 Centuries strong: Black history told through 10 essential Oxford Reads African American history does not begin with the founding of the United States—its roots stretch centuries deep. Black experiences, intellectual traditions, resistance, and cultural innovation have shaped the story of America. This timeline brings together Oxford works that illuminate pivotal moments across over two hundred transformative years—from a Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harriet Tubman to long-overlooked accounts from the later Civil Rights era. Explore the essential role of historically Black colleges and universities, and encounter richly drawn portraits of trailblazers like Louis Armstrong and Althea Gibson. Taken together, these books reveal a legacy of resilience, creativity, and influence that has defined American life from the colonial era through the 20th century. Explore the depth and breadth of African American history with this curated selection of Oxford University Press titles—stories that predate 1776 and continue to shape the nation we know today. Featured image by Joel Filipe via Unsplash. OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
 How to write an interdisciplinary abstract The purpose of any abstract is to summarise your article’s content in a way that will help potential readers decide if they want to read your work. An abstract usually runs between 150 and 300 words and will likely be your readers’ first interaction with your research article, so you must write it with that in mind. It should be intelligible on its own, without someone needing to have read your whole article or have in-depth knowledge of the subject at hand to follow the abstract’s meaning. Interdisciplinary abstracts are more complex than abstracts aimed at a single discipline, since they must appeal to a wider range of readers with radically varying knowledge bases. What follows is a list of eight key strategies for writing clear, compelling abstracts for interdisciplinary research. It’s not intended to be prescriptive or exhaustive, but I hope it will help if you’re feeling overwhelmed with the amount of ground you’re expected to cover in such a small number of words. - Start with the hook
A stand-up comic once told me that the golden rule of comedy is to always start with your best joke. This advice can be applied to writing abstracts: start with the hook. The ‘hook’ is the most exciting and impactful feature of your work. It answers the perennial questions of ‘So what?’ and ‘Why should anyone care?’ If you can convincingly answer these questions in the first sentence of your abstract, readers are much more likely to want to read the full article.
Often, the hook is placed at the end of the abstract as an enticement to read more, but increasingly I think it can be more effective when placed in the very first sentence of an interdisciplinary abstract. When writing up interdisciplinary research, you are appealing to a wider readership that goes beyond the confines of one discipline, so you must capture their attention right from the off with a statement of impact that makes it abundantly clear why researchers in multiple disciplines need to read your work. Then, you can move onto specifics like background and methods.
- State your purpose
Every abstract should state the central research question or aim of the article, in the clearest possible terms, and justify why it must be answered. It is possible for an article to answer more than one research question, but juggling multiple research questions often leads to an unfocused argument and an overly long article. An article of six-to-ten thousand words gives you enough time to answer one central research question very convincingly, and it is better to do this than to answer multiple research questions less convincingly. Before moving on, you must clarify why it is important to answer that research question. Why is this research necessary and how does the article address that need?
- Summarise disciplinary contexts
Your interdisciplinary article likely builds upon recent developments in more than one discipline, so you should not assume that readers will be conversant in all the disciplines with which your work engages. Use a couple of sentences to explain key developments in each relevant discipline that directly impact your research. Focus only on what’s essential for understanding your argument. Keep this concise, though, as abstracts should not be overloaded with contextual information.
- Explain your methods
Interdisciplinary methods are complex but enriching. They usually pull together and combine research techniques from multiple disciplines. Due to this complexity, interdisciplinary abstracts are sometimes overloaded with technical terminology that seem impenetrable to many readers. Take care to explain your methods or theoretical framework and why they help you answer your research question, keeping jargon to a minimum and defining key technical terms with which readers may not be familiar.
- Defend your interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinary research is often called upon to justify its existence as interdisciplinary research. There are large numbers of scholars who are sceptical about the very idea of interdisciplinarity. If you are to retain these scholars as readers, you must explain in your abstract why an interdisciplinary approach to your research question is not only possible but essential. Some problems demand interdisciplinary approaches, others do not. You need to convince readers that your work fits into the former category and explain why you have assembled your unique interdisciplinary methodology or theoretical framework to respond to this research question.
- Forecast your results
Some abstracts won’t do this because the authors prefer to keep the revelation of their findings back for the conclusion of their article. I prefer abstracts to at least forecast the results of the research, simply because this might convince more prospective readers to engage with and cite your article if they know from reading the abstract that its results have direct implications for their own research.
