Choosing What to Write in Graduate School

By Nolan Reisen, Consultant

Being in graduate school has given me many opportunities to work with both fellow graduate students and undergraduates. I can’t help but to compare the two, usually to amusing results. Bur perhaps the biggest differences I’ve noticed between graduate and undergraduate students has to do with writing prompts. In many undergraduate courses (or at least in the humanities and social sciences), students are presented with prompts that are preselected by the instructor, prompts usually related to class discussion. These types of prompts are helpful for newcomers to a particular topic or author, since they can aid in narrowing one’s focus for a deeper treatment of subject matter.

Upon becoming a graduate student, however, these useful tools disappear, as each person is encouraged to chart their own course and decide on their own research topics. Looking back, something as simple as a writing prompt appears as a luxury, as it accomplishes a lot of the labor of brainstorming without the student realizing it. Without this assistance, writing suddenly seem a much more daunting task than before. However, this new self-direction can also be very freeing. In my experience, I’ve noticed that it usually takes some time for a budding writer or student to transition from seeing this radical openness as daunting to liberating. But this transition will happen eventually, if only through sheer perseverance, and there are specific strategies that you can take in order to make process this easier.

Be Invested

First, ask yourself what you are most interested in. This can seem basic, but it can also be easily overlooked. As a graduate student, it’s easy to fall into the trap of selecting a topic to write on based on the perceived needs or direction of a particular field, what will be easiest, or what the instructor will most want to read. At the end of the day, however, you will be the one spending the most time and energy writing the paper, and it can make a lot of difference when you find your own work interesting. It becomes much easier to enter a state of flow when working on something you are invested in, and this in turn helps you be more productive overall, benefiting your work through the extra care and attention you will be motivated to give it.

Talk Through Ideas

Second, it helps to proactively discuss your work with your professors and fellow students. This can be as simple as asking them for help in selecting a topic to write on. They are sure to have some ideas of their own that help you formulate your own. Furthermore, such discussions can also help determine the viability of a particular topic: by talking it through a bit, you can begin to see the avenues of questioning and thought opening up from the initial topic, and where they may lead you. Based on the expected length of your paper, this can help determine if a particular topic is developed enough for your purposes, while also helping to point you toward new authors and books to help you in your work.

Seek Out Scholarly Voices

Finally, if you are still feeling lost in choosing what to write on, it can help to look over the reference sections of papers or books you encountered in class. Often overlooked, these reference sections are a treasure trove of new ideas. They can point you toward new authors and new ideas to help better facilitate your own thoughts. I find that this works much better than searching online oneself, which can often be too open to be helpful. Reference sections will help you narrow your search for interesting topics within your field.

Space

The first tip—though perhaps the most obvious—is the most important one. You really need to find your topic engaging if you are going to be able to write on it extensively and interestingly, a factor that kan keep you motivated through difficult writing stages. At the end of the day, however, the university is a community. So know that there are often more resources available to students than you may realize, and you shouldn’t not hesitate to ask others within the community for help.

Having a Voice in Your Writing: What it Means and How to go About it

Wemimo B. Jaiyesimi, Consultant

I remember receiving feedback on one of my class papers from an esteemed professor during my graduate studies in the UK. She appreciated my work and the research I had done but wanted to hear more of my voice, more of my ideas, and more of my critical reflections on the research I was documenting. In another paper I wrote for her, she commented that “my voice came through” – although not in all parts of the paper. However, there was improvement! My advisor here at Baylor has also emphasized voice, pushing me and my colleagues to honor our voices in our writing. I once heard him speak of a scholar friend of his who, as he put it, came to realize readers of his books were interested in reading him. To have a voice in one’s writing comes from the realization that your readers are interested in your writing and not simply how well you have succeeded in cataloging other people’s voices (however authoritative those other voices may be).

Having a voice means effectively communicating in one’s writing a confident sense of the unique contribution(s) that a piece of writing makes to the discursive academic field(s) in which one locates or aspires to locate it. The voice is what grounds the writer’s originality, and being original is a crucial feature of good research writing. To have a voice is to take ownership of the writing as one’s own, to show throughout the piece of writing that one is not simply repeating what has been said. It is not paraphrasing the insights of others, nor is it masterfully referencing the sources employed. I want to suggest the following four practices that can help to hone and maintain voice as we write.

