Connected - Issue 01

Palgrave Macmillan Authors’ Newsletter

Issue 01 - November 2010

Study Skills – where did it all go right? By Stella Cottrell Extracts from The Writer’s Handbook 2011 and Crisis and Recovery Save 35% off all Palgrave Macmillan titles! (see back cover for details) Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas on the new IMF Economic Review

Update your Publishing Contacts Now with the New Edition of The Writer’s Handbook ‘The book no writer should be without’ - The Times ‘A wise and witty book,

packed with useful information’

- The Society of Authors 978-0-230-20729-5 | £14.99 | Paperback | May 2010 | 800pp

Completely revised and updated every year, The Writer’s Handbook provides authors with the most comprehensive information on the writing industry.

From pinpointing contacts in a wide range of publishing houses and literary agencies to information on writing courses; from screenwriting, TV, radio and newspaper contacts to local literary festivals and grants, The Writer’s Handbook is a practical and easy-to-use resource for all authors.

As well as its highly accessible directory, every edition of The Writer’s Handbook features new advice and insights from publishing experts including articles on the up-to-the-minute changes affecting the publishing industry today.

Article written by Abby Coften, Senior Marketing Manager, Palgrave Macmillan

Excerpt taken from A Writer’s Place in a Networked World by Sara Lloyd, Digital Media Director for Pan Macmillan At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2010, the forum for watching emerging technology trends, ebook reading devices came just third in popularity after two hot innovations in television technology: Internet-enabled TV and 3D TV. As one reporter put it, ‘ebook devices were everywhere.’ In the USA in 2009, publishers experienced exponential growth in ebook sales, some reporting that ebook revenues had grown from a zero base to represent 4–5 per cent of their overall business within the space of two years. Digital pundits predict further explosive growth in this market, to the tune of hundreds of percentage points in forecast year on year growth. In my own local community, neighbours and friends began to ask my advice about which ebook reader they should buy, rather than asking me why anyone would ever want to read on a screen, which had been the question so often put up a year or so ago.

So, whilst ebooks are very, very far from being a mass market, something in the air does seem to be changing – and fast.

What is it that has changed and what does all this mean for writers?

Books, especially paperbacks, have provided us with a perfectly formed, low priced and incredibly functional piece of technology which requires no additional hardware to access and read. Most people carry around no more than one or two books at the same time and many enjoy the look, feel and even the smell of a book. There doesn’t seem to be a ‘problem’ with books for technology to solve, in the same way as there was perhaps with music, which, to make it ‘portable’, meant carrying multiple CDs as well as a device before the MP3 file and the iPod solved all that. Yet despite this, there is an inevitable sense now that we are moving towards a book market in which digital sits firmly at the centre.”

SPECIAL OFFER FOR ALL PALGRAVE MACMILLAN AUTHORS !

Get 50% off The Writer’s Handbook 2011 if you order online today!

Simply visit www.palgrave.com and enter discount code WWRITERS2010a at the checkout. Offer expires 31st December 2010. Every copy of The Writer’s Handbook includes free online access to www.thewritershandbook.com, which offers access to the comprehensive and searchable directory, as well as even more advice and resources, a must-have for all writers.

Apple iPad iPad launches with 100 Palgrave Macmillan titles Back in February the iPad, Apple’s newest, shiniest gadget, was launched in the US. It immediately split the world into three distinct camps: those who couldn’t see the point because they had an iPhone or iTouch; those who couldn’t see the point because they had a laptop; and those that didn’t care whether there was a point or not, they just knew they wanted one.

The iPad is many things to many people, but one of its most exciting functions is as an ebook reader, and the iBooks application is to publishing what iTunes is to the music industry - one of the most effective channels to market for a dedicated device.

