I like writing book chapters. If you look at my publications – well I don’t mean you to do this literally – but IF you did, you’d see that I’ve written quite a lot of them. In the last month I’ve been sent two books which I’ve got chapters in, I’m expecting another collection as well as some chapter proofs any day – and I’m just starting on writing a chapter. So I really do think they’re OK.

The reason I like writing chapters is because they (generally) offer different opportunities for academic writing from the stock-in-trade journal article.

For a start, you can assume with a book chapter that you don’t have to convince readers that the topic you’re writing about is important. The editors are going to do that in the foreword. They are also likely to do a pretty thorough survey of the field, and to cover…