TOP 10 RULES (continued)
Here are the last 3
NETIQUETTE DO’S:
4. RESPECT COPYRIGHTS: Unscrupulous ninnies are stealing information off of every imaginable cyber-source without permission or credit. Even several of these ninnies stole one of my blogs and parts of others. Plagiarism is out of control. As academicians, you’re trained APA style-wise or, heaven forbid, in Chicago or AMA style to cite and acknowledge sources in ALL of your writing. Do the same online.
Make sure to get permissions and/or acknowledge sources when appropriate, even Wikipedia. DO NOT swipe any material—print or nonprint media. As a contributor to the Internet, you also need to protect your intellectual property. For the consequences of violations and guidelines on how to protect your work, check out my October 2009 blogs on “Copyright Infringement” and “Intellectual Property.”
5. USE APPROPRIATE SIGNATURE LINES: Do you have a signature line? If not, get one soon. They’re on sale at COSTCO®. Haha. You need to identify who you are. If you are commenting on professional issues on listservs or in group discussions, your credentials are important to colleagues so they can evaluate the weight of your contributions. Your position and expertise provide a context for your messages. For example, if you are Director of the Alligator Rehabilitation Institute at Everglades University, your suggestions on how to capture an alligator with asthma in your hot-tub are noteworthy.
Also, a signature line with title, institution, address, e-mail, phone, and fax makes it possible for colleagues to contact you easily. If you have a business Website, blog, publishing company, and/or other professional sites, you should include links to them. If the list appears too unwieldy, create different signature lines for different target readerships. (SIGNATURE ALERT: Of course, if you’re a spy, recently involved in the Espionage Exchange Program, or work for Homeland Security with a code fuchsia clearance or above, none of these contact rules apply. Stay undercover; see if we care.)
6. RESPOND TO SPECIFIC REQUESTS IN A TIMELY FASHION: If colleagues, known or unknown, or students request information from you, try to respond in a timely fashion, within 24 hours. If you don’t have time to fill the request, respond that you will get back to them by a certain date. That’s just professional courtesy. Be empathetic.
You may receive inquiries from all over the world. It may be a copyright permission, article, research evidence, teaching request, or resource request. Respond appropriately and quickly. Everyone appreciates a rapid response. Again, it’s your professional reputation on the line. "Just do it!"
My next blog will continue with 3 don’ts related to caps, flaming, and crossposting. Hope this info is helpful.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
7 Steps to Overcome Procrastination
As a follow-up to the previous blog, here is a description of the 7 steps:
1. Identify the source of the problem―Pinpoint the one or more causes from the preceding list that you feel are creating your procrastination.
2. Break down your tasks into subtasks—Write down the specific tasks that you are avoiding (see list of tasks in previous blog). Reduce the tasks to small, manageable subtasks that seem reasonable. Seeing these tiny chunks as molehills rather than as mountains can break the inactivity-avoidance cycle.
3. Apply the “Swiss Cheese Method” (Alan Lakein)―When a project appears overwhelming or boring, poke holes in it. Do the easy, small tasks that take only a few minutes first. Continue to poke until most of the work is done. Keep poking and poking. The completion of all of the holes and poking will motivate you to take on the tougher, more complex tasks that remain.
4. Focus on the outcomes and deadlines―Set attainable deadlines in your “to-do” list consistent with the real deadlines of the tasks. Express the tasks as outcomes to be finished within the time blocks. For example, state “draft main headings of article” instead of “write article.” Be specific and realistic with each task so you don’t backslide into avoidance behavior again.
5. Review your daily, weekly, and semester schedules regularly―Make sure your short-term tasks and deadlines are on target with your long-term deadlines. Make adjustments daily to stay on course. Pace yourself for the whole semester; don’t crunch tasks together in tight timeframes which you may not be able to complete. Been there, done that. Don’t drift back into your old behaviors.
6. Find an accountability partner—Choose a close buddy, colleague, or family member to whom you can report your successes and failures at the end of each week. The fear of embarrassment from not fulfilling the commitments on your “to-do” list can provide an additional incentive to stay on task and meet your deadlines. Fear of embarrassment will replace fear of failure. The former type of fear can improve your productivity; the latter can paralyze it.
