Career Professional now working as a Professor and being pressured to publish - Where does one start? I'm a career professional in the data science field and spent my career focused on information systems and data visualization.

I recently wound up with an adjunct professor role at a local institution. At first things were fine, but now there is a strong pressure for me to publish 'academic works' in scholarly publications and I'm not even really sure what that involves.

I don't necessarily do a lot of dedicated "new" research of anything novel, I just have a deep understanding of the industry and how to apply the practice to fields that others often over look. But, I don't think a really good tutorial on how to do something is a scholarly article.

So for someone who has never written or even read a scholarly publication in their life, and has no idea how to get involved in this, where do I start?

What types of articles merit publication?

Can I do critiques of industry practices? Or case studies? Or do I have to start running double-blind experiments with different businesses to keep my job?
This is either an abuse of an adjunct (I doubt they are paying you enough for this!) or they're grooming you to bring you properly on board.

If it's the latter, or if your interest is coincidentally piqued, I suggest you start with two things:


Find a mentor.  This person doesn't have to be in your department, and doesn't have to be an expert in the same area as you.  If you don't find one quickly by yourself, have whoever is pressuring you suggest someone.
Go to Google Scholar and type in some key words from your area.  Just start reading.  Don't read anything you don't find interesting.  After some reading, find out a bit more about the features of Google Scholar (for example, once you find an article you're really excited about, click where it says "Cited by").

It all starts with "I wonder...."

Have fun!