Graduate school can be a major stressor to students looking to apply. Between trying to pick the perfect university to sacrifice your time and money to and making sure you’re qualified to do so, the application process can be overwhelming. Students can add that little extra splash of uniqueness to their graduate applications by creating a well-developed resume that offers interesting, published materials. Such an addition is beneficial to both the student’s application and their personal sanity. 

Why being published early matters 

Being “published” seems like an impossible step for graduated students. It’s overwhelming even after you spend years honing your writing skills. When we think publication, our brains seem to automatically lean towards “traditional publishing” or “when a publisher offers the author a contract and, in turn, prints, publishes, and sells your book through booksellers and other retailers. The publisher essentially buys the right to publish your book and pays you royalties (Links to an external site.) from the sales” (Writer’s Digest Shop (Links to an external site.)). 

While having an entire novel on your resume isn’t necessary for college applications, having published a couple articles can elevate your application. As Academical (Links to an external site.) states: 

Publishing papers at the undergrad level is in many ways a bonus, a way of showing that you were able to squeeze out one more accomplishment in addition to your solid grades and extracurriculars. Having published can, however, tilt the balance in your favor when committees have to choose between two equally deserving candidates. 

Academical goes on to include a few other things that can boost your resume such as working in a job in your industry, working a job in general, or volunteering with an organization that interests you. 

For students who are looking to add published works to their resumes, TopTier Admissions (Links to an external site.) provides a relevant list of tips: 

• “Check out your competition and see how others do it” by visiting undergraduate research conferences at nearby universities. 
• “Review the types of journals that typically accept submissions from undergraduates or working professionals pre-grad school.” Bernard Becker Medical Library (Links to an external site.) provides a list of websites that are great tools for finding the perfect journal for your paper. 
• “Google ‘Call for Submissions’ and then type a keyword that links to your preferred field.” 
• “Peruse UPenn’s massive list of conferences (Links to an external site.) seeking abstract submissions for presentations (a great place to start) AND journals seeking paper submissions, AND books seeking chapter submissions.” 

While it’s not necessary to publish your work to get into your college of choice, it can be a major booster to committees looking over applications. So, how does one actually get published? 

Literary Magazines 

Literary magazines, which commonly publish short fiction or poetry, are a great place for creative writers to start sending their works. Each magazine has a unique voice and viewpoint. Some publish online only while others offer print and online publications, so it’s important to look into a magazine before submitting a work. 

Reedsy (Links to an external site.) offers readers a list of the 100+ best literary magazines of 2019, listing both the magazines name, submission fee, publication frequency, and submission guidelines. 

For example, n+1 (Links to an external site.) is a “print & online magazine” that publishes new fiction, essays, criticism, and translations. The submission fee is $0 and students looking to submit have three chances a year to be published in the magazine. According to the publication’s general statement: 

Our editorial mission is to encourage writers, new and established, to take themselves as seriously as possible — to write with as much energy and daring as possible, and to connect their own deepest concerns with the broader social and political environment; that is, to write, while it happens, a history of the present day. We welcome submissions from all writers. 

If n+1 isn’t the magazine for you, Reedsy has compiled 102 other literary magazines. Options include magazines that publish “works that highlight cracks in society’s masonry” like frak\ture, to the Tampa Review that publishes “current art and writing from Florida and the world.” 

Non-Literary Magazine/Website Publishing 

The Write Life’s list of “19 Websites and Magazines That Want to Publish Your Personal Essays (Links to an external site.)” helps students looking to publish more non-fiction or non-literary works. 

Some of the websites and magazines showcased are the following: 

• The Boston Globe, whose Connections section “seeks 650-word first-person essays on relationships of any kind.” Submissions should be sent to magazine@globe.com “with ‘query’ in the subject line.” 
• ExtraCrispy, which offers writers interested in “breakfast, brunch, or the culture of mornings” the opportunity to send their works to submissions@extracrispy.com. 
• Kveller is a “Jewish parenting site” which publishes articles such as B.J. Epstein’s piece “How I’m Trying to Teach Charity to My Toddler (Links to an external site.).” Those looking to submit should send “a brief bio, contact information, and your complete original blog post” to submissions@kveller.com “with ‘submission’ somewhere in the subject line.” 
• Skirt Magazine, a publication that is “all about women – their work, their play, families, creativity, style, health and wealth, bodies and souls” says to “email your pitch, a resume, links to published works to submissions@skirt.com.” 
• The Penny Hoarder, a “personal-finance website welcomes submissions that discuss ways to make or save money,” offers payment for articles between 700 and 900 words. For those looking to submit, the publication’s guidelines are simple and easy to follow. 

