Academic Chat #6 Writing Well - Tips That Make A Difference Hartley Conference Room Mitchell Earth Sciences Building

http://pangea.stanford.edu/about/map.php Tuesday, March 9, 2010

#1 TEN WAYS OF THINKING THAT LEAD TO WRITING PROCRASTINATION AND REBUTTALS TO THOSE THOUGHTS #2 REDUCING OVER-COMPLEXITY IN YOUR SCHOLARLY WRITING #3 FACULTY QUICK STARTERS - KEYS TO WRITING SUCCESS #1 TEN WAYS OF THINKING THAT LEAD TO WRITING PROCRASTINATION AND REBUTTALS TO THOSE THOUGHTS The posting below looks at. It is by Gina Hiatt, PhD and is from the Academic Ladder Get help with the climb, which can be found at: [http://academicladder.com] 2008 Dissertation Coach, reprinted with permission. ---------* I need to warm up first by writing some email. ** Rebuttal: You can warm up by starting the work slowly, making a list of what you will do, reading over your notes or writing from yesterday. * I'm not in a good mood and I don't write well when I'm not in a good mood - I'll do it later when I feel better. ** Rebuttal: Nothing will make you feel as good as getting something done. The main reason for your bad mood is that you don't really want to do this task, so getting it out of the way will feel great. * Life is so hard - I can't believe I have to do this unpleasant task. I'll even it out by doing something more fun first. ** Rebuttal: Yes, life is hard, and it's terrible that you have to do this task. That's why you will reward yourself after you do the task. Otherwise you're applying backwards conditioning, which doesn't work. And don't forget to plan enough fun and relaxation time into your schedule. * I'll definitely do it, in a minute or so * Rebuttal: Set a timer, or that minute could last 2 hours. When the timer goes off, do the task. Even better, do it now! * After this bad thing is over in my life (midterms, meeting, in-law visit, etc.) my life will seem easier and I'll be able to do my task on a daily basis. So I'll wait until then. ** Rebuttal: Life is always like this. You can afford to do 15 minutes of work today, can't

you? This is the one small act you can do to make your life a little better. * I just don't feel like it ** Rebuttal: So what? Do it anyway! If you wait until you feel like it, the task will get done in 10 years if you're lucky. They only way to make yourself feel like it is to get started and get into the flow of the work. * Why do just a little today - I'll do double tomorrow - I work better when I feel pressure anyway. ** Rebuttal: It's a fallacy that you work better under pressure. It's not true, because anxiety reduces creativity and clear thinking. And doing double the next day will backfire. You will feel less like doing it tomorrow because you've decided you must do double the work, and it will seem more overwhelming and less appealing, so you're even more likely to put it off until the next day. * I can only work in one place (the library, a caf, my office) and that place isn't available or I can't get there - so there's no point in working at all. ** Rebuttal: You'd be surprised how much work you can get done no matter where you are. Even if you don't have your laptop with you, you can pull out a scrap of paper and write down a few notes on what you'd like to accomplish in the section you've been working on. Try it! * I'm not sure how to do this - I don't know how sitting down and writing will enable me to do it -- it's just hopeless so why even start? ** Rebuttal: If you're not clear enough on what to do, writing may be the only way to get you out of this state. If you truly need help from someone else on this problem, you need to write down the questions clearly. The process of writing them down may clarify the issue for you. * I didn't write well yesterday, so today will be terrible. ** Rebuttal: Often bad writing days are followed by better ones. The reason to write daily is that your brain is still plugging away on it while you're doing other things or sleeping. So you may surprise yourself today! Questions? Send an email to help@academicladder.com and we'll be happy to help.

#2 REDUCING OVER-COMPLEXITY IN YOUR SCHOLARLY WRITING The posting below gives some good pointers on how to reduce complexity in your writing. It is by Gina Hiatt, Ph.D. and is from the Academic Ladder - Get help with the climb, which can be found at: [http://academicladder.com] 2008 Dissertation Coach, reprinted with permission.