  1. Have a clear thesis statement from the outset. We have all been told how important a strong thesis statement is to a good research paper, article, or essay. Without a clear thesis, the paper lacks a defensible argument. Having a clear thesis, however, is even more crucial when it comes to being able to maintain one’s voice. Why is that? A clear thesis statement helps drive your writing forward, helping organize its various elements, and keeping all of the parts interrelated. Without a clear thesis (which should also be interesting and original), the writing is likely to be jumbled, with no argumentative thread running through it.
  2. Employ quotes sparingly. Employing too many quotes in your writing can cause your voice to be muted. You should only use quotes when necessary. Paraphrasing is better, as it helps translate the words into your own, restating them in your terms. Yet, even in paraphrasing, one is still primarily relaying the ideas of others. To maintain your voice, don’t simply paraphrase, but engage and interact with the paraphrased ideas. Why is the author whom you have quoted important? After quoting or paraphrasing, say something that helps establish to your reader how you understand the connection between the quote and your argument.
  3. Take the evaluative stance. This point is connected to the above point about linking paraphrases and/or quotes to the program of your argument as stated in your thesis. By the evaluative stance, I mean ensuring in your writing that you are not simply reporting ideas, but critically evaluating those ideas, including yours.
  4. Do not feel the need to justify your authority. As new and emerging scholars, graduate students may feel overwhelmed by how little they know about their chosen areas of research. But too often, we underestimate how much we know! While intellectual humility is crucial to good research, you shouldn’t feel afraid to believe in the importance of your ideas to the community of scholars you belong to. Through practice, develop your original insights, and communicate these in a way that doesn’t cede ownership of their originality to authorities.  

Having a voice is important for stamping your authorial identity on your writing. Although it might seem daunting, as with most things in life, it grows with practice and experience. The four points noted above are by no means the only ones that can help, but if practiced, they can go a long way in helping us get a handle on that often-elusive idea of writing in a way that maximally incorporates our voice.

Unraveling Why we Procrastinate and How to Conquer Writer’s Block.

By Madhur Wyatt, Consultant

“I promise to start tomorrow.” “I can’t really start writing till I have researched enough.” “I don’t even know what to write!” Sound familiar? Procrastination and writer’s block (a feeling of being stuck or unable to generate ideas for writing) can be real barriers to your life as a grad student. However, there is always a reason you procrastinate, and if you can understand the psychology behind it, you can reclaim your writing productivity.

The three reasons you may be procrastinating:

  1. Running from the bull: When you find a task daunting, your brain is super clever at escaping it or delaying the task for momentary relief. But this can become worrisome – especially when deadlines get closer. If you find yourself doom-scrolling, watching Netflix, or finding fall recipes, you are satisfying your brain’s search for instant gratification. These attractive distractions can further reinforce procrastination. So, my friend, when you find yourself running away from tasks, acknowledge that it’s your brain playing tricks on you to escape writing that research project.
  2. Waiting for the stars to align: Let’s be honest, most of us have perfectionist tendencies (otherwise, how did we get into grad school). Perfectionism is paralyzing. You may fear that your work will not meet standards. You may find yourself constantly editing, revising, re-writing, or erasing it all–ultimately slowing down the progress of your work. This perfectionism can come in the way of you making substantial progress, perpetuating writer’s block.
  3. Lost in transition: Grad school writing is not your typical chit-chat with a friend at Starbucks. It follows a certain style, structure, and organization. Additionally, writing for academia demands skills and conventions that may not be intuitive. Scientific writing, for instance, may not be second nature to you. This unfamiliarity can be very uncomfortable and make writing feel like an uphill battle, leading to further procrastination.

