Thanks to Graeme and Paulette for an excellent workshop. Below are my notes. I've made these as a pdf which I'll distribute if needed. It is very much my interpretation; give yours in comments. My apologies to Graeme for bowdlerizing his pithy quotes. I'm including a couple of comments fore and aft on where we can take it from here. Download FreeMind - it will Shake Your Tree....perhaps I will update this with a MindMap!
In preparing for the workshop I had an idea that Graeme's section would be an interesting scene setter but that we would get most out of our focal presentations. In the event it was the other way around. Our presentations and discussion were focussed on project details, not on writing papers - we needed the workshop first, before preparing presentations for another time. We need MindMaps focussing on Sense and Structure, rather than results, figures and interpretation.
Another observation on our discussions - it felt slightly prickly; defensive or critical, rather than supportive. This is counterproductive (see the WARNING below). The projects were excellent, each showing novelties in data with corresponding innovations in interpretation. These are publishable in prestige journals. The benefits of co-operation and support, however, cannot be gainsaid - everyone's confidence in writing improves. In our game there are better strategies than Tit for Tat, ones based on tolerance that give a greater overall pay-off. As JF Kennedy put it, "A rising tide lifts all boats".
___________________________________________________________________________
University
of Pretoria, Genetics Dept
Molecular
Ecology & Evolution Program (MEEP)
Writing
Workshop
with
Graeme
Addison
Otter's
Haunt, Parys
Mon
4th June 2012
ATTITUDE
Trust
yourself
Writing
is an intrinsically messy & emotionally traumatic process - get
used to it.
Disorganization
is inherent in the writing process, but you should not be
disorganized
Making
the transition from a cloud of ideas to a railway line, of logically
ordered statements on paper, is a difficult process. Trust yourself
– let it come naturally. If not, relax, do something else but set
a time limit, then try one of the techniques below.
Don't
get anxious, it WILL happen. The subconscious often leads. Don't try
to take command, rely on your intuition...“you can not see the
object if you stare at it”
Good
writing is succint and takes time...“Sorry I ran out of time, it
is twice what you asked for”
Hold
off those people who demand immediate action and delivery, but keep
thinking about it and discussing it.
Thinking
on different levels
The
Big Picture: interpreting and analysing your position – where does
this study fit in, why are we doing this, what significant outcomes
are there for the field
Be
clear about your topic
The
Little Picture: attending to the details (citations, methodology,
format)
You
need help!
Writing
is a lonely job, you have to be able to tell people what you are
doing.
Don't
withdraw, talk with supportive friends, family and colleagues.
Often
you don't know what you are trying to say. By telling others you
will find ways to express yourself on paper. The teacher learns most
from any lesson.
Even
technical readers need to be told specialist concepts in layman's
terms
The
best writing is concise...bright, simple, and fun (target excess
adjectives)
PROBLEMS
(Brainstorming, 3 quick ideas)
Confusion
& Emotional Blockage
Uncertainty
about the Big Picture; Work on conceptualization
Fear
of criticism; Fear becomes writer's block
The
pain of writing (like childbirth); Do other things but keep it in
mind.
Do
other things but keep it in mind - carry a notebook and jot down
ideas
Communicate,
talk to a friend about it – helps to concretize ideas
Procrastination
& Avoidance Behaviour
Perfectionism
(the unattainable = procrastination + avoidance + emotional blockage)
Getting
stuck on details, small hurdles that obstruct overall progress
Getting
sidetracked into related topics – the reference trail
Keats
was never satisfied but realised his poems were good
enough for release
Order
and Disorder
The
entropy of writing: a systematic approach doesn't work
Trying
to do it all at once, in one go, usually doesn't work either
Prioritizing
what is important for the project, yourself and others is necessary
but difficult
STRATEGIES
The
writing process
There
are five phases of writing each with its own strategies
(cf.
two types of people: those who divide humanity into two types of
people and those who do not)
Prewriting
– conceptualization, including thinking while writing
Drafting
– just getting it down
Rewriting...putting
the draft in order – washing line, computer cut & paste
Self-editing...don't
lose text – paste it into a working document, getting details
right
Presentation...go
to a sympathetic friend as an initial editor
Starting
“You
can't eat the elephant at once”...You can start writing anywhere,
so start with the easiest part
Your
mind will find the answer. When a good idea comes to you in the
middle of the night... during a seminar, in conversation or driving
home... get up, stand up, write it down.
Brainstorming
with others, in a supportive environment, is an important prewriting
strategy. You need to share ideas and ways to express them. Often
discussion will give you the words you need.
Writing
requires self-editing but this is done in several stages.
Get
it all down without backtracking – bash it out, don't worry about
expression
Edit
down to what is important: sense and meaning - conceptual clarity,
logical sequence
Structuring
ideas
Remember:
sense, structure, style....in that order
Overall
structure: Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. Tell 'em. Tell 'em
what you told 'em
Paragraph
structure is a 2nd
stage editing process (Re-writing & Self-editing)
A
good paragraph begins with a focus sentence (a thesis statement).
