Showing posts with label Time. Show all posts
For a Quick Source of Motivation, Make a List
The view from my laptop is giving me anxiety. I’m in my living room, working from my couch, and in front of me are stacks and stacks of boxes. Through my grimace, I also spot cleaning supplies, packing materials, and garbage bags. We moved into our new house not long ago, but we are still up to our eyeballs in chaos—and it’s driving me crazy!
Every surface area—from tables to counters to chairs—is cluttered with cleaning rags, newspapers, mail, coffee cups, pens, and at least one dog toy. Speaking of dogs, my two pups pace around the house all day and follow me from room to room. I know they’re looking for snuggles as their lives have been turned upside down too, but it’s hard to get anything done when they demand to be picked up and comforted every few minutes.
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| The Beasts |
The first and only box I have unpacked contained all of my list-making tools: notebooks, post-it notes, and all of my favorite pens. Now, before I’ve even had my coffee, I start each morning by writing down everything I have to do for the day. As each task is accomplished, I feel a little lighter, and my mood greatly improves. If I manage to complete my list at the end of the day, I treat myself to a little TV or a long walk with my dogs. These treats keep me motivated and give me something to look forward to.
While I have always made lists for house chores and grocery shopping, right now, I am managing my work tasks and writing assignments with this trick. For example, before writing this blog article, I jotted down a list of my ideas, the deadlines for my drafts, and a few to-dos.
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| Tasha's To Do List for this Blog Post |
As a graduate student, I regularly made lists to keep track of assignments and deadlines. I also created a separate list for each assignment and included the tasks: brainstorm key search terms, research web databases, contact research librarian, annotate articles, outline, draft thesis statement, draft major claims and evidence (with references), revise, and proofread. Not only did these assignment lists keep me organized, they helped track my progress and reminded me that there was an end in sight!
One thing I now get to check off my list is sharing this trick with you! I encourage you to grab a piece of paper and your favorite pen and jot down the to-dos for your next big assignment or even personal task. Hopefully this little tool motivates you and brings you some relief during a chaotic time!
Tasha Sookochoff is a writing instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. Along with earning degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Stout and Depaul University, Tasha has written documentation for the U.S. House of Representatives that increases government transparency, blogged for DePaul University, copy-edited the Journal of Second Language Writing, tutored immigrants and refugees at literacy centers, and taught academic writing to college students.
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The Write Mindset: Managing Time Mindfully
If you’re working on your degree alongside other work
or family obligations, you’re probably looking for ways to make the most out of
your limited time, right? Read on for a mindful time management strategy that’s
working for me as I write my dissertation while working full time and taking
care of a toddler. I promise I’ll keep it short!
A lot of academic advice recommends a project
management approach in which you break down a large project into as small of tasks
as possible and schedule a time to complete each one of these tasks. This seems
like a great way to stay on track and motivated, but I found I was constantly
failing to stick to my plan: just one night when my kiddo wouldn’t sleep would
throw the whole thing off, making me feel guilty and frustrated. I needed to adjust
this approach for it to work for my lifestyle.
First, I make a list of tasks that I plan to complete each
week. I then divide that list in half, marking half of my list as “must do” tasks
for the week and half of the tasks as “bonus,” tasks that would be great to get
done, but that I won’t beat myself up for not finishing. Once I have that list
in place, I categorize the tasks in another important way: by energy level.
I’ve found that some tasks are “high energy” tasks that require the ability to
focus, while other tasks are “low energy” tasks that I can probably manage to
finish even if I’m feeling a little tired or distracted that day.
Here is an example of what my to-do list might look like:
- Freewrite for 10 minutes at the beginning of each day on a topic related to my current chapter
- Respond to email from my mentor
- Transcribe notes from book I read last week, and add it to my literature review matrix
- Read and take notes on next books in my literature review
- Email lead about a research question I have
- Read and take notes on next book in my literature review
In this list, I have bolded my “must do” tasks for the week, and the “bonus” tasks are in regular font style. The “high energy” tasks are highlighted in yellow, and the “low energy” tasks are highlighted in blue.
Integrating mindfulness into my project management has helped my writing process tremendously. I’ve become better at prioritizing my time and making sure I’m focusing on what’s important each week. Knowing that I have a list of tasks I can work on even when I’m tired makes me more likely to sit down at my desk and get a little bit done rather than blow off a dissertation session entirely. Finally, because my task list is more manageable, I actually accomplish it, which makes me feel better about the project overall.