So, now that we’ve acknowledged three drivers of procrastinating. Let’s discuss some practical writing strategies that you can use in your next writing project:

  1. Pen the ponderings: So, if you are running from the bull or waiting for the stars to align, try setting a timer for 10 minutes and free-writing whatever comes to mind. The goal is to get words on paper and remember there are no judgments. This will kickstart your writing process.
  2. Map your mind: Create mind maps: a visual showing the central concept branching out with related concepts. This will help you organize and contain your thoughts and identify connections, ultimately helping you with the flow of ideas. This is exactly what you need when you find yourself dodging the bull or waiting for those perfect constellations.
  3. Setting the stage; Painting an outline: Imagine you are dealing with a mammoth-sized writing project or a paper that includes the following sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. You can get overwhelmed just by thinking about it. So, the trick is to start with an outline for the project. This outline will include breaking down each section into subpoints or guideposts. These sub-points will keep you on track and will provide goals for each writing session. Bull-evasion!
  4. Eat the elephant (or the bull), one bite at a time: Attack your writing in bite-sized portions. Once you have an outline of the project, you can start elaborating on these sub-points one by one. This way, the bite-sized writing session will not overwhelm you and slowly you will see your writing flow.
  5. Sprint writing: Up for a challenge to sidestep the bull? Try a writing sprint! Set a timer for 20 minutes and write. No editing is allowed in this period. Unlike free writing, writing sprints intentionally attack each section of your mind map or paper outline one by one and start writing about it. But, since you are not allowed to edit, you will make progress on your research paper as you start writing about it.
  6. Two heads are better than one: Grab a writing buddy! Either write together or exchange writing assignments and provide a critique. An accountability partner will get you going on the project and an additional set of eyes will help refine it.
  7. Textual Navigation: Referencing the pros: Navigate through the complexity of writing by opening up several journal articles on your browser and analyzing the writing styles, formats, and word choices. This will serve as a valuable guide as you compile your work and mitigate loss in transition ensuring smooth and cohesive writing. 

With these strategies, you will not only overcome procrastination and writer’s block but also hopefully enjoy the writing process. Happy Writing!

Systematic Strategies for Humanities Research-Paper Writing: Part Two

By Sørina Higgins, Consultant

Welcome back! Presumably you’re here because you developed a smashing good Research Question, surveyed the field, downloaded way too many articles, and ordered a bunch of books via ILL. Now you’re ready to really dig into the research. Here again are some strategies that you might find helpful for that whole process.

  1. If you haven’t done so already, you’ll want to figure out a note-taking method that works for you and stick with it throughout the whole process. If you’ve got one that worked all through undergrad, you might need to update it, or it might be just fine and you can stick with it. Whether you add notes in Zotero, hand-write summaries on paper, put stickies all over books, highlight printed documents, or type your thoughts into a file or cloud, just be consistent. Make sure your system allows you to search for what you need and to keep track of what you have and have not read (because you will forget). Always cite using Zotero as you go; researching, writing, and citing are one activity. Do them simultaneously until that becomes an unbreakable habit.
  2. You probably want to read through your primary sources first (maybe in chronological order), taking detailed notes and citing as you go. This way you’ll develop your own impressions and thoughts about the primary sources first, giving you something to work from when you get to dialoguing with other scholars.
  3. At some point soon, either now or after doing your secondary research, sketch a rough outline, then develop it into a Fat Outline as soon as you can. Keeping adding to your outline as you learn more. Use Microsoft Word’s hierarchical headings for easy navigation and later re-organization. I like to type my Research Question in red font the footer as a constant reminder; this helps keep me from going down rabbit trails. Or that’s the theory anyway.
  4. Skim through the relevant secondary sources in reverse chronological order, taking notes only on anything that directly answers the Research Question. Stay focused. Reign in your curiosity, training it just on the one task at hand. Cite as you go! You’ll probably need to rework your question once you find out what other scholars have already done. Don’t be discouraged if you need to shift your focus altogether. Don’t overdo this stage of research. It is quite literally impossible to read all the scholarship on any subject now, even an extremely narrow one. Read abstracts to determine which sources will be relevant, then speed-read those that are both totally relevant and quite recent.
  5. Take notes and cite as you go, using Zotero. Rework your outline as needed, saving under a new file name or number each time you make a major change (that way you can revert to an earlier version if you change your mind). Keep adding “fat” to your outline: quotes, notes, evidence, and so forth that you plan to use, in more or less the right order. Cite as you go.
  6. When your Research Question is answered, you can formulate a draft thesis, then get into the real “writing” stage (it’s all writing, but this is when you can finally turn on the caffeine drip, get into a groove, and type away for hours on end like a Shakespearean monkey). Be sure to get up and move around every 20 minutes, drink enough water, do lots of stretches, and look out the window regularly.
  7. I recommend writing the “close-reading” passages first, where you directly gloss your primary sources. These should be the heart of your paper, and writing them first has many advantages. Doing so will give you an idea of how long they will be, so that you can tighten or loosen your scholarly framework and contextualizing sections as needed. You are also most likely to develop an original argument when you read the scholars before writing but then write your close reading passages first, with the scholarly conversation in the back of your head. You may want to revise your thesis after drafting the close-reading passages.
  8. Write and rewrite and rewrite! Turn all your rough notes into nice U-shaped paragraphs. Pay attention to transforming outline points into really strong topic sentences. Cite as you go. Save each major change as a new file. I like to type directly into the outline, preserving the headings for easy navigation and re-organization later. I also use various font colors to indicate material that’s more or less complete, and I put an *asterisk next to anything I need to go back and fix later; this makes it easy to find with search features. Develop methods like these that work for your brain and save time later. Of course, keep up with your Zotero citations as you go.
  9. See if you can finish at least two days before the deadline so that you can take the paper to the Graduate Writing Center, get a colleague or two to comment on it, maybe even have the professor comment on a draft, and then revise thoroughly.
  10. Always print out the paper and proofread once on hard copy before your final edits.

