Between the Lines: Joseph Roche

When did you first come up with the idea for the book?
I first came up with the idea for the book on March 1st, 2018. I was marooned in a hotel at Berlin airport for three days waiting to fly home to Ireland after the airports were closed because of the “Beast from the East” snowstorm. I was devastated to be missing the excitement of the big snow back home and decided to work on a book proposal to distract myself.

I have always felt extraordinarily lucky to have benefitted from the advice and guidance of colleagues, especially when I was an early career researcher, and I felt compelled to write about some of the lessons I learned in the hope that it might help others.

I wrote the book proposal while I was stuck in Berlin, but it would be another two years before I started writing the book itself. Once I had signed the book contract with the publishers I waited until I had a sabbatical in 2020/21 so that I could focus on writing the book.

Did you start out with the intention of writing a book about a particular topic, or did a book begin to make sense as you were researching?
I always had the goal of writing a book that would help researchers. In my role as Director of Research for the School of Education, and as coordinator of our PhD programme before that, I spent a lot of my time advising early career researchers about the skills they need to succeed in academia. I started providing seminars and workshops to help address their concerns and eventually I decided that maybe the most efficient approach would be to gather all of the advice in a book.

Rather than solely focusing on my own experience I interviewed early and mid-career researchers and ran focus groups with students and staff to get a better understanding of which skills and resources are deemed most important. Initially, I was planning on writing a book just for those working in science. As I began working on the concept and interviewing early career researchers it became clear that the challenges I had encountered as an early career researcher were not unique to the scientific disciplines, and so I included researchers working in social science and the humanities in my interviews. Hopefully the book will appeal to all early career researchers, regardless of their specific disciplines.

What are the book's main ideas?
The central premise of the book is that there are many skills we need as researchers that do not always get as much attention in the course of our formal education as they should. The book is designed to close those gaps, and addresses the main challenges early career researchers encounter, such as academic writing, funding, and networking. One of the key ideas is that a lot of the skills that we need to survive in our research careers can be learned faster and with more ease when we seek help from the right sources and systematically monitor our progress. Since staying on top of our work can be challenging, the book highlights and shares the templates that researchers find most useful for observing and tracking their progress.

What did writing a book allow you to do that wouldn’t have been possible in another medium e.g. journal article?
I had considered writing papers on the individual skills necessary to thrive in academia, but there were so many skills to include that a book seemed a better choice. The book format allowed me to centre the perspectives and insights of the researchers I had interviewed, and also facilitated a more holistic approach to the material. The skills could be collected in a specific order, following a typical research career: starting with broad skills in research, writing, and publishing that every researcher needs, and then leading into skills that might become more important as researchers progress, such as teaching, supervision, and professional development. I was also able to create a companion website for the book that shares downloadable templates designed with the needs of early career researchers in mind. You can find them here.

How did you decide which publisher to place the book with?
SAGE was my first choice because it publishes the types of academic textbooks that I enjoy reading. I made sure to do my due diligence and spoke with a lot of my colleagues who had experience publishing with SAGE. The editors I worked with — James Clark and Diana Alves — were amazing. I sent my original book proposal to all the SAGE editors and James got in touch within hours with a very supportive and encouraging reply. He brought in Diana and, between them, they painlessly steered me through the whole process, from proposal to publication. I would highly recommend SAGE to anyone hoping to publish an academic textbook.

How long did it take to write?
Once I got over the fear of starting to write the book it took me ten months to complete it. I think that was pretty quick for me considering that I am a very slow writer. But I had the good/bad fortune of having a sabbatical during a pandemic so it was an ideal time to write.

Did you ever experience any moments of writer’s block? What did you do to overcome this?
I have not experienced writer’s block. I think what researchers sometimes like to call “writer's block” is actually just procrastination because we have competing demands on our time, and it is often easy to postpone writing. If there is ever a topic that I am really struggling to write about then I ask myself if I am actually passionate enough about the topic to be considering writing about it in the first place.

What advice would you give someone thinking about writing a book?
Stop thinking about writing a book. Start writing a book.

If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice before you started writing, what would that be?
I would tell myself to not be so scared to start writing and to not be surprised if it turns out to be enjoyable. And maybe to start stockpiling chocolate and presents for the people in my life who I trust to give honest feedback.

*** The official launch of Essential Skills for Early Career Researchers will take place on Friday, September 30th as part of Trinity's European Researchers' Night events. You can register for the book launch here. ***