Hello comrade in writing arms! Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of book publishing!

I have lots of thoughts about the writing itself, but in this post, I will focus on the practicalities of getting a book *published* rather than written. ​That is, how do the words you write get made into a book that will sit on a shelf, calling out to a reader? (The part about how you get a reader to know your book exists and want to read it is called book marketing- here's a good podcast about that for when you get there!) 

Here are some things I wish I'd known when I was starting this whole process. (Or maybe I wouldn't have wanted to know, as it looks pretty darn intimidating when I spell it all out- but I hope that knowledge is power and you find this helpful!)

​How did you get your book published? 

I started working on my first book, UNDER THE SKY WE MAKE, in July 2017. I would write for half an hour before work most mornings. I found my fierce literary agent Anna Sproul-Latimer in July 2019 (via my bestie Lucy Kalanithi- thank you Lucy!!). Anna sold my book proposal to my wonderful editor Michelle Howry at Putnam (a Penguin Random House imprint) in February 2020. I submitted the full manuscript in May 2020, did tons of editing and fact-checking over summer and fall 2020, and the book will be published March 23, 2021. This is an example of "traditional" (sometimes also called "trade" or "commercial") publishing; see below. 

Believe it or not, this timeline is considered very fast in the publishing world! (At least, the time from when I found an agent to when the book will be on shelves and e-readers and in earbuds. I was very lucky to be supported by a team who believed in the book and wanted to help get it out in the world. Probably the fact that I had written like 200,000 words when I met Anna helped, though that also created other problems too!) 

​How do I publish a book? 

Well, there's the writing part, which I won't cover here- but you need an idea that you’re excited to write around 70,000 words about (give or take a lot). And then rewrite. And rewrite. And fact-check. Repeat, etc.  

There are two kinds of publishing: traditional publishing and self-publishing. 

Traditional publishing in the United States (the largest book market globally, with almost a third of sales) requires that you find a literary agent, who will coach you in developing a book proposal which they will submit on your behalf to a bunch of publishers. (The major US publishers do not accept submissions directly from authors; agents have the contacts and knowledge for where to pitch your book for the best chance of success.) Hopefully one or more of the publishing houses your agent sends your book proposal to wants to give you a book deal, i.e., pay you to write the book you describe in the proposal.

In traditional publishing, once the publishing house gives you a deal, you will work with professional editors, copyeditors, publicists, and other publishing professionals to help edit, publish, design, distribute, and market your book.

Traditional publishing is full of lovely people who are passionate about books; it is also a business. Publishers are looking to publish books they think they will make money from, i.e., where there is a substantial commercial audience (group of people ready to shell out $15-$30 in cold hard cash for the chance to read or listen to your words). You have an idea you want to get out into the world; they want to sell books. Everyone wins if you sell a lot of books! (However, this is rare, and difficult. See below.) 

Self-publishing means you as the author are in charge of every step from writing, editing, copyediting, publishing, marketing and distribution (or you are in charge of finding people to do the steps you don't do yourself).

How do I self-publish a book? 

Sorry, I don’t know anything about this! There are pros and cons to traditional vs. self-publishing, and people on The Internet have lots of thoughts about them! If you find some particularly helpful resources, please share them with me and I’ll link them here. 

How do I publish a non-nonfiction book, that is, fiction or something else? 

(Side note, isn't it weird that "fiction" is the baseline norm of books, and you must specify "non" if you fall outside that genre? Why isn't it "truth" and "non-truth"? Or "real stuff" and "things I made up"? But I digress.) 

I'm not sure, I don't write fiction! I think for example a book proposal for fiction looks very different than my nonfiction one I describe below. Please do your homework! 

How do I find a literary agent? 

This is a very intimidating step and I procrastinated about it for a long time!! Hence two years elapsed between when I started writing my book and when I found Anna. In hindsight I would have saved us both a lot of time if I'd started my search for an agent sooner (although then maybe Anna and I never would have met, sliding doors yadda yadda). You need an agent if you want to traditionally publish a book. 

Literary agents, and the entire publishing industry, are shrouded in mystery to the novice, or at least that’s how I felt. The most comprehensive way I found to get an overview of active and reputable literary agents in the United States is to pay $25/month for an account on Publishers Marketplace. With its charmingly functional design straight out of 1997, this is the publishing industry clearinghouse where you can look up agents and see their stats- what genres they represent, how many books they’ve sold, etc. You can also see which agent represents your favorite authors, and represents authors with similar books to the one you want to write (“comp titles”). 