If other time management systems aren’t working for
you, think about giving this one a try! And please share your favorite
strategies in the comments—we’d love to hear from you!
Cheryl Read is a Writing Instructor in the Walden University Writing Center. She’s so interested in time management that she sometimes finds herself procrastinating by dreaming up the next “perfect” schedule. When she’s not helping student writers at Walden, Cheryl stays busy playing with her son and working on her dissertation.
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Thought Experiment: APA Style Has Been Abolished! Now What
Your anti-APA dreams have come true! You get to abolish APA style and create a new style guide of your own for scholarly writing in the social sciences. How will you proceed? Now What?
Being a sensible person, you’d probably start by defining your goals for this new style. Because it won’t be used by only you—its purpose is to help scholars from a variety of backgrounds share their ideas—you’d probably establish some common practices that everyone using this style should follow. Just as all French speakers need to understand that oui means yes, all users of your style would need to understand some fundamental rules.
You might, for example, set rules for basic formatting. You start with margins: if they’re too wide they’ll overwhelm the page, but if they’re too narrow they’ll make documents excessively long. Let’s say, then, that you decide a one-inch margin is a good compromise between these extremes. You might set a similar rule for text: writers, you say, should make their text neither too large nor too small—12 point, probably—and, to make it easy to read, you require it to be double-spaced.
You might also address more nuanced issues. Because scholarly arguments can be very complex, you might make them easier to comprehend by allowing a text to be broken into smaller pieces using headings—that way, a writer can address just one topic at a time and clearly indicate how important those topics are relative to each other. You might also set some rules regarding tone. Your guide is for scholars in the social sciences, after all, so you don’t want a writer’s personal opinions and emotions obscuring their logic and evidence. You encourage writers to use clear, simple language and to actively avoid bias in their writing.
Because the scholars using your style will necessarily build on other authors’ ideas, you set rules for citing sources. Scholars in your field want to verify other authors’ sources, so they’ll need a simple mechanism for tracing an idea in a writer’s text to the source it came from (perhaps a combination of in-text citations and, at the end of the document, a list of the writer’s sources). Furthermore, because scholars in your field want to give and receive credit for strong writing, you require them to indicate, via quotation marks, their use of a direct quote. Because social-sciences scholars value new information more than old, citations in your style must also clearly present the date of a source’s publication.
You can see where I’m going with this. By drawing a series of conclusions based on the values and priorities of the scholars in your discipline (and the social sciences overall), you would inevitably produce something like APA style. Your style guide would likely look a bit different from APA—maybe you’d use italics rather than bold text in your headings; maybe you’d put citations in footnotes rather than in the body of your text—but it would function similarly to APA nonetheless, and over time it would accrue its own set of rules that an untrained outsider might find just as confusing as APA.
Keep in mind, the rules of APA style matter only because scholars in the social sciences follow them. There’s nothing magical about bold-text headings, but when you use them your APA-trained readers can quickly comprehend their meaning. Moreover, APA rules won’t obscure your individuality; they instead provide a shared context in which your individual ideas can be expressed and understood.
Matt Sharkey-Smith is a writing instructor and the coordinator of research and pedagogy in the Walden Writing Center. He also serves as contributing faculty in the Walden Academic Skills Center. Matt joined the Writing Center in 2010 with a BA in English from Saint John's University in Minnesota. He earned an MFA in Writing from Hamline University in St. Paul in 2011 and has worked outside of Walden as a technical writer, fact-checker, copy editor, tutor, and writing instructor.
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Break the Block: A Three-Strategy Series on Writer's Block
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Even if you do your best to set aside time to write, do all your reading, take notes, and work on outlining, you might still find yourself staring at a blank screen when it comes time to write. Break The Block is a three-part series that will help you break free of writer’s block and achieve your writing goals!
In this series we discuss how to find a good space to write, turn off your inner critic, and set aside productive time. Our staff members provide some context, strategies, and personal anecdotes to help you break free from writer’s block and be your most productive writing self.
The
Walden Writing Center provides information and assistance to students
with services like live chat, webinars, course visits, paper reviews,
podcasts, modules, and the writing center webpages. Through these
services they provide students assistance with APA, scholarly writing,
and help students gain skills and confidence to enhance their scholarly
work.
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In this series we discuss how to find a good space to write, turn off your inner critic, and set aside productive time. Our staff members provide some context, strategies, and personal anecdotes to help you break free from writer’s block and be your most productive writing self.
Sound interesting? Check out each of our posts below!
Find a Suitable Environment—Instructor Veronica discusses the importance of finding your writing space and strategies for figuring out what works best for you in spaces you can control as well as spaces you can’t.Turn Off Your Internal Editor—Instructor Michael discusses the importance of writing without critiquing yourself too harshly to get your flow going and know that you’ll be able to refine later in the process.The Ticking Clock—Instructor Matt discusses ways to carve out that time to write, even with a busy schedule as well as fighting the anxiety that can come from experiencing writer’s block during that time.
With some help from these three posts, you can conquer
writer’s block and complete your work on time and effectively. Have some writer’s
block breaking tips you’d like to share or comments on which of these posts
worked best for you? Share below!
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Break the Block: Find a Suitable Environment
Writer’s block is unpredictable. Sometimes it stays with you for long periods. Sometimes it arrives suddenly at the end of a long project, only to make the final days grind by. The staff of the Walden University Writing Center is made up of writers of all different ilks, so there are plenty of ideas floating around our Center on how to address writer’s block. Join us today as our bloggers begin a series of posts describing their strategies for overcoming this mental obstacle. Your task might not be easy, but with hard work and these helpful posts to guide you, you’ll be able to break the block.
Writers block is something most writers face—it is that time when you just stare at a blank page, your mind wanders, and eventually you just feel like giving up. In fact, I faced writers block while working on this blog post despite the fact that I thought I had what I planned to say all figured out.
There are several ways to beat writers block and finding a suitable environment is one of them. By a suitable environment, I mean a place where the environment you are working in is going to lend itself to productivity as opposed to working against it.
So what, exactly, does it mean to find a suitable environment? Generally speaking, there are three types of environments: those you have control over, those you have some control over, and those you have no control over whatsoever. It goes without saying, then, that the most advantageous environments for beating writers block would be those you have complete control over. That said, having access to such an environment might not always (or even ever) be a reality. Regardless, it is still possible to carve out a space and create a suitable environment. Here are three tips to consider: know what environment works best for you, know where you will have privacy with little to no distractions, and know when and how to wing it.
Know What Environment Works Best for You
When I was working on my dissertation, I switched up the
physical environments where I worked a lot: I worked at home, the library, and
several different coffee shops. What these places had in common was that they
all provided me with the “right” environment to work in. Of course, one
person’s “right” environment is not necessarily going to work for another
person. For instance, I might not mind the soft hum of white noise at a coffee
shop, but some people might find coffee shops too noisy and thus distracting.
In order to determine what environment works best for you,
you need to determine what doesn’t. For instance, I enjoyed working at coffee
shops because it provided me with less distractions that home did. While at
home, I could give myself several excuses to take way too many breaks since I
was home and time seemed almost limitless. For instance, I could take a “nap” or
surf the internet, thinking that I could make the time up by staying up later
than planned when I never did because I could always lay down later and take
another “nap” only to find myself waking up the next day with my writing goals
not met.
Speaking of distractions, then…..
Know Where you Will Have Privacy with Little to no
Distractions
Distractions might be understood to fall into two
categories: those created by you and those created for you.
While you might not have total control of the environment
that you work in, you do have control over avoiding known things that serve as
distractions. For example, placing your cell phone in a different room might
help keep you more focused. As well, you might place inspirational things
around you while you work such as your masters diploma, things that represent
your future career after graduation, or inspirational quotes: avoiding known
distractions and a little bit inspiration can help you stay focused so you can
work through writers block.
In terms of distractions that are created for you, such as a
noisy household, it is important to find a place where you can work and let
others know that you need your time to do so. If the only place you have to
work is your kitchen table and the whole family is home in the other room
watching TV you might request that they keep the noise down to a minimum and
try not to create any distractions for you—you might even set aside a time each
night where everyone is aware that, for instance, this is your two hour window
to work on your papers.
Know When and How to Wing It
As a Walden University student, you might already be in the
midst of your professional career which means carving out time and space to
work might be nearly impossible. This, of course, can make navigating beyond
writers block difficult. But, sometimes, you have to work with what you have. For
instance, you might need to start a draft during a lunch break or while you’re
on the train to work.
While this is not the ideal, it is important to remember
that perfect environments are like unicorns: a concept that seems almost
plausible (they are kind of just horses with horns, after all), but in the end
is a myth (magical horses that fly, less plausible). To be clear, even a
suitable environment that you have total control over can produce writers block
(like when you allow yourself to get distracted).
That said, what is a suitable environment to you? How have you carved out your own?
Veronica Oliver is a Writing Instructor in the Walden Writing Center. In her spare time she writes fiction, binge watches Netflix, and occasionally makes it to a 6am Bikram Yoga class.
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How I Learned That Editors Need Editors Too
Back when I was a book editor for a self-help publisher, I came up with an idea for a book. I presented it to the review committee and to my delight, they approved it. Because we could not find qualified writers, I was told to go ahead and write it myself. Me? Write a book? Me? I was both thrilled and daunted by turns. I had never written anything so long nor over so long a period.
But at least I knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. The book would consist of 365 essays of 200 words each. According to the contract, I had to write two a day, 7 days a week. Monday through Friday, I would go to the office, work 8 hours, and then come home to eat, walk the dogs, and write two short essays. When I turned out the lights, I was exhausted. Some days I liked what I’d written, some days I just couldn’t get the words right. I was grateful for the contract: In bold letters it said I was the one for the project and, by implication, that I had no choice but to find the energy and the fortitude to complete it.
After 7 or 8 months of steady 2-hour stints, I finished the first draft. What satisfaction, what relief! What a dreaded next step: a formal edit. Instead of being the editor and delivering an edit, I was now the author and receiving one. Though my editor was a friend with whom I’d work for years, I didn’t trust her. I didn’t trust that she’d understand what I was trying to say or how I was trying to say it. In other words, I had little confidence in my work.
When I got her review, I was afraid to look at it. It felt like opening an overdraft notice from my bank. To my surprise and relief, she did understand my ideas and my approach. While she offered comments and suggestions, all were informed, respectful, and useful. And yet, as I revised page after page, I felt irritated and defensive. I was tired, to be sure, but I took the review personally and my ego was suffering. A few months later, the printed book was in my hand and my ego was soaring. I forgot all about the stress and had a little publication party with family, friends, and colleagues who’d worked on the book.
For many of us, writing is difficult. It means creating something out of nothing and we don’t really know what we know until we’ve tried to put it down on paper. When we're sure what we’ve written is what we wanted to say, we revise to make sure it flows. But being so close to our work, it’s often hard to easy to see just what needs help. But if the act of writing can lead us to say what we want to say, then an editor can help ensure that it gets said and said well. (Editors need editors too.) Despite the extraordinary effort on the writer’s part, writing for publication turns out to be a team effort: All stakeholders want the work to be as good as it can be.
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Tim McIndoo is a Senior Dissertation Editor in the Walden Writing Center. He came to Walden University in 2007 with over 30 years of editorial experience, including work as translator and photographer. He lives in Minneapolis with four cats.
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But at least I knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. The book would consist of 365 essays of 200 words each. According to the contract, I had to write two a day, 7 days a week. Monday through Friday, I would go to the office, work 8 hours, and then come home to eat, walk the dogs, and write two short essays. When I turned out the lights, I was exhausted. Some days I liked what I’d written, some days I just couldn’t get the words right. I was grateful for the contract: In bold letters it said I was the one for the project and, by implication, that I had no choice but to find the energy and the fortitude to complete it.
After 7 or 8 months of steady 2-hour stints, I finished the first draft. What satisfaction, what relief! What a dreaded next step: a formal edit. Instead of being the editor and delivering an edit, I was now the author and receiving one. Though my editor was a friend with whom I’d work for years, I didn’t trust her. I didn’t trust that she’d understand what I was trying to say or how I was trying to say it. In other words, I had little confidence in my work.
When I got her review, I was afraid to look at it. It felt like opening an overdraft notice from my bank. To my surprise and relief, she did understand my ideas and my approach. While she offered comments and suggestions, all were informed, respectful, and useful. And yet, as I revised page after page, I felt irritated and defensive. I was tired, to be sure, but I took the review personally and my ego was suffering. A few months later, the printed book was in my hand and my ego was soaring. I forgot all about the stress and had a little publication party with family, friends, and colleagues who’d worked on the book.
For many of us, writing is difficult. It means creating something out of nothing and we don’t really know what we know until we’ve tried to put it down on paper. When we're sure what we’ve written is what we wanted to say, we revise to make sure it flows. But being so close to our work, it’s often hard to easy to see just what needs help. But if the act of writing can lead us to say what we want to say, then an editor can help ensure that it gets said and said well. (Editors need editors too.) Despite the extraordinary effort on the writer’s part, writing for publication turns out to be a team effort: All stakeholders want the work to be as good as it can be.
Tim McIndoo is a Senior Dissertation Editor in the Walden Writing Center. He came to Walden University in 2007 with over 30 years of editorial experience, including work as translator and photographer. He lives in Minneapolis with four cats.