We were proud that, despite a punishing conversion and supply schedule, we had over 100 Palgrave Macmillan titles on the US iBooks store at launch, and we’re currently negotiating with Apple in Europe to get more titles on iBooks internationally. At present the iBooks pricing model and bookstore is designed primarily for mass market titles, but we’re exploring with Apple how to make the platform suitable for scholarly and educational titles too.

However iBooks is not the only route for purchasers of ebooks to buy and read books on the iPad: Amazon has a Kindle app for both iPhone and iPad, for example, which means all Palgrave Macmillan titles available for Kindle can be read on iPad (Borders and Barnes & Noble are the others at time of writing). We’re also investigating other ways to make more of our content available through the apps store, both full-text, interactive books and ancillary or promotional content. We met in person with Apple’s education division earlier this month and will continue to work with them on these new initiatives.

These are exciting times and we’re committed to making the most of them!

Article written by Alison Jones, Director of Digital Development, Palgrave Macmillan

Self-Published Phenomenon Comes to Palgrave Macmillan In 2004, Richard Pears and Graham Shields were working together at the University of Northumbria Library. Through their daily work, they realised that students were struggling to use references correctly and decided to write a guide.

Richard’s wife Elizabeth was running an internet bookshop at the time and with her help and a local printer, they published Cite them right.

The book took off almost immediately. When orders started to come in, Richard would leave work and drive to a nearby storage unit to pick up books for despatch by courier. Graham’s wife Kathryn took on responsibility for marketing, alongside Richard and Graham. It quickly became so successful that they had to bring out regular new editions.

Richard says that it was only when shipments of new books could only be transported by flat bed lorry and he had to rope in his father-in-law to help unload the books that he started to think that it was getting too big to manage. As the leading publisher for study skills, Richard and Graham approached us and the eighth edition of Cite them right was published by Palgrave Macmillan in July 2010 at £8.99.

The book focuses on Harvard but covers other major referencing systems too. A bookbuyer told us, ‘Our uni is now using this as the marking guide for referencing. We are yet to find something we can’t reference using this book!’ Famously comprehensive, sources covered include Twitter, Facebook, mathematical equations, text messages, cartoons, genealogical sources and directors’ commentaries on DVD. It also has new material on comics, logos and magazines. We are delighted to be publishing it. If you are a lecturer, please recommend it to your students and add it to your reading lists.

978-0-230-27231-6 | £8.99 | Paperback | July 2010

Richard Pears is now a Faculty Support Librarian at Durham University Library and Graham Shields is a Learning Advisor at the University of Cumbria Library.

Article written by Louise Crawford, Marketing Manager, Palgrave Macmillan

Study skills – where did it all go right?

- Stella Cottrell

It was 1991. I had been supporting a number of students from the professor’s department, those struggling with their degree studies and regarded as most in need of ‘remedial’ help. They were sullen and resentful. ‘I’m back in the sin bin,’ said one on arrival. ‘Just like back at school.’

It was clear that, with a few notable exceptions, neither the students nor the staff put much faith in study skills support. The words used might vary, but the message was fairly consistent: everyone knows some people are just thick.

Those same students achieved their degrees with respectable grades; some were outstanding. Between their initial resistance and ultimate success, something changed dramatically – and it wasn’t their ‘IQ’.

Fortunately, there has been a step change in the ways that Universities approach student learning. No doubt, there are still academics who feel that each cohort of students is weaker than the last, no match for those wonderful students of the golden past. No doubt, some students encourage tutors to gnash teeth and tear their hair. However, the landscape of student academic development today is a world apart from that of 20 years ago. From a student perspective, even if current students may not realise it, they get a much better deal.

Broadly speaking, the expectations on lecturers 20-30 years ago was that they shared their own expertise primarily by delivering information to students verbally and by referring students to books and articles. The onus for achievement fell on the student. With smaller intakes, universities could select relatively high achieving, self-motivated students who would succeed no matter what.