- Use an economy of words
All your sentences should have a purpose. Meandering trains of thought that take a while to get to the point do not have a place in an abstract, so remove anything that is even slightly tangential. Bear in mind that an abstract is also a discovery aid, since the text of an abstract is often part of the metadata that is pulled across to bibliographic indexes such as SCOPUS and Google Scholar. Consequently, an abstract should include the kind of words you imagine potential readers might type into a library catalogue or online search tool. You will often be asked to provide a list of keywords alongside your abstract, and it is a good idea to work them into the text of the abstract itself to boost your article’s discoverability further.
- Write assertively
Abstracts are not the place to be modest about your achievements. Use assertive verbs and write in the present tense: say ‘this article does X’ rather than ‘this article aims to do X’ or ‘this article will do X’. Avoid hedging your bets, with words like ‘arguably’ and ‘potentially’ or an overly liberal use of the conditional. And above all: back yourself! It is expected for a research article to contain detailed discussion of other researchers’ work. That is not the case for an abstract, which should foreground your own original interpretation.
Further resources:Featured image by Thought Catalog via Unsplash. OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
 How do you write a comparative politics textbook for changing times? When I studied comparative politics as an undergraduate in the 1990s, I was introduced to the field through static comparisons between national political systems. Each chapter in the textbook we read described a different country, and we learned about constitutions, legislatures, and parties as if they were fixed features of political life. That approach has long since been overtaken by events. Today’s students live in a world where party systems are changing from election to election, new technologies are transforming political participation and communication, and authoritarian rulers are coming up with new ways of grabbing and holding on to power. How should we teach comparative politics in this rapidly changing environment? That’s something I thought about when I sat down to write my new textbook, An Introduction to Comparative Politics. My answer has four parts. 1. Get to the key concepts and ideas right awayScholars of comparative politics ask two big questions: why are political systems so different from one another, and how do those differences matter for people’s lives? If we help students understand why those two questions are so important and guide them as they learn about the main differences between political systems, we can put them on a life-long journey of discovery. Today’s students have easy access to reasonably accurate data on political systems via their computers and their phones, so it’s not factual information they need from us—they need concepts and ideas they can use to make sense of the information that is available to them. 2. Take a global viewThe modern discipline of comparative politics developed in America and Europe in the nineteenth century, and it has long treated the institutions of North American and Western European democracies as the standard against which all other systems are measured. That attitude never made much sense, and it makes less sense today than ever, since many of today’s political challenges and conflicts have a global scope. Today’s students are eager to understand how the key concepts and ideas of comparative politics travel across continents—or, as is sometimes the case, they don’t. 3. Talk about historical changeThe turn away from static comparisons between national political systems also requires that we pay attention to processes of historical change, continuities, and resurgences. It is remarkable how much history has been repeating itself lately. Over the last two decades, leading comparativists have presented in-depth analyses of “electoral authoritarianism”—conducting multi-party elections in de facto authoritarian regimes. As Theodore Zeldin showed in the 1950s, Napoleon III’s regime in France in the 1850s and 1860s had all the hallmarks of electoral authoritarianism. Other comparativists have examined the rise of populism. Donald Trump’s rise to power in the United States has a lot in common with Georges Boulanger’s meteoric political career in France in the 1880s. 4. Emphasize data and methodsFor better or worse, we live in a data-driven world, and whatever our students choose to do when they’re done studying, they’re going to need basic data literacy skills. This makes it all the more important for us as teachers to emphasize that comparative politics isn’t just a set of facts to memorize—it is a way of thinking about the world. Students need to become familiar with the main methodological approaches in comparative politics right away, including both broad cross-national comparisons and focused case studies. I therefore deemed it essential, when writing An Introduction to Comparative Politics, to present students with up-to-date data and up-to-date empirical examples in all chapters. By learning the key concepts and ideas, taking a global view, tracing processes of historical continuity and change, and using diverse comparative methods, students can gain the independence of mind they need to make sense of politics throughout their lifetimes. Feature image: photo by Bhabin Tamang via Pexels. OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
