Do you write papers in a neat, orderly fashion? Kind of like they taught you back in grade school -- with the outline first, and then you go write each section and subsections?I sure as hell don't.
I've been writing up another big chunk of my dissertation work lately (you'll notice my posting frequency has increased too....hmmm). I find it hard to stay in one section of the paper for more than 10-15 minutes. While working on the Introduction, I think of something I need to discuss in the....well, in the Discussion, so I type a few reminder phrases as a place marker. As I scroll back up to the Introduction I remember that I forgot to look up the number that goes where the highlighted red "X" is. That's right, I need to address that aspect in the Introduction so when I reveal my data later it all fits together nicely....yes, that'll be awesome! But, oh crap....now i'm opening a spreadsheet. Oh crap....I found a seemingly small, but cascading error in one of the tables. Did I really do that wrong? That was stupid. How bad is it?
Instead of dealing with it right away, I decide to go back to the text and finish my train of thought. What train of thought?
cartoon above from here
I am also in the process of re-writing, my trouble is that I always just want to re-write the whole thing from scratch, I hate revising, starting over seems so much more straightforward. You can see, time management is not one of my strong points.
ReplyDeleteI usually start writing a paper somewhere in the middle. Descriptions of field relations, or thin sections, or maybe other sorts of data. If I'm really stuck, I'll start with methods if I need them. Then I'll go looking for pictures (or take some thin section photos) or plot some data in a new way. Then I write a little interpretation. Then I make some more figures. Then I figure out what should go in the introduction, and I write a little of that. Then I re-write the descriptions of the data so they make sense. Then I start hunting down references to make sure I'm citing the right people correctly, and re-write the introduction. Somewhere along the line I write a conclusion and an abstract.
ReplyDeleteThe entire process takes months, at a minimum.
And then I get the paper back from reviewers, and sometimes need to restructure the arguments completely.
My graduate advisor said that I should start by making all the figures and then build the paper around them. I don't think in that way; I only realize that I need a certain figure when I realize that my argument needs some kind of illustration.
I had a thesis student once who wrote everything as a sort of free-writing, and then physically cut the entire thing apart and taped it all together on a piece of paper. I can't imagine doing that myself, but it worked for her.
I typically have most (~75%) of the figures done by the time i'm really getting into the writing....although fiddling around with figures is a great thing to do while you have writer's block but feel you need to keep working on the paper.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine doing the physical cut and paste either....that's kinda wacky...but, whatever works
I feel with you. Somehow I use the same "method" of writing.
ReplyDeleteWow. i totally relate with all of you guys :D
ReplyDeletei say i'm a writer and i blog *really* often, so research paper writing is supposed to be way easy right? But noooooo...
But fellas, let's just all put it this way:
Our minds are way faster than our bodies. ;p
(I automatically hear in my head, my advisers and parents and friends all saying, "Then hurry and catch up already!")
Ah. But genius works in its own time ;p
Best of luck with all of us! :D