Recently, i have really struggled with writing. So in an attempt to to try to stop this I swallowed my pride and attended a writing workshop/training session. On reflection this was something that I probably should have done earlier, it was really useful and has kickstarted my writing again.
There are different writing styles – find one that suits you!
One thing the workshop offered was experience of trying different writing styles to see how they can be used to kickstart your writing. One problem I was having was that I was over-thinking my writing, i was trying to make it perfect first time and by doing this I wasn’t really getting to much done, except worrying about content, grammar and references (Damn you references! *shakes fist*). With that in mind these exercises really helped me.
The “Just do it” Approach
The first exercise we did was just to write for 5 minutes. This sounds really hard and daunting and just proposing the idea scared me, however, it was then mentioned that we should do this without thinking of grammar, or whether it made sense or anything like that. Amazingly, when I started, suddenly all these ideas and thoughts i had been having about concepts leaked out onto paper and before i knew it I had wrote close to 150 words in 5 minutes (This was done using pen and paper, its scary how much this can hurt your hand when you’re used to a keyboard). Even more amazing was that when i read this, it really wasnt that bad, there were a couple of errors and things I would have liked to have corrected, but the point of this exercise was that editing can be done later, for now just start writing.
The List Approach
Next we tried a similar thing, however, there are some people who benefit from making a list of key concepts and ideas before they start writing. This can be useful for structuring your writing and building an arguement. i found that a list was a useful tool for structuring the free writing approach from the first exercise, however, with a 5 minute time limit in the workshop it might be more practical to set yourself 5 minutes on each item of the list.
The Spider Approach
The third and final approach used in the workshop was the spider diagram approach. If you know your research you will know that certain topics and concepts fit together. Drawing this out schematically can be a useful exercise to organise your free-writing to make sure that you connect the topics which should be talked about in a similar area.
Editing
I think as postgraduate students you can get really bogged down in editing a project because you want it to be the best from the very start. No one wants to be harshly judged over a piece of work. However, I think by using this approach you can separate the editing from the writing and become much more focused on the editing when it comes to doing this. We also tend to forget that our peers are in a similar situation as us, asking a colleague to look over your work before your supervisor sees it can help the editing process and can provide an opportunity to return the favour (Maybe do this in sections though rather than for a whole thesis!). Finally, it can be very frustrating if your concerned about the content of a piece of writing to hand this in to a supervisor and receive no word on the content, just loads of spelling mistakes and corrections. Making it clear to your supervisor or a colleague what you need help with can speed up the process for everyone involved.