When am I ready to get an agent?

I would say you need to have done some substantial thinking, writing, and editing on your book idea, so that you are prepared to share: 
- an elevator pitch for the argument of your book. (Note, clarifying the argument is the hardest part and a good agent will help you revise/improve it, but I think they will be impressed if you can write the sentence, "In MY BOOK TITLE I argue that X."
- an outline of the chapters you plan to write (like a table of contents) and at least some ideas about what goes in each chapter and how they relate to each other.
- a reasonably strong draft of at least one full chapter, i.e., writing you would be OK with a stranger reading and judging you on. 
- a compelling argument for why this book is needed in the world (by whom? Who are the readers you are trying to serve?), and why you are the one to write it (establish your credibility). 

How do I get a literary agent to represent me? 

You’ll need to query them, i.e., send them an email introducing yourself and your book idea in a compelling way that makes them want to represent you, and ask if they are accepting new clients. Some agents are “closed to queries,” in which case you should not annoy them by sending them a query anyway. Read and follow the query guidelines on their website. Some agents will want just a cover letter, some will ask for a sample chapter, or a draft book proposal. Agents are notoriously overbooked, so it will likely take some time for you to hear back from them, and many of them will say no. That sucks, but take heart. It's like dating- you don't need everyone to like you, you just need to find the one person you click with. 

What does a nonfiction book proposal to a traditional publisher look like?

In my case, it was a 20,000 word document that I labored on with my agent for eight months before we sent it out (after I had already been working on the book itself for nearly two years). My proposal contains a 3-page overview of what the book is about and why it’s needed (establishing the market, i.e., the publisher wants to know that there is a large group of people who are likely to be interested in buying this book), a 3-page “about the author” where I try to sound very fancy (this is to establish my authority of the subject, my credentials as an expert, and importantly, my “platform”, which is publishing industry code for “how many people are fans of yours who will buy a book that you write?” This is a cringe-worthy section to write about yourself, thank goodness for agents who are great at it). The remaining 60-ish pages are chapter outlines. These establish the basic structure of the book, as well as what goes where. Each chapter has an overview (a ca. 1 page summary of what the chapter will argue) and almost all chapters have substantial content, e.g., a 3-8 page sample excerpt of text that would appear in the final book. 

What does an editor at a traditional publishing house do?

Given the title, I rather understandably thought that an editor's job was mostly to edit text, that is, to read and discuss and comment on words on a page and offer constructive feedback for how to make them shorter/punchier/better. An editor does this! But they also do a lot more.

The editor is the one to "acquire" your book for the publishing house. The editor will read your book proposal and decide if it's a project they want to undertake, in which case they'll share it with colleagues and ultimately get approval from the "publisher" to bid on it. (In this case, the publisher is not the company/publishing house that appears on the spine of the book like Penguin, etc., but rather a senior executive-type person who sets the editorial direction of the publishing house, and ultimately controls the purse strings. Confusing, I know!)

Throughout the publishing process, your editor will be acting as an "ambassador" of the publishing house. They will introduce you as needed to some of their colleagues working on various parts of the book, who you'll work directly with (like publicists and marketers), and sometimes the editor will act as an intermediary between others, like copyeditors, designers, proofreaders, and others who you might not meet directly. The editor is your main point of contact with everything happening at the publishing house.  

How do I publish a book outside North America? 

Sorry, I don’t have any experience with this! My current book contract is for distribution in North America (which includes the US and Canada, and also the Philippines for unknown-to-me Publishing Reasons). I hope publishers in other countries will want to buy rights to distribute my book in English in their country, and translate it to local languages, but this hasn't happened for me yet (my agent is working on it). At the moment, to buy my book outside North America, booksellers are jumping through some hoops (here ends my knowledge of exactly what they’re doing, but I can say that my book seems to be available  for pre-order (what's pre-order and who cares?) nearly everywhere in the world on the largest online book retailer whose name rhymes with Autobahn, and through many independent bookstores, though often only after publication). 

If you are based outside the US and Canada, and/or your market (target readers) is outside the US and Canada, I would guess you should look for an agent in your current country, which I don’t know how to do, beyond Googling "name of author you like" + "agent" (thanks to Alice Bell for this suggestion!). 

What’s the difference between academic publishing and trade publishing? 

