I’ve been reading a lot of books on academic writing lately, not only because I’m writing my own, but also because they’re recommended to me, and I believe it is really important to situate your own work within the broader literature. So, I was thrilled to read William Germano’s “From Dissertation to Book” (you can read my entire Twitter thread about the book by clicking anywhere on the tweet shown below).
Since I can't connect to the Internet, I can #AcWri and write a memorandum about the Germano book pic.twitter.com/qYd2DH4PSn
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) April 8, 2018
Germano makes an astute observation: excellent books may have started as PhD dissertations. He adds @alondra 's as an example of a great one pic.twitter.com/UwOBuMHskE
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) April 8, 2018
What I love about William Germano’s From Dissertation to Book is that he makes it very clear that a doctoral dissertation written as a book doesn’t necessarily translate immediately to being an actual book. It needs to be revised. Moreover, the length of a doctoral dissertation is not necessarily what you’ll be able to sell to a publisher, because books tend to be more brief.
2) revising a dissertation to make it a book manuscript requires you to have second thoughts and ask Big Questions – WHO will read this? pic.twitter.com/PvXN3PZiVL
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) April 8, 2018
Germano shares an open secret: you don't need to develop a "new theory" with every scholarly book (it's nice if you do, like some authors) pic.twitter.com/LdJkl7TSDV
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) April 8, 2018
You can obviously transform your PhD thesis into a book by revising it, or generate a new book based on new or old theory or new data with old theory, or old data with new theories, based on your dissertation research.
Something we asked the politics acquisitions editor @OUPAcademic at #ISA2018 @ESS_of_ISA speed mentoring: how much to publish of the thesis pic.twitter.com/nCYKvJgQay
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) April 8, 2018
Now, there are major weaknesses of PhD-theses-being-converted-into-books which Germano explains clearly.
Germano says 4 major weaknesses – audience, voice, structure, length. Look at all the decisions an acquisitions editor makes: pic.twitter.com/rjGjFCAFp9
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) April 8, 2018
You need to budget enough time to revise the PhD dissertation into a book. Also, make sure it has a Throughline (a core intellectual thread that goes throughout the entire book).
I've noticed this problem with a lot of PhD theses and books I've read: they don't have a Throughline: the core narrative and finding. pic.twitter.com/BdMvAXJqDx
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) April 8, 2018
This is something that makes me immensely happy. Beyond being super fun to read, Germano refers to Graf and Birkenstein for good #AcWri pic.twitter.com/1qxhvuXE26
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) April 8, 2018
Bottom line: as someone writing books and advising PhD students who may want to write books, I really enjoyed Germano’s book. Worth reading. Also, as always disclosure: I bought this book, as I have purchased every single other book I have written about.