Going Public ─ A Guide for Social Scientists

Going Public offers a hands-on guide for communicating social scientific knowledge to different publics, including experts, activists, journalists, policy professionals, and the lay public. This practical guide shows beginners and veterans, both, how to write and use digital media technologies to engage these broader audiences beyond the academy. Digital media and nonacademic writing, spelled out clearly and simply, are the ticket to becoming a public scholar. From writing blogs about research to setting up Facebook pages for scholarly books, to maintaining Twitter accounts to connect around research themes with people beyond the usual academic peers, scholars with a desire for life as a public intellectual are turning to digital technologies. Stein and Daniels offer instruction on how to build an audience, and what it means to have a professional persona. This includes discussion of how academic publishing is changing, and how a scholar can measure the impact of articles and books (using alternative metrics, or ?altmetrics”). They offer concrete strategies of narrative and character development in crossover sociology books, showing readers what distinguishes them from more academic tomes. Their tips for good writing, on how to approach publishers, how to build your career, and much else are, in the end, all in the service of producing better social science and better public discussion of social issues and public policy.

Arlene Stein is professor of sociology at Rutgers University, where she directs the Institute for Research on Women. She is the author of four books, including Reluctant Witnesses and The Stranger Next Door, and has written for the Nation, Jacobin, and the New Inquiry, among others. Jessie Daniels is professor of sociology and critical social psychology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author or editor of five books, including Cyber Racism and Being a Scholar in the Digital Era, and blogs at Racism Review.