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.

Writing a Research Statement: A Brief Overview and Tips for Success

Jasmine Stovall, Consultant

Research statements have become an increasingly common required component of job application materials for positions in academia, specifically those that are research focused. The purpose of this blog post is to provide a brief overview of what a research statement is, why they are important, how they differ from other job application materials, and offer some tips and helpful advice for writing one.

What is a research statement?

To begin, let’s first discuss what a research statement is. Whether you are new to the job application material world or just need a refresher, this is always a great starting point. Having a clear definition of the type of writing you are setting out to do will help you to set more precise writing goals and develop an outline that is in alignment with the required and expected content of the genre as well as any job or field specific conventions.

A research statement is generally defined as a written summary of your research experiences past, present, and future (Writing a Research Statement-Purdue OWL). Specifically, it highlights your previous accomplishments (most often your thesis, dissertation, or postdoc research), any current projects you are working on, and proposed projects for the future (Research Statement-Cornell University).

Why is it important?

Research statements are important because they allow a hiring committee to evaluate your academic journey and get to know you, not just as a student but also as a professional researcher and active member of the scholarly community. They further allow you as the applicant to inform the committee of what exactly it is that you do, how your previous and future work aligns with the position to which you are applying, how you would be an asset to the department, and ways in which your scope of research can potentially form fruitful collaborations with existing faculty, partnerships with other industries, and engage students. And on a broader scale, the research statement highlights how your research interests and areas of expertise will bring funding to the university and advance the research status of the institution.

How is it different from a CV, cover letter, etc.?

The biggest differences between a research statement and most other job application materials, particularly a CV, are the length and the style of content. While CVs can be several pages, research statements tend to be shorter (three pages maximum) and discuss your research projects detail, rather than as a brief line on your CV. Another difference is that a research statement discusses proposed research, which is generally uncommon for CVs.

Research statements are different from cover letters in that the subject matter is narrower, with your work as the central focus more so than yourself as a person. Cover letters are generally all-encompassing, highlighting hard and soft skills and speaking to your accomplishments personally, professionally, and academically. They make you stand out while also expressing your interest in the position you are applying for and showing why you would be the ideal candidate.

Tips and Helpful Advice for Getting Started

As is the case with most writing projects, the hardest part is getting started. Listed below are some helpful tips to keep in mind and use as a guide when beginning to write your research statement.

  1. Use your CV – While the CV differs from a research statement, it still contains a plethora of valuable information as it relates to your research projects and accomplishments, making it a great starting point when it comes to outlining your research statement, deciding which information to include, how to structure it, etc. So, don’t hesitate to lean on it to get the ball rolling if you find yourself stuck.
  • Focus on examples – Rather than just stating what you’ve done and would like to do, be sure to use specific examples to describe how your research findings have contributed to the scholarly community and the different ways your proposed future research will continue to build upon that. Don’t be afraid to showcase your work (Writing a Research Statement-Carnegie Mellon University).
  • Make connections – When brainstorming ideas for your research statement, let the main themes of your research and the problems you have tackled or plan to tackle within that main theme serve as a guide in your thought process. When writing, try to prioritize drawing upon these main themes, keeping the big picture and your ‘why’ in mind, then make connections between these main themes/big picture ideas and your specific research goals.
  • Be clear, concise, and realistic – Remember that there will be people from various subdisciplines reading your research statement. Therefore, it is important to be mindful of your audience when it comes to the use of technical jargon and overall word choice. This is where having peer reviewers outside of your field can be helpful.

I hope you found this blog post to be helpful. Should you find yourself in need of a second set of eyes to look over your research statement draft or to help with the drafting process, feel free to reach out to the GWC to schedule a consultation.

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.

Top Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism may seem like an overwhelming task, especially when getting into the weeds of proper citations, self-plagiarism, paraphrasing, and other key components of this important task. However, avoiding plagiarism doesn’t have to stay an incomprehensible challenge. There are actually some core concepts which can help you when remedying this issue, and even prevent it. As such, today’s article is on some handy tips that will assist you in understanding, recognizing, and even avoiding plagiarism in your own work.