For one set of tutorials when I was a history student, the very prestigious don who was leading them rarely seemed aware of which century we were supposed to be studying, gave us reading lists verbally only to the extent of referring to ’John’s book’ and ‘Peter’s article’, and, spent most of the tutorial talking about sherry. It made little difference to our marks.

There were excellent lecturers too, but sadly, that don wasn’t that rare. When the students did well, universities took the credit; if students failed, they had only themselves to blame. Scratch the surface, and beneath the fine sounding words of ‘brightest and best, ’excellence’ and ‘merit’ were rather unpleasant judgements or ignorant understandings of such matters as the impact of poverty, educational history, class, race, gender and disability. These opinions were bolstered by superficial theories of intelligence and personality. If a student who wasn’t achieving well couldn’t in good faith be written off as stupid, they had to be lazy or weak-willed..

Today, though many feel that excellent teaching is yet to gain the full recognition and reward that comes from research, it is at least expected that lecturers should be able to teach – and teach well. Where teaching qualifications were once regarded as unnecessary for the exalted academic, today’s lecturers are much more likely to have formal and informal training, to observe each other teaching, to talk and write about how they teach.

Universities hold annual conferences and seminar series to share new ideas in teaching and learning. There are National Teaching Fellows.

More importantly, academics are not merely looking at how they teach their subject but how they teach students. Increasingly, they recognise that they need to understand people, individuals, and how they learn, rather than just being the world’s best in their research specialism.

You either have it or you don’t”, the professor shrugged.

“You have to appreciate that, in the end, sadly, we don’t all have the same IQ.” A ‘sink or swim’ approach is no longer acceptable. As universities and colleges need to hold onto their students in order to receive funding and fees for them, on financial grounds if no other, they have to look more closely at how they support their students to succeed. With a wider variety of people entering higher education, the range of apparent ability at entry is greater. As lowering standards is not an option, universities have had to tackle the difficult question of how to help students to achieve – including those who would have failed in the past, or would not even had made it through the door in the first place.

As the leading study skills publisher, we’re doing more to help students.

Take our Facebook quiz to discover how you learn best – or pass it on to students anywhere. http://apps.facebook.com/studyskillsquiz/?ref=bookmarks My Student Budget Planner app helps students manage their money – it’s free and available from October for iPhone, iPad and Android.

League tables and well-publicised student satisfaction surveys add to the incentive for universities to address student achievement. University websites and promotional materials pay increased attention to student support. There is greater understanding that students’ cognitive abilities can be affected, that they cannot learn well, if their personal, emotional and other basic needs are not addressed.

Lectures were packed with new technical terms and concepts that students couldn’t catch by ear. Reading lists included only specialist texts and didn’t take on board the starting place of the students. Whether they were listening or reading, students were soon floundering. The good news was that the professor put his prejudices aside. A good glossary, an initial starter text, and better pacing in the introduction of foundation concepts meant that all students were able to understand the subject better - and fewer students needed to be referred for help.

As a result of such changes, ‘study skills’ is less of a marginal, back room activity aimed at potential failures. Additional study skills support for individuals will always be needed – but this is now addressed in myriad ways, through specialist staff, through trained personal tutors, advisers, counsellors, through more approachable teaching staff, through guidance materials and on-line support. There is a wealth of material resources available to teaching staff to help them to support their students, from study skills books to on-line resources.

At its best, academic skills development is integrated as far as possible into the design and delivery of programmes. Levels of challenge and support are wellmatched. Conventions and expectations are presented in ways that are easy to grasp. Lecturers model and draw attention to helpful habits in managing time, information, difficult concepts, criticality and academic conventions. Formative assessment assists the learning process. Feedback is constructive, multi-faceted and inseparable from teaching. There is a danger, in terms of league tables, that the very best practice in support and assessment is invisible to students.

However, that may be offset by appreciation for what is perceived simply as excellent teaching.