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Don't Apologize for Missing a Paper Review Appointment
The Walden University Writing Center prides itself on providing Paper Review appointments to Walden University students across the globe. But have you ever wondered what happens if you make an appointment but can't meet the deadline? Not to worry! Don't let one missed appointment stand in your way from continuing to work on your academic writing.
It happens sometimes at the Writing Center: a student misses an appointment. There can be a number of reasons why this happens. Students are busy enough with schoolwork itself to also have time to work with outside services like the Writing Center. Emergencies and unforeseen events can crop up, taking time away from work. Sometimes, a student just forgets. And I am here to tell you: all of this is okay.
From time to time, the Writing Center will get
responses from students apologizing profusely for missing appointments, or
providing reasons and excuses. Though we always love to hear from students
personally, I hope it is known that we hold no grudges and have no issues
with students who miss an appointment. We completely understand.
Because the Writing Center‘s mission is to help support students, we avoid penalizing students for either policy or academic-related
reasons. We also try to avoid using judgmental-sounding or discouraging
language. Our goal is always to get you to come back to the Writing Center. If
you miss an appointment, you should still be able to sign up for a new
appointment and we will review it the way we always have. You should never
worry about us chiding you for missing appointments or bothering you with
multiple reminder messages.
Here’s a bit of a look behind the scenes into the
Writing Center: you may think that failing to upload your paper on time is a
massive inconvenience to your instructor. In fact, it is not! The worst thing
that happens in this case is that your appointment will be marked as missed and
a different student may take your appointment slot. We Instructors are actually
pretty good at managing our time—don’t feel like you are wasting it if you miss
an appointment. There are always more students to work with, and other writing-related tasks we can do.
This does not mean that missing appointments is not
without consequences, however. According to our current appointment policies, a
total of three missed appointments on myPASS will lead to a students’ account
being deactivated. However, in those cases, all that is required is that you
contact an administrator to have your account reactivated. We understand that
sometimes multiple appointments will be canceled in a row because of unforeseen
circumstances. Again, our goal is always to have more students working with the
Writing Center, not less. Do not ever feel worried or ashamed to contact us at writingsupport@waldenu.edu
and ask for a reactivation of your account if you miss multiple appointments.
This might be a somewhat unorthodox message for a
Writing Center blog post, but my goal here is to put students more at ease. I
know, having been a student myself, how mortifying it is to be late on an
assignment, or forget to do it, or not do it very well. I know the feeling when
a teacher is disappointed in my work. The Writing Center is a safe space where
you can talk to us about all of these concerns. We serve the students first--not
instructors, the academic chair, or Walden’s corporate higher-ups. So don’t
feel the need to apologize: I can tell you from my own experience that my colleagues at the Writing Center are an empathetic bunch. We were once students like you,
and we know how you feel.
So, now that you know all this about your Writing
Center Paper Review services, isn’t it about time for you to log on and make an
appointment? I’m looking forward to working with you.
Nathan Sacks is a writing instructor in the the Walden University Writing Center. He also enjoys writing books, playing guitar, and playing with cats.
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I Only Have 5/20/60 Minutes! Which Writing Center Resources are Right for Me?
Have you ever told yourself that you'd practice your writing if you just had a little bit more time? Today's post makes that excuse irrelevant. The Walden University Writing Center has on-demand resources that can be useful in any time-increments. Read on to learn how to continue improving your academic writing in manageable periods each day.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from students is “I
don’t have time for that.” There’s no way to sugarcoat the situation: Time is your natural enemy. In any given 24
hours, you may be working your professional job, engaging in Walden coursework,
preparing a meal, exercising, commuting, managing parental duties, and getting
a few hours of sleep. It’s hard to think of adding more to that list of
activities.
But in order to succeed at Walden, you will need to carve out some time for skill development above and
beyond your classroom requirements. Writing proficiency is something that will
serve you in your program by way of confidence, clear communication, and swift
achievement of milestones. It is also something that you take with you after
completing your degree, with the potential to impact your career as a
scholar-practitioner.
