Support for Summer Writers
Meet Your Bodyguard
June 21, 2010
By Kerry Ann Rockquemore
This summer, I'm dedicated to walking alongside all of you who are tackling big writing projects, trying to establish new writing routines, and needing to experience explosive productivity. If you’ve been following this column so far, you have a clear summer plan that you’ve discussed with your mentors and you have created some form of writing support and accountability. By now, you’re very likely facing a new challenge: the intense difficulty of actually writing every day. Unlike the academic year, when we can attribute any lack of daily progress to teaching and service, summer lays bare the reality that daily writing brings up all of our stuff. This week, I want to describe what happens to many people when they engage in daily writing and give that "stuff" a name and a face.
Identify Your Resistance
It's an odd situation, isn’t it? You’ve been waiting all year for the summer so you can have the time, space and energy for your writing. You've been fantasizing and yearning for three months of quiet and solitude so you can finally finish your Big Unfinished Project. You planned to write every day and maybe even imagined losing track of time while immersed in your writing projects. And yet, when you actually sit down to write, all of a sudden you experience an unquenchable desire to ____________ (fold your laundry, check your e-mail, organize your pens), or you suddenly realize you need to read one more ______ (book, article, report) before you can start writing, or _________ (insert seemingly urgent crisis) appears and distracts you, or maybe you find yourself gazing out the window and realize that life is too __________ (short, painful, unpredictable) to spend a sunny day inside writing. In short, procrastination, avoidance, and denial arise to distract and derail you.
Why is it that we so often find ourselves wanting to write, but then end up not writing at all? Most academic writers I know genuinely want to share their ideas and findings, and also need to complete writing projects in order to finish their degree, get a job, and/or obtain tenure. And yet, whenever we put our butt in a chair to write, along comes our resistance! Barbara Sher describes resistance (when you want to do something, but you just can’t seem to do it) as an innately human defense mechanism that is uniquely designed to protect us from doing anything dangerous. In other words, our resistance is like an internal bodyguard that rises up to keep us from any risky situation.
Having an internal bodyguard is mostly a good thing! On one hand, it keeps us from engaging in potentially harmful activities. On the other hand, our inner-bodyguard can't tell the difference between physical danger and emotional danger so he gets activated whether we are standing at the edge of a cliff or sitting down to write a book. Both feel dangerous and raise anxiety. In response, our bodyguard leaps into action to stop us from engaging in this activity in the form of procrastination, avoidance, and/or denial. He will do whatever it takes to stop us from jumping off that cliff, or engaging in what feels (for many of us) like an equally dangerous act: the production of knowledge.
Fear Drives Resistance
Wherever there's resistance, there's fear underneath it. So it might be helpful to ask yourself: When I sit in front of the computer to write, what fears emerge? It may be fear of success, fear of failure, fear of being publicly judged, fear of not being good enough, fear of being revealed as an impostor, fear of speaking truth to power, or fear that writing about other people’s pain will trigger your own. There’s no need to analyze or judge these fears, just to identify them, because knowing what you’re afraid of will help you to design strategies to maneuver around them.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to go into greater depth about the different types of resistance that are common among academic writers for the purpose of suggesting a broad array of tips, tricks, and strategies you can use whenever your bodyguard shows up for duty. If you keep in mind that he can't quite tell the difference between real and perceived danger and that he genuinely wants to do his job of protecting you, then you will quickly realize that the trick to sneaking around your resistance is to keep your inner bodyguard in a nice, comfortable, and relaxed state. For this week, it’s enough to imagine your resistance as a big bodyguard that's always ready to protect you, identify when he’s present and what he’s up to, and then look him in the eye, shake hands, and get acquainted.
Personally, I love the idea that my resistance is really my very own built-in bodyguard at work! First of all, it brings me a sense of compassion and understanding towards the procrastination, avoidance, and denial I experience when I sit down to write every morning. Each time I feel an irresistible urge to check Facebook, a sense I can’t write until I color-code my sock drawer, or suddenly imagine my current writing would be better if I read someone else’s book first, I can recognize that resistance as my bodyguard at work. Secondly, it frees me from the debilitating idea that if I could just fix one of my many personal flaws, then I would be free of any resistance to writing. There’s no sense in believing that if only I were more disciplined, more motivated, and more focused, writing would be quick, easy and enjoyable. That’s just not how it works. And finally, it's helpful to me to understand that my resistance is ALWAYS going to be with me, because it's part of my human packaging.
Weekly Challenge
This week I challenge you to:
* Write every day (Monday through Friday) for 30-60 minutes.
* Notice what happens when you sit down to write.
* Consider what it would be like to understand your procrastination, avoidance and denial as protective impulses.
* If you can’t seem to start writing, gently ask yourself: What am I afraid of?
* Identify all the ways your resistance manifests this week without judgment, shame or self-recrimination.
I hope this week brings you the willingness to identify your resistance as it occurs, a spirit of openness toward new ways of understanding your procrastination and avoidance behaviors, and a sense of compassion toward yourself in the process.
Peace and Productivity,
Kerry Ann Rockquemore
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/summer/summer3
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
26. Rockquemore, Why Aren't You Writing?
Support for Summer Writers
Why Aren’t You Writing?
June 28, 2010
By Kerry Ann Rockquemore
Last month, I was contacted by a faculty member I had met several years ago at a conference (I’ll call her Claire). Our conversation began like many I’ve had recently, with tears in response to a negative and critical annual review. Claire is a brilliant social scientist, incredibly hard-working, and passionately committed to her scholarship, her institution and her students. While Claire is an award-winning teacher, and far exceeded her college’s service expectations, her publication record was significantly below her department’s standards. Her chair was clear that her lack of publications was problematic and she left the meeting feeling an almost desperate sense of urgency to move several manuscripts forward this summer.
Of course, I suggested she make a summer plan and join a writing group that would motivate and support her throughout the summer. Last week, when I was writing about resistance to writing I couldn’t help but think of Claire, so I decided to give her a call. Unfortunately, she had done very little writing: only three short sessions in the 30 days since we last spoke. When I asked Claire what was holding her back, she had difficulty identifying anything specific. She readily acknowledged having more free time and fewer responsibilities than she did during the academic year. But despite knowing that this was an important summer for her to be productive and having a general sense that she should try to write every day, somehow her days kept flying by without any progress on her manuscripts.
I think there are lots of Claires out there. For me, she typifies both the most common and the most basic type of resistance: when you have a vague sense that you SHOULD be writing and you NEED to write (in order to finish your dissertation, get a job, win tenure and promotion, etc.) but you’re not putting conscious, direct, and intense energy into the actual act of writing. As a result, lots of other work gets completed and other people’s needs get met, but at the end of the day your manuscript is left untouched. This type of resistance is grounded in relatively simple technical errors that writers frequently make in the early stages of their careers. The good news is that this type of resistance is the easiest to resolve because a few simple tips and tricks will get your fingers to your keyboard (or pen to page).
What’s Holding You Back?
If Claire’s story sounds familiar, then I want to encourage you to reflect on your writing habits and gently ask yourself: What’s holding me back from developing a daily writing routine? I like to start with people’s writing habits first, and then move down into the psychological blocks (I’ll be tackling those one by one for the rest of the summer). For this week, I want you to focus on your writing behaviors. Maybe you haven’t set aside a specific time for your research and writing, or you’ve set aside the wrong time to write, or maybe you just have no clue how much time particular writing tasks take so you consistently underestimate the amount of time that writing requires. Maybe you imagine you have to do everything yourself and therefore very little gets done. Maybe the tasks you’ve set out for your writing time are too complex, so when you sit down to write you’re spending all your energy trying to figure out what exactly you’re supposed to be doing (instead of actually doing it). Maybe you don’t know what you need to do, or you knew but you forgot because you think planning and list-making are for anal retentive people and you’re more of a creative type. Or maybe your space is just so disorganized that you keep spending your writing time looking for things you need on your hard drive, in your files, or in your office.