Those supporting study skills on an individual, in-depth basis are in a privileged position to identify trends in the issues affecting students. The issues that create stumbling blocks for those most in need are often those that others also find challenging. Their peers may have found a way of coping without apparent crisis – but not necessarily in ways that leave them feeling positive about themselves, their studies or HEI. All too often, an issue that appears to lie with an individual is indicative of a broader issue that, if addressed for the whole cohort, improves the overall student experience.

So what of the future? The Association of Graduate Recruiters reported that 78% of employers now require a minimum 2.1 degree (6 July 2010). This adds to the pressure on students to achieve well. In turn, this increases the pressure on HEIs to demonstrate that they are doing all they can to support students academically.

With a reducing financial resource for universities and colleges, and increasing demands from students, it will be all the more essential that HEIs are effective in developing students’ academic skills from as early as possible in their programmes. If they can do this well, students will gain from the ability to learn more easily, with enjoyment and increasing independence, and make the most of their investment in their futures.

The professor I mentioned in the opening paragraph blamed bad genes for poor academic achievement. It was a feather in his cap that his subject was so difficult that students expected to fail. Many did fail each year and were referred for support for writing skills. Study skills sessions revealed that the underlying issue was that students didn’t understand the programme material. This made it hard for them to write coherently about it.

An interactive e-learning resource for students With the right tools, you can have sharper students

skills4studycampus offers modules on:  Reading and Note-Making  Critical Thinking Skills  Writing Skills  Referencing and Understanding Plagiarism

To watch a free online demo of the site, please visit: www.skills4studycampus.com

Palgrave Macmillan Publishes New IMF Journal this September This September the International Monetary Fund’s official research journal, IMF Staff Papers, is succeeded by a new, significantly enhanced and redesigned research publicationIMF Economic Review.

The journal’s new editorial team is led by Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the winner of the Bernácer Prize for the best European economist working in macroeconomics and finance under the age of 40.

In a recent interview discussing the decision to begin publishing the new research journal now, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas explained, ‘There is a growing perception that the Fund has a major role to play in warning policymakers about the fault lines in the global financial system and also helping countries deal with current and future crises. Many of the questions raised by the current crisis don’t yet have definite answers…through a new journal, the Fund sends a powerful signal that it’s serious about these questions.’

In the current economic climate, many people- academics, researchers, policy-makers, writers, journalists and professionals, as well as anyone generally interested in global economic issues- are interested in finding out more about the global financial system and how best to deal with current and future crises. The IMF’s role in providing the latest forecasts and analysis of developments in financial markets, and their effects on advanced, emerging and low-income countries, is a central one, and they anticipate catering for a broad audience with the new IMF Economic Review. Given the IMF’s unique position, this journal will no doubt be required reading for anyone interested in questions related to global economic policies, open economy macroeconomics, and international finance and trade.

In Gourinchas’ words, the journal has ‘an absolutely stellar editorial team,’ with representatives from the IMF as well as the wider academic community, including names such as Maury Obstfeld (UC Berkeley), Jaume Ventura (UPF-Crei), Giancarlo Corsetti (European University Institute), Gita Gopinath (Harvard) and Ariel Burstein (UCLA) - ‘a strong, young, very energetic team.’ The first issue, which is out now and freely available online, is coordinated with the IMF’s Annual Research Conference and features outstanding pieces from that event, followed by a special issue planned in coordination with the Paris School of Economics and the Banque de France. The first issue is fully and freely available to read and download from the journal’s website.

IMF Economic Review will present research exploring the big questions raised by the global crisis, written by both IMF staff and outside experts. The journal’s agenda is broad, covering anything related to global macroeconomics and finance. As Gourinchas stated, ‘There is great need for a rigorous academic publication that addresses the key global macro questions of our times. This is what the IMF Economic Review aims to be.’

 For more information about IMF Economic Review, please visit www.palgrave-journals.com/imfer  Submissions should be made by email: IMF_ER@imf.org  The first issue is now available on the website.  The first issue of IMF Economic Review was published on September 7th 2010.

