English 5390: Writing for Publication Weekly Blog Post - Lessons learned

Question: As you've completed the scholarly article assignment, what are the major challenges and lessons learned you've encountered? Include at least 3-5 items.

1. Time management: Yes, this is generic, but one of the main points that I had trouble with during this course. It seems like the time flew away from me, especially with challenges at work that were concurrent with the class. I can't make more hours in the day, so I have do my best with what I have. I ended up taking some vacation days from work to get myself caught up.
2. Overambitious topics: My topic was more like a book topic than an article topic. It actually counts over 6000 words when you look at the file as a whole, but I did not include the tables or the references in my class word count. My paper took a lot of cutting and revising and I ended up covering only two points instead of six or so.
3. Small group of willing reviewers: Being an online student, I don't seem to have the contacts to get subject-matter expert review easily. I ended up with plenty of people who will look it for grammar and outrageous claims, but very few who can look at it for content

I am sure that there are more but these are some of my big ones. I formatted my paper nicely, though likely that would not be acceptable or helpful when submitting it to a publication. I just like the way it looks and since taking document design, I would have a tough time turning in something without a little tweaking.

I've enjoyed the class and whether I submit the paper for publication or not, I have learned a lot. I am also one step closer to my Master's degree.