I am jaded about publishing articles, too many for me. But it so appears writing a book worthy reading is a greater commitment of time and energy. I'm getting old. Is it easier?
Is writing book easier????
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It depends.
Because you can write something like this:
Or you can write something like this:
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N=1 here, but for me writing a book was much harder, but at the same time much less annoying.
Articles are both easier and more annoying to write because they're incredibly formulaic. All of the signaling citations (which is probably 90% of the citations in any article) and the obsessive walling off of silly comments and interpretations from reviewers is part of the formula but is just a pain in the rear.
Books are harder to write because in both structure AND sentence structure they don't come with a precise formula, and you usually have to maintain the through-line of multiple ideas across hundred of pages, unlike an article which usually hangs on one idea and comes in prefab sections. For writing a book you also have to establish and maintain an authorial tone, unlike for articles, which again, come with a prefab journal-specific tone.
At the same time that books are harder to write for all of these reasons, they're also less annoying to write for all of these reasons. Having the space for creativity in both presentation and style is both freeing and much harder at the same time.
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Really depends, the proper way to look at it is time to pay off? For complex project it can be a struggle to break it down into something short enough to be an article but that still feels complete and capable of being published in a top journal. The writing of the book itself isn't easy, but it will be easier than breaking the project down into articles. For shorter tighter stuff, articles all the way.
There is a pretty big overlap though, where with a moderately complex project where you could make an argument either way and it really depends on your strengths as a writer.
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A problem that I had never considered before writing my first book is that with articles it's ok if all of your sentences sound like each other.
That doesn't work if what you're writing is 300 pages long.
N=1 here, but for me writing a book was much harder, but at the same time much less annoying.
Articles are both easier and more annoying to write because they're incredibly formulaic. All of the signaling citations (which is probably 90% of the citations in any article) and the obsessive walling off of silly comments and interpretations from reviewers is part of the formula but is just a pain in the rear.
Books are harder to write because in both structure AND sentence structure they don't come with a precise formula, and you usually have to maintain the through-line of multiple ideas across hundred of pages, unlike an article which usually hangs on one idea and comes in prefab sections. For writing a book you also have to establish and maintain an authorial tone, unlike for articles, which again, come with a prefab journal-specific tone.
At the same time that books are harder to write for all of these reasons, they're also less annoying to write for all of these reasons. Having the space for creativity in both presentation and style is both freeing and much harder at the same time. -
It depends. Some scholars are really good at writing journal articles, but have a hard time with books and vice versa. Another consideration is whether your department rewards books or emphasizes articles. A book can be the work equivalent to many articles, but only fills one line of your CV and will likely have a smaller audience because it is not free or short like an article. I’ve done both, I think you have a lot more freedom to develop your ideas in a book, but it often comes with a smaller audience and fewer career benefits in terms of tenure and promotion.
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No, it is not easy to write a book there are many things that need to cover in book writing and lots of content that need to cover in this and content need to be perfect, unique and engaging so that people can get their interested in reading and it is not an easy thing. That is the reason that people hire ghostwriting services so that they can write for them as they have years of experience in book writing and knows how to write a book.