Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Getting an Article Published?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Jun 7, 2024, at 9:20 AM, Mac Thomson via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:

> Does anyone have any suggestions of how I could get such an article published?

My first reaction is that getting a general article published as a freelancer 
is not likely. There are actually a lot of articles stressing these ideas now 
and I suspect they are written by staff or writers known to the editors. 
Breaking into that field, unless you are already writing in it, would take 
time. You would have to become one of them.

I would suggest targeting your article more narrowly and basing it on public 
data and personal stories. The actual data on cohousing is probably not up to 
the standards of journals but I could be wrong. You might be able to work with 
the Cohousing Research Network to pull some interesting facts out of what they 
have. 

One of the newsletters I read is Gabe Fleisher’s "Wake Up to Politics." This is 
the one by the 15-year-old high school student who began writing it for his 
mother who wanted to know "What does this mean?"  He has now graduated from 
Georgetown University and is still waking up 5 days a week to write his 
newsletter. He has 40,000+ readers around the world.

Yesterday’s issue was on how to read polls and understand when they might be 
biased. I found it very helpful and I think you can look at data from other 
sources in interesting ways that are valid comparisons. 

https://www.wakeuptopolitics.com/june-6-2024/?ref=wake-up-to-politics-newsletter

One of his points is that the pollsters poll 18-24-year-olds on issues that are 
not relevant to all 18-24-year-olds. Polling questions are too often influenced 
by the staff of political campaigns, interns in government offices, student 
newspaper editors, and college-based political activist groups. As a result, 
questions about student loans, for example, are often used as an example of 
what young people care about. But that is not among the most important issues 
to all young voters. 

I checked population statistics yesterday and found that while the total number 
of students with overwhelming college debt may be large, only 39% of that age 
group is even in college. The Urban Institute reports that 30-40 percent of 
undergraduates have federal student loans (the ones in the news) and 70% of 
graduates have some kind of indebtedness.

Of that 70% there are pockets of students whose loans will be paid as part of 
their hiring contract — law firms, Wall Street, etc. Some states have loan 
programs that are forgiven if you work for the state government for a 
predetermined number of years after you graduate — 2 years, for example, paid 
back all of a friend's loans for his PhD program in psychology.

So the loud noise we hear about student loans is important inside politics but 
for the rest of that age group, it is a non-issue. 70% of 39% is at most 27 of 
every 100 young people between the ages of 18-24. With loan forgiveness 
programs that already exist, less  than 25% of college students are concerned 
about this issue. 75% are concerned about what other adults are concerned about 
inflation and healthcare.

I include this because there is a ton of data available online from reputable 
sources that can be used to draw valid comparisons between cohousing and the 
general population. I think for a person who has the depth and breadth of 
experience that you have, adding a few quotes from Katie, Chuck, the authors of 
recent books “Community Led Cohousing”, “Collaborative Cohousing,” Diana Leafe 
Christian, Jerry Koch Gonzales, and dozens of others who have been in cohousing 
for 30 years, you can write an article that more focused publications would be 
happy to publish. You need people who can validate what is “true” in cohousing 
and it would help if those  people are also familiar with the “general 
population.” One problem with anecdotal information from cohousers is that I 
find they are not aware of which things in cohousing also occur in “normal” 
condos. The kind of community that develops in many condos over time. 

Look at the articles the journal has published and take issue with their 
findings or confirm them. Then you will be addressing an issue that the journal 
has already shown an interest in. Google Scholar is probably the best place to 
look for journals publishing on topics relevant to you. (Google Scholar is not 
an evaluative listing. They list everything but they also give the number of 
times an article has been referenced by another article.)

Some huge reliable data sources that I like are:

Pew Research Center  https://www.pewresearch.org/
Statistica  https://www.statista.com/
US Government's Open Data  https://data.gov/
Google's Director of Public Data https://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

It is also incredible what Google can bring up when you just ask a question. 

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org