Publish without perishing.

During the years when I served as lay leader in my church, I had the responsibility of coordinating periodic worship services. I enjoy preaching (and certainly took advantage of this opportunity), but I also came to believe that one of the best contributions I could make to my church community was to create the opportunity for people who were not regular speakers to speak. Touching stories and wisdom, I concluded, often came from people who had sat patiently in pews without much of a public presence for many years. Similarly, in the dozen-or-so years I have been coordinating the Practice and Professional Issues column of JPC, I have worked with authors who are prominent in our field; however, I have found particular delight in working with a few authors who have not had much opportunity to publish their ideas and experiences in print.

My own professional journey, by the way, has always involved both clinical and academic roles. Practicing and teaching in a family medicine residency, a large part of my heart has been with clinical work, but I have also published a number of journal articles, book chapters and, last year, a book about spirituality in health care (Craigie, 2010).

The purpose of this column is particularly to encourage clinician readers to develop some of their ideas and experiences into publishable form. I am confident that we will all be enriched as a result.

Why Publish?

In addition to the fact that your mother would be proud and it is impressive to see your name in print, there are a number of good reasons to publish. Money, typically, is not one of them. At the high end of the scale, Scott Peck is reported to have received $300,000 a year in royalties. This is, of course, completely out of the ballpark for most of us. I have a friend, for instance, who says that his first book paid him enough to purchase the computer on which it was written. Books may offer modest advances and royalties ("trade" books for general audiences more so than lower-circulation, higher-priced professional books). Book chapters and newspaper or magazine articles may or may not provide compensation. There is no direct compensation for journal articles and publication in the other venues which I will describe. There are a number of better reasons to publish.

Free Feedback from Experts

While it can feel daunting and vulnerable to expose one's work to critical appraisal, working through the process of submitting manuscripts (particularly to peer-reviewed journals) gets you free feedback from reviewers who are typically experts in the area about which you are writing. With occasional exceptions, my experience has been that reviewers of manuscripts have been extraordinarily gracious, generous with their time, and constructive in their comments (as I try to be as I review manuscripts, as well).

Networking

As you put your ideas out there, you develop connections with new colleagues who share your interests and passions. As an example, much of my research and writing over the years has focused on spirituality and primary care medicine. It has been most rewarding to develop connections and collaborative projects with colleagues around the country who are fellow denizens of this particular niche.

Opportunities Come Your Way

Even with my relatively modest level of publication, I find that invitations for speaking and consultation come my way. These opportunities further expand the conversation about ideas that are dear to my heart.

By Committing to Writing, You Learn and Grow

The research and organizational work involved in preparing manuscripts disciplines authors to learn more about the background of their subjects. If you are preparing a manuscript about your experiences with spiritual healing of traumatic memories, for instance, your understanding and perspective will be sharpened by exploring the background of what other people have done.

But it is more than that. I spoke once with a poet who commented that the main impetus for writing, for her, was that "I learn something about myself."

I find this is the case, as well. For instance, I have always been touched by the well-known photograph of the meeting of Pope John Paul II with his would-be assassin, Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, in Agca's prison cell in Rome. The two of them sit facing each other in the far corner of a bare room, the Pope speaking and Agca listening intently. A Turkish terrorist who believed that the Pope incarnated the evils of the capitalist world, Acga had shot and wounded him two years earlier. It was not until I wrote about this event that I understood why it was that this was so touching for me. I was particularly moved, I realized, by the humility and genuineness of spirit captured in the image of one of the most prominent human beings on the planet meeting in Spartan surroundings with an obscure and troubled young man, coming to him "as a brother whom I have pardoned," bearing a message of forgiveness.

Getting Ideas Out There in the World

And ultimately, publishing sends ideas and experiences to the world, with the hope that readers may find insight and inspiration.

Publish What?

Humble, Practice-based Research

Few of us outside of academic centers will have the wherewithal to publish large scale, longitudinal, blinded research studies. For the rest of us in private or small organizational settings, more humble research may be possible. What instruments do you use for assessment of spiritual wellness, and how do they compare with traditional screening for mental health pathology? What outcomes do you see six months after the conclusion of the therapy group that you conducted, featuring a new package of spiritual interventions? The practice of just gathering data in a clinical setting, along with a curious and inquiring spirit, can lead to intriguing pilot projects which can be subsequently expanded into more substantial research.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is often particularly appropriate for the early stage development of research questions and for small practice settings. What stories do your clients tell about how a new spiritual care approach has been helpful to them? For that matter, what do the last six people you have worked with who feel like their lives have been transformed say about how this happened? Qualitative research draws upon the typically-strong passion and skill set of practicing clinicians to explore the richness of individuals' unique beliefs and appraisals about their lives. There are, of course, protocols for processing qualitative data (Crabtree & Miller, 1999), but these are learnable.

