A 16-week journal-style coaching for early-career academics writing their first peer-reviewed paper. Edited by Inés Lourenço at Field Notes College — three drafts, two scholar reviewers, one finished article.
Each article closes with a written piece of your paper. The fourth closes with a first-author submission to a named journal.
Article 01Volume I
From Question to Argument
By the end of week four you will have a one-paragraph argument that sits where a thesis statement should — short enough to read aloud, large enough to defend for 8,000 words.
An outline that earns its sections. We map the empirical spine — what evidence you have, what you do not, and where the paper rests on each.
8 seminars · Weeks 05–08
Article 03Volume III
Drafting the Discussion You Can Defend
Three drafts of the discussion section, reviewed with two scholars from your cohort. The third draft is the one we send out to journal selection.
7 seminars · Weeks 09–12
Article 04Volume IV
Submission, Revision, and the R&R
Choosing the right journal, writing the cover letter, and surviving the first revise-and-resubmit. We coach the response-to-reviewers letter line by line.
Seminars
5
Drafts coached
3
Letters
1 · cover
What contributors published
Three papers, three cohorts.
I
Soraya Mehta — Cohort 04 — J. Cell Biol., 2024
A first-author paper on mitochondrial dynamics in airway epithelia. Cited 47 times in its first year. Soraya cites Article II as the week the paper found its argument.
II
Kohei Tanaka — Cohort 02 — Theory & Society, 2023
An ethnographic essay on weekend craft markets, structured as four conversations. Accepted on first submission, no R&R requested.
III
Adelaida Pérez-Costa — Cohort 06 — J. Comp. Lit., 2025
A paper on translation and silence in three early modern texts. Survived three R&Rs. Adelaida cites Article IV as the week she stopped fearing reviewer two.
The cohort vs going alone
You can write the paper alone. Most early-career academics do not finish it.
Capability
This cohort
Going it alone
Two scholar reviewers, written notes per draft
Included
—
Bi-weekly cohort seminar with Inés
Included
—
Journal selection workshop in week 13
Included
—
Response-to-reviewers coaching during R&R
Included
—
First-author paper accepted within 18 months
71%of cohort
22%of solo writers
From three cohorts
I had been told for two years that my paper was nearly there. Inés showed me, in week six, that the question I was answering was not the question I cared about. The paper rewrote itself in a fortnight.
Soraya Mehta
Cohort 04 — Northwind Institute, accepted in J. Cell Biol.
196
Scholars coached
47
Seminars across 16 wks
71%
Accepted within 18m
8
Volumes published
Cohort 09 — September 09, 2026
12 contributors · 4 places left
Three subscriptions
Subscription for Vol. IX. No tier hides the journal.