My basic philosophy is to distinguish clearly between external obstacles to writing and internal ones. We have considerable power over internal obstacles, so we can work on those. We have less power of external factors, so we can either work to change those or circumvent them, or some combination of the two.
Not having a lamp to read by is an external obstacle to scholarship. Not bothering to buy a lamp from office depot to solve this problem, however, is an internal obstacle. A noisy neighbor is an external obstacle. He's too noisy; I cannot concentrate! Nevertheless, the attitude that as long as I Iive next to him, I'll never write a word, is an internal one. If we only have external obstacles, we are in good shape, because the internal ones we can learn to overcome.
If we attribute an internal obstacle to the outside world, then we are defeating ourselves. The world is not letting me be the scholar I want to be, so why try?
Now here's where this gets tricky. I don't want to ever suggest that an obstacle is not real or significant. I don't want to be insensitive to your teaching load or family obligations, your sensitivity to noise, your medical problems. The more significant the external factors are, the harder it will be to write. What this means, though, is that you will have to be even more rigorous about not letting any internal blocks get a hold of you. In other words, you will be in even less a position to blame anything on the noisy neighbor.
Friday, March 4, 2011
How to Revise An Article
I have some ideas about how to revise an article, from a different angle from those of Tanya. She has ten good suggestions arranged in a helpful order. Mine are oriented not toward making a rough draft into a final one (remember I don't believe in rough drafts), but rather turning an article you thought was finished into one that really is.
1. Get someone else to read it. Revision implies that you have a version that needs to be revised, that you've taken it as far as you can on your own. You could send it to a journal and use the referees' comments, or, if you are less confident you can have someone read it before sending it to a journal.
2. Put the article away for a while while someone is reading it for you. You cannot revise if you are still too close to the moment of composition. A revision is a rewriting from a certain distance.
3. Organize your reader's suggestions. Begin with the easiest ones to correct and get those out of the way. The formulate a plan to incorporate other reasonable suggestions that you agree with and think would strengthen the article. Make a list of substantive revisions you want to make and do them in order.
4. Now do a final reading of the article and change any sentence that catches your attention. You will be looking for any slight ambiguity, lack of clarity, infelicity. You have to pay close attention to your own reactions. Which sentences just bother you a little bit every single time you read them? You know that, without being horrid, they are not quite right yet. It doesn't matter if anyone else would object to them. If you don't like them, you should change them. If you aren't changing at least one sentence in each paragraph on average you are not really doing it right.
5. But at a certain point you have to let it go. If I really made every single sentence exactly the way I wanted it to be I would never actually finish anything.
1. Get someone else to read it. Revision implies that you have a version that needs to be revised, that you've taken it as far as you can on your own. You could send it to a journal and use the referees' comments, or, if you are less confident you can have someone read it before sending it to a journal.
2. Put the article away for a while while someone is reading it for you. You cannot revise if you are still too close to the moment of composition. A revision is a rewriting from a certain distance.
3. Organize your reader's suggestions. Begin with the easiest ones to correct and get those out of the way. The formulate a plan to incorporate other reasonable suggestions that you agree with and think would strengthen the article. Make a list of substantive revisions you want to make and do them in order.
4. Now do a final reading of the article and change any sentence that catches your attention. You will be looking for any slight ambiguity, lack of clarity, infelicity. You have to pay close attention to your own reactions. Which sentences just bother you a little bit every single time you read them? You know that, without being horrid, they are not quite right yet. It doesn't matter if anyone else would object to them. If you don't like them, you should change them. If you aren't changing at least one sentence in each paragraph on average you are not really doing it right.
5. But at a certain point you have to let it go. If I really made every single sentence exactly the way I wanted it to be I would never actually finish anything.
The Faucet
If you can get to the point where writing is like a faucet you can turn on at will, you will be able to get a lot accomplished. What I mean by this is that you should be able to sit down, open up the document, and work on it with good results. The problem comes with not being able to even open up the document, or thinking that the writing has to be equally "flowing" every single time.
I actually have this capacity. I can turn on the faucet and work. If I am able to open the document on my computer and begin, I will be productive for a few hours no matter what.