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Does your writing stall out because you get overwhelmed and confused? In my never-understanding quest to understand the brain of the academic, I have finally realized something: it is incredibly complex. In the academic brain, thousands of ideas swirl around, each one reconnecting back to earlier ideas or spawning a new question, thought or idea. This is a sure sign of intelligence, you'll be happy to know. On the other hand, this complexity, if not kept under control, can stop you from functioning at an optimal level. Eventually, it can lead you to feel that you have no high-level thoughts at all. Over-complexity can be a real problem if you want to make progress on the important writing projects that really matter to your life and your career, but which don't come with external deadlines breathing down your neck. Like, say, your dissertation, or that book you really need to finish writing. The complexity of your mind can overwhelm you as you write, causing you to give up on your project because it all seems too muddled. The lack of deadline allows you to set it aside "temporarily," in the magical hope that the unclear mess that you have created will clear up on its own. Here are some methods of approaching your writing that will help to rein in the chaos: * Write to find out what you think. Your thoughts will be somewhat muddled until you get them in writing. Don't go around and around in circles internally until you know what to write. Write before you know what you're going to say. * Learn to tolerate some degree of confusion, and yes, complexity in your early writing. I've noticed that many academics get panicky when their first draft is a mess. It's supposed to be a mess! Have faith in the revision process. Whether it's the paragraph you're struggling with today, or the chapter you completed last week, there are ways of simplifying and clarifying your work later on. * Let go of the idea that you can create complex arguments in one draft. One-draft writing worked when you were an undergraduate, or maybe even in some grad school courses, as Howard Becker points out in Writing for Social Scientists. But it just doesn't work for dissertators or professors. The most prolific, experienced professors know that it takes many drafts before you reach clarity in your thinking or your writing. * If you have created a draft with lots of questions and notes to yourself, along with alternative possibilities and other additions that may be unnecessary, cut and paste these extras into another document, so that you can see your own clean draft. You're not throwing away your thoughts, just corralling them into a holding pen. By the way, I practice what I preach. This simple article, which contains about 935 words, originally had 1451. So I threw out 516 words. Sob. * As you write, notice when you're feeling stuck because you have to make a decision.

Writing consists of a series of small decisions; e.g. "Should I state that point here?" "Is this enough support for what I'm going to say?" "Do I need to include this citation?" At some point, you're going to have to decide one way or another. Go ahead and flip a coin. It will either become clear to you later what you need to do, or you will get feedback from others that tells you whether you made the right choice. Don't let those small decisions paralyze you. * Once you've made your decisions, you don't need to throw out the ideas that you have put into the holding pen. Start a file called "Ideas," into which you can put those thoughts and ideas. You'll be thankful to have this file at some later date, when you are scounging around for a starting point for a new article. If you are a grad student in the humanities, a similar file could be called "For the Book." This type of file has been popular with some dissertators in my coaching groups, who agonize over letting go of great ideas or lovely writing that just won't fit into the dissertation. Those ideas could well be the beginning of a great chapter for that book you will create from your dissertation. * Practice revising. How? * By mind mapping what you have already written, if the organization of your writing seems unclear. You can do this by writing your main argument and the topic sentences of your most important paragraphs on stickies or index cards. Place the argument in the center, then move the stickies around, or remove them, until it all seems clearer. * By creating drafts, rereading them and fixing them. Always focus on clarity. You will get better at this with practice. * By giving rough drafts to readers and making changes that they suggest, and rewriting parts that they misunderstand (if your initial readers misunderstand, chances are later readers will, too.) * Focus on simplifying. Remove redundancies, make fancy flowery sentences clearer, and take out anything that doesn't move the main argument forward. * Check whether you're using the "complexity defense." Ask yourself whether you're making your writing more complicated than it needs to be so that you'll never have to finish it. This could be a way of avoiding the inevitable criticism that any piece of scholarly writing must face. These are starting points for those of you who are either overwhelmed with the complexity of your thoughts, or afraid that you don't have any thoughts worth writing down. Scholarly writing is never an easy process, but you can make it a little easier on yourself by implementing one idea this week. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#3 FACULTY QUICK STARTERS - KEYS TO WRITING SUCCESS The following excerpt by Dr. JoAnn Moody, vice president, New England Board ofHigher Education, is based on the work of Robert Boice, author of, The New Faculty Member, (1992 Jossey-Bass Publishers). In his book, Boice talks about "quick starters," those beginning faculty who, among other things, "express remarkable satisfaction with and enjoyment of their teaching and receive high ratings for their teaching effectiveness from students and expert observers." The excerpt by Moody on successful writing is from her publication, "Demystifying the profession: Helping junior faculty succeed, " University of New Haven Press, JoAnn Moody, 1997, "Visualizing yourself as a successful college teacher, writer, and colleague," page. 5. ---------The same people who are described as quick starters in teaching also demonstrate fast starts, according to Boice, as scholarly writers/researchers and collegial networkers. During most workweeks, quick starters in humanities and social sciences make time to do scholarship, usually four to five hours per week, and they spend as much time on professional networking as on writing - because the two activities feed and reinforce one another. Quick starters in science-related fields often must raise funds to support all or part of their research projects and subsequent publications. To get a head start, quick starters in the sciences often plan out and draft their research funding proposal BEFORE assuming their assistant professor appointment. The best time to think about the contents of your initial proposal is when you are preparing for your job interviews. "Your interviewers will be very eager to know what your research plans are. Thus, at the same time as you are formulating the ideas necessary to win a job and writing the 'research directions' portion of your resume, you can be writing the basic elements of your proposal [with help from your graduate school mentors, of course]" Management of Time and Tasks Quick starters in all disciplines say their real problem is not time management but task management. They learn they must limit the amount of time they spend on class preparation but they ALSO must limit the amount of time they spend on writing. They write in brief, non-fatiguing, daily sessions lasting about an hour, and they hardly ever write in the evenings or on weekends. They also devote about one hour each day to networking - such as phone calls, visits, e-mail - wherein they discuss, with colleagues near and far, their teaching, their writing and research projects and ideas as well as map out plans for future projects with other scholars. (Again, the Internet is a networker's dream come true). By practicing moderation and getting into a balanced groove, quick starters say they have stopped complaining about being so busy, rushed, and overwhelmed. Senior faculty who are accomplished writers also follow this writing-in-moderation approach, according to

Jarvis who interviewed 100 such humanities professors. Similarly, John Creswell in Faculty Research Performance: Lessons from the Sciences and the Social Sciences reports that productivity in research and publications peaks when scientists, junior and senior, spend about one-third of their workweek on research. Going beyond that seems counter-productive. Mismanagement of Time and Tasks By contrast, slow starters - whether junior or senior faculty - are marked by busyness, procrastination, and binges. For these faculty the ideal time for writing is when they have a big uninterrupted period, such as a summer or semester off. And they think that they can write only when they are fully prepared, ready to do the perfect paper, and not so busy. Because they stay very, very busy, they put off writing, month after month. Procrastination sets in because writing becomes too big a deal, becomes too important, and requires too much effort and just about perfect conditions. Effective and efficient writers push themselves to get an outline of their project done quickly and to methodically write and fill in gaps. Such writers accept the fact that several revisions will be necessary. Very little writing and thinking flow cogently and elegantly from anyone's pen or laptop on the first try - though we all wish it would happen this way! In addition to habitually revising their work, efficient writers learn the tricks of the trade regarding publishing in their field from more experienced practitioners. Quick starters learn how to interact productively with editors and publishers. They seek advice from wise owls about when they should laboriously revise to please an editor or peer reviewer and when, instead, they should immediately send their work to another good prospect. Learning another shortcut, they have several scholarly projects going at the same time. Creativity and efficiency are usually enhanced by doing this. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------