What kind of feedback do you need when writing an academic book?

What kind of feedback do you need when writing an academic book?

What kind of feedback do you need when writing an academic book?

Writing an academic book puts you in conversation with readers who are interested in your topic and perspective. If your goal is to write a good book that engages your reader, then you’ll need feedback throughout the writing process — not just at the point of peer review. This isn’t just any feedback, however. It’s important to be strategic about asking for the right type of feedback. A good book can be good in more ways than one, which is why your feedback should help you address multiple issues in your text. 

I’ve divided the types of feedback you need into three categories: persuasiveness, legibility, and organization. I explain what to include in each of these categories below. 

Persuasiveness

Is your argument persuasive? In other words, once your interlocutor reads your chapter or book, do they believe your explanation for why things are happening the way they are? Even if they don’t agree with you, will your reader trust that your evidence is valid (after all, a reader can trust your evidence but interpret it differently)? In order to build that trust, you must substantiate your argument with evidence or data. You should also put your work in conversation with other scholars to show how your perspective challenges or complements the existing literature.

Legibility

Legibility requires you to effectively communicate your point to your desired reader. If you’re bridging disciplines, you should be using terms, concepts, approaches, and literatures that are familiar to members of each discipline and defining terms that are unfamiliar. I’m also going to include style in this category. Does your writing flow in a way that makes people want to read your work? This is an issue you can address in later drafts, so don’t worry about it early on. 

Organization 

Organization can also be thought of as structure. A well-organized manuscript will bring the reader from point A to point B without confusing them. The story will evolve in a way that makes sense. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a chronology, but you can show cause and effect or be explicit about the relationship between different concepts, events, themes. You’ll also expose patterns for the reader. Strong organization is the basis for a good argument. A reader won’t believe an argument they can’t follow! 

Now, how do you take the concerns I described in each category and use them to request feedback? Luckily, it’s simple. You turn each of the concerns into a question. For instance, you can ask “after reading the chapter/book, are you on board with my argument? If not, why? What can I do to make the argument more persuasive?”Be discerning about how many questions you ask of one reader. You don’t want to overwhelm them. 

Getting useful feedback requires you to ask the right questions of the right people. Some writers – especially junior scholars – are worried about asking pointed questions when soliciting feedback. They believe that if a person is willing to read their work, they should be grateful and not demand too much. This puts you and the person helping you at a disservice. People can read faster when they read with specificity, as opposed to just mining your work for points that may or may not be relevant to your goals. The worst-case scenario (in my opinion) is to ask for feedback then disregard it because it’s not useful for you. That’s a waste of your reader’s time. 

While I presented a lot of options for you, remember that you don’t have to ask for feedback on every issue that I covered. These are suggestions you can use to identify what would be most useful for your project. Start with one, summon your courage, and ask! Getting the feedback you need will help you make better decisions about your writing and build your intellectual community. 

In my group program Elevate, we train scholars on how to ask for feedback through our writing submissions. As you share your work with our developmental editor, we teach you how to ask the right questions about your work, so you make progress instead of being stuck trying to make sense of feedback that’s counterproductive. To learn more about Elevate and join the waitlist for the next cohort, click here

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