Month: April 2023

By Dr. Kristin Huggins, Consultant

Listen, I get it. May rolls around, and you are exhausted with a capital “E.” The end of the semester is anything but easy for students and professors alike to traverse. Between finals, term papers, capstone projects, and applications to the next program, next fellowship, or next career, you have very little mental space to consider continuing a sustainable writing routine through the last day of the semester. Despite the insanity of the end-of-term season, a glimmer of hope remains: your everyday routine will be disrupted.

“Exactly – I have too much to do in too little time, Kristin!”

Hear me out. During finals, you no longer have daily classes to attend. Your to-do list that has accumulated over four months is now being whittled down slowly but surely with every completed paper and submitted final exam. Suddenly, you find yourself outside your regular routine. This is referred to as positive disruption. Whether we consciously recognize this disruption or not, our brains certainly do. Creativity thrives on taking risks, not settling into complacency. After all, if you do the same thing you’ve always done, you’ll get the same results, n’est ce pas?

In his book Yes to the Mess, organizational behavior researcher Frank Barrett speaks to this phenomenon. He observes that dislodging routines allows people to pay attention in ways that they weren’t able to before. Our synchronized calendars and Pomodoro timers for productivity power hours unwittingly stifle the creative process into stagnancy. Seasons of change (such as the end-of-term) provide the ideal setting for new innovative thinking, critical self-reflection, and breaking bad habits established during periods of routine.

Positive disruption can be highly productive for writers of all ilk. Arguably, this very deviation from “normal” provides you – dear writer – with the ideal space to reflect, explore, and plan for the new year ahead. As you prepare for the Great Closing of your Spring 2023 term, I highly encourage you to consider trying the writing practices provided below. You will not find word sprints, word count goals, or drafting ideas here. Instead, these end-of-term practices are more abstract in nature and are meant to help you lean into this idea of positive disruption while preparing for the summer break and the fall semester that will be here before you know it.

Reflection: Take time to look back and consider your writing accomplishments from the last four months. For those who equate productivity with a quantifiable measurement of assessment, you can look at the overall page count or word count written for the spring semester. For those who prefer a more holistic perspective, consider which papers meant the most to you and your work. Ask yourself the following:

1. Which papers presented the most significant challenge? How did you face this challenge and overcome it? 
2. What was your biggest writing takeaway (or “aha” moment) this semester? 
3. Did you learn new techniques for drafting, revising, crafting, communicating, or emoting? 
4. Now that you’ve reached the end, would you do anything differently with your writing? Why or why not?
5. Most importantly, how do you feel about your writing abilities as of now? Compare this to how you felt at the beginning of the semester.

Creative Brainstorming: Many of us have kernels of ideas that collect dust in the recesses of our minds. These ideas can be stifled by the mundane daily grind, giving way to deadlines of the semester. Now that you have three weeks of reprieve, what would it look like to storyboard some of these ideas?

For example, I’ve been interested in developing my professional website for several months but haven’t had the mental space or energy to brainstorm copy for web pages. While this project wouldn’t require the same skillset as a journal article, creating online copy would still stretch my writing abilities in a way that I usually wouldn’t experience. Now that my responsibilities are winding down as I finish grading term papers and final exams, I can finally carve out that brainstorming space without guilt or pressure.

Perhaps you are interested in a similar non-academic project. Or perhaps you have an idea for new research that requires brainstorming through journaling or storyboarding. Permit yourself to explore these kernels without the pressure of developing a fully-fledged project. 

Goal-Mapping, and Identifying the Highs and Lows of Next Season: Look ahead to your upcoming summer and fall semester. What obligations/responsibilities will you be juggling? What projects are you already aware of that will require your attention? Before you create goals, map out the semester as best you can with a calendar so you can clearly see your semester’s mountains and valleys (i.e., weeks of high stress and low stress). This will help you calculate appropriate goals for your writing.

Next, prioritize writing projects. Which items have to be completed by next semester? Which items directly impact your ability to graduate, receive funding, or be considered for a new position? Those automatically must be placed as top priority!

Everyone’s goal map will look different depending on personal and professional circumstances. Give yourself grace and develop attainable goals that are relevant and exciting!

