Fostering Scholarly Writing through the Division for Early Childhood Consortium for Innovations in Doctoral Excellence (DECIDE) Mentorship

The body of literature for a professional field is created by voices from people who share their ideas with others through scholarly writing. How do emerging scholars acquire the requisite academic writing skills to publish and contribute to publishing research in our profession? Mentorship is a time-honored practice that could be considered. One possible way to prepare people to amplify their voices through their scholarly writing is through mentorships. Writing mentorships, defined here as a productive collaboration between a more experienced academic author and an emergent scholar that results in professional publication, is the focus of this article. The authors will provide an overview of a specific mentorship program called, Division for Early Childhood Consortium for Innovations in Doctoral Excellence (DECIDE). The article concludes with strategies for generating more productive and satisfying mentor and mentee writing relationships with recommendations for future research.