BU Research Blog

The Festive Season is a good time to clean up and clear out the pile of paper collected throughout the proceeding year.  One the many pieces of potentially useful information I archived was a three-page article from the April edition of the monthly magazine Prima [1].  Most certainly not the most academic magazine, but useful all the same, as it was a piece encouraging readers to write their own book.

The six steps or recommendations in Prima were:

• Figure out what you want to write;
• Make time to write;
• Find your writing method;
• Forget about perfection;
• Keep going (even when the going gets though);
• Find writing buddies!

I found it interesting as these six steps in this piece overlap a lot with the advice we have been giving to budding academics for years [2].

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health (CMWH)

References:

1. Gibson, F. (2024) How to write a novel and get published, Prima (April edition): 38-40.
2. Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Hundley, V. with Shreesh, K. (2022) Writing and Publishing Academic Work, Kathmandu, Nepal: Himal Books