Claire was committing all of these technical errors! Like Claire, many early-career academic writers remain steeped in writing habits that were formed when they were undergraduates. Because student writing is largely driven by external deadlines, few of us developed consistent writing practices, and instead, we end up waiting until shortly before a deadline, engaging in multi-day writing binges, and then avoiding writing again until we face another external deadline. This week, I want to encourage you to observe your current writing behaviors for these common technical errors. If you identify one of them, consider trying one of the following strategies:
Error 1: You haven’t set aside a specific time for your research. Block out 30-60 minutes in your calendar each day, Monday through Friday, and show up at the appointed time. Treat it with the same level of respect you would a meeting with someone else (start on time, end on time, turn your phone off, and only reschedule for an emergency).
Error 2: You’ve set aside the wrong time for writing. Too many people treat their writing as an activity they "hope" to have time for at the end of the day, after everyone else's needs have been met. If writing is the most important factor to your long-term success as a scholar, it should be given your best time of your day. If you’re just starting to develop a daily writing routine, try writing first thing in the morning (even if you’re not a morning person).
Error 3: You have no idea how long writing tasks take. The most common complaint I hear from academic writers is that everything takes far longer than expected. Keep track of your time, particularly for repetitive tasks. This will not only give you an accurate assessment of how long writing a proposal, constructing a table, or reviewing the literature actually takes, but it will also help you to set realistic expectations for the future.
Error 4: You think you have to do everything yourself. Ask yourself what tasks must be done by you and what tasks can be delegated to other people. Often there are many writing and research related tasks that can be delegated or outsourced to others (checking citations, proof-reading, editing, etc.). Don’t use "I don’t have a research fund or research assistants" as a reason for doing everything yourself. Sites like ODesk.com and Elance.com can provide quick and incredibly inexpensive assistance on a wide variety of writing tasks.
Error 5: The tasks you have set out are too complex. Take a piece of paper and pencil and map out whatever it is you need to do. When I feel overwhelmed by a big task, I write the big-overwhelming-thing on the right side of the paper and a stick figure (me) on the left side. Then I work my way backwards from the overwhelming thing to myself by asking: What are the steps that need to be accomplished to complete this? I keep breaking it down into smaller and smaller steps until I’ve reached the tasks I can do today. It will also help you to uncover if there are aspects of a project that you don’t know how to do, so you can pinpoint areas where you will need to seek assistance.
Error 6: You can’t remember what you have to do. Make a list. Get all of the things you need to do out of your head and onto a piece of paper in one place. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, electronic, or synced with some gadget or gizmo. A note card, post-it note, or your paper planner will do fine to capture all of your to-do tasks. Start the week with a 30 minute planning meeting where you determine what needs to be done for the week and place each of those items in a specific time block in your calendar. If they don’t all fit (and they won’t), then figure it out how to delegate, delete, or renegotiate the deadlines on the least important items.
Error 7: Your space is disorganized. Set aside time to organize your writing space in a simple and easily maintainable manner. I recommend Julie Morgenstern’s Organizing from the Inside Out. It’s a quick read and will help you to develop a simple and sustainable way to organize your office. If you find yourself working on multiple computers and can’t keep your electronic files straight, consider ways that you can either access your other computers when you’re away from them (GoToMyPC) or keep all your computers automatically synced (Mobile Me).
Each of the strategies will be super-charged by attaching support and accountability. For example, daily writing is easier when you have a writing buddy or accountability partner. Organizing your office doesn’t have to be drudgery or a solitary task: partner up with another disorganized colleague and help each other. Or better yet, find a highly organized person (they often love to organize others) and offer to exchange their organizing skills with some skill that you have in abundance. And as always, there are tons of professionals who are happy to nag, coach, edit and/or organize you if you have more money than time. Once you learn and implement a few new writing strategies, you will either be off to the races with your writing, or your resistance will resurface in new and more frightening ways (more on that next week).