Article written by Sophia Blackwell, Product Manager, Palgrave Macmillan

A GROUNDBREAKING NEW PUBLICATION CO-AUTHORED BY ROWAN WILLIAMS ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, EXPLORING THE CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE OF ETHICS IN TODAY’S ECONOMY ‘This book is at one level a modest collection of reflections on the disasters and follies of very recent times; but it is in another way an unashamedly immodest and ambitious plea for a renewal of political culture and social vision, a renewal of civic energy and creativity, in our own country and worldwide’.

- From the foreword by Rowan Williams, April 2010 The financial crisis is about more than money. It is also about morality. Confidence has been lost in our political and business leadership as stories of banker’s inflated bonuses and MP’s fraudulent expenses have been exposed. The Most Reverend Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Larry Elliott, Economics Editor of The Guardian, in this new book Crisis and Recovery, bring together a group of distinguished commentators to open up the ethical debate in the search for a fairer vision of economic justice.

Featuring contributions from Lord Robert Skidelsky, Jon Cruddas, Jonathan Rutherford, Philip Blond, Adam Lent, John Reynolds, Andrew Whittaker, Zac Goldsmith and Will Hutton.

Article written by Abby Coften, Senior Marketing Manager, Palgrave Macmillan

978-0-230-25214-1 | £20.00 September 2010 To hear more about the book from Rowan Williams, view our exclusive videoclip available on the product page :

www.palgrave.com

There is no Wealth but Life – Philip Blond (Extract taken from Chapter Four) If our economy essentially collapsed by destroying society as the ultimate arbiter of the good, then only a reintegration of economy and society can heal the wound and deliver a cure. The elevation of society above economy and the creation of a moral market is then the only genuine alternative to the continued destruction of wealth, both financial and social. There is no wealth but that enshrined in the good life and the extension of that to all subjects and all citizens.”

Investment and Public Policy in a Globalized Economy – Robert Skidelsky (Extract taken from Chapter Two) Human life is indeed a tapestry of diverse activities, not reducible to each other. It is not the case that all motivation is “really” economic, that all relations are actually to do with exchange and the search for profit. Yet it can be said with some reason that economics in the sense of housekeeping is a background for other things; and because of that it is particularly important to keep an eye on its moral contours. Get this wrong and many other things go wrong, in respect of individual character as well as social relations.”

The Financial Crisis and the End of the Hunter-Gatherer – Will Hutton (Extract taken from Chapter Nine) When cave dwellers were unfair, they died. When capitalism is unfair, we have financial crashes. Ethics and justice, it turns out, are the indispensable values to underpin successful capitalism. They were neglected and the crisis broke over our heads. Managing our way out will require that they are once again respected.”

SPECIAL OFFER FOR ALL PALGRAVE MACMILLAN AUTHORS! Get 50% off Crisis and Recovery if you order online today!

Simply visit www.palgrave.com and enter discount code WCRISIS2010a at the checkout.

Offer expires 31st December 2010.

Exclusive to authors !

Save 35% off all Palgrave Macmillan titles !

How to order : Simply log in to My Palgrave where you will be recognised as an author and your discount will be applied automatically.

If your email address is not recognised, please contact authors@palgrave.com

New titles to look out for

978-0-230-10802-8 Jan 2011 • Hardback • £16.99

978-0-230-29041-9 Jan 2011 • Paperback • £4.99

978-0-230-29038-9 Feb 2011 • Paperback • £14.99

978-0-230-29321-2 Mar 2011 • Paperback • £9.99

978-1-4039-7193-7 Apr 2011 • Hardback • £14.99

978-1-844-57308-0 May 2011 • Paperback • £12.99

Cover image © Mikael Damkier - Fotolia.com

978-0-230-10022-0 Mar 2011 • Hardback • £16.99

978-0-230-28551-4 June 2011 • Hardback • £26.00