Details
follow in subsequent sentences. Deal with things one at a time.
Unpack
details in a logical sequence. Necessary background should be in
previous paragraphs.
Avoid
stylistic fixation. Editing style is a 3rd
stage process
Finishing
Let
someone else read it (friends, family, colleagues, co-authors...but
don't let this obstruct progress). Don't quibble on qualifications
- address their comments on sense and readability.
* Make
a final check on the details (sample & specimen
numbers, references) but don't get stuck crossing i's and
dotting t's
* Submit
– your editor and reviewers will make you edit again
before publication
* You
may not be completely satisfied, but leave that for your
next paper
TECHNIQUES
1.
Free writing
5
mins of constant writing without stopping or revising – open the
floodgates with a priming phrase
The
main issue I need to address is...
Prior organisation. I
need to get my references in order, to be able to find it all when I
need it all, to start constructing my figures early. I also need to
stop looking at that pile of references, to stop trying to find more
references, to stop looking at the minutae and openingh wormholes to
much greater problems that aI wasn't previously aware of. Get the
ideas down on paper, fill out the structure, stop editing and
re-editing that is just another form of procrastination, let it go –
even with horrendous grammatical errors. No maybe correct those ones
first but just make sure that there is a story and it makes sense.
This can't be all one main thing because it is several of them but I
guess it is all important. What does it alll mean – what is the
significance? What is the punchline of this story – that is the
main thing. What distinguishes this from just another phylogeographic
story – is there ever just another phylogeographic story in biology
when everything is unique, when only the patterns are shadows of each
other....The Mark Twain reference – history doesn't repeat but it
rhymes. The conclusion is the most important part, even though in the
longer term it might be superceded or made irrelevant by other
perspectives, better perspectives, better analyses, new information
from other fields – and the data itself might have longer term
value for understanding change, what was when we was, and developing
the field.
2.
Random Writing
Moon
Dog-like
Pretence
Forward-looking
Revolution
Write
a paragraph using these words in this order, without changing them.
Are we all just howling
at the moon. Alone, at night, dog-like, staring at the distant stars,
putting up the pretence of community. But maybe we should be more
forward-looking, we are creating that community, listening for other
howls in the night and joining the chorus before dawn. Now there's a
revolution!
3.
The journalist's toolbox: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
WWWWWH:
Ask short questions, not necessarily these ones but these are
particularly useful ones. Give simple answers. The first four
questions are about data and detail (gradgrinds). The last two
questions are interpretative – they are about quality
Rewriting:
Take out the questions, pin the answers together, add linkers, add a
focus sentence, remove redundancy
Remember:
First start with making sense of the information. Secondly, come to
ordering the ideas (and readability which is stylistic). Style
correction comes last.
A
good technique to make a transition, to bridge thoughts, is to
re-use words from the previous sentence to start the next, shifting
the emphasis on that word or concept.
Mind
mapping
Can
be used to structure virtually any writing job from a shopping list
to a book”
Do
it manually, on paper, or use FreeMind (Java)
<http://reemind.sourceforge.net>
Categorise
things into big categories, and subcategories of these.
CONCLUSIONS
(Brainstorming – participant comments)
What
have you learned here that you can apply?
4
useful techniques: Free writing, random writing, WWWWWH, Mindmaps
Get
it down, then get it right
sense,
structure, style
Writing
is intuitive, it comes naturally
Communicate
it to others
It
is essential BUT DON'T EXPOSE YOURSELF to criticism from people you
fear
Linking
sentences, bridging concepts
Mindmaps
to systematize it all on one page...don't do it with lists
- Can
also be used to prepare a presentation or speech
The
prewriting process of organizing the sense of your story
Presenting
your project to your family (good technical writing can be
understood by all)
Punchlines
for paragraphs
PRESENTATIONS
Arrie,
Kerry, Paulette, Thierry and Sarita gave project / paper
presentations
Presentations
from Michael, Amanda, Emilie, Bianca, Carel and Ronell were deferred
Paulette
suggested that everyone should have a manuscript or a firm structure
and time-line for a manuscript by the end of June.
GA: In these
presentations you seem to be skipping the most important part –
the Big Picture. The Who, What, Where, When and How, the SENSE.
MEEP: This is
because we know the projects, we are familiar with the justification
and we were restricted in slides and time to shorthand of content.
___________________________________________________________________________
MJC: In
hindsight, this rebuttal doesn't make sense, because Sense is the
most important part of the publication, and must be the fundamental
starting point for explaining any paper. In publications you must
explain the WWWWH concisely in a paragraph. Surely we can do the same
in a slide. The problem is that we had the wrong format. We were
prepared for presentations on projects rather than on the resulting
papers. With the benefit of the workshop I think that the best
presentation on a paper would start with the structure – in the
form of a mindmap.