Know the Definitions

It’s important to be aware of what constitutes plagiarism in order to avoid it, since it may come in different shapes and sizes. Self-plagiarism, for example, happens when you market your own older work as being newly created, while other forms of plagiarism can occur when proper citations or paraphrasing do not occur. Checking discipline parameters, reading course syllabi, looking at Baylor’s plagiarism resources (linked here: https://honorcode.web.baylor.edu/other-policies-and-resources/plagiarism-resources), and talking to your instructor can all be informative in this area. Additionally, make sure you are aware of how to cite properly in your discipline’s chosen format, and if it’s a format you are unfamiliar with, seek out handbooks, tutorials, or other resources to make sure you are aware of how it functions.

Get a Second Set of Eyes

When in doubt over whether you’ve plagiarized, or if you are citing sources properly, it’s always best to get a second pair of eyes before submitting an assignment. Your instructor can be a fantastic resource in this area, since they will be the most familiar with the ins and outs of your discipline. So, take advantage of office hours and don’t hesitate to ask questions when unsure: it may save you some headaches down the line. The Graduate Writing Center is also available for your assistance in this area, so book an appointment with one of our consultants (our page is linked here: https://graduate.baylor.edu/gwc) and we will be more than happy to talk with you about this important topic. Exchanging assignments with your peers in order to check for plagiarism can also be a helpful practice and illuminate areas where you may not have noticed a paraphrase that isn’t different enough from original wording, or perhaps an unfinished citation.

Start Tracking Sources Early

Often, plagiarism because of improper citations happens at the last minute: the assignment deadline is right around the corner and you’re rushing to plug your last citations, sources, and bibliographic information into an otherwise-finished assignment. To help prevent this, begin taking notes on your sources early in the research process. Collect bibliographic information as you go, and write down page numbers, author information, and even quotations from material you are likely to use. Then, when you start writing your assignment, begin making citations and incorporating sources as you go, rather than waiting until the last minute or until after you have written your paper.

Space

Finally, academic writing can be a challenging craft to master, so be sure to give yourself patience and grace on this new learning curve. Take advantage of the tools and assistance that are available to you, and don’t hesitate to ask for help. By doing this, not only will you be better equipped to both prevent and treat instances of plagiarism in your own work, but you will be more confident in the strength and creativity of your own writing.  

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!

How to Write Better by Not Writing: Setting Boundaries in Your Personal Writing Process

By Reilly Fitzpatrick, Consultant

Wouldn’t it be magical if your paper could write itself? I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly dreamed of walking away from my laptop after hours of struggling over a Google Doc and coming back an later to find an eloquent, polished, complete draft. Unfortunately, I have yet to discover the technology or magic that will turn my jumbled thoughts into articulate writing. One way that I have become better at this challenging writing process, however, is by learning to set boundaries with myself as I write. For me, these boundaries range from allowing myself to write badly at first to taking intentional breaks as I write. Essentially, we’re talking about writing better by not giving yourself space to not write at all—which itself seems kind of magical. 

It might seem a little counterintuitive that my recommendation for becoming a better writer is to focus on not writing. As graduate students or faculty, most of us probably feel like paper-producing machines, required to constantly spit out brilliantly written articles/seminar papers/studies/grants/insert whatever project makes you the most stressed here. These kinds of academic and career expectations can—and do—take a toll on you, not only as a scholar and a writer but also as a human being. This is where the not writing part comes in. By intentionally setting boundaries for yourself in your writing process and releasing yourself from the expectations of perfection and production, you’ll actually become a better writer and, more importantly, a healthier person.

This sounds great in theory, but how do I set those boundaries for myself in practice? I’m so glad you asked! Here are some ways I work to cultivate boundaries in my writing process. Think of them as inspirational bullet points that you can adapt and rethink based on your personality and your process.