I have not published an academic book. But my understanding is that it looks very different than what I’m describing here. As an expert in an academic field, you write a proposal directly to an academic publisher, and eventually sign a contract with the publisher (no agent is involved). I have heard these proposals are much shorter and simpler than the 20,000 word proposals you need to get a traditional book deal, perhaps as little as a few pages. One important difference is that (as far as I understand) you will not get paid to write an academic book (no “advance”), support from the publisher in editing and promotion are likely to be lower than in traditional/trade/commercial publishing, and the market is primarily (though not exclusively) targeted at academics (scholars within your subject). 

How does the money work? 

Ugh, how crass, money. Well, we live in capitalism (for now) and have to pay rent, so let's talk about it! 

Before we do, though: for your sanity, it's important to think about why you want to write your book, and how you want your book to fit into your broader mission on Earth. No single book is the be-all, end-all, but you want to believe in your book enough to invest years of your life into it, and do it in such a way that you'll feel you did your best, regardless of how the money shakes out.

Speaking of money: If your goal is to be rich, don’t write a book. 

It's hard to find real numbers on this, but I keep reading that most of all books published sell fewer than 1,000 copies. Even most traditionally published trade books from a major publisher (where substantial resources are invested in paying the author an advance, paying for the time of professional editors, copyeditors, publicists, etc.) sell far fewer than 10,000 copies. Womp-womp!  

Your contract will specify the exact terms (and your agent will be the one to negotiate them for you and explain what they mean and what is reasonable- a very important job!). From what I understand, it’s common for a commercial book deal to consist of an advance (money the author makes before the book is published, for the work of writing the book) as well as royalties (money the author makes if the book “earns out”, that is, you sell enough books that the publisher recoups the costs they have spent on it, often set around 10,000 copies).

Data on author advances are not public, though the announcements on Publishers Marketplace sometimes use a cute code where "nice deal" is below $50,000, "very nice" is $50-99k, "good deal" is $100+ and there are finer distinctions after that, but TBH as a first time author, this will probably not be your problem (unless you're already uber mega Obama-level famous, in which case, could you please do me a favor while you're here, and Tweet about my book? Thanks!) 

My anecdotal understanding is that Big 5 traditional publishers offer advances starting somewhere in the range of $30,000-$60,000, with smaller independent publishers likely have smaller advances. However, this blog post by agent Chip McGregor says (after lots of prevaricating) that an average first book deal might be $5k-$15k for fiction and $5-$20k for nonfiction. I honestly have no idea what to expect across the industry. Ask your agent, and don't quit your day job. (Or, throw yourself into author-entrepreneur mode, and embrace the hustle!) 

Book advances are paid in installments (for example, 1/3 upon signing the contract, 1/3 upon delivering a full manuscript, and 1/3 upon publication). If you deliver the book you promised to the publisher's satisfaction within the terms of your contract, you will get paid your advance (that is, it doesn't depend on how well the book sells, or not). 

Note that your agent gets a flat fee (industry standard is 15%) of all the money you make as an author (and they are worth every penny). A reputable agent should never ask an author for money upfront. An agent is investing in you as a client because they believe in your work. They are accepting the risk that they will never make any money from you (if you don't sell a book), and certainly will not make any money from you for somewhere between a little while to a looooong time (until you sell your first book). 

I’ve read that 95% of books do not “earn out," thus very few authors ever earn royalties. Here’s more info on the financial side. 

Note that you should find a qualified accountant to help you manage and report the money correctly for taxes, and probably you will want to set up a business (e.g., a limited liability corporation or sole trader) for when you do get a contract. Huzzah!  

How can I learn more about book publishing? This is all so confusing and intimidating. 

I know! Sorry about that. Don’t give up- the world needs your book! 

Here are some resources I’ve found helpful. Part of me wishes I'd started reading publishing industry stuff years ago, to help me prepare for my impending book launch, and part of me is glad I didn't, so I focused on writing the book I wanted to write (but now I feel behind on a lot of the industry knowledge). Wherever you're starting from, you are not alone! 

How to Glow in the Dark- this is a weekly newsletter about all aspects of book publishing, written by my brilliant agent, Anna Sproul-Latimer, to demystify the process with expertise and empathy and humor. It is well worth the subscription price. 

Agents and Books- I subscribe to Kate McKean’s newsletter and find it very helpful. I’ve sent in questions to the Q&A Thursdays and gotten very useful answers. 

