Friday 29 January 2010

How to write for TEMD

Chapter format

Divide 250 pages by 36 chapters and you get 6-7 pages per chapter. If each chapter must remain within 6-7 pages and not exceed that #, TEMD is unpublishable!

Some chapters are thinner while others are thicker. The pages reflect the amount of information & photographs gathered from contributors. The more they contributed, the more # of pages for the chapter (and vice versa).

To give each chapter a fair go at content, I created a flexible template and used that to gather information from contributors. Otherwise my search for information would have absolutely no structure, I would miss out on a lot of information and there may be lots of gaps in the write-up.

Because TEMD is a historibiographical book (and maybe one of a kind) every single bit of information contributed and gathered is important.

If I don't document history today, a huge chunk of historical information may go missing for a long time and maybe forever! It is with this sense of urgency that I had continued searching, researching and writing for 7 difficult years, on top of my hectic schedule plus dual role as a lecturer in biochemistry & IT at USM, more so now when I have graduated and become a professor!

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