  • When you sit down to start writing (or brainstorming, editing, etc.), set a limit for how long you will work. My brain functions best in hour-long increments, but it could be anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours for you! Telling yourself that you will write for a set amount of time instead of just working until you’re exhausted or done allows you to see this writing project as a manageable task rather than a daunting multi-step process.
  • Let yourself write badly. Whether you throw some key ideas into a rough outline or you handwrite stream-of-consciousness thoughts about your project into a journal, release yourself from the expectation of writing something brilliant and just write something. Anne Lamott refers to a crappy first draft, others call it word vomit. As mildly unpleasant as all these metaphors may be, the practice of writing badly does several helpful things. First, it frees you up to just get your thoughts out of your head without worrying about details like syntax, organization, or word choice. Second, it allows you to see the big picture of your writing without getting bogged down in sentence-level concerns. Lastly, it gets something on the page that you (and your GWC consultant, of course) can reword, rethink, and revise.
  • If you’re feeling overwhelmed in your writing process it may seem like an obvious recommendation to take a break, but our impulse is often to push through and get the thing done instead of honoring the ways that our minds and bodies are telling us to rest. This can look like anything from going for a 10-minute walk (you have to un-hunch yourself from your desk eventually!), taking a shower to reset your nervous system, stretching, eating a snack, cuddling your cat, texting a friend, or setting aside your project for the day and going to bed.
  • Whatever you choose to do as a break, resist the urge to think of it as slacking off, procrastinating, or wasting time. Letting your brain relax after a period of hard writing work will actually help you write better when you return to your project, so it is just as important of a step in the writing process as research or revision is! Even more importantly, rest in your writing process reiterates to yourself that you aren’t a good person because you write a good paper: your value is in who you are and not what you do.

If the list seems overwhelming, try implementing one practice at a time the next time you sit down to write. Reflect on what is or isn’t generative for you and think about how you might tailor the practice to your individual needs. Writing is hard! Don’t make it harder by forcing yourself to do something that isn’t helping you. Ultimately, these are meant to be liberating practices, not confining checklists—the goal is not only to be a better, more competent writer, but also a more rested, well-rounded, and whole person.

Book Review: Stylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword

by Kristin Huggins, Consultant

“Academic writing, like university teaching, is what sociologist Paul Trowler calls a ‘recurrent practice,’ one of the many routine tasks that most academics perform ‘habitually and in an unconsidered way,” with little thought as to how or why things might be done differently.” – Helen Sword (2012, p. 23)

This book is a culmination of several years of research on the conventions of academic writing, how academics feel about the writing process, and how students and early-career academics believe that academic writing must fit in a particular box to achieve any measure of professional success. Helen Sword is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at the University of Auckland. She earned her Ph.D. from Princeton University in Comparative Literature and has taught in higher education for several decades. By all accounts, her prestigious credentials certainly lend themselves to a traditional academic, yet her life’s work has been in the pursuit of breaking down barriers for writers who seek to infuse their academic work with elements of humanism outside of the conventional norms.

Upon first read-through, Helen Sword’s Stylish Academic Writing feels like a response to Strunk and White’s highly acclaimed Elements of Style, a quintessential text on traditional academic prose in the English language. Several chapters address topics similar to Strunk and White, such as structure and syntax, that are presented in new and innovative ways, pulled from Sword’s research on interdisciplinary writing components. Ever the professor, Sword’s chapters always conclude with “Things to Try,” offering the reader helpful ways to incorporate the chapter’s suggestions into their own practice. Examples include the following:

In the chapter Structural Designs: “Make an outline of your article or book based only on its chapter titles or section headings. How well does that outline, on its own, communicate what your work is about? Are you using section headings to inform, engage, or direct your readers, or merely to carve up space?” (p. 133)

In the chapter Jargonitis: “Ask yourself hard questions about your motivations. Do you employ jargon to impress others, play with language and ideas, create new knowledge, signal your membership in a disciplinary community, or communicate succinctly with colleagues? Retain only those jargon words that clearly serve your priorities and values.” (p. 121)

I found several suggestions particularly helpful as a Writing Consultant who works with clients in multiple disciplinary fields each week. I often feel like I’m a polyglot of academia – speaking several languages and trying my best to translate them into the same dialect of academic writing. During my first read-through, I found myself highlighting prompts and leading questions to retain for consultation use with clients. Some items also convicted me to discover blind spots in my own research.