Weekly Challenge
This week I challenge you to:
* Write every day for 30-60 minutes.
* Identify what (if any) technical errors are holding you back from writing each day.
* Experiment by trying one new strategy this week.
* If you feel reactive to trying new strategies to increase your writing time, ask yourself: what beliefs are keeping you from experimentation?
* If additional resistance emerges, welcome it with curiosity, engage it in conversation, and identify the behaviors and the feelings associated with it (you may even want to keep a resistance log).
I hope this week brings you a spirit of curiosity about your writing habits, a willingness to try new techniques, and the increased engagement that comes with spending time each day with your summer writing project.
Peace and Productivity,
Kerry Ann Rockquemore
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/summer/summer4
Why Aren’t You Writing?
June 28, 2010
By Kerry Ann Rockquemore
Last month, I was contacted by a faculty member I had met several years ago at a conference (I’ll call her Claire). Our conversation began like many I’ve had recently, with tears in response to a negative and critical annual review. Claire is a brilliant social scientist, incredibly hard-working, and passionately committed to her scholarship, her institution and her students. While Claire is an award-winning teacher, and far exceeded her college’s service expectations, her publication record was significantly below her department’s standards. Her chair was clear that her lack of publications was problematic and she left the meeting feeling an almost desperate sense of urgency to move several manuscripts forward this summer.
Of course, I suggested she make a summer plan and join a writing group that would motivate and support her throughout the summer. Last week, when I was writing about resistance to writing I couldn’t help but think of Claire, so I decided to give her a call. Unfortunately, she had done very little writing: only three short sessions in the 30 days since we last spoke. When I asked Claire what was holding her back, she had difficulty identifying anything specific. She readily acknowledged having more free time and fewer responsibilities than she did during the academic year. But despite knowing that this was an important summer for her to be productive and having a general sense that she should try to write every day, somehow her days kept flying by without any progress on her manuscripts.
I think there are lots of Claires out there. For me, she typifies both the most common and the most basic type of resistance: when you have a vague sense that you SHOULD be writing and you NEED to write (in order to finish your dissertation, get a job, win tenure and promotion, etc.) but you’re not putting conscious, direct, and intense energy into the actual act of writing. As a result, lots of other work gets completed and other people’s needs get met, but at the end of the day your manuscript is left untouched. This type of resistance is grounded in relatively simple technical errors that writers frequently make in the early stages of their careers. The good news is that this type of resistance is the easiest to resolve because a few simple tips and tricks will get your fingers to your keyboard (or pen to page).
What’s Holding You Back?
If Claire’s story sounds familiar, then I want to encourage you to reflect on your writing habits and gently ask yourself: What’s holding me back from developing a daily writing routine? I like to start with people’s writing habits first, and then move down into the psychological blocks (I’ll be tackling those one by one for the rest of the summer). For this week, I want you to focus on your writing behaviors. Maybe you haven’t set aside a specific time for your research and writing, or you’ve set aside the wrong time to write, or maybe you just have no clue how much time particular writing tasks take so you consistently underestimate the amount of time that writing requires. Maybe you imagine you have to do everything yourself and therefore very little gets done. Maybe the tasks you’ve set out for your writing time are too complex, so when you sit down to write you’re spending all your energy trying to figure out what exactly you’re supposed to be doing (instead of actually doing it). Maybe you don’t know what you need to do, or you knew but you forgot because you think planning and list-making are for anal retentive people and you’re more of a creative type. Or maybe your space is just so disorganized that you keep spending your writing time looking for things you need on your hard drive, in your files, or in your office.