So the question is: How can you hone your writing skills without
losing the precious work-life-school balance you have achieved? Two years ago,
in a WriteCast podcast episode, my colleagues Nik and Brittany introduced Writing Center resources
and tips appropriate for short nuggets of time. In this blog post, I update
their list of resources with a few of my own. So the next time you’re about to
forgo writing because you feel like you don’t have the time, hopefully this can
be you instead:
“I want to utilize the Writing Center’s resources to practice my scholarly writing, but shoot! I only have…”
5 minutes:
Read a Writing Center
blog post, skim a web page, or view a video. Have you identified one
writing issue you’d like to work on? It’s a great idea to have goals for each
quarter or semester. Once you have chosen your writing goal for this term, you
can learn about it in short 5-minute bursts. Use the website’s Search button in
the upper right to find appropriate blog posts, web pages, and videos—and then
bookmark and work through them one at a time. Perfect for: waiting for the water to boil on the stove.
Freewrite or journal. It might seem silly, but getting in the habit of
writing will make your “for real” academic writing better. Keep a journal nearby
where you can freewrite for 5 minutes about the weekly course topic, your
research process, or even about your day. Perfect
for: sitting in the parking lot waiting for kids to finish sports practice
or school.
20 minutes:
Listen to an episode
of our WriteCast podcast, a casual conversation for serious writers. The audio podcast tackles such subjects as the writing process,
the perfect paragraph, writer’s block, and word choice. Downloadable to your
device of choice. Perfect for:
commuting to work or exercising.
60 minutes:
Watch a recorded webinar. The Writing
Center presents three to four live webinars per month, and all of these get
archived on the website. Start with What Is Academic Writing? and then work through the webinars in the Scholarly Writing category for an overview of key writing concerns. Each recording is
roughly 1 hour. Perfect for: viewing
while munching on your lunch break.
Take a grammar or APA module and then apply what you learned. Feeling
interactive? The Writing Center offers modules on APA style and on grammar
issues such as verbs and sentence structure. These are 30-45 minutes in length
and include quizzes, videos, and text-based instruction to support your
learning. After taking one of these modules, reread a past discussion post or
paper and analyze what you would do to improve it, based on your new knowledge.
Jot down a few tips to apply to a future assignment. Perfect for: taking a breather from a strenuous assignment; staying
writing-minded during the weeklong hiatus between quarters.
Now do you see how writing skill development can fit into
your life? Yes, you do have time for that—even if it’s just 5 minutes a day.
Hillary Wentworth has been mentoring Walden writers since 2010—first in the Writing Center and now in the Academic Skills Center. In addition to teaching, she serves as the Academic Skills Center’s Manager of WCSS Faculty Development and Graduate Writing Courses to ensure quality instruction. Hillary edits an online literary journal and writes her own nonfiction from her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Start your New Year out WRITE
It’s that time of year again –the time of year where
you’re working hard to eat better, be more organized, work hard in school, lose
some weight, or whatever else you resolved to do. But by this time, the newness
and excitement that comes with a new year may be wearing off. In fact, sadly, if
you’re like me (and many other people), by mid-January you might be ready to
give up on your goals, insisting that you’ll try again next year.
Perhaps you feel the same way about your writing at the beginning of each new term you start –a sense of newness, anticipation, tinged with a little intimidation or nervousness as you face those writing projects on the syllabus. Perhaps you are anxious when facing a blank computer screen for that first paper of the semester. At this point, you may feel like just giving up on your writing goals –saying that you’ll just try again in your next course.
The good news is that you don’t have to give up!
Instead of allowing your writing goals to fizzle out, as we often do our New
Year’s resolutions, try these three simple steps to start your writing year off
right: plan ahead, get in a habit, and set reasonable goals.
It may help to also set aside a physical place or space for writing. Going to this
space habitually will allow you to focus, turn off the other distractions, and
know that this is the place where work gets done Whether it’s a corner of your
kitchen table or a favorite coffee shop, make this a space where you can focus. Try to choose a space with minimal distractions if possible. Clearly if you
are stressing about the dirty dishes while you sit at the kitchen table, you
won’t be able to work well or focus on your paper. It may take some time and
intention, but this habit will help you to turn off the external noise and turn
on the researcher, especially if you are routinely writing and setting aside a
specific place.
Rachel Willard is a Writing Instructor and Coordinator of Student Communications. She loves hearing others' stories. She enjoys people-watching at airports and shopping places that use the grammatically correct "10 items or fewer" signs for the express checkout lanes.
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Perhaps you feel the same way about your writing at the beginning of each new term you start –a sense of newness, anticipation, tinged with a little intimidation or nervousness as you face those writing projects on the syllabus. Perhaps you are anxious when facing a blank computer screen for that first paper of the semester. At this point, you may feel like just giving up on your writing goals –saying that you’ll just try again in your next course.