Business for Bohemians, by Tom Hodgkinson- Anna recommended this book, and it’s been really useful to think about the creative contribution I’m trying to make in my career (beyond the first book), and the practical steps needed to make that succeed. I want to have a beer with the author. (BTW, add books to your Want to Read bookshelf to help authors!) 

Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book, by Courtney Maum- this reassuring and friendly book is really good at giving an overview of the whole process, illustrated with relatable stories and examples. 

The Creative Penn Podcast- Joanna Penn has a huge and comprehensive assortment of information for every aspiring writer. 

Good luck and keep writing! 

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Hello world! Like many of us, I've spent 2020 locked away - in my case, writing my book, UNDER THE SKY WE MAKE, which I can't wait to share with you in March 2021.

As I'm wrapping up final edits and fact-checks on the book, I'm looking forward to starting new projects. On the agenda for 2021 will be an occasional newsletter on facing the climate crisis with facts, feelings, and action, where I'll share my latest research, writing, reflections, and projects, as well as what I'm reading, listening to, and enjoying, and answer reader questions. (Don't worry, I won't spam you- I'm aiming for monthly updates).  
​
​I'd love to send you the inaugural copy when it launches, and to hear any suggestions for topics you'd like to see covered. Please sign up below. Thanks! 

P.S. For the full scoop on the newsletter, please head over to read more on Substack. 

This is a tough and thankless job, but science depends on it! Here are a few principles I keep in mind when suggesting (to journals that ask for them) or soliciting (when I'm an editor) peer reviewers. 

When identifying reviewers for a particular paper, I try to find a balance of: 

• expertise (all reviewers need appropriate expertise, but this can range between e.g., specific topic/research question, methods, theory, implications, study region, ...)
  
• regional location of institution (e.g., Global North/South)
• gender balance
  
• career stage (I find that earlier careers, PhDs through postdocs, often write the best reviews, and getting started with peer reviews is helpful). 

Where to find reviewers? 

• It's often good to try to find someone who has published in your target journal (or a journal with similar reach). 
  
• The Journal/Author Name Editor, JANE, can be a good resource for finding reviewers (leans towards medicine). You enter title and/or abstract and it finds similar papers, authors. 

(Along those lines- if you’re publishing make sure you’re giving back to the community by serving as a peer reviewer and/or editor yourself! Read my guide to writing a solid peer review  or how to get started, and register as a potential reviewer with journals in your field). 

Ethics: 

• Suggested reviewers must avoid conflicts of interest, that is, they should not have a personal or professional relationship with any authors that would prevent impartial scientific judgment. Definite conflicts of interest are co-published authors, people at the same institution, former or current academic mentors/advisees.  
  
• I avoid suggesting personal friends even if they have relevant expertise. (I try to put myself in the reverse situation and think, if I were asked to review them, do I start with a positive predisposition just because I know they're a nice person/ in general I think well of them/ it would be awkward to reject them/etc? My goal is to have reviewers who are able to focus on the quality of the work alone, independent from the qualities of the people who produced it, insofar as this is possible in a small community of human beings!) 
• Technically the editors should also screen for conflicts, but this is a time-consuming and imperfectly accurate process done by busy volunteers, so when authors are asked to provide reviewers it's our responsibility to meet all the guidelines.)
  
• Some specific guidelines on conflict of interest below. 

See guidelines for picking reviewers: https://methodsblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/15/preferred-reviewers/ 


For the PNAS guidelines see here: http://m.pnas.org/site/authors/coi.xhtml
Springer, Conflict of Interest: http://www.springer.com/authors/manuscript+guidelines?SGWID=0-40162-6-795522-0 
Article on COI in medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2246405/ 

I remember being confused about what was expected of scientific authorship in grad school. My mentor Pam Matson had a helpful rule of thumb: there are three things you can do to contribute to a scientific paper: (1) have the idea, (2) get the money, and (3) do the work. At least two of these three are required for authorship. (Thus, under this model, a PI who has an idea and gets funding to support a PhD student on that theme would be expected to be a coauthor on all resulting papers.) 

I appreciate having clear guidelines and expectations for authorship, so I was glad to come across the authorship guidelines from the Vancouver Convention. Basically, they recommend 4 criteria for authorship (all four criteria must be met for authorship):

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND

4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

This is the model I aim to follow in my collaborations. Thus, I expect myself and all authors to make a substantial intellectual contribution (#1) and contribute to writing and editing the manuscript (#2). 