TL;DR: Figure out your note-taking style and take notes accordingly. If it’s helpful to you, try creating an outline from your notes. Skim through secondary sources, pulling (and citing) only quotes that apply directly to your research question. Use Zotero! Once you have a “fat outline” going, formulate a draft of a thesis statement – now we’re getting to the good stuff! Give yourself lots of time to write, but also take frequent brain breaks. Keep using Zotero! Start with your close reading section first – it will give you confidence and direction. Write, rewrite, and rewrite again! More Zotero! Keep track of sections you need to return to later. Try to finish your draft with a few days of buffer so you can send it to the Graduate Writing Center. Do one final proofread on a printed copy of your paper before submitting. Celebrate and take a deep breath!

 

I know I haven’t included much advice here about the writing itself—the quality and content of your writing, I mean—but that’s a slightly different topic. Hopefully these suggestions about the logistics and timing of the process have been helpful. What have I left out? What have I included that you can safely skip? What’s different in your specific field? Comment below!

Systematic Strategies for Humanities Research-Paper Writing: Part One

By Sørina Higgins, Consultant

via GIPHY

Hello, fellow grad students in the humanities! It’s just about time to start thinking about those big end-of-term papers you’ll write for most of your grad classes, those 20- to 30-pagers that hover somewhere between an exhausting school assignment and the draft of a professional article. Well, here are some suggestions for you to consider applying to the process of researching and writing those seminar papers. Hopefully these ideas will be useful for you whether you’re about to write your first one or your last one ever. Either way, congrats! This is a big deal; you’re about to produce some original research to add to the scholarly conversation, and it’s a chance to really dig into doing what you love, the thing you came to grad school for. I’ll try to help smooth the way here so that you don’t have to figure out the research process for yourself. And feel free to add additional strategies in the comments below!

First, plan ahead. Set aside a day well before the deadline (at least a month; six weeks or two months is better) in order to start preliminary research and order books. Don’t panic; you needn’t begin writing the paper at this point, but you do need to provide enough lead time for getting materials through interlibrary loan, and you probably want to at least glance over the most relevant and/or recent scholarship to make sure someone else hasn’t done exactly what you want to do. At this point, you can do a few of the steps below. You don’t need to do all of them now, and you can probably get away with never doing some of them, but the more of this background research you complete early on, the smoother the writing process will be and the better the final product.

