Giving Thanks: A Writing-and-Publishing Perspective

Greetings again. I’m now preparing for the US holiday Thanksgiving, which is this Thursday. I look forward to making a Thanksgiving dinner.

On Thanksgiving, we give thanks for the good things in our lives. For me, these include things that help with writing and publishing. Here are some of them:

• Libraries: Good writing requires ample good information. I’m thankful to libraries for providing such information, both in print and electronically. I’m also grateful to librarians for helping us find this information.
• The World Wide Web: Of course, the Web is a valuable source of information. I appreciate being able to search for so much information so conveniently.
• Good instructions: Having good instructions makes it easier to write suitably. I’m therefore thankful to journals that provide clear, informative instructions to authors. I’m also grateful to the authors of style manuals.
• Word-processing software: I remember typing papers before word-processing software (such as Word) became available. To make a revision, I would need to retype an entire page—or the entire paper. How much easier revisions are now!
• AuthorAID: I’m also grateful for AuthorAID. I’ve learned a lot by giving AuthorAID workshops, writing AuthorAID blog posts, working on the AuthorAID Resource Library, and otherwise taking part in AuthorAID. I hope AuthorAID also is valuable for you.

And of course, I give thanks for my AuthorAID colleagues. I feel lucky to be working with Julie, Sioux, Ravi, Bernard, Alex, and others who contribute to AuthorAID.

Finally, thanks for reading this post—

Barbara