How to Overcome Three or More Journal Writers?
Tips for Overcoming Three or More Journal Writers
Academics tend to use procrastination as an explanation for writer's block, Rowena Murray said, but really, they only avoid asking for help
A common thread in conversations about how difficult academic writing is the persistent feeling of not being ready to write. Or not good enough to write. While academics and PhD students might not mention this writer's block, they talk a lot about procrastination and perfectionism. They register the transfer activity - checking emails, Facebook, references, washing clothes, cleaning the room, mowing the lawn, watching it grow - and they know that all of this involves not writing.
This is a known problem. In his book Laraphgirl Journal says: "The most common writing block among undergraduate students, graduate students, scholars, and other professional writers who should not need help writing and do not need the type of writing instructions offered in typical composition classes."
But why are writer's blocks so common among academics? Does talking about procrastination only deny the need for help or instruction? Academic and PhD students should know everything they need to know, right?
Is the request for help seen as a critical weakness? Or is the writer's block caused by writing-related anxiety? Or unrealistic demands, leading to impossible writing goals? Or is there no agreed upon writing time, creating a workload where written output is defined but the writing process is not seen? Or is it isolation? We write ourselves, and we don't talk about it.
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Given this mix of strengths - emotional, cognitive, behavioral, rhetorical - we must use three strategies to deal with, or avoid, writer's block.
1) Set realistic goals and monitor the extent to which you are achieving them
Clear! Maybe that's the problem - the belief that writing is too complicated to have such a simple solution. Surely high-quality academic writings cannot be reduced to targets? But that's the problem - choose not to use strategies that help.
There is a misconception that writing cannot be defined in the same way as other academic assignments, in terms of sub-goals and sub-routine. Once that trust arises, writing seems impossible.
Instead, think about writing in terms of quality levels. For example, to write a chapter, working on one level can involve writing about all content, but not clarifying arguments. Working at another level can mean writing to make the argument line explicit, but not adding or cutting anything. Others can harmonize the chapter summary and contents. Each layer is a realistic goal.
This is not about lowering expectations - even though it might feel like it at first - but defining writing in terms of sub-tasks. Working at all these levels at once will be an unrealistic goal. Achieving realistic goals reduces anxiety and what an academic calls a "constant low-level feeling of failure", and prevents the writer's barrier.
2) Make a special writing time - when writing is all you do
Writers are more focused and less anxious when they don't do many tasks. Even checking references - important as they are in academic writing - literally stops writing. The key is writing wirelessly. Turn off all devices, exit email and internet and ignore other people's writing (books, articles, etc.) for a certain period of time. Set realistic writing goals for 90 minutes.
Why hasn't everyone done this? Perhaps because of worrying about quoting someone else's work correctly, not losing someone and general anxiety about the quality of writing.
3) Do social writing - write with other people.
As with other academic activities, interacting with others about ideas and plans is very valuable.
Social writing involves writing with other people - not collaborative writing, but writing with other people in the room. Writing with others, talking about writing-in-progress and sharing the goals and achievements of writing help us to understand writing better. Social writing results in realistic goal setting and specific writing time.
It also makes writing a part of work and life. It's no longer something we only do in solitude. Discussing the writing is interesting. Social writing reduces the main cause of writer's block - anxiety - and stimulates writing. With social writing, it might not need help or instruction.
I am an academic. This is why my next book will be self-published and publicly funded.
Publishing one's own book is an unusual decision in the academic world. Academics are expected to write books for publishers who have a high reputation in their respective fields. The publishing itself has little academic credibility on the streaks on cocktail napkins. I have been quite successful in publishing articles in the top publications for my field, and the edited volume on the Hackers and Constructions I wrote together will come out in early 2017. It is very possible that I can publish monographs in academic media.
There is an academic press that does a very good job. They give writers creative control, have extraordinary series, and offer inexpensive paperback versions. For example, I really appreciate the Andrew Chadwick Digital Politics series for the Oxford series, MIT Science, Technology & Society. The problem is that most writers are not fortunate enough to publish with a decent press and a supportive editor. Nor is it the right model for the purposes of all writers. Here we can begin to see gaps in the academic publishing model.
Some of the less reputable presses pushed for light edited dissertations and edited volumes as expensive hardcovers. They like books on contemporary topics that require little editing and no publication. This is because they sell 300 copies or more mainly to libraries. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the library. Heck, you will have trouble finding people who trust the library more than me! The problem is that poorly edited and distributed books do nothing to connect with readers. This "publisher pipeline to the library" drains academic funding from vital institutions and especially benefits publishers. Institutional rethinking needs to be considered.
The sad thing is that writing is fun and emotionally satisfying. This is one of the great benefits of an academic lifestyle. Writing a book can be a way to (I know how hard this sounds) to find excitement in your work. It can also make your ideas relevant to a new audience. This is not a new idea in my discipline, communication. Communication researchers have been involved in community activism, policy work, and non-profit organizations for decades. However, the discipline of communication as a whole is too slow to understand the idea that scholars should not be practitioners and public intellectuals. Once again this problem is institutional. It seems that you have to make choices for who you are writing to.
An assistant professor once told me that he hoped to do more research in the local community. The problem is he needs to issue to get a term of office. He felt uncomfortable with the idea of doing more interesting research. I feel he considers research related to local communities and public institutions too time-intensive. That's a lot of commitment to speculative rewards. This perception speaks volumes about how professors define themselves the definition of "real research".
The book that I wrote traces the story and the project "civil technology." This modern movement of community activists, designers, software engineers and bureaucrats strives to progressively improve democratic institutions. This passionate scene grew under me as I researched the ideas behind open data, and how the concepts of citizenship were worked on in "civic hackathons." I also worked for the city of Los Angeles and volunteered for my own Long Beach city. So I was in the middle of the same public sector who was afraid of my communication professor friend. What excites me is that civil technology collaboratively rebuild institutions in a time of public distrust of something "political." They are trying to improve government infrastructure, communication and policy. In their work I saw the seeds of a classic argument and some new approaches. The civil technology movement was also at a time when I might be able to help their good ideas grow and be formed.