  1. Choose authors, texts, themes, time periods, events, or issues of interest, as relevant to the project and your field. Make sure to read and reread the assignment prompt carefully and ask your professor for clarification if needed. But here’s something to consider: I don’t think “choosing a topic” really works for serious research. Instead, I recommend picking a field of interest, narrowing it down considerably, and honing your focus until you develop a Research Question.
  2. Crafting your Research Question is an important step that many inexperienced scholars omit or rush past. The better your initial Research Question, the more successful and less stressful the whole process will be. There are lots of reasons for this: Your question guides the type of research you’ll do, what sources you’ll investigate, the kind of research design or method you’ll employ, even the scope and structure of the paper. So don’t “pick a topic”; take the time to develop a truly workable question instead. There is lots of advice available about the characteristics of good and bad Research Questions; here are a few I’ve found particularly helpful. The question must be researchable by you and must fit into the rest of this semester—so there probably isn’t time for extensive field work or archival research. It must be a fact-finding question, not an ethical or interpretive question at this stage. It must be a question to which you do not currently know the answer, but which has high stakes for your field. Take your time on this step, consulting with faculty or advanced students and browsing around in publications in your field.
  3. Okay, once you’ve drafted a solid Research Question, it’s time to start the initial research. See if there is a recent “state of the field” article, bibliography, or some other resource that covers what’s being published right now in your area. If you don’t readily find such a thing, ask the professor to recommend one. The more focused this can be on works that potentially answer your Research Question, the better. Even just reading through the titles of the most recent articles and books in your field can give you a sense of what’s being done now and what the current concerns are.
  4. For studies involving literature and other print-heavy fields (English, Theatre, History, Religion, American Studies, Music, etc.) it’s a good idea to find the best, most recent bibliography of your target authors’ works and to find out which are the official editions of these authors’ works. You can usually discover this by looking in the latest issues of the top journal(s) in this field. If you don’t readily find out, ask the professor which ones are currently the most acceptable. It would be a shame to write your whole Thomas Malory paper, say, using Vinaver only to find out that your target journal—or worse yet, your professor!—favors Field. Horrors.
  5. Now you might want to compile a list of the relevant primary sources in chronological order. Hopefully this already exists, in the form of a handy bibliography. But if not, make one yourself—then narrow it down. There’s no way you’re going to read all that in the next few weeks. No, seriously. You won’t.
  6. Similarly, compile a list of the relevant secondary sources, but in reverse chronological order. While you’re at it, do a quick check to find out what your professor has written (if they haven’t already assigned their Complete Works to you in their seminar. Yup. It happens). Do they have anything relevant on the subject? If so, be sure to read it and cite it if possible. Anyway, back to this reverse chronological order thing. See, the idea is that you’ll want to have a general sense of both what’s hot in your field and also what the classic, game-changing, most-cited academic works are. If you start reading (skimming, really, or maybe even just reading abstracts) with the newest stuff, you’ll accomplish that first goal of seeing what’s hot right away, and pretty soon you’ll start seeing certain Names repeated over and over. Those are the Founding Folks of your field; get their works. Have a glance inside. Cite them a teeny bit. That’s cocktail party cred right there.
  7. Take a breath. What have you learned? Do you get a sense of the most pressing concerns in your field right now? Do you need to revise your Research Question at this point? Take a break. Let it all settle for a while. Then come back and cut your lists in half. For real. You still won’t read all of that, so cut out whatever is not absolutely necessary, and then some of what’s left. Now acquire the rest of it. Check books out of the library, order things via ILL, download or print articles, and that sort of thing. Somewhere in this initial researching phase, make an appointment with your subject-area’s liaison librarian to get assistance with locating anything you’ve missed or with filling in gaps.
  8. As you work on this initial research process, put everything in a Zotero folder. Researching, writing, and citing are one integrated activity, so always keep track of sources and citations as you go.

 

TL;DR: Read, read, read! Come up with a research question, rather than a research topic; the narrower, the better. Know the foundational texts related to your question. Check out the bibliography of related article from a journal that you really like. Compile a list of primary texts you need, then narrow to the essentials. Do the same with secondary texts, but prioritize by the most recent scholarship. Do preliminary searches and skims, then revise your lists again. Keep track of everything in a Zotero folder.

 

Tune in next week when we talk about actually beginning to write!