A caveat about research is that increasing (and appropriate) institutional review board ("IRB") requirements make it difficult for unaffiliated professionals to do human subjects research. Therefore, unaffiliated professionals typically partner with colleagues in hospitals or academic departments (where there are formal IRBs) in order to do this work.

A Potpourri of Other Publications

Original research is one among a number of types of publications. You can review published literature about a topic that interests you. You can conduct more formal meta-analytic reviews. You can report case studies. You can write pieces of editorial reaction, personal reflection, or commentary. You can write treatment manuals or client education material, some of which might be disseminated beyond the walls of your practice or organization. Many journals feature short stories about specific events that have touched readers' lives. Increasingly, many journals feature short works of poetry. I often suggest to our residents that once they have done the intellectual and organizational work to pull together a professional poster or seminar, it is not a long reach to transform this material into a manuscript. A recent commentary in my field has described this process in helpful detail (Schrager, 2010).

You can write book chapters (although these are typically invited) or books. The process of writing a book can feel overwhelming, but you might consider that Amazon markets something over two million books. If two million other people can write books, so can you. We'll come back to this.

Finally, I also suggest to our residents and faculty two pretty sure bets about getting into the business of writing for publication. They are, first, writing letters of commentary about published articles to paper or, increasingly, online journals. And, second, submitting book reviews. Journals typically welcome such submissions, and they provide authors the opportunity to share their perspectives with a public audience.

Publish Where?

The decision about where you aim to publish depends on the nature of the material you have written and the audience whom you wish to reach.

Journals

Traditionally, most publications by professionals in psychology-related fields are in professional journals. An astonishing number of professional journals are published, although focusing on a particular type of material and a particular audience trims down the realistic possibilities considerably. For most of us, a good starting place for writing in journals would be the journals that we read and that our colleagues read. In addition to JPC, I read (or peruse and selectively read, to be honest) four or five other journals in my worlds of psychology and family medicine education, and I periodically check PubMed to see who is writing what in areas that are important to me. With a few exceptions, my journal publications have been in this collection of journals that I read and follow. If you wish to range a little farther afield, a good strategy is to look at the reference lists in the journals that you do read to see where the cited (and, therefore, relevant) works are published.

The American Psychological Association maintains a list of APA and affiliated journals at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/. Clicking on individual titles provides detailed information about the types of material that each journal publishes, along with detailed instructions for authors. There are also several fairly extensive databases of online journals available on the Internet. These are generally maintained by energetic and thorough academics and can be found through search engines.

The decision about where to publish is also driven by market forces, in the sense that different publication venues vary considerably in the selectivity of manuscripts that they will accept. For journal publication, the APA journals (with some variation among journals) accept about a quarter of the manuscripts submitted (APA, 2009). Less prominent journals tend to be less selective.

Books

Books remain a time-honored venue for psychological (and spiritual) wisdom. The book industry, however, is changing. R. R. Bowker, the publisher of Books In Print and distributor of information about the publishing industry, reports that US out put of book titles decreased in 2007-2008 (the total being about 275,000), while Print on Demand ("POD") titles more than doubled (to about 285,000) during the same period (Bowker, 2009).

While a quarter million new book titles is a large number, the same market forces apply to books as to journals. Statistics vary widely, but it is safe to say that only a small percentage of manuscripts submitted to traditional publishers end up in print.

Most traditional publishers of professional books accept query letters and manuscript proposals directly from prospective authors. As a practical matter, authors may also strike up helpful conversations and relationships with book publishers and editors in the exhibit areas of professional society meetings. Proposals for trade books (writing to general audiences), on the other hand, require the involvement of agents as intermediaries with prospective publishers.

POD (digital, one-book-at-a-time) technology has opened self-publishing as a viable alternative for some authors, particularly with "niche" or professional books. Self-publishing allows authors to control editorial content and retain copyright ownership of published material, while typically shortening the time involved in bringing books to print. The downsides of self-publishing are that there is an up-front expense, the work involved in marketing and distribution largely falls to authors, and serious publications can be lumped together with self-published "vanity" books in public perception. A number of companies support authors with the self-publishing process, and a helpful recent book reviews their business models and services (Levine, 2008).

