Back to School: Publishing After PME

A callback to a Special “How-To” Edition of Military Review

Back to School: Publishing after PME

Are you among the few thousand Army leaders engulfed in their professional military education (PME) covering various topics, from learning about Clausewitz to discussing troop-leading procedures? If so, the Army has afforded you the opportunity to step back from day-to-day military life to focus exclusively on thinking and learning. As you work through your course, it is inevitable that you will have an idea that deserves a wider audience beyond your small group or instructor. To help you get these crucial ideas out to the force, we recently published a guide in Military Review entitled “From PME to Publication,”. This how-to article outlines how to transform a PME writing assignment into a published article. 

Undoubtedly, the hardest part of writing an article is starting. Whether you like it or not, PME will force you to overcome this first significant roadblock. However, just because something is written, even if it gets a good grade, does not mean it has merit beyond the schoolhouse. As our piece jokes early on, everything that glitters is not gold, and “sometimes an assignment is just that, an assignment.” Still, suppose you have a worthwhile idea or an already-completed assignment that can add to professional discourse. In that case, the PME article in the Military Review Special Edition can help you with the steps to becoming a published author.

We built this guide from personal experience and interviews with subject matter experts. Gordon and I were privileged enough to have PME experiences focused on writing. We both completed the Art of War Scholars Program at the Command and General Staff College, albeit at different times, where the informal graduation requirement is precisely what we outlined in our guide, transforming our academic research into a published article. In turn, the guide is really a personal reflection on the process. It covers the challenges with restructuring assignments and learning how to communicate with a general audience, as well as the back-and-forth with editors and gaining an appreciation for the venues that currently exist to support military discourse.

Putting the guide together also helped us build relationships with editors at numerous venues. While our personal experience set the foundation for the guide, we felt we needed to provide you with an outside perspective on the challenges of publishing PME papers. It was invaluable to leverage these relationships from previous writing adventures to open the door to candid conversations with influential people at War on the Rocks, Army Magazine, and From the Green Notebook. The comments sprinkled throughout the guide are first-hand insights into the thoughts of those on the receiving end of your efforts. Additionally, we drew on feedback from PME institutional leadership. Combined, these experts offered a mix of encouragement and sobering realizations. Ultimately, while there is a path from PME to publication, it is not for everyone, authors and venues alike.

Whether you’re just arriving at school, deep into research, or finally able to relax after completing that first assignment, take a moment to peruse our guide “From PME to Publication” to see if the journey to becoming a published author is right for you. There will be very few other opportunities in your career where the Army asks you to sit back and think. Take advantage of it. Even if you don’t solve all of the world’s problems during your time at the Army War College or the Advanced Leaders Course, you might end up stumbling onto a great idea that will influence change and spark other research. Sharing that thought with the rest of our community will take some forethought, a few alterations along the way, and a bit of hard work, but I can tell you from personal experience that it is worth it.