Solution to Writing Obstacle No. 42:

“Come on, the whole publishing process is rigged, so what’s the point of writing?”

You are right, study after study has confirmed that the peer review process is rife with bias.

But, it also shows that following academic norms and field conventions definitively increases your chances of publication. And my book can help you learn those norms and do better in the biased editorial process.

Besides, how are you part of the solution if you refuse to learn best practices? Without that knowledge, your reviews of others’ work will also be biased, replicating the problem, rather than changing it for the better. This book doesn’t just help academics become stronger writers, it helps them to become less biased reviewers.

Solution to Writing Obstacle No. 42, one of the obstinance obstacles listed on page 32 of Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success (University of Chicago Press, 2019).