Sword also strikes out against the “conventional” use of the word “style,” commonly understood in academia as the style guides assigned to respective disciplines. Instead, Sword argues that academics must strive to become “stylish academic writers” (p. 9), a persona embodied by the idea of actively pursuing engagement with an audience, clear communication of ideas with concise examples, and observation of interdisciplinary writing methods that might lend a humanistic quality to our work.

Three primary characteristics of a Stylish Academic Writer emerge from Sword’s work: Connection, Craft, and Creativity.

Connection – What I love most about this book was Sword’s persistence in reestablishing our purpose for producing academic work: to tell a story. Your research, dear reader, began as a response to a problem, a gap, a question about the world around us. Research seeks to connect, to create meaning out of the unknown. These are valuable stories, and Sword argues that no matter the discipline or style guide we must keep those stories and their meanings at the forefront of our writing process.

Craft – Sword encourages readers to find pleasure in the craft of writing.  The word “craft” encompasses the broader concept of writing (i.e., drafting, editing, revising, finalizing), and the smaller concepts (i.e., sentence-level constructions). She provides the following example below for the smaller concept of craft:

“A carefully crafted sentence welcomes its reader like a comfortable rocking chair, bears its reader across chasms like a suspension bridge… A poorly crafted or uncrafted sentence, on the other hand, functions more like a shapeless log tossed into a river: it might or might not help you get to the other side, depending on how strong the current is and how hard you are willing to kick.” (p. 48)

Creativity – “Numerous studies have documented the crucial role of lateral thinking in the creative process: that is, the ability of pathbreaking researchers to’ think sideways’ rather than always plodding forward in a straight conceptual trajectory.” (p. 169)

Sword takes the idea of creativity in academic writing and dissects it into three components: passion, elegance, and interdisciplinary exploration. She cautions readers not to mistake creativity as a call for writers to adopt creative writing practices. Instead, writers should be willing to explore writing strategies found in outside disciplines, especially those that promote clarity, conciseness, concrete communication, and eloquence.

Citation: Sword, Helen. Stylish Academic Writing. Harvard University Press, 2012.

When the Writing Gets Tough: Utilizing Baylor’s Graduate Writing Center Resources

by Dr. Becca Cassady, Graduate Writing Center Director

Ask almost any graduate student—almost anyone in higher ed, really—and we’ve been there: So deep in a dissertation chapter that we can’t write our way out.  Stumped by cryptic “revise and resubmit” feedback. Unable to please a grant committee comprised of academics outside of our discipline.  Intimidated by a blank Word document at the beginning of a project. Even when we’re pretty pleased with a document, sometimes we still hesitate to hit “send.”

Writing can be hard. Especially if you feel like you’re in it alone.

Enter the Graduate Writing Center (GWC). The GWC is a Graduate School service designed to aid students with their various writing projects—from class assignments to dissertation chapters to job application materials.   We help brainstorm, reorganize complex arguments, reword ambiguous or unclear sentences, and more. All of our consultants are advanced stage doctoral students with extensive writing training and experience.  We offer writing groups that you can opt into each semester, occasional workshops, and one-on-one consultations.

I’ve had students ask me, “Isn’t this mainly for people in humanities?”Absolutely not!  Our consultants are from humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields; our coordinator, Anna Beaudry, does her best to pair students with a consultant within their discipline or a closely related one.

When they’re not experts in your subject matter, consultants act as “expert outsiders”: experts in writingwho can offer a fresh perspective, ensuring that you’re communicating clearly to an outside audience.* They are trained in what questions to ask and what concerns to look for.

“That’s great and all, but what if I’m a remote or online student?” Technology is a beautiful thing!  We offer remote consultations through platforms like Zoom. Phone appointments are also an option. We want to cater to as many graduate students as possible!

