Here’s the audio for the podcast: You can download the MP3 file here. Podcast summary One common response I usually get with podcasts is that people want a transcript of the audio. Although I don’t have time to make a verbatim transcript, I decided to write out a brief summary of notes and highlights (based on what jumped out at me during my own listening) in a more informal way this time. Here’s the summary: Tell me a little bit about yourself. Lisa Meloncon started out writing technical documentation for missile guidance systems for the U.S. Army. When she left the army, she stayed in tech comm and started her own company in 1994. As a consultant, she solved communication problems at many different types of organizations. Later, she returned to school for a PhD and, after completing her program, pursued an academic job. As a professor, she does research, teaching, and service. She loves teaching and brings her research into the classroom in energizing ways. Why did you decide to get into the academia and do research? There were some things that were driving her crazy in the field, one of them involving questions of document design. One client wanted reports with bullets only, and no independent sentences. She couldn’t convince him, and she felt that an academic program and research would give her information to persuade clients like this and many others about best practices with tech comm. How do you get academic research out to practitioners? It’s extremely hard. The paywall is an enormous barrier. But this is simply how publishing is done in higher education. It really falls on the academic to try to get the research out there in another way. However, publishing outside of academic journals doesn’t have any rewards for the academic, except for falling into a general service category. As a result, academics just don’t have the time, energy, or money to rework and publish the content in other formats. Do journals retain publishing rights over the articles academics write? It depends. Sometimes journals allow academics to publish the articles for educational reasons. Or if the journal makes a special exception (maybe you’ve won an award), you can sometimes republish. But by and large, journals control access to the content in ways that make it difficult for practitioners to access. Even with journals that are accessible (like the Technical Communication journal), practitioners often don’t read the articles that they actually have access to. Why? If practitioners don’t read the journal because they find the content irrelevant, remember that these journals can only publish the content they receive. This content has to go through peer review by an academic and practitioner. The reviews may be at odds with each other, which complicates the editor’s job. About 19-25% of submitted articles get accepted. Although the articles in the Technical Communication journal follow a traditional academic style, the Technical Communication journal actually does publish practitioner takeaways that summarize relevant points for the practitioner. The Technical Communication journal is one of the few journals to do this. As for the academic writing style, this style is entrenched in the discipline of academic publishing. When Lisa first got into academic publishing, she had to change her style dramatically. It was painfully difficult for her, but she would have never published anything had she not taken a more academic tone and approach. Although practitioners are turned off by the academic writing style, in order for academics to excel in their field, they have to publish this way — in academic journals with content written in a thick academic style. There isn’t much incentive for the academics to publish outside of academic journals in online sites with a more popular style. There is some reward giving to service when you publish, but it’s not significant in comparison to the academic publishing. Larry Kunz recently pu