Now the mistake people make is thinking that every writing session will be equally good, or that the bad ones don't count. I've covered this before on SMT, but I have new readers I didn't have a year ago. My theory is that that bad days and the good days average out to steady progress. You might have a day when you get an exceptional amount of writing done, others that are good but not exceptional, still others that are below average for yourself, and still others that are even more frustratingly slow. All you really need, though, is enough average or below average days. The great writing sessions are just one end of the bell curve, just like the very worst ones at the other end of the curve.
From this perspective, it is a mistake to say to yourself you shouldn't even bother turning on the faucet today, because you are a little tired / distracted / whatever and won't be able to write very well. What happens then is that one end of the bell curve consists of days when nothing was done at all. The writer also misses those days in which she might gain energy in the very act of writing. She is eliminating many of those "average" days that make up the bulk of a large writing project like a dissertation or book.
Teaching, service, even family life, can be draining in that you are giving your energy to other people. After a lot of that, you might be too exhausted to do research, which is extremely hard work. I am lucky that I find replenishment in writing. If I am too tired to write and write anyway, then I feel less tired afterwards.
I actually have this capacity. I can turn on the faucet and work. If I am able to open the document on my computer and begin, I will be productive for a few hours no matter what.
Now the mistake people make is thinking that every writing session will be equally good, or that the bad ones don't count. I've covered this before on SMT, but I have new readers I didn't have a year ago. My theory is that that bad days and the good days average out to steady progress. You might have a day when you get an exceptional amount of writing done, others that are good but not exceptional, still others that are below average for yourself, and still others that are even more frustratingly slow. All you really need, though, is enough average or below average days. The great writing sessions are just one end of the bell curve, just like the very worst ones at the other end of the curve.
From this perspective, it is a mistake to say to yourself you shouldn't even bother turning on the faucet today, because you are a little tired / distracted / whatever and won't be able to write very well. What happens then is that one end of the bell curve consists of days when nothing was done at all. The writer also misses those days in which she might gain energy in the very act of writing. She is eliminating many of those "average" days that make up the bulk of a large writing project like a dissertation or book.
Teaching, service, even family life, can be draining in that you are giving your energy to other people. After a lot of that, you might be too exhausted to do research, which is extremely hard work. I am lucky that I find replenishment in writing. If I am too tired to write and write anyway, then I feel less tired afterwards.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Titles
A question or two about titles:
There is no fundamental difference in titles between articles and books, but if you have a less than adequate title for the article, the consequences are not great. Most people publish between 1-3 books in their entire life, so you don't want a bad title there. A publisher will also make sure a title is "marketable." Think too about google searches and other ways people find information. You don't want to bury the subject of the book under a lot of verbiage.
Titles like "{In)seminating Modernity: ...." with parentheses or cutesy puns are not my own preference. They were overdone in the 80s and 90s and I think a lot of people are sick of them. The main function of the title is to tell you what the piece of writing is about, so I go for straight-forward and descriptive, but not dull or unwieldy. The second function is to give some idea of what the essay is actually going to say, so a too general title doesn't work. Brevity can be very effective, if you can get an extremely brief title that lets the reader know what the article is going to argue.
A really good pun can work, if it is really, really good. John Kronik had an article "Pascal's Parole," where he plays with the meaning of parole as judicial sentence and speech act. A pun that has been done to death like "cannon / canon" -- well, you get the idea.
Puns or phrases derived from proverbs, "eggcorns," "snowclones," or clichés can be acceptable. "It Was All Greek to Him: Byron and South Mediterrean Nationalism.' It kind of depends on the scholar's own sensibility. I personally wouldn't use that, but I invented this example so you never know.
Here are some of my recent titles:
Nothing too cute. I used the title of a Salvador Dalí painting, the title of a poem ("De la luminosa ..."), a reference to the idea of an "apology for poetry" like that of Sir Philip Sidney, and a play on a Henry James title (What Maisie Knew). To-the-point and descriptive does not always mean boring. I think "Was Lorca a Poetic Thinker" is provocative without being cute.
Not every title needs a colon. Once in a while, write a title that isn't purely formulaic: "Clever Phrase: What the Article is Really About."
What kind of a title for a research article do you think is the most effective: a creative one based on a cutesy pun or an interesting play on words OR a descriptive and straightforward but boring one?
What components should go into a good title for an article? How should it be different in case of a book?
There is no fundamental difference in titles between articles and books, but if you have a less than adequate title for the article, the consequences are not great. Most people publish between 1-3 books in their entire life, so you don't want a bad title there. A publisher will also make sure a title is "marketable." Think too about google searches and other ways people find information. You don't want to bury the subject of the book under a lot of verbiage.