Our approaches to Consultations

When we meet with you one-on-one, we aim to create meaningful writing experiences by using a variety of best practices.  I’ve listed a few of our priorities below.  (And just so you don’t have to take my word for it, I’ve included real student evaluations from our feedback surveys.)

We dedicate ample time to written and verbal feedback. We know that graduate level writing is complex and often long. (Those dissertation chapters are no joke!) Our consultants spend one to two hours with your project before your appointment to compile thoughtful written comments. This makes your one-hour in person (or online) meetings far more focused and productive.

“[My consultant] was wonderful, from communication before the meeting to the meeting itself. She also made such detailed comments on my paper that I felt I could even have sufficiently made changes without meeting to talk about it. That’s really important to me, as sometimes it’s easy to forget what is said in meetings.” (December 2021)

“[The consultant] provided feedback in a professional manner that did not make me feel dumb or incompetent. She helped walk me through the process so that I can apply what I learned to future assignments.” (December 2021)

We listen. Our goal is to help you say what you need and want to say.

“[My consultant] really ensured that she understood what I needed from her and what my assignment was so that she could help me to the best of her abilities. She continued to follow up with me to make sure I didn’t have anymore questions or concerns. [She] made me feel like I mattered and I am so grateful for her patience and knowledge.” (April 2022)

“I appreciated how unbiased the consultant was; even though he personally disagreed with my argument, was still helpful and thoughtful. As someone who is terrible at objectivity, I appreciated that.” (December 2018)

“It was so helpful and encouraging to work with [my consultant]. With English not being my native tongue, [the consultant] was able to provide me with cues that will help make my writing flow better, and further, she gave me meaningful feedback for my papers as well as general writing feedback that I will continue to use as I proceed through my program.” (April 2022)

We help students develop long-term writing strategies while working with assignments.  Much of our time is aimed at improving individual assignments sent our way: we discuss argument, content, sentence flow, wording, and more.  However, we also use those as opportunities to teach clients strategies and tools to help them in future writing projects.

“[My consultant] is amazing! She takes the time to teach me writing skills…[S]he doesn’t just help me correct mistakes. I have learned so much from her this year.” (May 2019)

We see our student colleagues first and foremost as people, not assignments.Sometimes what you need in graduate school is encouragement. Our consultants speak not only from a place of expertise but also from a place of understanding.  We have been and currently are experiencing the demands of academia right alongside you. You can be sure we’re rooting for you.

“Encouraging and constructive feedback that was sufficiently detailed without feeling overwhelming.” (December 2018)

In using these approaches, it’s my hope that you walk away with a stronger paper and clarity about recommended revisions and future projects.

Finally, I want to correct two common misconceptions about the Graduate Writing Center:

  1. “GWC consultants are proofreaders.” We believe our most helpful resource is our consultants’ position as writing experts or “expert outsiders.”  We want your time with the consultant to be spent talking through what we call “higher order concerns” – things like argument, structure, flow, and clarity—rather than punctuation or formatting.  We are not proofreaders and therefore we do not dedicate appointments to merely editing papers or checking formatting. We will never correct a paper and send it back without a meeting.  Almost anyone can double-check the use of italics or commas, but we value our consultants’ writing and content expertise and hope you will, too!
  1. “GWC consultants will perfect my paper.”We can’t guarantee perfection. (Wouldn’t that be grand if we could?!) From applications to class assignments, there are many factors that go into a project’s evaluation that are beyond our control. However, our consultants aim to get to know the project’s audience and context before providing feedback to help you craft a document that is clearer, more readable, better organized, etc.

I hope you’ll give us the opportunity to work with you on your upcoming projects.  Submit an appointment request form here, and you’ll have taken your first step towards what I hope will be an encouraging and helpful consultation!

*Adler-Kassner, Linda and Elizabeth Wardle, eds. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing. UP of Colorado, 2016.

This article originally appeared on Baylor’s BearTracks Graduate Blog and can be read here. It has been modified and updated for republication.

