The writing and publishing process can be both a struggle and an exciting journey for authors. While it can be lengthy, the process teaches important lessons that stick with individuals. These lessons were highlighted by University-affiliated authors throughout their experiences in writing and publishing their works.
C.J. Lake is a 1991 graduate with a double bachelor’s degree in history and speech communications from the University. She has published newspaper articles and has published poetry with one poem in BarBar’s “Dreams of ‘23.” She was an editor for a foundations of math textbook for kindergarten to second grade and currently has a book in production.
This book is made up of profiles about people buried in a Civil War cemetery in Oregon. The profiles are based on primary documents, such as obituaries, birth certificates and news articles. She explained that many Oregonians during that time had various roles at once, such as being a judge, a local farmer and a state representative. She said this book has been the “most epic writing project” she has worked on.
“I think … what was so fascinating is how things have changed,” Lake said about the differences in societal roles from the 1800s to now. “(Today), we have these more narrow definitions where we’re really pigeonholed a lot more.”
As a freelance writer and stringer, someone who is hired as a part-time journalist by a news organization to report in a certain domain, many of her published works are newspaper articles. She said that she has 500 stories from realtor magazines and small-town newspapers across the United States.
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Lake believes that reporting comes in various forms: going out, doing things, experiencing things and talking to people. For example, for a story about how to snowboard and the move from skiing to snowboarding, Lake learned to snowboard along with the real tip about snowboarding from an instructor after falling many times.
Lake also published her works traditionally because of its layers, collaboration and different steps, such as pitching a story and working with different editors. With her most recent piece, Lake highlighted the importance of taking breaks when necessary during the writing process.
Lake explained that building a portfolio on Submittable, writing Google reviews to get works published and going to industry conferences all help to get works published.
“To get published, you really want to offer something unique and new, even if you write it very straightforward,” Lake said.
Vicente Chomalí-Castro, junior in Engineering and LAS, has an academic paper from 2024 that was published in a journal in 2025, and he is currently finishing up another academic paper. He initially got into writing research papers because he liked learning about the world, was interested in learning how things work and answering questions.
His work focuses on theoretical and computational physics. He explained that theoretical physics focuses on doing mathematics to solve the question asked, while computational physics concentrates on translating the question into code, like predicting what would happen if the Moon collided with the Earth.
“You write a code that has gravity between the objects, rotation, translation, temperature, maybe even some chemistry,” Chomalí-Castro said. “Then what this code would do is literally simulate, just like when you play ‘The Sims.’”
Chomalí-Castro explained that there are two functions of writing academic papers for him: enjoying the science itself and helping him to get into a good doctoral program.
Chomalí-Castro has also run into some difficulties along the way. Some papers have been frustrating because the paper’s scope was defined, but the results did not make sense. Another difficult aspect has been figuring out the question — determining what should be asked and whether people are interested in the topic.
When stuck on something or frustrated, Chomalí-Castro suggests taking a break and coming back to it later; he has found that the quickest results sometimes come from waiting, rather than trying to complete everything at once.
“If you’re doing research, don’t forget that you’re human,” Chomalí-Castro said. “Have fun pursuing the questions … If you’re not having fun, then you are not doing the right thing.”
Cliff Sun, junior in Engineering and LAS, has published two research papers and is currently working on another one. His research focuses on physics, specifically superconductors. He has also done research in aerospace for the NASA competition with the Illinois Space Society. He is still exploring the fields he is interested in.
He got into publishing when his professor found his results interesting and had not seen them before in the field. Sun’s academic papers have been about superconducting nanowire symmetries and breaking specific symmetries. His first paper took a year, while his second paper took three months. His current paper has taken two months.
While writing his papers, Sun explained that his professor is more careful than him when presenting the results, which he has had to learn. Consequently, his research ability improved, and he became better at comprehending ideas, visualizing ideas and presenting the results.
Sun learned to become more intuition-focused, such as knowing what can or cannot be published and what makes a paper interesting.
There are two aspects of writing a research paper: the actual research and communicating the results. Sun explained what he believes differentiates a good researcher from an amazing researcher, which depends more on how well they communicate the research, rather than their ability to do the research.
When it comes to academic papers, Sun explains that it is necessary to understand why the project was assigned by a professor and that research should be done because it is enjoyable and interesting.
“To the reader of this article, my best piece of advice is just to try stuff out … and don’t think about it too hard,” Sun said. “If it sounds fun, just do it. You’ll never know where it takes you.”