I interpret #3 above as the lead (first) author has responsibility to solicit and integrate input from all authors in making revisions, and obtain their approval before sending to the journal. I interpret this responsibility as applying at three stages: 

1.  During drafting of a manuscript, until all authors approve the MS being submitted to the journal; 

2. During peer review, when the lead author takes primary responsibility for addressing comments from peer review, with input from all authors, and gets approval from all authors for the version to re-submit to the journal (this stage repeated as necessary if there is more than one round of peer review); and 

3. During copyediting, when the lead author shares the typeset and corrected final proof with all authors for their approval before submitting for processing and publication. 

I think all three of these stages are important in order to ensure that the last round (approval before publication) is sufficiently met, so that all authors are in a position to take ethical responsibility for the work (#4).  

(See my tips on how to work with revisions suggested by reviewers here.) 

When working on revisions, and especially with large and diffuse author groups, the lead author has to herd the cats and balance between giving everyone opportunity for input, and making decisions about the most appropriate direction for the paper (especially when coauthors or reviewers may have contradictory suggestions). After giving all authors a chance for input, during revisions the lead author might send around a version that incorporates changes suggested and say something like,

“Thanks for all your comments, which have been incorporated in the attached version. I had to balance between suggestions X and Y, which I did by Z; I hope everyone is satisfied with this approach. I would like to submit on X date (eg 1 week in the future). Please reply with either (a) any critical changes needed for accuracy or (b) your approval to submit. Thanks!”

It's especially essential to receive positive affirmation (i.e., a verbal or written OK to submit) from each author for the final version to be published. 

It's academic job hunt season! 

In case it's useful to folks preparing their own applications, here's the application I submitted 10 years ago (!) to get my current job. 

See also my advice (with Josh Goldstein) on the academic job hunt process. 

Good luck!! 

Whoohoo, you wrote a thesis, congrats! 

Now it's time to present it to the world, and defend it to your academic colleagues! This is exciting, and also stressful. That's normal. Do what you can to prepare (give a practice talk at least several days in advance to some supportive friends and incorporate their feedback for improvements; run through the talk at least several times until you are confident you have the timing down). After that, don't worry about being nervous. My experience with giving talks is that I am always nervous, and that's ok; I can be nervous and still do a good job.  

Here's my advice on structuring your presentation. 

For the session with your opponent, be prepared for both big picture and detail questions, on both your written thesis and oral presentation. The following are by no means exhaustive, but just a sample of some kinds of questions that have been asked in my experience (of course your own experience may vary).

It's OK to take a moment to consider your answer, or to ask for clarification about what the opponent is looking for. 

Here are some questions you can prepare to answer (out loud on your own, or at the end of your practice talk with friends): 

1. Why did you choose this study system?
   
   
2. OK, you work on carbon sequestration in grasslands. What % of the global carbon budget are grasslands? Do they sequester more or less than forests? Similar question from a friend’s defense: why is it that the Ross Sea is so productive compared with other global oceans? (Put your work in larger context.)  
   
   
3. What is the contribution of your dissertation? [to X field]?
   
   
4. How do you know that XYZ assumption you made was appropriate? Why was this method (regression analysis, interviews, etc.) appropriate for the question you wanted to answer?  
   
   
5. How would you demonstrate X? (Might be a logical next step/extension of the work you did, or might be a totally off the wall thing that makes no sense, partly testing you on whether you recognize this.)
   
   
6. What is the mechanism that drives the result you found? Does it apply in other systems? How?
   
   
7. What does the literature say about your findings/this work? Who are the people at the cutting edge of this field? Who are the people who would disagree with your findings? Related: So-and-so just published a Science paper/gave a talk on X (may be closely or not so closely related). How does this relate to your work? Do your findings agree or disagree with theirs?
   
   
8. You should have measured/done XYZ instead. (This is the kind of thing that reviewers say all the time so I think this is to prepare you for that. Talk about how that would be interesting to answer a different question/with more resources, but for your question, your approach was solid.)  
   
   
9. Explain the two-year reproductive cycle of the grapevine, draw the global patterns of nitrogen availability, temperature & C3 vs. C4 grasses (... various specific things with right and wrong answers... hard to "study" for these as they could be about anything even tangentially related... perhaps spend 30 minutes glancing over a grad-level textbook most closely related to your field to jog your memory, but most importantly stay calm, use logic, draw on the vast amount of trivia you’ve been filling your brain with for the last 5-10 years, but admit when you don't know an answer and say where you would go (or what you would do experimentally) to find it out.)
   