Plan Ahead
Planning ahead allows you to set expectations and goals, and
it can help keep you on track with your workload. Your syllabus is posted in
your classroom, so be sure to look ahead and plan out your papers and large
projects. Take your personal calendar and mark in it what days your papers are
due. Then work backwards. Determine how long you will need to complete it, how
many days you’ll want set aside to revise it, on which days you will start your
research, and so on. If you plan on making appointments with the writing
center, be sure to plan a few days for the 2-day turnaround time and a day or
two for revisions!
Get in a Habit
To avoid writing anxiety, get in a habit. Set aside a
certain time each day for writing and make it routine—even if it is only a few
minutes here or there. Consistency will help you to get in a habit of writing,
and this will allow you to make progress each day, avoiding the last-minute panic
on the day that your paper is due.
Set Reasonable Goals
If possible, don’t write your whole paper in one sitting.
Instead, break down assignments or papers into more bite-sized chunks. This
allows you to set miniature and short-term goals for yourself and keep yourself
motivated. Perhaps one day you will do the research, the next day you will
organize your outline, the next day you will write the body, and the final day
you add the introduction and conclusion before you revise. Look at your
syllabus and the assignment rubric to determine what areas or parts of the work
you might be able to use as dividers. Or set yourself time-goals. For example,
perhaps you will work for one hour on this paper, then take a break to do
laundry, go for a walk, or read a Facebook post, then work for 30 more minutes.
Setting expectations like these gives you reachable goals and criteria for success.
While there are multiple
ways to fight the inevitable writer’s block that often comes with the
anxieties of new classes or a new year of writing, these three steps can help
set you up for a successful start to your writing year. Remember to plan ahead,
making writing a habit, and set yourself reasonable goals. Your New Year’s
writing resolutions don’t have to fizzle out after a couple weeks (like your
exercise goals). Instead, you can start
the year off right, and WRITE.
Want a few other strategies for academic success in 2016?
Check out the Academic
Skills Center’s resources on success strategies.
Rachel Willard is a Writing Instructor and Coordinator of Student Communications. She loves hearing others' stories. She enjoys people-watching at airports and shopping places that use the grammatically correct "10 items or fewer" signs for the express checkout lanes.
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What Are You Writing For? How Your Academic Writing Skills Transfer Into the Workplace
During
one of my recent residency presentations on the topic of Writing at the
Doctoral Level, one student raised her hand and asked, “What are we writing
for?” This short but powerful question took me by surprise, and I have been
thinking about all of the possible answers to this question ever since.
Walden students write in order to earn a higher degree, they write in the hopes of social change, and they write to gain and refine their communication skills. And these few answers don’t even scrape the surface! However, I when I initially thought about the “What are we writing for?” question, my answers were all based on prospective gains, as if students could only write as a way to make a difference or gain something in the future. This got me thinking: What are we waiting for? Since many Walden students already have careers, why can’t they begin to apply the writing process skills they gain while earning their higher degrees in the workplace right away? Below are just a few ways you can begin to use (or perhaps are already using) your writing process knowledge in the workplace.
Walden students write in order to earn a higher degree, they write in the hopes of social change, and they write to gain and refine their communication skills. And these few answers don’t even scrape the surface! However, I when I initially thought about the “What are we writing for?” question, my answers were all based on prospective gains, as if students could only write as a way to make a difference or gain something in the future. This got me thinking: What are we waiting for? Since many Walden students already have careers, why can’t they begin to apply the writing process skills they gain while earning their higher degrees in the workplace right away? Below are just a few ways you can begin to use (or perhaps are already using) your writing process knowledge in the workplace.
Outlining Your Outline, Part II: Example Paper Assignment
This month, we're talking about topics related to writing and time. Need to catch up on what you missed? Check out our latest WriteCast episode for Beth and Brian's discussion of favorite (and free!) apps you can use to save you time when you write, Beth's reflection on what she learned from writing her master's thesis, Sarah's 5 tips for writing when you have no time, and Ellen's post explaining the benefits of outlining your outline.
Last
week, I wrote about a time-management strategy called outlining an outline, which can help you break up
your writing task into manageable pieces, stick to a schedule, and incorporate
downtime. (If you missed last week’s post, I suggest reading that first!) This
week, I want to share an example of what an outline of an outline looks like
when written out.
When outlining
your outline, you will want to take your own assignment scope and due dates
into account. This example plan below incorporates a paper review service offered to
Walden students, but it can still apply to other writers. If your school has a
Writing Center, substitute our paper review service for a similar service your
center provides. If you do not have access to a Writing Center, you can ask a
classmate or friend to peer review your draft in lieu of a Writing Center
appointment.
