The process of turning a dissertation into a book can vary from fixing some typos to nearly rewriting the whole thing. If it’s closer to the latter, it may involve plenty of new research and rethinking of the central argument. So a blog post is hardly going to get you there—indeed, people have written books about the process (you may want to check out William Germano’s From Dissertation to Book or, if you are into workbooks and step-by-step guides, Katelyn Knox and Allison Van Deventer’s The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook).

In this brief blog post, I’ll give you my take on what the crucial step is. And here it is: You are now in the club, and need to sound like it.

You’re all grown up. You’re speaking with authority on a topic that you know is interesting. You’re not asking for anyone’s permission and you’re not writing to gain anyone’s approval. You’re doing the world a service by telling everyone about your Fascinating Research^[TM].

Much of graduate school is spent pretending like you’re not a grown-up though you actually are. Many Ph.D.s went to college straight from high school and to graduate school straight from college, never getting the chance to interact with other grown-ups on an equal footing. Into our late twenties and even early thirties, we were talking to our professors not like to other grown-ups but like to authority figures. We approached the academic world as humble supplicants.

Now you need to drop that. You are now a colleague, not a student.

(In fact, I think it’s a good idea to drop the supplicant attitude in graduate school—you are in fact a grown-up who can make reasonable decisions, so behave like one. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider good advice—you always should—but you shouldn’t ask for or accept arbitrary rules to follow. One of the best compliments I’ve ever received was when I heard, much later, that someone on my comprehensive exam committee had said “Oh, her—well, talking to her is like talking to a grown-up.” But all that’s a different story.)

So, as a colleague, you are writing to the academic audience in your field from a position of equality, and to the rest of the world from a position of some authority (not to be mistaken for omniscience or infallibility; intellectual humility is still a virtue). What does that mean in practice?

First, it means that you need to recognize that a lot of people don’t know many things that you do know. Therefore, write with clarity and don’t be afraid to explain things, events, and concepts—including ones that you were embarrassed not to know in a graduate seminar.

Second, it means that you should ditch the name-dropping and theory-flaunting. A lot of dissertations have long sections whose purpose is to demonstrate that you know the important scholarship in the field and are theoretically sophisticated. A published book should only retain such sections inasmuch as they actually contribute to your argument or narrative. Yes, you should cite relevant scholars and give credit where credit is due. And yes, you should (briefly!) situate your work in the scholarly landscape so we can understand your unique contribution better. But your chief goal should be to help the reader understand this Fascinating Story^[TM] that you are telling.

Third, it means that while your original research is of course central in the book, you shouldn’t be afraid to explain things that were discovered or explained by others to the extent that it’s relevant to understanding your Fascinating Research^[TM]. Not every sentence, paragraph, or even page in a book can possibly contain original contributions; you are building on the work of others, and that’s OK. Your goal is to provide the reader with a satisfying experience that provides sufficient novelty—but also enough signposts and explanations so they don’t get lost.

So that’s my two cents on the key mental step involved in moving from dissertator to academic author. Sure, you’ll probably be racked by doubts now and then; that’s OK. You’re still in the club.

Incidentally, since you’re in the club, you should participate—be sure to seek out opportunities to give feedback on other’s work, and to get lots of feedback on your own (usually earlier than you want to)! You can learn a lot from reading others’ unfinished work, and you can really benefit from getting a lot of feedback—especially since, given that you’re now all grown up, you can take it or leave it as you like.

Image source: Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash