Creating Scholarship
One of the University of Iowa's goals is "to advance the research and scholarly enterprise." While all steps of the scholarly communication process are important, unless scholarship is created, the rest of the scholarly communication process is moot.
Decisions you make during the creation process can also affect other steps in the scholarly communication process. For that reason, consider the following:
- Who is your audience?
- Should you collaborate on this project with others?
- How can I effectively communicate the topic of my paper through its title?
Consider:
- Who is your intended audience?
- What format will best communicate your research to your audience?
- Where does your audience go to find information?
While you are doubtless considering your audience while you write, consider explicitly articulating that audience now and what scholarship would best serve that audience. If you are trying to reach a popular audience, a dense, 60-page article is not a great option. Articulating your audience early in your writing process may allow you to not only tailor your writing to that audience, but also tailor your article length to the publication requirements of journals or magazines that are most likely to reach your intended audience. You may also realize that you have multiple intended audiences, and your research is best communicated in separate pieces addressing those distinct audiences.
If you are considering citations, remember that your audience is not just law professors, but also students that serve on law journals. Students often suggest a significant number of additional citations to articles during the editing process.
You can collaborate on scholarship through research, writing, and review. Myriad benefits to collaboration exist. A few include:
- Expanding your research's reach.
- Depending on your collaborator and your method of collaboration, you may benefit from an interdisciplinary perspective, the opportunity to enhance your own knowledge by working with another expert (or experts) in your field.
- Distributing the research and writing may provide you with the opportunity to dedicate more time to other projects.
Before you send out your paper for publication or post your working paper online, make sure you have carefully selected a title that accurately reflects the content of your article in terms your audience will understand. With the significant amount of legal scholarship in circulation, your title needs to make clear to both search engines and potential readers the topic of the article.