How to Write a Good STEM Lit Review without Losing Your Sanity: A 5-step(ish) Guide for the Modern “Work Smart, Not Hard” Graduate Student

Photo by Karl Solano on Unsplash

by Grace Aquino, Consultant

The age-old aphorism, “publish or perish,” rings particularly loudly for graduate students in STEM. As soon-to-be Ph.D.’s, M.S.’s, and experts in our subject matter, the pressure to publish impactful papers that advance both our field of study and our career as independent researchers can be overwhelming at times, especially since we receive little to no guidance on how to write scientific papers, let alone impactful ones. (To learn more about how to write scientific papers, read “Scientific Writing: How to Write Papers that Get Cited and Proposals that Get Funded” by Joshua Schimel!) One such type of impactful paper and the cornerstone of a good dissertation is the literature review. What is a lit review? Besides being the one paper you repeatedly quote to make yourself sound smart, a lit review is a paper that systematically evaluates dozens if not hundreds of published peer-reviewed papers on a defined topic or question, and then summarizes them in a useful way to synthesize new information, identify new problems and questions/knowledge gaps, and ultimately offer new insights and areas of research for the wider scientific community to learn from and address. In fact, we’ve all stumbled across the one or two lit reviews in our field that not only have enlightened us on a subject but have also revolutionized how we think of a problem and/or springboarded us into research action. While reading a good lit review can be academically catalyzing, writing one, on the other hand, can be academically soul crushing. With the right tools, however, it doesn’t have to be!

This blogpost is a 5-step(ish) guide on how to write a good STEM lit review without losing your sanity, designed specifically for the modern “work smart, not hard” graduate student, like you.

 

Step 1. Define the research topic and identify the central question(s) you’re asking.

Before you even start searching for papers to evaluate in your lit review, you need to define your research topic and identify the central question(s) you’re asking. Specifically, your research topic should be the “big picture” problem or need in your field, and the question(s) you choose should be narrow enough to be answered (at least in part) by evaluating the existing body of literature on said topic. For example, if your research topic is evaluating the psychosocial effects that COVID-19 has on a certain group of people, your central questions might be: how does/did the COVID-19 pandemic affect grad students’ mental health and general outlook on post-graduate life? If your research topic is more methods-flavored, like improving protocols for extracting COVID-19 viral particles from different environmental matrices, your question(s) might be: what methods currently exist to extract viral RNA from waste-water samples and what are their advantages/disadvantages? The types of questions you can ask are infinite. But remember to choose a question that is large enough in scope to move the field forward but small enough in scope that you can answer it given limited resources (like time, available peer-reviewed papers, and coffee).

 

Step 2. Search for relevant literature and make a list.

What is relevant literature? What is irrelevant literature? And where do you even begin to search for it? Deciding these things can be tricky, which is why the first thing you’ll need is a predetermined list of keywords related to the research topic and/or question, and clear selection (i.e. inclusion) criteria. To use the same example as before, if your topic is on the psychosocial effects of COVID-19 on grad student mental health, you might use all of these words as keywords and then include a few more tangentially related or synonymous ones to ensure your search is broad enough (like “college student”, “psychological effects,” “social effect,” “stress,” “quality of life” and “COVID19 pandemic”).  Don’t forget to use the Boolean operators “and,” “or,” and “not” in your search.

The second thing you’ll need is your university’s and/or public scholarly search engines to help you find papers. Baylor University Libraries’ One Search is a good place to start (especially since you have access to most if not all scholarly articles via the university’s academic journal subscriptions and interlibrary loans) but you’re not limited to this search engine. There are other great search engines likes PubMed, PubChem, ScienceDirect, ResearchGate, Springerlink, JSTOR, Web of Science, PLUS ONE, Scopus, Google Scholar, and the list goes on. (For a comprehensive list, see Top 100 Best Websites to Find Academic Journals, Articles & Books – Quertime). One tool I’ve found useful for finding related papers and staying abreast with my academic reading in general is the online visualization tool, Connected Papers. This impressive mapping tool gives you a visual overview of the literatures in the academic field you’re interested in, based on keywords you input, and it shows connections between new relevant papers and prior and/or derivative works.  I highly recommend it!