7. Reward yourself for small and large victories—Celebrate your wins. Reward the new you for overcoming your procrastination. The preceding steps represent a time management makeover of you. That’s a significant achievement by itself.
I hope these suggested strategies are useful. Let me know your reaction.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC & Coventry Press
I just finished reading an article entitled “CSI: Plagarism” by M. Garrett Bauman in the latest edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 9, 2009, D20, The Chronicle Review). It focused on plagiarism by students and its damaging consequences on the integrity of education. The author describes his classroom experiences with a couple of his students. The Internet has contributed significantly to the proliferation of plagiarism by students, regardless of their motivations and rationales.
Let's shift targets for a few paragraphs. What about faculty, administrators, and other professionals who are under the gun to produce articles, chapters, books, conference presentations, e-zines, blogs, and other written products? The same temptations available to students are also available to our unscrupulous and evil colleagues. How do you protect your intellectual property? Once our work is published, most of us assume it’s protected by copyright and that’s it. We neither have the time nor inclination to investigate CSI-style whether anybody has stolen our work.
However, the rules of the game have changed markedly with Internet access. Virtually everyone in cyberspace has access to everything we write. Google your name and you will find papers you wrote decades ago pop up. You’d be amazed.
(Personal Sidebar: Over my career, I’ve had my books stolen from university libraries, sections of articles plagiarized, punch lines in my bio appearing in other faculty bios, and, most recently, one of my blogs stolen verbatim as someone else’s blog. As a writer, my first response is usually “Hummm. It’s nice to know someone finds value in my work to risk fines, imprisonment, and an almost certain torturous and excruciatingly painful death.” Not exactly. Although swiping my work provides a sense of validation that’s more flattering than the peer review process, it's also a feeling of personal violation. That makes me angry. Seeing my blog 2 weeks ago on a blog site with someone else’s name under it made me furious. End of Bloated Sidebar.) So what’s the solution?
Please share your plagiarism experiences involving your work. What do you do to minimize violations?
My next blog will reveal how to track down the perp and prevent future violations. Don’t miss it.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Once you’ve decided how you are going to transform your published article into a book chapter, DO IT. When you have a draft of the chapter, consider whether it looks like a clone of the article in structure and style OR an “extreme makeover,” almost unrecognizable from the real McCoy. Since you would typically update citations and references, reformat heads, and revise the text after your copyeditor butchers it, the final chapter will almost always appear different from the article. Every copyeditor’s changes are different. If you are blessed with a copyediting of your article, your book editor will find other changes to make. (Note: Your copyeditor can be your best friend and mentor in improving your writing ability. I’ve learned sooo much from every editor. That learning never ends. There is always room for improving one’s writing skills. End of Note.)
Copyright-wise, check with the specific journal for its policy on using material from your article in total or in part, including graphic, pictorial, and other nontext content. At minimum, cite the article in text or in a footnote, such as: “This chapter is based on the article by Berkorino and Magillacutty (2009) published in the Journal of Previously Rejected Manuscripts” or “This chapter is a revision of a previously published article by Snoothauser and Barfbag (2008).”
In your draft table of contents, fill in chapter gaps around your collection of articles to insure a comprehensive treatment of the topic. You may have to add 1–2 or several chapters to distinguish your work from the competition. “But, hey bro or sis, your book is like almost complete. That is sooo cool.” Where did that come from? Ending a sentence with a preposition? “Did you really work with copyeditors?” Kinda…
Write drafts of these additional chapters and you’re on your way to bookdom. Isn’t this “article” approach faster, easier, and more streamlined than writing the whole book from scratch? Plus, it punctuates the significance your research program by providing a capstone product that synthesizes a given body of work over several years. The book will also have more staying power than a single article.
It’s possible to adapt this approach to a collection of conference presentations, workshop materials, blogs, listserv commentaries, professional journal (diary) entries, and other writing products. They lack the quality-control ingredient of the journal review process, but the final manuscript can still be sent out to multiple reviewers for feedback. What matters most is that you continue writing, every day, if possible. It is one technique to continue learning and producing, even into your retirement. Wow, what a great idea!
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