Claire was committing all of these technical errors! Like Claire, many early-career academic writers remain steeped in writing habits that were formed when they were undergraduates. Because student writing is largely driven by external deadlines, few of us developed consistent writing practices, and instead, we end up waiting until shortly before a deadline, engaging in multi-day writing binges, and then avoiding writing again until we face another external deadline. This week, I want to encourage you to observe your current writing behaviors for these common technical errors. If you identify one of them, consider trying one of the following strategies:
Error 1: You haven’t set aside a specific time for your research. Block out 30-60 minutes in your calendar each day, Monday through Friday, and show up at the appointed time. Treat it with the same level of respect you would a meeting with someone else (start on time, end on time, turn your phone off, and only reschedule for an emergency).
Error 2: You’ve set aside the wrong time for writing. Too many people treat their writing as an activity they "hope" to have time for at the end of the day, after everyone else's needs have been met. If writing is the most important factor to your long-term success as a scholar, it should be given your best time of your day. If you’re just starting to develop a daily writing routine, try writing first thing in the morning (even if you’re not a morning person).
Error 3: You have no idea how long writing tasks take. The most common complaint I hear from academic writers is that everything takes far longer than expected. Keep track of your time, particularly for repetitive tasks. This will not only give you an accurate assessment of how long writing a proposal, constructing a table, or reviewing the literature actually takes, but it will also help you to set realistic expectations for the future.
Error 4: You think you have to do everything yourself. Ask yourself what tasks must be done by you and what tasks can be delegated to other people. Often there are many writing and research related tasks that can be delegated or outsourced to others (checking citations, proof-reading, editing, etc.). Don’t use "I don’t have a research fund or research assistants" as a reason for doing everything yourself. Sites like ODesk.com and Elance.com can provide quick and incredibly inexpensive assistance on a wide variety of writing tasks.
Error 5: The tasks you have set out are too complex. Take a piece of paper and pencil and map out whatever it is you need to do. When I feel overwhelmed by a big task, I write the big-overwhelming-thing on the right side of the paper and a stick figure (me) on the left side. Then I work my way backwards from the overwhelming thing to myself by asking: What are the steps that need to be accomplished to complete this? I keep breaking it down into smaller and smaller steps until I’ve reached the tasks I can do today. It will also help you to uncover if there are aspects of a project that you don’t know how to do, so you can pinpoint areas where you will need to seek assistance.
Error 6: You can’t remember what you have to do. Make a list. Get all of the things you need to do out of your head and onto a piece of paper in one place. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, electronic, or synced with some gadget or gizmo. A note card, post-it note, or your paper planner will do fine to capture all of your to-do tasks. Start the week with a 30 minute planning meeting where you determine what needs to be done for the week and place each of those items in a specific time block in your calendar. If they don’t all fit (and they won’t), then figure it out how to delegate, delete, or renegotiate the deadlines on the least important items.
Error 7: Your space is disorganized. Set aside time to organize your writing space in a simple and easily maintainable manner. I recommend Julie Morgenstern’s Organizing from the Inside Out. It’s a quick read and will help you to develop a simple and sustainable way to organize your office. If you find yourself working on multiple computers and can’t keep your electronic files straight, consider ways that you can either access your other computers when you’re away from them (GoToMyPC) or keep all your computers automatically synced (Mobile Me).
Each of the strategies will be super-charged by attaching support and accountability. For example, daily writing is easier when you have a writing buddy or accountability partner. Organizing your office doesn’t have to be drudgery or a solitary task: partner up with another disorganized colleague and help each other. Or better yet, find a highly organized person (they often love to organize others) and offer to exchange their organizing skills with some skill that you have in abundance. And as always, there are tons of professionals who are happy to nag, coach, edit and/or organize you if you have more money than time. Once you learn and implement a few new writing strategies, you will either be off to the races with your writing, or your resistance will resurface in new and more frightening ways (more on that next week).
Weekly Challenge
This week I challenge you to:
* Write every day for 30-60 minutes.