 Meet the editors: what we do at conferences For academics, stepping into the world of scholarly conferences for the first time can feel like crossing the Rubicon. After months (or sometimes years) of what is often a solitary research journey, scholars enter a dynamic ecosystem where subfields collide and converge, and colleagues at every career stage rub shoulders in line for coffee and conversation. For Oxford’s two newest politics editors, Morgan Jones and Gabe Kachuck, the recent American Political Science Association annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada, was their first opportunity to experience the rush of new ideas and new faces firsthand. Below, Morgan and Gabe share their initial impressions, memorable moments, and key lessons—for themselves and for future conference delegates. You were first time attendees at the APSA conference. Any highlights? We were proud to represent Oxford University Press at one of the field’s largest gatherings. Having a good number of our books together at one booth really brought the list to life, and it was exciting to see old friends, new collaborators, and curious strangers leafing through the range of the categories we’re publishing in. Vancouver itself was a standout: the Convention Centre’s two glass-walled buildings stood handsomely against the cerulean harbor, framed by the mountains and dotted with sea planes taking off and landing. The fresh air was welcome amid back-to-back meetings and sobering discussions about the state of global affairs. How are scholars responding to the political challenges of our time? This is a poignant question, following the assassination of American political activist Charlie Kirk. The conference was just getting underway when the news landed; it quickly consumed everyone in attendance, as did the unrest that followed. Responses to the violence were myriad, but the constant was an ever-growing concern for the future of democratic norms. Scholars and researchers at APSA brought a wealth of expertise to this issue and so many others that define our current moment. We were moved by their commitment to asking good questions and developing grounded answers to inform the path forward. How did you build your schedule? Planning for the conference began a month or so prior to our flights to Vancouver. Because we are both new editors at OUP, we are still in the process of meeting all the authors we’ve inherited from our predecessor. In building our schedules, we aimed to strike a balance between chatting with these authors about their progress and connecting with others whose work is of interest, for a variety of different reasons. We met a mix of early-career researchers and experienced scholars who offered insights into trends and developments in any given subfield. We also left time in our schedules for panels and “down time” at the exhibition booth, where we enjoyed lively, organic conversations about Oxford’s list and what people are up to in the field. Since you both acquire academic and trade titles for Oxford’s politics list, how did you approach conversations at APSA? We start our conversations by working to understand what you aim to do and who you want your work to reach, whether that be fellow academics, students, policymakers, practitioners, or general readers. From there, we can offer feedback on whether your book project is set up to effectively meet those goals, and, if so, what might look like if you were to publish an academic, trade, or crossover work with us at OUP. Aligning your needs as author with ours as publisher is key to a successful partnership. What kind of book proposals or research topics seemed especially compelling or timely? Our first question when evaluating a proposal is: what’s novel here? That might mean unpublished interviews conducted during fieldwork abroad, newly uncovered census or survey data, or a fresh conceptual approach to understanding the structures that shape power and politics around the world. The proposals that stood out to us at APSA were those with a clear sense of their potential impact—whether on specific subfields or on broader public discourse. We’re always drawn to ambitious arguments or narratives that aim to tackle questions too expansive for a single journal article. Those are the kinds of projects that consistently make us lean in and want to learn more! Did you attend any panels? If so, were there standout moments or recurring themes caught your attention? Gabe was able to attend a few panels between meetings, including the Author Meets Critics session for When the Internet Meets Authoritarian Governance: China’s Digital Governance and a paper discussion on nuclear deterrence strategies. It was heartening to hear OUP books cited in both sessions—a reminder of our ongoing impact on the field. The panels offered sharp insights into how political science is engaging with questions of state power in digital and strategic contexts. One recurring theme across panels and informal conversations was the role of AI in shaping research, scholarship, and teaching. Scholars are clearly grappling with how to integrate these tools into their work and classrooms, and there’s far from a consensus on how best to do so. It’s a space marked by both experimentation and uncertainty, and it’s likely to remain a live conversation for some time. Now that you’ve attended your first academic conference, do you have any advice for scholars hoping to connect with you and other OUP editors? Reach out early to request a meeting! Our emails can be found on OUP’s website under Find an Editor. Even if we aren’t able to connect with you during the conference, we’re open to setting up virtual meetings before or after events have wrapped. Or, come by the booth to say hello. We are often on the go, but we enjoy meet-and-greets and would be glad to listen to an elevator pitch of your research interests, works-in-progress, or forthcoming submissions. Photo by Rob te Braake on Unsplash. OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