   
10. What are your next steps? (Both in terms of this research, and professionally, including where do you want to be in 5-10 years.)  
    
    
11. What are the management or policy implications of this work? How have/will you communicate these to managers/policymakers?
    
    
12. What are the theoretical implications/contributions of this work? (Put in context of broad concepts of the field, not just literature but bigger picture, throw some terms around that relate to theory like “vulnerability analysis,” “mass balance,” whatever).
     
    
13. In one sentence, what was the aim of your thesis? 
    
    
14. What do you mean by [term used in thesis]?
    
    
15. How would your results have been different if you had [interviewed X/done the work in X case/...] instead? 
    
    
16. What literature did you include? For example, was it only from Europe and North America? How does this affect your conclusions? 
    
    
17. Who could potentially benefit from your thesis? How will you communicate your results to them? 
    ​
    
18. What's the potential your proposed course of action will work? What barriers exist? Is there anywhere this has already worked? Where and why? 
    
    

I did not do this… but it occurs to me that it would be helpful to write out a list of questions that you would ask a student presenting your work. Include the most gnarly questions you can think of, the ones you hope they don’t ask that expose the weaknesses or shortcomings. Then get a trusted friend to ask them to you, and practice your answers. I think this would make you feel a lot better, and will probably be much harder than the actual defense. If you're feeling brave you can even incorporate these points in your slides (i.e., acknowledge and justify shortcomings or what you'd do differently).

​Good luck! You'll do great! 

So, you've chosen survey research to answer your research question, you've considered ethical issues and planned to obtain informed consent, and you're ready to write your survey questions! Here's how to make them make sense and avoid some common pitfalls. 

1. Ask only the questions necessary to answer your research question. It is a lot of work for respondents to volunteer their time to answer your survey, and it is a lot of work for you to analyze it, and for your readers to read about it. Spend the time to thoughtfully design your survey so that every question you ask your respondents is necessary to answer one of your research questions. Start by mapping your core research questions onto what survey questions will be needed to answer them. Delete survey questions that do not directly help answer one or more core research questions. Similarly, if you find you are not answering some of your research questions with current survey content, add survey questions that do address your research questions. 
   ​
2. Choose standard scale labels. Do not invent your own. Use standard, easily interpretable scale labels, balanced across the (usually 5 point) scale. Select the appropriate wording for extent, frequency, etc. See this helpful list from Vagias at Clemson University.  
   
   
3. Specify the time period you're asking about. Do you mean in the last week, in an average week, over the last 5 years? People are usually better at recalling the immediate past more accurately, so this is probably a better time frame to specify. 
   
   ​Example: If asking respondents how much they agree or disagree with the statement:
   
   "Climate change is caused mostly by natural causes," you must specify
   
   "Climate change nowadays (or another word indicating the present time) is caused mostly by natural causes."
   
   Otherwise the respondent could answer True if they know that all climate change over all of the Earth's history until the last few centuries was caused by natural causes, so most climate change is indeed naturally-caused, but this is probably not answering the question you intended to ask. 
   
   
4. Ask exactly one question at a time (avoid double-barreled questions). Make sure there is only one way to interpret the question you ask. For example, 
   
   "Policy makers and companies can make a difference to climate change, not my individual actions."
   
   is ambiguously worded, because there is no way to distinguish between the contrast being made (what if I think policymakers but not companies are important, or vice versa?), and there is no way to disagree with the framing (what if I think both policymakers and my individual actions are important?). Better options (depending on what you're trying to elicit) would be: 
   
   "Policymakers can make a big difference for climate change" or
   "Policymakers can make a bigger difference for climate change than my individual actions" -and the same for companies, separately. 
   
   
5. Use consistent wording throughout. Unless you are testing the effect of wording in your study (e.g., are people more worried about "climate change," "global warming," or "the climate crisis"?), do not use different words to mean the same thing in different parts of your survey. This introduces unnecessary error and is likely to confuse your respondents. Pick the label that most accurately or commonly represents the idea you're interested in to your survey audience, and use it consistently. It is a good idea to define it at first use if there's any chance it's unfamiliar to your audience. 

In other words, you don't start out deciding to do a survey, then looking for appropriate research questions to ask and attendant philosophies and theories. For a simple breakdown of how philosophy of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and research style combine to produce research programs, see our 2010 article "Thinking about Knowing"- this could help you write the dreaded "philosophy and theory" sections of a master's thesis, for example.  