A Potpourri of Other Venues

In addition to journals and books, there are other venues that provide opportunities for clinician authors to publish and disseminate ideas and experiences. Newsletters of state professional associations (such as your state psychological association) often invite articles about clinical or professional topics and can be particularly receptive to writing that could be linked to continuing education credit for readers. Other newsletters and psychology-related newspapers at the regional or national levels reach professional and lay audiences, as well. A number of these newspapers (ranging from National Psychologist to Psychology Today to Self-Help) are reviewed, with hyperlinks to direct readers to each site, at www.world-newspapers.com/psychology.

Popular/lay audiences may be reached in several additional ways. Examples are community newsletters of mental health centers and other health care organizations, local newspapers (which periodically feature educational or op-ed contributions from health care professionals) and publications of local and denominational church communities.

Electronic media assume an exponentially increasing role in the dissemination of ideas and experiences. Personal web pages, personal enewsletters, and blogs offer limitless opportunities to publish material for Internet readers, for little or no cost. There are also limitless resources on the Web; a recent search on Google for "How to blog" produced close to a million results. Amid the myriad recommendations about electronic media, I see three recurring themes that make for good e-publishing. They are; fresh and meaningful content, attractive layout, and interactivity that allows authors to develop dialogue and relationships with readers.

Tips for Publishing and Writing

Finally, my experience as author and editor brings me to a few practical suggestions for transforming ideas into publishable form.

Content

Know your audience and write to your audience. Anticipate reader questions. Why does this issue matter? What is the background? What are the key points and how are they significant? What, in particular, do you hope readers might come away with? What does other writing in this area look like? How are you adding to what has previously been written, or perhaps affirming what has been written?

Style

Keep it simple. Lengthy and overbearing sentences, artful as they may be, rarely are beneficial to readers who, for the most part, comprehend material more readily when that material is devoid of linguistic forms ... such as ellipses ... that can have the untoward effect of distracting attention (which may already be compromised for any number of reasons) from the essential points you wish to make; the more consistently you follow this rule, the better. Writing style (back to being serious) is often determined by the venue in which you are writing. Journals, for instance, usually show a straightforward, declarative (albeit humorless) style. Writing in which authors have more direct ownership and control, such as electronic media, tends to be more informal and shows more variation in "voice" and writing style.

Editing

Be sure your material is clean-free of typos, misspelling, extra lines and other editorial imperfections. Rigidly follow the editorial format of the venue in which you are writing (which, for professional writing by behavioral health clinicians is usually APA format). Rigidly follow the submission guidelines of the venue in which you are writing.

Getting the Writing Done

Create a good outline. Find a comfortable space. Make a regular commitment to doing the writing. Between sessions, leave off at places where you know where you're going to go the next time you sit down. Get the first draft done.

And remember the passion. Your writing may be scientifically and theologically thorough and responsible, but your writing will take life as you remember that the work of releasing ideas into the world is ultimately a work of the heart.

References

American Psychological Association. (2009). Journal statistics and operations data. Retrieved April 12, 2011 from http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/statistics.aspx.

Crabtree, B. F., & Miller, W. L. (Eds.) (1999). Doing qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Craigie, F. C., Jr. (2010). Positive spirituality in health care: Nine practical approaches to pursuing wholeness for clinicians, patients, and health care organizations. Minneapolis: Mill City Press.

Levine, M. (2008). The fine print of self-publishing. Minneapolis: Bascom Hill.

Schrager, S. (2010). Transforming your presentation into a publication. Family Medicine, 42, 268-72.

Frederic C. Craigie, Jr.

Maine-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Frederic C. Craigie, Jr., Ph.D., Maine-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency, 15 E. Chestnut St., Augusta, ME 04330; frederic.craigie@mainegeneral.org

Author

Frederic C. Craigie, Jr., PhD is a psychologist and medical educator with the Maine-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency in Augusta, Maine. He holds faculty appointments at Dartmouth Medical School and the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. He is also an associate editor of this journal.

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Title Annotation:	Practice and Professional Issues
Author:	Craigie, Frederic C., Jr.
Publication:	Journal of Psychology and Christianity
Date:	Sep 22, 2011
Words:	2783
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