 Back to school for happy and healthy kids Every September, caregivers and kids alike prepare for one big change: the start of a new school year. As the weeks of summer draw to a close, families are cramming in the last moments of summer fun while simultaneously gearing up for school drops offs and new classroom schedules. While it can be an incredibly exciting time, filled with first day of school outfits and new school gear, it can also be incredibly stressful. This can be particularly true for teenagers who, compared to younger kids, are facing higher academic demands and social pressure while experiencing the major physical and developmental changes that come during adolescence. On top of that, a 2023 Center of Disease Control report showed that teens of today have higher rates of mental health concerns, such as anxiety and depression, and that suicidal thoughts and behaviors are increasing. This can make the return to school daunting for teens, as well as parents who are worried about how their child will manage the transition and demands of the year. Fortunately, there are several tools that parents and caregivers can use to prepare kids and teens for the first few weeks in September. This includes setting clear expectations, skills to encourage helpful behavior, and strategies that help kids feel supported by their parents. Setting expectations While many kids prefer to keep their heads in the sand when it comes to a new academic cycle, it can be incredibly helpful to set expectations for the school year a few weeks in advance. The most basic version of this includes outlining differences between summer versus school schedules, such as changes to sleep and wake times, limits to screens, or daily responsibilities. This preview can help kids’ brains prepare for the upcoming shifts in their daily lives and make the transition a little smoother. It’s also a great idea to talk to kids about how the upcoming school year might be different than the last one. This could include providing information on class size, the structure of the day, or increased expectations. The goal is not to scare your kids about everything coming their way, but rather to provide them with simple clear information in a manner that builds excitement. For example, “It’s so fun that you get to go to go off-campus for lunch this year. I bet it will make the day feel way more interesting!” Or, “I know high school is bigger than middle school. It may feel a little overwhelming, but it’s also such a great time for you to see how capable you are.” Encouraging positive behaviors Once expectations have been set, parents can also work to encourage brave or skillful behavior. This may include things like taking more responsibility (e.g., managing their own communication with teachers and coaches), growing outside of their comfort zone (e.g., joining a new club or social circle), or challenging themselves with new opportunities or roles (e.g., a first job or harder courseload). This most effective way to do this is through a skill called “labeled praise.” Labeled praise is when you show appreciation for a specific behavior or characteristic your child is demonstrating. When it comes to a new school year, parents can look for opportunities to praise preparation, flexibility, and bravery. For example, “I know you really loved your teachers last year, and I appreciate how openminded you are about your new schedule.” Another parent may say, “Great call on getting to bed a little earlier this week. It’ll make the start of school so much easier!” For teens who haven’t mastered brave or skillful choices, parents can offer cheerleading and encouragement. Phrases like “I know you’re going to do a beautiful job making friends because you’ve done it before!” or “10th grade is tough, and I have total confidence that you’re going to find a way to balance everything” send a message that they really believe in their kid. This can go a long way towards encouraging positive behaviors. Providing validation When you do notice your child having a hard time, whether it’s nerves, low mood, or difficulty organizing themselves for a new semester, it’s always a great idea to offer validation. Validation is a skill used to show somebody that you can see their perspective or understand where they are coming from. Validation can be a tricky skill to master for caregivers because it is sometimes hard to put yourself in your child’s shoes, or you are eager to get them to see a new perspective. For example, when your child complains about their new math teacher who they have heard is a hard grader, it’s tempting to say “Nah! I’m sure it’ll be fine!” This may work for some kids. However, it can come off as dismissive and hard to believe for a teen whose anxiety or stress is high. Instead, try validation: “It makes sense that you’re nervous based on what you’ve heard!” While you aren’t agreeing with your child’s worries, you are acknowledging them, and that can help increase a sense of connection and communication. Once your child feels understood, they’ll be better able to think clearly about the situation and problem solve as needed. As you navigate another year of permission slips, homework, and extracurricular activities, remember that you have a handful of tools in your pocket to help ease the way. With a little bit of preparation, encouragement, and support, you and child can start the school year off on a great foot. Feature image: Photo by Wajih Ghali on Unsplash. OUPblog - Academic insights for the thinking world. 
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