As an academic, a large part of my job is writing scholarly papers. For me, at least, I've discovered that the process tends to follow a pretty standard set of steps.
(1) "I have an interesting idea. I should turn it into a paper!"
(2) "This paper will be so easy to write! Why, I've practically written the whole thing already if you count what I've said when talking to myself in the shower!"
(3) "So this blank page needs to turn into ... fifty pages of text. That doesn't seem very doable. Maybe I need more shower-talk."
(4) [4 months later] "Okay, let's just start throwing words on a page, if only so that damn blank page one stops staring at me."
(5) "The good news is there are now many words on many pages. The bad news is that most of the words bear little connection to an overarching theme, a unified structure, or even each other."
(6) "An arbitrary deadline is approaching! Just slam out something with complete sentences in a comprehensible order and edit from there!"
(7) "Huh, this is actually looking decent. I knew I liked this idea. A couple more edits and I can really make it sparkle."
(8) "I AM A GOD AMONG SCHOLARS! ALL THE JOURNALS WILL PROSTRATE THEMSELVES BEFORE ME FOR THE RIGHT TO PUBLISH THIS DIVINE MASTERPIECE!"
(9) "Okay, I'm happy with the content. Now it's time for my favorite part: futzing around with individual sentence structure [this is not sarcastic -- I really do love doing this]."
(10) "Alright, microedits are done. Now let's reread it as a cohesive whole."
(11) "Actually, now that I'm reading it again I hate everything about this paper. I also hate myself for taking an interesting idea and ruining it by implanting it in the body of this wretched paper. This sentiment probably has everything to do with my shortcomings as a writer and nothing to do with the fact that I've now read 94 drafts of it over the course of a year and a half."
(12) [Submit]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment