Book Chapter Shortcut: Self-Paced (Beta Version)
Are you ready to get your chapter into shape?
In this Book Chapter Shortcut, you'll work at your own pace to revise a messy draft into a solid, argument-driven book chapter. Through practical, manageable prompts, you'll learn how to plan structural revisions and implement them. And along the way, you'll develop writing and revision strategies that fit into your life—doable within your schedule, adapted to your writing habits, and responsive to your source material.
Who is this course for? This course is designed for authors who have a solid vision for their scholarly book's argument and need to revise a chapter to match that vision. Those authors should have some existing writing (notes, a dissertation chapter, conference papers, seminar papers) to work with.
Who is this course NOT for? It is NOT designed for authors who need to figure out what their book as a whole is arguing (for that, see The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook) or for authors who merely have an idea for a chapter but have not yet written any material. Trust us here—we want you to be successful!
"After feeling stuck, I learned to trust my initial idea/interest in my topic again by following the very actionable steps proposed by Katelyn and Allison. From the overall framing and research questions to troubleshooting points of tension/weaknesses in my argument and even considering what the project is NOT, Katelyn and Allison's workshop provided the guidance we all needed regardless of whether this was our first or second project or even third."
"I really liked the specific exercises/tasks given in Teachable that we could experiment with each week. What was most valuable for me was to gain a method, or rhythm, of generating lots of messy writing and then "cleaning it up" with specific tasks (paragraph tagging, bolding key sentences, generating a reverse outline, etc). As someone who likes to generate a lot of messy writing, I need help in the clean up phase, so the workshop modeled for me that back-and-forth rhythm. Before, I would remain in the "messy writing" phase for too long and then spend time editing and revising sentences and paragraphs that would not eventually make it into my final drafts. The reminder to work at something till 60% and then take the step back was really valuable, as it will hopefully help me curb the messy writing that then leads to overwhelm and paralysis."
"This workshop was really helpful in giving a method to the madness (or least what's how working on a big project feels to me sometimes). The concrete exercises, step by step instructions, opportunities for feedback in the Friday writing hour, and the sense of community was all really inspiring. I felt like I was very in control of the process and my progress in ways that have fundamentally changed (for the better!) how I work."
"I have been talking so much to my colleagues about how the structure of this workshop and its content is so helpful—breaking down the work into smaller tasks and actionable steps that feel doable in the time span."
"I learned a system for revising a chapter that helped me observed my capacity or effectiveness through each step."
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