Self-Publication 

For students who have been working on a novel or other large body of work, self-publication is a viable option. While traditional publication relies on a publisher and a contract, self-publication has a variety of different publishing models (Links to an external site.) that range from “print-on-demand” publishing (where writers “use your own money to produce books one at a time through a company”) to “self-publishing” (where “you pay to produce, market, distribute and warehouse the book”). 

Self-publishing creates a lot of work for the writer as the expenses (and at times the marketing and distribution) rely almost entirely on the writer. However, it also allows for more control over the published work and the ability to keep all the rights and profit. For an example of a student-written, self-published piece, read Hero by Slay James (Links to an external site.). 

Aspiring writers and grad-school applicants have no reason not to take the chance to expand your resume with published works. So, take a seat, pick a topic, and start writing. 

Enabling students to harness their voice and to understand the value of their ideas can be cultivated through digital publishing in the English classroom. Through tutoring, I have found that students struggle with expressing their ideas and frequently underestimate the value of their original thoughts. Usually the first step to helping brainstorm ideas is to aid them in understanding that not only does their voice matter, but also to write everything from an angle that interests them. Students sometimes have difficulty understanding why the essays they are writing matter, and how to express their voice.

By guiding students to experiment with and publish e-books in the K-12 classroom, we can cultivate a generation empowered with the ability to communicate effectively and with confidence. An English Teacher, Stacy Cler, writes that “through assignments that incorporate digital media, my students not only connect to the texts we read in class on deeper levels but also illustrate their knowledge and interests in technology, history and culture that reach outside of the classroom.”

To ensure that e-book creation aligns with learning standards we will use the following standards from alex.state.al.us. Perhaps you have your students write poetry to “demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. [L.9-10.5].” Or you may have them collaboratively “write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences. [W.9-10.3].”

The Premise is That…

As a student myself, I was never nurtured to value my voice until late in my college career where professors coaxed it out of me. Furthermore, it wasn’t until the very class that I am writing this article for that I understood how to project my voice outside of a complicated and competitive academic publishing environment.

Now I know that publishing online is achievable at any level of education, and it should be utilized. Sources such as the Teacher Off Duty and Cult of Pedagogy detail ideas for how to incorporate digital publishing into the classroom. However, what if a student wants to go further and publish an e-book themselves?

Self-publishing an e-book is easier and cheaper than ever with websites like LuLu, and can be as simple as downloading a Google Doc in the .ePub file format. Students may even convert PowerPoint and Google Slides documents into PDF files that may be read as e-books.

Resources for E-book Creation

Google Classroom utilized through a school’s G-Suite are seemingly the most convenient method to publishing the student’s work in e-book format if the classroom has access to digital devices – such as Chrome Books. Not only does Google Classroom allow the educator to easily manage the student’s writing, but since the students will be writing in Google Docs or Google Slides this allows the students an easy route to converting their work into .ePub format.

Greg Kulowiec explains that to create an e-book through Google Docs “the process…consists of creating content within a Google Doc and then exporting it: File –> Download As –> ePub Publication (.epub).” After converting their in-class work to the .ePub file format, the student can then “upload their digital book back to Google Drive and make the .ePub file accessible to anyone via a link.”

Furthermore, Kulowiec writes that creating an e-book through Google Slides is as simple as designing each slide as a single page of the e-book, converting the file into a PDF document, and then uploading it to Issuu.com. Issuu has many subscription plans, but for the purposes of a classroom the educator may utilize a free subscription plan and allow the students to upload their e-books.

PowerPoint is as simple as using Google Slides. Convert the PowerPoint file into a PDF and immediately share with family and friends. To find more information on this medium, I recommend reading this article on students making e-books from the Cult of Pedagogy. Theoretically, the same may be done with a Word Document; however, just like Google Slides, PowerPoint allows for the manipulation of images, text, and design, allowing students to create vibrant e-books.

Realizing Students can have an Impact

Students can do more than just create a PDF file, or write something in .ePub. Your students can profit from their e-book. Students can distribute their e-books from the iBooks Store, LuLu.com, and even Amazon.com.