Finally, don’t let your initial shock at the overwhelming or underwhelming number of papers that your search returns deter you. Instead, use your clearly-defined selection criteria (e.g. papers no older than X amount of years, studies including both male and female participants, clinical and/or nonclinical studies, etc.)  to choose the papers you will evaluate and then store them in your preferred reference manager (EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, etc.). Read the abstracts of the paper and look through their reference section, which oftentimes is a goldmine of references. Add papers to your list that pass your initial criteria check; you can always come back and edit this list after reading through the abstracts. Your list may be long or short, depending on the abundance of papers that match your criteria and/or addressing your research topic. If your research topic is fairly new, you may not find many papers (but hey, that’s less reading for you and more opportunity to make a significant contribution!). Nonetheless, the selection criteria is important for your review to be considered systematic, so make sure you take the time to decide what the selection criteria are before you start your search.

 

Step 3. Read the papers to answer your central question and keep an annotated bibliography!

Shockingly, yes, you’ll have to actually read the papers you chose for your lit review. But you don’t actually have to read them in their entirety (unless you’re OCD like me). Since you’ll have read the abstracts at this point, focus on reading the papers in a given order (chronological, alphabetic, or another reasonable order) and smartly – i.e. to answer your central question. Be sure to keep good notes on the themes, knowledge gaps, debates, problematic findings, new insights, etc. that you discover as you read. Don’t underestimate the power of the annotated bibliography. For each paper you read, keep an annotated bibliography with these notes, which will significantly increase your ability to organize your lit review later and significantly decrease the crippling anxiety that comes from disorganized lit review processes. One tip to expedite the reading process is to briefly skim the introduction, skip the methods (unless your central question is about the methods), and spend a designated amount of time on the results and discussion sections, which are where you’ll likely find the answer your central question. If you find yourself spending an ungodly amount of time reading a single paper, use a productivity tool (like the Pomodoro technique) to help keep yourself on track. You can always come back to a paper if you need to clarify something later, but remember, you want to maximize your productivity from the beginning by finding ways to read and note-take more efficiently so that you can get to the meat of the lit review, the writing, sooner rather than later.

 

Step 4. Write an outline.

Based on your reading and notes, decide what lit review structure works best to write in light of the central question you’re asking. Use the central question explicitly as your thesis statement at the end of your introduction, after you’ve described the background of the “big picture” problem you’re addressing and highlighted the specific knowledge gap(s) in your field of research that further warrant your lit review. For the body of the lit review, the four main lit review structures typically used are:

  • Chronological – This is the simplest approach to map the development of your topic over time. If you choose this approach, avoid simply summarizing papers or listing them in order. Instead, focus on analyzing patters, key events, important debates or opposing views, etc. that have shaped the field and/or address the central question.
  • Thematic – This strategy uses recurring themes to organize your lit review into subsections that address different areas of the topic. For example, if you’re evaluating the psychosocial effects of COVID19 on graduate students, you might have several psychosocial parameters you’re evaluating, so you can use each of these as thematic sub-headers throughout the paper.
  • Methodological – If you’re comparing research methods from different fields or disciplines, you can use this approach to group similar methods together and juxtapose different ones. You can also discuss advantages and disadvantages of the methods in this strategy.
  • Theoretical – Oftentimes, the lit review is the foundation for a theoretical framework. This strategy allows you to discuss existing/new theories, definitions and key concepts, test models, etc. Like the methodological strategy, you can discuss the relevance of one theoretical approach over another, advantages, disadvantages, etc.

End the outline of your lit review with the conclusion/future direction section, where you will highlight the most important insights you’ve learned and offer new questions for the wider scientific community to address.

This outlining step is perhaps one of the hardest aspects of the lit review because putting an effective outline together can feel much like putting together a blank puzzle. However, once you’ve decided which outline structure works best for your topic and you’ve written out the outline, writing the paper will be easier (not easy!) than writing without a strategy in mind.

 

Step 5. Write the lit review.