Another useful resource is this overview of qualitative research in conservation by Moon et al. 2016, including a helpful list of questions in Table 5 that will help you avoid many common pitfalls. 

2. What are the research questions you want to answer? 

It is essential that you have a manageable number (i.e., not more than three) clearly articulated research questions that guide all further research design. Coming up with a good research question is an art in itself (take a look at The Craft of Research for a whole chapter on how to do this).

In short, my view is that a good research question is grounded in a real-world problem, linked to other research and/or theory in the field, specific enough to be answerable with the resources you have available, and something you are passionate about answering.
 
3. Are surveys the appropriate method to answer your research questions? 

Be sure to consider alternatives and convince yourself that surveys are a good way forward, that will help you answer your research question. If you can directly observe behavior or use existing data to answer your question, that will be easier than designing and carrying out a good survey. On the other hand, if you need to know how people think (attitudes) or feel (values) about something, then you need a survey to ask them directly to find out. 

4. Who is your target population, and how will you sample from them? 

Consider that your sampling design will affect the validity and generalizability of your conclusions (i.e., if you want to do inferential statistical analysis to draw conclusions about significance, you need a random sample that is large enough to be representative). William Trochin has a good, concise overview of sampling and social research design issues on his Research Methods Knowledge Base. 

Issues to consider here include how you identify the target population (what characteristics must they have?), and how you identify them (what criteria will you use to include or exclude participants, and how many do you seek?). Write down all your criteria in your Methods section under Sample Selection. 

5. How will you design your survey? 

Here's a really nice, simple, clear overview of best practices for survey research design by Kelley et al. 2003. This is a great place to start.  

Good tips on survey design, question construction, and administration in a book chapter from "Investigating the Social World" by Russell Schutt. 

6. How will you analyze survey data?

The simplest way is using descriptive statistics- e.g., graphing the distribution of the results in a histogram.

​A more complex way is inferential statistics- using statistical tests to draw conclusion about the likelihood of observations being due to chance, attributing numerical confidence to the results. This is a big topic; to get started, check out this guide from The University of Reading Statistical Service Centre on the analysis of survey data. 

For descriptive data (verbal or written textual responses to open questions), the aim is not to condense them into a number, but to use them to represent and explore different views. Here the process of coding can be helped with qualitative analysis software like NVivo or Atlas.ti. You will chose (and should state in your Methods) whether you are using inductive coding (themes emerge from the data) or deductive (trying to match responses to categories from previous literature or theory), or a combination. 

Whatever analysis approach you take, describe it clearly in your Methods, and explain why you chose it. 

7. Research Ethics

Conducting research with human subjects requires the researcher to take responsibility for considering and minimizing the risks presented to participants, and make sure that clear, prior, informed consent is obtained from your participants (this means your participants understand that their participation in the study is voluntary, they understand any risks that may be presented, and they know that they can end their participation at any time of their choice without penalty). You need to think about how you will protect the privacy of your participants and how to handle their data fairly and with what degree of anonymity. It is good practice to obtain written, signed informed consent before enrolling a participant (this might be ticking a box on the front page of an online survey, or initialing and signing a separate consent form including a copy for them for in-person interviews). 

Be aware that you are responsible for following ethical guidelines in the country where you conduct your research. In the US and Canada among other countries, completion of a formal course in research ethics and approval of a human subjects protocol is often required before conducting survey research.

Here is the human subjects protocol I submitted to Stanford University for my PhD research in 2006- there are lots of helpful questions here to consider. And here is the consent form I used with my study participants.  Feel free to use these as templates for your own research. Answers to the protocol questions can go in the Methods section of your thesis, and the consent form can be modified and used with your study participants. 

In Sweden, research should follow the Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet's  guide to Good Research Practice, with many useful areas to consider. Research conducted for a master's thesis generally does not require a formal application to the regional review board (meets monthly, costs 5000-16000 SEK to review applications, which must be in Swedish). Here is the Swedish law regarding research ethics, for research conducted in Sweden, that presents a sufficient risk or sensitive data.   

However, researchers still have a responsibility to follow good practices. Please be aware that you may be required to demonstrate good practices were followed and informed consent was obtained in order to publish your research results in a peer-reviewed journal. See below for two examples of text published in peer-reviewed articles describing how informed consent was obtained in Sweden. 

