She wrote 5 papers in 12 months while lecturing full time

A tourism and hospitality lecturer built a publication streak—three journal papers and two conference papers in roughly a year—by treating research like a structured workflow rather than an occasional writing burst. The most tangible payoff came from a conference paper that earned a “best paper” award, and another journal submission that is now under minor revision, underscoring that consistent process can translate into recognition even while teaching full time.

Her research agenda centers on consumer behavior in tourism, especially how diners and guests decide what to buy or choose in restaurants and hospitality settings. A current thread in that work looks at how user-generated content—particularly online photos and reviews—shapes restaurant choice. She argues that when posts include visible faces alongside food or service, the content tends to perform better than images of dishes alone, aligning with the idea that richer, more human cues can increase attention and purchase intention. For restaurant managers, that translates into practical encouragement: prompt customers to share photos that include themselves with the meal or service, turning everyday dining experiences into marketing that can influence other potential customers.

The path to those outputs wasn’t smooth. Before joining a coaching program, she identified four major blockers: difficulty finding a clear research gap, reading heavily without translating it into writing, weak academic-language control, and uncertainty about how to structure a full paper. The program’s approach targeted each issue with a repeatable method. Gap-finding became systematic: she learned to read 10–20 papers and then scan specific sections—introduction, aims, and the limitations or conclusions—to locate where prior work is missing, insufficient, contradictory, or geographically limited. She described finding about three distinct gap types through this framework.

Structuring the paper also became less mysterious. Instead of building sections from scratch, she followed a guided template for the introduction—covering the importance of the study, prior research/literature review, the research gap, the study aim, and related components—so writing turned into filling in defined slots. That same structure carried into later work, including studies on why people buy street food in Vietnam. In that project, she combined theory with variables tied to consumer choice and framed the gap as a mismatch between existing research that focuses on other countries and the need to understand Vietnam’s context, where street food plays a major role in jobs and income.

Time management emerged as the make-or-break challenge. She initially planned nothing and lost hours to low-value tasks like email and social media. After adopting a schedule, she protected a daily writing window by waking early (around 5 a.m.) for uninterrupted writing, then allocating set blocks for reading, lecture preparation, administrative work, and longer afternoon reading tied to theory-building. Her biggest lesson was that planning and following instructions reduces stress and improves effectiveness.

For lecturers and junior researchers aiming to publish more—especially those juggling teaching and family—her advice is straightforward: plan specific time for reading and writing, use a structured paper outline to reduce uncertainty, and pursue coaching that helps translate reading into publishable drafts. The interview closes with a call for a free one-to-one consultation for researchers seeking support with writing and publishing in Q1 journals.