Posts from the ‘Elsewhere on the web’ Category

A handful of links – September edition

» Initiated by professors from Durham University (UK), the Writing on writing series presents short texts written by seasoned researchers, where they reflect on their own experience of writing. As you can read on this page, “[i]n these pieces, scholars from a variety of social science disciplines share their thoughts, feelings, pearls of wisdom, anecdotes, theoretical musings and much else likely to give insight and inspiration to those in the later stages of doctoral writing.” Over twenty-five distinguished scholars have up to now posted a contribution, and they are worth a visit.

https://www.dur.ac.uk/writingacrossboundaries/writingonwriting/

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A handful of links – July 2014 edition

Here are a few links I found interesting in the last few weeks. Do leave a comment if you have any thoughts on what these links present!

» What is paragraph re-planning?

I found this article via Twitter, directing to the Writing For Research site (highly recommended, by the way!). In fact, I saw it circulate many times before I actually clicked on the link to find out what “paragraph re-planning” meant. The first times I saw this mentioned, I’ll admit that wasn’t that interested, given its slightly boring title. But when I noticed that this link was tweeted and retweeted again and again, I grew curious. Don’t fall in the same trap as I did, and do not wait to go read about this  strategy, also called reverse outlining. I have not tried it yet, but I plan to do so soon. This approach sounds relevant to avoid what can happen when you work on long texts: that the front-end and back-end of the paper are not well aligned and drift apart, or that the focus of your paper gets lost.

» A primer on the Pomodoro technique

You’ve heard about the famous Pomodoro technique, but are not quite sure what it is and how to use it? Follow this link, and all your questions will be answered! I’ve tried this approach, which is built on blocks of 20, 25 or 30 minutes of focused work, and it has its merits. I’ve found particularly useful when I felt stuck with a text, as a way to get going. Read more

Explorations of Style – A blog about academic writing

Here’s an enlightening and hugely practical source of tips on academic writing.  The “reverse outline” idea is brilliant (thank you to Jennifer Howard-Grenville for pointing it out). I also enjoyed Rachael Cayley’s blog entry on the “imposter syndrome”, in particular her suggestion that we should be cautious about “the idea that there is something wrong with us if we find academic writing deeply challenging.”  Amen.

Check it out here:  http://explorationsofstyle.com/