Text about informed consent: "Although the study scope exempted it from Swedish requirements for formal ethical review by an institutional review board, all procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution, and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Prior, written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study (See consent form in S1).”​
--Source: Wynes and Nicholas, in second review Feb 2019, PLOS ONE

"According to the Swedish regulations for conducting research on humans, there was no need to seek ethical clearance for this study. All participation was voluntary after informed consent, and the participants could withdraw from the study at any time. In order to protect the participants’ identity, revealing information has been removed from the results such as specific faculty, discipline, gender, ethnicity, and age. Furthermore, before data was analysed, all participants were invited to confirm their own interview transcripts and remove quotations that they did not want to share with others."
--Source: Brodin & Avery, in press

I hope these tips are helpful- happy research! 

Hooray, at least one editor and one or more experts in the field have given their valuable time and attention to read and comment on your hard work, and you have a long-awaited response from the journal! 

Here are some tips to help you navigate this process: 

1. First, take a deep breath! Remember the goal of peer review is to improve the final manuscript (and research shows that papers that have been through several rounds of peer review get cited more than those that were more immediately accepted!). Keep your reader in mind and work to make the changes that will make the text more accurate, clear and valuable for them. As a baseline, assume that editors and reviewers also share this goal and try to take their comments in that spirit. 
2. Read through the reviews carefully, paying special attention to the Editor's instructions - this should guide your prioritization for revision. Look for common themes across reviewers- areas of agreement are important to clarify in the manuscript. Consider the type of comment- does it relate to the overall argument/soundness of the work in supporting claims with evidence, is it more about the structure of the writing, or a small detail to clarify in wording? Getting the big picture helps you get an idea about where to focus your revisions. 
3. As first author, you have primary responsibility for leading revisions to address reviewer's comments, and for keeping all of your coauthors informed- including asking for their help with revisions where needed, and getting input and consent from all coauthors on your suggested response to reviews and the revised manuscript before resubmitting it to the journal. It is important to share the reviews received with your coauthors right away and keep them informed of due dates and progress. You should suggest a timeline for making the revisions needed, that will give all coauthors time to read and respond to your suggested revisions. Be sure to ask for what you need in terms of support- i.e., do you want a brainstorming Skype session to help formulate your overall response strategy? Are you unclear what certain reviewers' comments mean, or what they are looking for? Are there parts of reanalysis or writing that you need coauthors to lead?   
4. Save a new draft of the manuscript where you'll work in Track Changes to share with your coauthors. Consider annotating this with some of the key, overarching comments from reviewers (i.e., "Insert Comment" in Word at the relevant section where the reviewer's comment applies- see example above left from a recently accepted paper led by Klara Winkler). This can help the manuscript read more coherently and coauthors will understand your motivation for the changes you've made, and help assess if these changes have fully addressed the reviewer's concern.
5. Make a table with the Editor's and Reviewer's responses in the left column, labeling the source of each comment (e.g., first all comments from the Editor, then from Reviewer 1, etc.). Give each main idea its own row. Be sure to include any in-text comments that were received here as well. In the right column, you will write your response to address this comment (see example above right from Winkler et al., accepted). The final version will answer the reviewer's question (e.g., "Yes you're right and we did this on line X," quoting the relevant manuscript text here if needed). For a first draft, this column can contain notes to your coauthors, e.g., "I don't understand what the reviewer means here" or "Kim, can you please answer this one?", or some initial bullet points about your planned response ("Rewrite this para to make link with research question 2 explicit").  

I hope that's helpful to get started!

For more in depth tips, I suggest the excellent article "How to reply to referees' comments when submitting manuscripts for publication." Peer review would go so much more quickly and smoothly if everyone followed Hywel Williams' three Golden Rules: Answer completely, answer politely, answer with evidence. See also his phrasings for suggested responses to reviewers, and tips for how to deal with common scenarios like reviewers who disagree, or who are rude. 

Another good source is "10 simple rules for writing a response to reviewers," by William Stafford Noble in PLOS. 

Happy revising!  

Last October, I gave a Sunday morning talk to a group of early-career researchers attending the Earth Systems Governance conference. It was a day-long program on "Developing a career in earth system governance: opening up science." I enjoyed the chance to gather my thoughts and pass along some good advice I've been given (and some earned through experience!).

Thanks very much to Ina Möller, who made a podcast from our conversation. You can have a listen here.

Here's a condensed list and links to resources I've found helpful. Hope they're useful to others!