Of course, these methods will be rather nuanced and require more exploration and effort than simply distributing the e-book as a PDF and/or through Google Drive in .ePub format. Furthermore, the buyers will likely be limited to family and friends. However, cash is a great attention-grabber and motivator in the classroom.

Another valuable outcome of this process can be teaching students how to market their work, and the value of money. They can be led through the process of selling these e-books around the students’ local community; specifically, students might sell their e-book at their school’s book fair.

Encourage the students to take ownership of their voice by writing together and publishing a collaborative collection of all their work and selling it at the book fair. Advertise the event to parents. If you want to spice things up, negotiate royalties with the class – perhaps you return 70% of the book funds to a class-wide fund that they may vote on how to utilize for something like a pizza party to celebrate their publication. Figure out as a class where that remaining 30% should go to, like a charity, or maybe you invest in making a physical copy of the book to put on display.

At the end of the learning segment, students will have learned the writing curriculum, how to create and publish an e-book, and how to project their voice and be recognized for their achievements.

Innovations in digital publishing have created a veritable science-fiction for consumers and students. Textbooks and magazines have given way to learning mediums that can be accessed through mobile devices at one’s fingertips. Digital content now allows for a more immersive and accessible learning environment for students. 

When a student was doing research in the past, they had to manage a variety of outside factors. They had to be cognizant of library hours, the availability of subject matter experts, and have a good working knowledge of the library system as a whole. Now, students have the world at their disposal with built-in search engines and mixed media e-delivery tools. These tools, coupled with inexpensive, high-speed, and widely accessible internet, provides instant accessibility to subject matter experts worldwide and their knowledge.

Many manufacturers have been developing inexpensive computers to facilitate the delivery and consumption of e-content. Companies like Intel, HP, Dell, and Toshiba have manufactured devices specifically for consumers in the field of education to better utilize digital content. An example of this is seen through the Chromebook’s presence in K-12 schools. Further, Amazon’s Kindle has made educational materials accessible to a general consumer market. 

Beginning with the release of Kindle in 2007, consumers saw a new way to access written content. They could now purchase most novels and online magazines at home. The benefits of e-publishing became quickly apparent to the education community. This resulted in a large number of publishers beginning to focus on e-textbooks.

Publishing companies that specialize in digital content delivery and customizing dashboards specific to educational fields are entering the market and shaping the ways that students learn. (Top eLearning Content Development Companies.)

One such company is Cengage. Cengage, Inc. is an online textbook supplier. Something useful about this company is that they allow students to pay a single fee which grants them access to a large number of educational resources.

One of Cengage’s most popular tools is Cengage Unlimited, which provides students with access to over twenty-two thousand (22,000) e-delivery titles covering seventy (70) disciplines for educational material. This cost and time efficient tool saves students hundreds of dollars and hours of research. To put this in perspective, a student at a typical four year school like Troy University, which has 200,000 volumes in its physical book collection, can utilize Cengage Unlimited and potentially carry up to 11% of Troy University’s physical library on their laptop.

Alleviating the need for students to be in the same location as a physical book has also made learning available to students at any time and location. To address this new learning model, college campuses are being reconfigured with open-air study environments, high-speed Wi-Fi, and extended hours in various buildings such as libraries. Further, a student can attend classes carrying a laptop instead of toting a stack of textbooks around campus.

Another benefit of e-textbooks is that revisions of e-books can be accessed without the purchase of brand-new editions. With the licensing arrangements offered by many e-publishers, students receive many of these updates with no additional costs.

Students are also being exposed to new digital mediums as early as elementary school. This early exposure to digital media has transformed learning. As students move through elementary school, highschool, and matriculate into university, they are more adept at the use of these tools and are more open to exploring them as they become available. 

This shift in learning trends has provided students with the ability to delve deeper into specific topics and interests in a way that prior generations would not have been able.  Students may utilize assigned e-texts, as well as easily accessible online content to enrich their learning experience. Digital publishing also gives publishers the ability to intersperse different styles of learning content inside a specific learning segment; thereby, maximizing the learning for the student. 

Digital publishing in the field of education has transformed the ways that students learn and has made significant improvements in both the lives of university students as well as educators. Limitless opportunities have been enabled for students and educators to tailor education content in a variety of ways to maximize the learning experience. With the ability to access information in the blink of an eye and customize the delivery of learning material, digital publishing has created an unprecedented, accessible, and efficient learning environment.