* Identify what (if any) technical errors are holding you back from writing each day.
* Experiment by trying one new strategy this week.
* If you feel reactive to trying new strategies to increase your writing time, ask yourself: what beliefs are keeping you from experimentation?
* If additional resistance emerges, welcome it with curiosity, engage it in conversation, and identify the behaviors and the feelings associated with it (you may even want to keep a resistance log).
I hope this week brings you a spirit of curiosity about your writing habits, a willingness to try new techniques, and the increased engagement that comes with spending time each day with your summer writing project.
Peace and Productivity,
Kerry Ann Rockquemore
http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/summer/summer4
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
24. Toor, "Writing Like a Doctor"
From http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/06/2009060901c.htm
Access: June 8, 2009 (bold-faced mine)
June 9, 2009
PAGE PROOF
Writing Like a Doctor
If graduate students in the humanities are not being taught how to write, how can we expect those in the sciences to do any better?
By RACHEL TOOR
I once asked my friend "Joe," a distinguished professor of history, how he taught his graduate students to write. He reminded me that I had sat in on his mini-lecture about the three different ways to begin an article or a book. Then he stopped talking and looked kind of pleased with himself.
"That's it?" I said.
Well, he stammered, he figured graduate students learned in some kind of osmotic process. They read a lot; surely while they did that they were picking up tips on how to write.
There were so many problems with that assumption that I think I probably started sputtering at that point. Having been an acquisitions editor of history books, I know as well as anyone that sometimes (often?) groundbreaking books with important arguments and exquisite research — field-changing books — are horrible examples of how to write. They end up being published, and read, but they should not serve as models.
The mere act of reading good books, if you are not stopping to scrutinize the moves and tools used by the writers, examining and dissecting the choices they have made and why they work, will do nothing for you when you sit down to write. If reading good literature was enough, I would have written the Great American Novel years ago.
A couple of summers ago, another friend of mine — let's call him "Godfrey" — an academic physician, had volunteered to drive with me from Spokane to Chicago, where he had to give a talk. I was en route to Upstate New York for the summer. Godfrey is a good friend. He is a fantastic conversationalist, a terrific athlete, and the best, smartest reader of my work. He is not, however, a great driver. When he gets wrapped up in talking, he forgets about driving and tends to slow to a traffic-jamming crawl.
Godfrey realized that he had three journal articles to finish. So after we'd done enough sightseeing through Montana and Wyoming and had a couple of small spats about where to get gas, we got to work. He drove. I had his computer on my lap. There was a half-eaten bag of Kettle Korn between us.
I started to read his manuscripts, and then made a few simple questions and comments: "Were you raised by wolves?" "How did you manage to graduate from such fancy-pants schools if you can't even write a sentence?" "Do you know what a sentence is?" "This is a comma." (Wild body gesture from the passenger seat.) "Learn what it does. You can't just sprinkle them on your prose like salt."
Whenever I ask Godfrey to explain his medical and scientific work to me — something I do frequently — I am captivated. He has the ability to get at the most interesting issues, to draw out the implications of what he's studying, and to explain them in ways that are fascinating. He knows how to tell a story in conversation. He knows which details will enhance suspense, which will come as a surprise.
But when it comes to putting it on the page, those skills desert him. He writes in simple, declarative, passive sentences. He endlessly repeats words and phrases. His language is complicated not only by terms of medical and scientific art, but by using unnecessary Latinate words when plain old Anglo-Saxon ones would do a better job. He has no idea how commas and paragraph breaks can be your friends, doesn't understand that adverbs are the refuge of the weak and lazy, and that semicolons, like loaded guns, should only be handled by those trained to use them.
In general, none of that has hurt Godfrey in his extensive publishing career. Having read a fair number of articles and grant proposals by his colleagues and peers, I would say he's no worse than most scientists and physicians, and better than many. Thankfully there are saintlike journal editors who follow in his wake to clean up the linguistic messes.
