Defend & Publish, LLC

I'm not sure whether I posted yet about my word of the year: PEACE. Here's my blog explaining the practice. My best to all of you with wishes for a peace-filled New Year!

Here's My Word. What's Yours? Happy New Year of 2024! The new year always brings a sense of anticipation, and we hope that the things we’ve grieved in the past year—our disappointments, stresses, and worries about our world—will be better this year. Winter brings crisp scents and the thoughtfulness of holiday gifts can lea...

Please check out our November event with Dr. Jennifer Ahern-Dodson on Eventbrite on scholarly reading practices and peer review. In this workshop, you'll learn how to develop a network of readers for your work in all stages of the process and to get useful feedback. As part of the workshop you'll learn a series of questions to ask readers to get the most focused feedback and these are useful for working with dissertation advisors, editors, and peer writing groups. The workshop is recorded for all who cannot attend live. Details and registration here:

Cultivating a Reader Network for Peer Review, Citation, and Dissemination Find out how to cultivate readers for your scholarly work and get feedback on your writing-in-progress and dissemination of your ideas.

We are giving away five FREE tickets to any of our workshops or summer writing groups to Defend and Publish podcast listeners including the Jim Lang workshop today (recordings are provided for all workshops if you can't attend). To get a free ticket, subscribe to Defend and Publish podcast, leave a review, and email us a screenshot to [email protected] to get your ticket.

Our October Workshop is up! Join us for "Getting Unstuck" with Dr. Melissa Quackenbush and Stephanie Marlett for this collaborative workshop on developing productive writing behaviors on Wednesday, October 20 from 12:00-3:00 pm EST. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/getting-unstuck-using-self-regulated-learning-for-writing-momentum-tickets-176361059677

Getting Unstuck: Using Self-Regulated Learning for Writing Momentum Participants will receive specific strategies and templates to address writer's blocks or lack of motivation for academic writing projects.

Come join the team.

Defend & Publish seeks new part-time writing coaches. We work primarily with adult writers: graduate-level, early career, and seasoned academic writers. Coaches work individually with clients, as well as in small groups, webinars, and workshops. We assist writers on all stages of their dissertations, scholarly articles, books, and other writing/speaking projects.

Led by the leading educational researcher in online literacy education, we are specialists in working at a distance with writers using the most up-to-date modalities (i.e., live and recorded video, asynchronous and GoogleDoc text sharing (including LaTex upon request), email, chat, and phone.

Our coaches all have achieved the PhD level, are published writers, and are experienced college writing teachers working with Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM writers:

Humanities-based, social sciences, and scientific writing projects
Idea development and focus
Prospectus research and writing
Theoretical framework decisions
Scope of the work, limiting the topic, and maintaining focus
Content development, supporting ideas, and addressing the thesis
Writing processes, problem solving, idea arrangement, and clarity
Literature review planning, reading, and writing
Avoiding and addressing writer’s block
Document conventions, coherence, presentation, and audience analysis
Time and project management, setting expectations, and keeping writing schedules
Working successfully with advisers, committee members, editors, and publishers
Formatting, editing, and proofreading

We teach writers, yet we work in a hands-on manner to enable their ongoing independence with each new project.

The requirements for a D&P Coach follow:

Required
Successful completion of dissertation preferably in rhetoric, composition, technical communication or other writing studies areas; STEM PhDs are welcome to apply, however.
Coaching and teaching skills in online settings (we train accepted applicants)
Ability to line-edit as we do not see this process as separate from writing and revising or from thinking critically about an issue.
Coaches must be able to use Word editing and formatting tools.

Preferred
Successful publication of articles and/or books is helpful in working with more advanced clients or clients with academic positions requiring tenure/promotion activities.
Experience working with International students and multilingual writers and speakers.
Experience with and interest in the needs of adult learners of all ages and capabilities
Ability to work with CV, cover letter, and other job application development.
Ability to teach time and project management strategies

Bonus
Desire to help develop, produce, and deliver online group sessions, webinars, workshops, and other presentations
Willingness to assist with mentoring and training new coaches
Thoughtful, sensitive, and respectful interactions with clients with a range of abilities and/or writing concerns, which include:
Goal-driven desire to complete various types of compositions/projects
Writer's block
Lower-level or non-confident reading and writing skills
Time and project management issues
Emotionally based, work-focused, and personality-based challenges with dissertation committee chair and/or members
Learning challenges, which clients at this level usually disclose in order to help themselves, but about which they may not realize a problem exists regarding their project progress (e.g., dyslexia, reading or writing disabilities, physical disabilities, autism)
Other self-confidence issues
Anger, boredom, depression, or other strong feelings about an ongoing project
Extreme time concerns about when a project MUST be completed to achieve the goal (usually a degree, but sometimes a publication)

Coach applicants should be willing to train with experienced D&P coaches to learn how D&P approaches clients and to be mentored in all of these issues and strategies. They must be willing to work in a variety of online and distance-based settings with modalities and media tailored to particular clients. Multilingual, culturally and racially diverse, and internationally located coaches are encouraged to apply.

Coaches are independent contractors who receive fair, hourly pay with upward movement after training; they report and pay their own taxes. Payment is monthly.

We welcome emails and phone appointments to discuss this position. Please send an up-to-date CV and cover letter that outlines your interest and qualifications to [email protected] by no later than 12:00 PM ET July 31, 2021.

Have a look at Defend & Publish's free webinars for this spring: https://www.defendandpublish.com/webinars/ Please share with your dissertation students and any academic writer who might benefit!

Webinars | Defend & Publish Webinars Spring 2021 In this time of social distancing, staying focused on a writing project is difficult. Working on a dissertation or a large manuscript project can seem overwhelming. For the rest of 2021 Defend & Publish is offering its slate of 1-hr webinars at no cost (a $14.95 per session savi...

https://www.defendandpublish.com/podcasts/

Our latest podcast is out: Make Writing an Event. In this episode, senior writing coach Christine Tulley describes how to make preparing for writing sessions more pleasurable in order to look forward to sitting down to write.

Click here to check out this podcast.

Be sure to listen to our ongoing series on getting you started (or restarted) on your academic writing projects in the new year:

Episode 1: Writing Reset
Episode 2: Engage with Your Priority Project
Episode 3: Get Your Writing Rhythm
Episode 4: Up Your Writing Game

Happy writing,

Beth Hewett
Defend & Publish

Podcasts | Defend & Publish Podcasts Starting in January 2021, Defend & Publish will release a podcast each week on Mondays. These four podcasts are designed to help get you started (or restarted) on your academic writing projects in the new year. Check here or Twitter for new content each week! SCHEDULE Short Videos Monday, J...