Because I should be writing a syllabus...

...I think I will muse about writing (academic writing) instead.

B* wrote an interesting post today about writing - what she finds hard about it and what has got easier for her. What I found particularly interesting about her post was her self-awareness; I realized I would be hard put to define what has got easier about writing for me. Partly, this is because I always used to consider writing easy (as I commented over on her post). I started writing for pleasure around the age of nine or so, and basically never stopped. While I had my share of near-all-nighters in college (could never quite manage a total all-nighter), and while I certainly didn't score all As on everything I ever wrote, writing came pretty easily, and I could always churn out something on paper that was pretty reasonable. (Astute readers may see some link between "churning out" pages and wordiness...but I digress.)

This changed once I got to grad school - once I was writing 30+ pp. papers on a regular basis I found that writing was no longer easy; I could not write a paper in one sitting, near the deadline, proofread for typos, and hand it in. I found that I had to allow time for the paper to sit, to steep, to mature (whatever metaphor you prefer) before I could figure out what it was really trying to say and revise it in order to express those ideas more clearly.

So, it often feels like writing has only gotten harder, not easier.

But if I try hard, I can think of ways in which I've become a better writer. Some are directly attributable to my graduate advisor: I no longer use passive voice. Almost EVER. (Yes, there are legitimate uses of the passive voice, but really, very few of them occur in academic historical writing. Besides, I figure if I don't use it at all, it averages out all the academic writers who are over-enamored of it...) I also make sure to STATE MY ARGUMENT RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PIECE. I used to be one of those people who led you through the paper to reach the conclusion (which was because I never knew what my conclusion was while I was writing), and under my advisor's training I have now figured out to write the paper, then take the conclusion and plop it at the beginning. And to make that argument REALLY CLEAR.

My students have helped to reinforce the latter lesson: I HAVE TO MAKE MY ARGUMENT REALLY CLEAR. Because I discovered, as doubtless many of you reading this have too, that if it is possible for a student to misunderstand your point, they will. And while sometimes yes, it really is the student's fault, other times it has been mine. So I have become obsessive about clarity, and about connecting all the pieces of my work together so that the reader (like the student) can be in no doubt about what something means and why it is that I'm telling it to them in the first place.

(Howard Becker, author of this book, helped reinforce this lesson, too. He makes the point somewhere that if, when someone responds to your writing, they didn't get what you meant, that's not their fault - it's YOURS. It's your responsibility as a writer to make your argument so clear that the reader can't possibly get it wrong. This really cured me of ever saying about a critique, "But they just didn't get what I mean...")

Now, I can't claim that I always succeed in introducing my argument clearly at the beginning of a piece, or in writing so clearly overall that no one can misunderstand me. But I do think I've got better at these things, at identifying what it is that I'm really writing about and what I'm really arguing.

This emphasis on clarity does have one downside, though - I have essentially given up on attempts at style. Well, I do believe that clarity is a kind of style, and an important one. And I ruthlessly strip floweriness and wordiness from my prose (my academic prose, clearly, and not my blog prose!). And while I try not to impose one sense of style upon my students, any attempt on their part to sound "smart" by using big words (or lots of them) gets met with comments like "is this phrase really necessary?" or "why not just say [more familiar/simpler word]?" But I'll take clarity over elegance any day, and I realize that sometimes elegance is a good thing.

Rereading this, I realize I've elided "better writing" with "easier writing." I've talked about how my writing has improved rather than how writing has gotten easier for me. Well, improving my writing overall has helped make it easier. But also a lot of what has contributed to any ways in which writing has become easier is a growing awareness of how writing works for me - what I have to do to write. For instance, knowing that I can't write the first version of a paper the night before it's due (to present, to submit, whatever) makes it easier for me to plan what I need to do to get something done. Understanding that my first draft is always incredibly messy - and that this is okay - means that I don't panic when I don't produce peerless prose on the first try. Recognizing that those messy drafts pretty much always turn into something decent makes it easier to write, too. Knowing that I usually start writing before I've finished my research, and that I have to go through a messy writing/reading/writing/revising process, also helps.

My last point connects back to the question of whether writing is harder or easier as a grad student or a professor, which has also come up around the blogosphere recently. While I've probably contributed to some anxiety attacks ("Wait, this whole writing thing doesn't get easier when you're a professor? Crap!"), I don't think writing now is actually harder; it's just the the obstacles I'm dealing with are different. Thankfully for y'all, I wasn't blogging during my dissertation process, which at times went incredibly slllooooooooooooowwwwwllly; so my complaints about problems writing now need to be put in context: writing the dissertation was harder, as writing. Then, I was figuring out how to do everything a big project required, and figuring it all out at once; now, I have at least a better idea of how to put together a project on the scale of a dissertation or book. The process now is easier. The problem is that there are so many more things competing for my attention now than when I was writing my dissertation (I know this isn't the case for many of you, who are working full-time while dissertating, which I only did for a brief time and I'm glad it wasn't longer!); my main issue is making the writing (and research on which the writing rests) a priority and carving out sacred writing time that may not be interrupted for anything else. The luxury of grad school (if one can call anything associated with grad school a luxury) is that the time is supposed to be devoted to learning, so in a way, the focus is entirely on yourself (though again, I realize there are lots and lots of other things going on while one is in grad school - I taught a great deal in grad school, too). Once you have a job, the focus shifts much more to what you can do rather than what you can learn. It makes a little bit of a difference of how to approach your writing.

Comments

[bright star]

hey, new kid...