Titles like "{In)seminating Modernity: ...." with parentheses or cutesy puns are not my own preference. They were overdone in the 80s and 90s and I think a lot of people are sick of them. The main function of the title is to tell you what the piece of writing is about, so I go for straight-forward and descriptive, but not dull or unwieldy. The second function is to give some idea of what the essay is actually going to say, so a too general title doesn't work. Brevity can be very effective, if you can get an extremely brief title that lets the reader know what the article is going to argue.
A really good pun can work, if it is really, really good. John Kronik had an article "Pascal's Parole," where he plays with the meaning of parole as judicial sentence and speech act. A pun that has been done to death like "cannon / canon" -- well, you get the idea.
Puns or phrases derived from proverbs, "eggcorns," "snowclones," or clichés can be acceptable. "It Was All Greek to Him: Byron and South Mediterrean Nationalism.' It kind of depends on the scholar's own sensibility. I personally wouldn't use that, but I invented this example so you never know.
Here are some of my recent titles:
"The Genealogy of Late Modernism in Spain: Unamuno, Lorca, Zambrano, and Valente."
“Was Lorca a Poetic Thinker?”
“What Lorca Knew: Teaching Receptivity.”
“De la luminosa opacidad de los signos: el texto visual de José-Miguel Ullán.”
“The Persistence of Memory: Antonio Gamoneda and the literary Institutions of Late Modernity.”
“Three Apologies for Poetry: Discourses of Literary Value in Contemporary Spain.”
Nothing too cute. I used the title of a Salvador Dalí painting, the title of a poem ("De la luminosa ..."), a reference to the idea of an "apology for poetry" like that of Sir Philip Sidney, and a play on a Henry James title (What Maisie Knew). To-the-point and descriptive does not always mean boring. I think "Was Lorca a Poetic Thinker" is provocative without being cute.
Not every title needs a colon. Once in a while, write a title that isn't purely formulaic: "Clever Phrase: What the Article is Really About."
Maniacally Motivational
I feel a bit manic today, so I will write several posts on topics suggested to me in the comments box. I reserve the right not to take any particular suggestion and to define the word "several" as loosely as I want.
Writer's Group
Anyone interested in a virtual writer's group? Every Monday evening, we will meet on line and talk about what each of us wants to do the following week and what we accomplished the previous week. If we didn't get done what we wanted to, why not? What was the obstacle? Was the obstacle preventable, correctable, will it be there next week? Is it a self-imposed obstacle or an external one?
There should be no guilt or bad feelings about not having gotten something done. For me, last week, for example, I can say that I didn't get written what I wanted. The obstacles were partly logistical and partly emotional. One problem was that I didn't define very clearly what I wanted to get done. I don't feel particularly bad that I didn't write as much. Rather, the information I have about why I didn't will help me for the next week.
There should be no guilt or bad feelings about not having gotten something done. For me, last week, for example, I can say that I didn't get written what I wanted. The obstacles were partly logistical and partly emotional. One problem was that I didn't define very clearly what I wanted to get done. I don't feel particularly bad that I didn't write as much. Rather, the information I have about why I didn't will help me for the next week.
A Paper Without Semi-Colons
I have never found a very good reason to use a semi-colon. I did a search for them in the paper I am writing now and eliminated all but those necessary for format reasons. There was only one. Since the two parts of the sentence separated by this obnoxious piece of punctuation are grammatically complete units, I separate them with a period. If they are so related that they are begging to be in the same sentence, I recast them to subordinate one to the other.
Gertrude Stein only used commas and periods. No questions marks, no exclamations points, no colons or semis. I need colons to introduce quotes. i would gladly get rid of those within my own sentences. Imagine a paper with no large intestines.
It might seem a bit arbitrary, but I feel that semi-colons make the page look too cluttered. it's an aesthetic decision. I feel that I can get away with it because I am not contravening any international treaties or grammatical rules.
Gertrude Stein only used commas and periods. No questions marks, no exclamations points, no colons or semis. I need colons to introduce quotes. i would gladly get rid of those within my own sentences. Imagine a paper with no large intestines.
It might seem a bit arbitrary, but I feel that semi-colons make the page look too cluttered. it's an aesthetic decision. I feel that I can get away with it because I am not contravening any international treaties or grammatical rules.
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