But there's something crucial here that often gets lost in academic writing (it's worse in fields like literary criticism and history). Because the work is so important to academics, sometimes they don't do a good job of convincing readers that they, too, should find it valuable. In many cases, the writer doesn't do a good enough job of explaining what the idea is, and then making the best argument for it.
When Godfrey told me that he'd had a manuscript rejected because the reviewers didn't get the importance of his findings, I explained that the failing was most likely his, not theirs. It's the burden of the writer to be clear and to let readers know why they should care. Far too many college freshmen start their papers: "In society today ... ," and then make some simplistic suggestion. To them I say, why should I believe you? That is an assertion, not an argument. You have to show me your reasoning, help me follow your train of thought. The strongest and fairest writers make the best possible case for the other side, and then show how and why it's wrong. It's more convincing to knock down a strongman, rather than a strawman.
If you want a journal to accept your paper, or a federal agency to grant you coin, you have to make clear what is at stake and why the reader should care. Then you have to put forward the strongest reasoning based on evidence you provide in the clearest language you are able to rally. And then you need to know when you need help.
One of the hardest lessons I learned as a book editor is that the only good editing is the editing the author accepts. I could be brilliant in figuring out what was wrong with a manuscript, but if I couldn't sway the author, my work was worth nothing. If I couldn't explain to Godfrey the value of a semicolon, he was never going to learn how to use one. Calling him names, I knew, didn't help (but neither did it stop me — we've been good friends for a long time).
If graduate students in the humanities are not being taught how to write — how to structure an argument, how to make clear what is at stake, how to build tension on the sentence level — how can we expect those in the sciences to do any better? In every field there is an overabundance of content to master. Where do you steal the time in the curriculum to work on the form? The assumption is that whoever has gone before you in the teaching has already covered the basics. Graduate professors think that their students got it in their undergraduate years; composition instructors believe that they don't need to teach grammar because their students learned it in high school. How many students, do you think, are learning that an understanding of grammar, syntax, and usage is integral to clear expression of thoughts? That knowing how to write well is the most important skill you can develop, regardless of your career path?
Most students don't think about argumentation after they get their required freshman comp course out of the way. They take this important course when they are overwhelmed by the newness of college and are least ready to learn about the complexities of rhetorical strategies. Composition 101 is probably the hardest class to teach; unfortunately, it is usually led by brand-new graduate teaching assistants. It's no wonder most people don't know how to make an argument.
Many students also never absorb the importance of writing outlines. I was reminded of that while looking over the grant application of a pulmonologist friend. Even though I don't know him well, I didn't hold back: This is terrible, I said. The structure doesn't make any sense. It's repetitive and redundant. Did you write an outline? He told me he didn't have time to write an outline. I tried to be patient and to explain to him what he apparently never learned in school: An outline is a time-saving tool, not the exercise in busy work that it seemed in junior high.
When I was a book editor, I rejected the work of a multitude of physicians. While I was always interested in how doctors thought about their work, most of them couldn't get the job done when it came to the writing.
Even now, when I get letters from my own physician giving me the results of lab tests, I cringe. Can I really trust someone to interpret complicated data if she can't maintain control over her sentence structure? Communication is the fundamental element of most professions. Writing, as Plato reminded us, is a risky business. It should be approached with fear and trembling. Doctors and scientists might sometimes need a reminder that they are writing for humans.
Rachel Toor is an assistant professor of creative writing at Eastern Washington University, in Spokane. Her newest book is, Personal Record: A Love Affair With Running, and her Web site is http://www.racheltoor.com. She welcomes comments and questions directed to careers@chronicle.com. For an archive of her previous columns, see http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/archives/columns/page_proof.
My input: Although I found his article thought-provoking and I agreed with some of the points he makes (such as the one about the brand-new GTA's), I don't think outlines are always necessary in writing. Many writers do not begin with an outline...
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