The
following example of outlining an outline uses specific dates and times for an
imagined course paper due on May 10. The outline itself is in bold, with some suggestions underneath.
Step 1: Schedule a paper review appointment
Make an appointment with the Writing Center for a paper review for May 7I suggest making a note for yourself at the beginning of your outline that reminds you to make an appointment to have your paper reviewed by a Writing Center writing instructor before you begin writing your paper. That way, if you stick to your own due dates, you will be able to submit your paper for review immediately after you finish drafting it! Your outline will also build in time for you to make revisions based on the feedback you receive from the Writing Center instructor.
Step 2: Outline the outline
I. Introduction (1 hour; Due: April 27)It takes me a long time to write introductions and conclusions because I take a lot of time to revise and rewrite, so when you make your own outline of an outline, be sure to take into account which sections might take you longer to write.
II. Main Point #1 (1 hour; Due: April 28)
a. Topic sentence
b. Sub point
c. Sub point
d. Sub point
This is a pretty basic outline
to help you envision the skeleton of your paper. Remember that as you develop
your paragraphs, you will also want to include analysis and a
wrap-up/conclusion sentence.
III.
Main
Point #2 (1 hour; Due: April 29)
a. Topic sentence
b. Sub point
c. Sub point
d. Sub point
IV. Main Point #3 (1 hour; Due: April 31)
a. Topic sentence
b. Sub point
c. Sub point
d. Sub point
Notice how I leave a day or two between writing each of the sections of my paper. I do this so that I have some downtime to reflect on what I wrote, so I then have a better idea as to what I want to write next and how I want to revise. However, you might not need this much downtime (or you might want more), so feel free to alter the amount of downtime you allow yourself based on your own needs.
V.
Conclusion
(1 hour; Due: May 4)
Step 3: Make revisions
Revise paper (1.5 hours; Due: May 5)
Make sure to set aside time in
your schedule to revise your paper on your own. I recommend setting aside a
little more time than you think you need so that you do not feel rushed.
Revision should involve looking at the “big picture” elements on your draft,
such as your overall argument, your paper’s organization, and the strength of
your evidence. For tips on revising, check out these
resources, including a handy checklist. We also have several blog posts and a WriteCast episode about revising your writing, including what it involves, why it's important not to skip this step of the writing process, and how to revise effectively.
You’ll also want to build in some time to proofread your work, focusing on sentence-level issues such as grammar and punctuation mistakes, typos, confusing wording, and APA formatting. For help, check out our proofreading tips.
The writing instructor will return your paper within 2 days of your appointment. This means that you want to build that response time into your planning. With an appointment on May 7, your review should be complete on May 7 or May 8, leaving you time to revise the paper before it’s due on May 9.
As I said in my last post, outlining an outline is a time management and writing strategy I've used in every academic paper I've written since college. I hope you find it helpful, too!
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Ellen Zamarripa is a writing instructor at the Walden Writing Center. She enjoys helping students from around the world develop their writing skills and reach their educational goals.
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Step 4: Proofread draft
Proofread paper (1.5 hours; Due: May 6)You’ll also want to build in some time to proofread your work, focusing on sentence-level issues such as grammar and punctuation mistakes, typos, confusing wording, and APA formatting. For help, check out our proofreading tips.
Step 5: Attach paper to Writing Center appointment
Attach draft to your myPASS appointment to be reviewed by a Writing Center Instructor (15 minutes; Due:
Before 5 a.m. Eastern Time on May 7)
Remember how you made an appointment with
the Writing Center before you even started writing your paper? Here is where
your hard work and planning will pay off!
Step 6: Use feedback
Revise paper based on Writing Center Instructor’s comments (1.5 hours; Due: May 9)The writing instructor will return your paper within 2 days of your appointment. This means that you want to build that response time into your planning. With an appointment on May 7, your review should be complete on May 7 or May 8, leaving you time to revise the paper before it’s due on May 9.
As I said in my last post, outlining an outline is a time management and writing strategy I've used in every academic paper I've written since college. I hope you find it helpful, too!
We want to end with a thank-you to all of our readers and to the student who inspired this follow-up post! We welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions, including what you would like us to write about. As always, we invite you to share your thoughts with us in the comments section (if you are reading this post via email, simply click the post’s title to visit the blog). We love to hear from you!
Ellen Zamarripa is a writing instructor at the Walden Writing Center. She enjoys helping students from around the world develop their writing skills and reach their educational goals.
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