The end of a term will always be a whirlwind of activity. I want to encourage you – dear reader – to take advantage of the disruption to your regular schedule. Give yourself space to consider how much you’ve accomplished with your writing this semester, explore new creative ideas, and prepare yourself for the season ahead. 

by Dr. LaJoie Lex, Consultant

As you navigate the perils of grad school, have you ever had the thought: there should really be a guidebook for this wilderness? I’m grateful that a professor introduced me to Gregory Colón Semenza’s Graduate Study for the 21^st Century during my first semester in the Ph.D. program at Baylor. I wish I’d known about this book during my M.A. studies, but thankfully, this guide is structured in such a way that it’s never too late to pick it up and start gleaning from its wisdom.

Although the book is subtitled How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities, there are certainly segments that are relevant across disciplines. And again, it’s the type of book that allows for picking and choosing applicable topics and chapters based on your current needs and relevance to your own program.

I initially read through this book during my first semester at Baylor, but I came back to it during certain stages of my program to reread chapters like “Exams,” “Attending Conferences,” and, of course, “The Dissertation.” I’ve also recommended it to several of my clients at the GWC who were writing their first seminar papers—there’s an entire chapter devoted to this special academic genre. Also helpful throughout my program was the early chapter on “Organization and Time Management,” something that can make or break the successful (and timely) navigation of graduate study.

The wonderful thing about this book is that it’s not merely designed to help you “make it” through grad school—it also helps you set long-term goals and focus on things that will help you have a successful academic career, from first-year student through the job market and beyond.

For example, Semenza encourages some conference attendance for grad students while warning that too much focus on conferences early on can actually get in the way of pursuits that will be better for both your CV and your development as a scholar in the long run. He instead recommends other uses of time that can bear more fruit for the grad student if pursued faithfully throughout the course of their study.

Chapter 10: “Publishing,” for instance, encourages students to set a long-term goal of having published at least two articles by the time they’re ready for the job market. While this is something you’ll likely complete towards the end of your program, having the goal in mind early on will allow you to work towards it in manageable steps rather than being overwhelmed by the “shoulda, coulda” thoughts once you get to that stage.

My recommendation for making best use of this invaluable resource? Read through the book fully when you first get it, then use it as a reference and return to chapters as you need them. This will allow you to create a long-term vision for making the most of your early semesters while not becoming overwhelmed by the larger tasks that will come later.

by Dr. Kristin Huggins, Consultant

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

– Stephen King

Veteran authors posit that reading and writing go hand in hand, regardless of genre or convention. However, the way students recreationally read may not necessarily serve all purposes of their academic writing needs. Instead, they quickly learn to skim for needed information. After all, there are only so many hours in the day. If graduate students hope to finish annotating the 20 articles they have left in their stack before midnight, chewing on every word will only slow them down.

Simply put: To be successful and meet deadlines, we must learn to adapt our reading process to fit the needs of our writing tasks. However, I would argue that sometimes this form of reading (i.e., skimming, treasure-hunting, or scanning) does not always lend itself to long-term improvement of writing skills and knowledge of craft.

While skimming or scanning will help you identify the findings and implications of an empirical study, it may not be as helpful for improving your vocabulary. You may not provide yourself with the space to allow for creative exploration and inspiration for your work. You may miss academic terminologies specific to your discipline, terms that signal to journals and committees that you understand the unspoken expectations of your field. Thus, exhaustive or intensive reading (i.e., reading that digs deeper and moves slower) may also be beneficial in addressing these concerns.

“Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they [authors] do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”

– William Faulkner

I can already hear the rebuttal: “Graduate students don’t have time to read – REALLY read.” Insert long list of anxiety-inducing, mind-numbing deadlines for grant applications, conference proposals, research prospectus defense, preliminary technical reviews, etc.

Trust me. I get it. I didn’t allow myself to read for pleasure for nearly three years as a doctoral student. And it nearly killed every creative bone in my body.

For me, reading has always been the jumper cable to my creative battery. When my tank was empty, reading filled it back up. It has been an intellectual, emotional, and creative support system for as long as I can remember. So, making the conscious decision to forgo recreational reading for the duration of my doctoral program was not one made lightly. And I deeply regret it.

I would argue that reading in all forms (recreational and academic) is invaluable: it creates more competent scholars, more empathetic humans, more eloquent writers, and more emotionally stable graduate students. If you want to write, you must READ!

What is a musician who doesn’t listen to music? Or a chef who doesn’t enjoy sampling different cuisines on their day off? Or a dancer who hates watching ballet?

What is a writer who doesn’t read?

Consider, dear reader, the following reasons why reading in all forms is beneficial for writers:

Reading Expands your Vocabulary

If you find yourself repeating the same words (especially descriptive terms that are not content-specific to your field), reading material in your discipline can help add to your vocabulary while illuminating which words may be more acceptable in your genre than others.

When you come across a phrase or a term that sparks your interest, dig deeper. Look up definitions. Write them down in your research/drafting journal. Explore ways in which new terms could be applied to your current or future work.

Reading Explores Knowledge of Craft

Reading exposes us to the rules of writing, including conventions of genre and style. It also shows us when authors choose to willingly break those rules, and whether this choice served the goals of their writing. Reading also exposes several forms of “voice,” which helps you to begin identifying your own.

Exemplars are invaluable for the graduate student. If you’re drafting a journal article, read several from the journals you plan to submit to. Take note of the common denominators you see throughout the works they accept for publication. If you’re writing a methodology chapter of your thesis or dissertation, pull several recently published dissertations in your field with comparable methodologies to see how they structured their chapter. What headings did they use? What tone did they incorporate?

Reading Stimulates Inspiration for Your Own Work

It may not be a thunderclap of inspiration – it may just be an ember. But with the right conditions, an ember can become a forest fire. Collect your embers as you read. Keep an Idea Journal nearby. Write ideas down. Think on them as you drive home from work, or as you walk across campus. Allow your brain to turn them over time and time again. This is how creative tanks become refilled and you find your footing with your own writing again.

Don’t be afraid to cross genres! Inspiration isn’t bound by parameters or rules. Can you believe I discovered a new way to catalog and synthesize historical literature in my field from a novel about an alchemical Oxford scholar who discovered vampires were real? VAMPIRES. My creativity has no shame. And neither should yours.

“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”

– Samuel Johnson

Happy Writing (and Reading), Dear Reader.

by Madhur Wyatt, Consultant

My dear multilingual friend,

You have significantly more grey matter in your brain because you are multilingual. Your cognitive muscles only get stronger, bigger, and more flexible when you take up the challenge of writing your next project in English. Your superior abilities to concentrate and problem-solve will take you places. But right now, you need to focus your attention on expressing yourself effectively. No point in research if it cannot be communicated to the big wide world in a clear manner. I have some tips and tricks for you, suggestions from a multilingual friend to a multilingual friend.

• Funnel from big to small

Focus your attention on the big picture. Be very clear on “What”  is your project and “Why” is it important? What are you trying to communicate to your audience? Are you making sound arguments to support or refute your main idea? Once your foundation of “what and why” is laid, you can then proceed to smaller details of grammar, syntax, and word choice. So, don’t get stuck in the weeds, look at the big picture first.

• You will GROW, but not in a vacuum

Observe how other authors in your field write (aka. Reference texting). What type of language and word choices do they use? How do they organize their ideas? What is their layout? What tone do they use? How do they support/refute an argument? But never copy it. Use your talent, own your style, and go for it.

• You will need an early head-start

You may think that you can write an essay the night before the deadline. But a succinct expression of the language may take longer. An early start to your project will give you plenty of time to organize ideas, write them up, receive feedback from Graduate Writing Center (GWC), talk about your project with peers, make edits, and meet the deadline with significantly less pressure and stress.

• Embrace friendship with the GWC

We are with you through thick and thin. GWC is your friend, and our team at GWC understands your being multilingual. We support your project in two ways. 1. We are outsiders. We may see something you may miss because of your super focus niche. 2. We are writing consultants trained in multilingualism. We have slightly more practice at writing and can provide very useful insights. You and all your friends can benefit from us. We have your back!

• Love the turtle-pace

I’m sure it took you a long time to adjust to a new culture. Writing eloquently in English can take longer. Be patient. Proficiency and expertise will not happen right away. Medical doctors continue to practice for decades to constantly reflect and evolve in patient care. Writing will be yours to practice long-term!

• Create fun add-ons to your learning

Make it fun. Talk about your research with peers, have weekly tea/coffee/lunch with an English-speaking friend, host movie nights, read love novels or mystery books, or find a mentor. If you have other suggestions on how to immerse yourself in the language, please comment below.