded to one’s original vision. Ideas and positioning take time to unfold and develop and it is important to follow new avenues to see where they lead. We had moved away from the hands-on, practical handbook of our early proposal towards a more discursive, reflective approach: a guide that interrogates the unresolved messiness inherent to in-sessionals, rather than trying to offer tidy answers.
Overall, working within the constraints of the rhythms of our own academic years, finding the time to read, conduct interviews, transcribe these, code data and meet for regular discussion was challenging. Without allocated research time, EAP scholarship for us involved developing the self-discipline of making use of the available time when it presents itself – often between teaching, coordination and related activities. We had to overcome what Ding and Bruce (2017, p.6) term ‘the EAP practitioner conundrum,’ in which teaching and coordination duties limit the time and space available for research and writing. A real breakthrough only came quite close to our deadline when we met to take stock of what we had achieved thus far. Rather than meeting online, a non-virtual ‘writing retreat’ involved us sharing our work on A2 sheets of paper strewn on the floor, one for each chapter. We presented our work and added to each other’s. This embodied and layered approach enabled us to visualise the book in a way that we had not been able to thus far. Suddenly, we were able to make connections across the bigger picture, connections we had missed in earlier discussions. It also helped flag where we were in danger of repetition across chapters, straying into the orbit of each other’s chapters, and to improve the quality of each other’s work. Discussing the project in physical space also offered a greater sense of control and enhanced our confidence in what we had achieved thus far. We were able to take stock of work done, but also to see with far greater clarity that our original deadline (just three months away) was now much too close.
STARTING WRITING
Renegotiating the deadline for delivery of our manuscript had its challenges. We were made aware that large publishers work to strict schedules, in which timeframes for the subediting, proofreading, indexing, design and promotion were already in lockstep with each other. However, the editor’s support for the project and her understanding of our own working contexts enabled some flexibility. We negotiated a much needed four-month extension beyond our original deadline. Knowing that trying to negotiate a further extension would likely test the publisher’s patience, writing now had to begin in earnest.
EAP lecturers are commonly designated as writing experts with their institutions, guiding students towards the best expression of their academic voices. And indeed, our self-perceptions as competent, or even good, academic writers aligned with this. However, attempts at starting writing led to a minor crisis of confidence. One of our interviewees made the comparison between learning academic writing in an in-sessional context and trying to learn to drive without being in a car (Tibbetts and Chapman, 2023, p.125), reflecting on how little students actually write on an in-sessional course. The comparison also seemed relevant to ourselves: as teachers of writing who had little experience of writing for publication. Time constraints are a theme in this scholarship account, but related to this was the challenge of gaining the right mental space and focus to give voice to our research and ideas on the page. Such anxious feelings perhaps engender a new sense of empathy with our ‘novice’ student writers.
Neil and I wrote the manuscript itself during the summer of 2022 for an early Autumn deadline. I felt that in order for me to make a start, I had to put myself in a place where I could not be interrupted, so I booked an Airbnb for a week by the seaside. Following an invigorating early morning swim, I was able to dedicate each day to writing without interruption from colleagues, email or any other aspects of my life and work. In contrast to Graham Greene’s fabled target of 500 words a day, mine was closer to 2000. But after a week away, I had my first draft chapter. From here onwards, I became more adept at working with our wealth of information and the words flowed more easily.
Although the writing itself was a solitary pursuit for both of us, we found the collaborative process provided a space for creativity and development of our ideas in new and unexpected directions. It provided unique opportunities for learning. Even though there is a degree of expedience in creating a product within a tight timeframe, the process also highlighted what Heron et al. (2021, p.548) describe as, ‘the enjoyment, learning possibilities, and joy of collaboration.’ This was even evident in the editing and proofreading stages, titivating and lightly rewriting each other’s work in order to iron out stylistic variation and avoid repetition or contradiction. Again, this presented opportunities to learn, enhancing our clarity in writing and deepening knowledge from each other’s literature base.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON CO-WRITING
It should be noted that despite all the challenges described above, both Neil and I are fortunate to be on permanent contracts. As Canagarajah remarks, reflecting on his earlier experiences in an afterword to Julia Molinari’s What makes writing academic, ‘[a]ccess to the resources required for publishing according to [academic writing] conventions was not equally available to everyone,’ (2022, p.169). Even without allocated research time, our backgrounds, experience, workplace conditions, relative autonomy and access to literature afforded us a privileged position.
As co-writers, our friendship was strong enough to withstand critical interrogation of each other’s work, which undoubtedly served to enhance the quality of the final product. However, it should also be pointed out that beyond the external reviewers’ feedback on our proposal, the project received little in the way of external scrutiny prior to publication. It is curious that a relatively high-profile, substantial work was released for public scrutiny without being peer-reviewed in the way a journal article would be. Neil and I made efforts to be true to our literature and findings and were critical of each other’s writing, but it still seemed somewhat exposing to have our work open to public scrutiny having received little direct feedback during its production. Happily, feedback from readers is only beginning to feed through several months after publication. I hope there is value in sharing our scholarship journey and I hope this article may bring about further discussion among colleagues and ongoing scholarship opportunities.
Address for correspondence: timothy.chapman@gold.ac.uk
REFERENCES
De Chazal, E. 2014. English for academic purposes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ding, A. and Bruce, I. 2017. The English for academic purposes practitioner: Operating on the edge of academia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A.L. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine.
Godfrey, J. and Whong, M. eds. 2022. What is good academic writing? Insights into discipline-specific student writing. London: Bloomsbury.
Heron, M., Gravett, K. and Yakovchuk, N. 2021. Publishing and flourishing: writing for desire in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development. 40(3), pp.538-551.
Molinari, J. 2022. What makes writing academic: Rethinking theory for practice. London: Bloomsbury.
Tibbetts, N.A. and Chapman, T. 2023. A guide to in-sessional English for academic purposes: Paradigms and practices. New York: Routledge.
Wingate, U. 2015. Academic literacy and student diversity: The case for inclusive practice. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.