Theresa MacPhail is an associate professor in the science and technology studies program at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Browse her previous columns on writing and academic work here.
Stories by This Author
Advice
What to know about book proposals, literary agents, and editing if you want to write for a general audience.
Advice
After years of doling out advice on how to get more writing done, an academic has a revelation: Sometimes it’s OK to be lazy.
Advice
Letting students “write” in nontraditional formats could have a major impact on our classrooms.
Advice
Call me unrigorous if you like, but rethinking my assigned-reading lists has reinvigorated my classroom.
Advice
If you’re in a writing rut, look no further. It’s time for some tough-love advice for motivation. Watch this video to learn how to best use your dedicated writing time.
Advice
No, doing a little outlining or editing during your “writing time” does not count as writing.
The Review
It was time to stop disguising my social-media surfing as productivity.
Advice
You may be convinced that your paper has a solid central argument. Here are three ways to tell when it doesn’t.
Advice
A story about academics, social media, empathy, and satire.
Advice
Across all genres of writing, the best advice on coping with the inevitability of rejection seems to be the same.