I used to hide my argument until the end as well. I didn't think I was doing that, though! Really! I thought I was building up to the argument in a savvy cool way. My advisor taught me how to state my argument more clearly up front, too. Good call on that one.

My first drafts are always terribly messy, too. I've been very okay with that, as I am kind of not a detail-oriented person. I actually think I should get to turn in / submit messier stuff. LOL! I wish I was more detail oriented. My biggest critique from faculty early in grad school was -- "You're really effective at expressing yourself informally. Now turn that writing into a more formal tone." Messy. Informal. All over the place. I can get that stuff out onto paper. Turning it into something that looks more like real prose? Ugh. That's rough for me.

Good point about also making time for the research on which the writing rests! I'm supposed to collect a new round of data this fall and I'm totally stressing out because I"m behidn on research design prep.

I definitely agree with this: "Once you have a job, the focus shifts much more to what you can do rather than what you can learn." I don't think I have to prove myself to my local community in the same way. However, I do have to prove myself to an external community, which is scarier in some ways, but I feel like I have the support of both my grad school and my current university, so that's a good thing.

[shrinkykitten]

I've nothing really to add to this, but one thing that strikes me as I read this is that I feel very envious of your having gotten training from your advisor. Mine tends to criticize me for not being able to do some things well (things that a lot of grad students tend to not do well at first, like not overinterpreting data), yet is unwilling to actually help me do things better. Instead she uses it as evidence of my inability to be a researcher. I feel like everything I know about how to write or how to do research I learned from my undergrad advisor (so I am thankful I had her). But here, it seems like there is an expectation that we know how to do everything already, and if we don't, we suck and are beyond help.

[Susan]

I LOVE that you want to write clearly. I get so frustrated reading academic journal articles that don't have the point upfront or do use the multi-syllable jargon words. Unfortunately, my most recent professors want me to use the 'big' words in my writing and presentations. I HATE that. I just don't understand how those articles get accepted for publication when they are so lacking in clarity. Do you know?

[New Kid on the Hallway]

shrinkykitten - I actually had to laugh writing this because I realized I had to give my advisor SOME props for helping me write better; in general she wasn't the constructive type, and while she was helpful about these kinds of more mechanical things, she wasn't always very helpful about how to make the actual thinking behind the writing better. So I definitely know how you feel!

Susan - I don't really know! I think sometimes it's a question of showing that you know how to think "like an academic" - not really about being clear, but about showing that you can use all the fashionable terms and show that you know the "right" things. And sometimes you have an article with good ideas that's just not expressed very clearly, and the editors would rather that the ideas get out there, even if they're not as clear as they might be. But I haven't worked on a journal, so I'm not an expert on this.

[wolfa]

I had a few people who would go into bitter rants about the "mystery novel" style of academic writing. I never quite got myself to the signposts with careful descriptions of false traps, but I was quite good as long as I was building off a presentation.

[sharon]

Just one quibble: I don't think 'style' or 'elegance' should be confused with 'floweriness' and 'wordiness', or with the use of big words. A plain style is still a style, and you can have elegance with ordinary small words; it's all about how you put them together. I always make the most of the richness of English vocabulary to avoid clumsy repetition, but that doesn't mean that I start raiding obscure vaults of academic jargon or the OED. And my experience with history journals so far is that they prefer clarity to jargon, too. I've yet to be asked to add any bigger or more 'fashionable' words to an article, but I have sometimes been asked if I can rephrase something to make it clearer...

(And I increasingly think that one of the biggest problems with undergrad writing is precisely that they don't revise. What we get handed in as essays are, all too often, really first drafts that were written in one rush the day (or night) before; maybe a quick automatic spell check, but quite possibly didn't even have to time to re-read it after it came out of the printer, let alone do any re-writing.)

[Derek]

As one who is dissertaing while doing the corporate job you're right--it sucks. I'm reminded of St Augustine's words on preaching--go for clarity first, style second. Style's important but if it gets in the way of the first you got problems...

[Anastasia]

This is one reason I'm really happy with my new advisor--I don't think he's the most sophisticated thinker I've ever read, but the man can write. He is an excellent editor. nothing worse than feeling like your writing isn't really very good but you're already a clearer writer than your advisor.

I've actually been thinking about this lately, so this is really helpufl..I used to do a lot of outlining, but I find myself not doing that anymore. I think I actually need to just let go and write through an argument as a way to help me figure out what I'm saying. Then I can try to be clear later. Clarity can come in the rewriting stage. I stress myself trying to come out clear, complete and well organized on the first go, which is why I obsess about writing and revising a zillion outlines.

I haven't done that for the dissertation, though. I think I'll write a post about my diss writing and how it's changed. Good thoughts, you've got me thinking!

[Mary McKinney aka Academic Coach]

Awesome. Thanks for writing about writing. I'll say to you what I said to brightstar. Wanna write a guest column for my weekly e-newsletter? Pseudonymously is fine. She may take me up on it sometime.

Great follow up commenters too.

BTW I've liked your clothing comments on profgrrrrl

Here are some of my thoughts about making writing easier:
Getting It Written

[Candace]

I find I spend a long time on outlines, refining and expanding with details and evidence. In this way my outlines eventually grow into something like skeletal essays in need of (a lot of) revision. The other nice thing about outlines is that I can easily see which points have too much information and might be best divided - or too little and needing to be cut.

I may not be up to a dissertation yet, but I'll try to remember all of the things written here when I get that far. Thanks!

Candace