There’s not much explanation needed here. For more help on writing the specific parts of the lit review, visit Scribbr’s “What is a Lit Review: Step-by-Step Guide and Examples”.

Consider joining a writing group to keep yourself accountable and writing routinely (and sane!). The GWC starts new ones every semester. Look out for our email! Remember, writing IS thinking, and writing CREATES knowledge, so make sure you give yourself time everyday to sit down and write something.

 

Step 5.5. Revise and edit, and send it to the GWC!

Once your first draft is done, have someone you trust in your professional circle review it and offer constructive criticism. Additionally, the GWC is always happy to help! You can send you papers direct to gwc@baylor.edu and we will pair you with a consultant to serve as an outside expert reader and offer feedback over a brief meeting.

If you’re writing the lit review for your dissertation or thesis, be sure to incorporate it following the guidelines and requirements given by your advisor/program. If you’re writing the lit review as a stand-alone paper or as part of a manuscript for an academic journal, follow the journal’s stylistic formatting and requirements, and ensure your citations are correct.

 

While writing a lit review can induce high levels of academic anxiety, we hope that this guide helps demystify the process and put some of that anxiety to rest. Remember that you are capable and that there are people here to help you! Email us at gwc@baylor.edu for help with your lit review (or any other paper) at any stage of completion.

How and Where I Write: Interview with Ryan Ramsey

For our first graduate student interview, we sat down with Ryan Ramsey, a third-year PhD student in Religion. Ryan studies World Christianity and Pentecostalism. He holds a Master of Arts in Religion from Yale Divinity School (’19) and a BA from Lee University (’14). He is also a fellow with Baylor’s Academy for Teaching and Learning. Before coming to graduate school, Ryan taught middle school. Ryan is husband to the lovely Ellie and father to the precocious Penelope. In his free time, he loves hiking, roasting coffee, and basketball. Ryan also gives a defense of Dichotomy, contra a previous post from BearTracks about the pros and cons of Waco coffee shops. Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us about your writing habits and coffee principles, Ryan!

 

BearTracks

So where do you like to write? I know you said this tends to be a lot of places, but, like, an office, home, coffee shops, outside? Where do you tend to cycle through?

Ryan Ramsey

I like to write in my backyard. I like to write, um, I have a writing group, we meet up in in the GRC, and I can usually get stuff done there. I write in the GRC a good bit, using the breakout rooms. If I have editing work to do, I will oftentimes go to coffee shops, like Dichotomy. Usually just Dichotomy. I don’t go to Pinewood because there are too many undergrads there.

BT

Yes, which is an unfortunate recent development. So it sounds like when you are in the creative mode you need more silence or less people-distraction, but when you’re in the editing mode you can have more of the buzz in the background?

RR

Yes.

BT

That makes sense. So this question is maybe for, well, I’m doing a mix of talking to grad students and professors, but do you find you still acquire a lot of books at this point in your career or has the pace slowed somewhat as you’ve gone along in your PhD?

RR

That’s a strangely relevant question because I do, I have found when I was in seminary I frequented any free bin and would take anything remotely pertaining. You know I only got books for Christmas, things like that, but I think since COVID, I have been more interested in finding digital resources and books that are available online through the library.

BT

So what would you say are the best times and places for you to write? We already kind of covered places.

RR

In the morning, probably between 8 and 11.

BT

Is that when your writing group meets as well, is that a morning group?

RR

Yeah it is. I can’t write, I’m usually fried by the afternoon. I try not work in the evenings unless I have to. Usually the earlier, my brain is better.

BT

The perk of having a family in grad school. It means better boundaries, sometimes.

RR

Yeah, yeah. If I have to do editing, I can do editing in the afternoon, but…

BT

Not the creative process?

RR

Yeah.

BT

That’s fair! How do you capture your research? Are you a notecard or journal person, do you do it on the computer?

RR

I do it on my laptop, and I try as best as I can, to either copy full quotes and keep lists of quote sheets or I just write prose, as if I’m writing something that, theoretically, I could copy and paste. Usually with full citations, and that makes that a lot easier in the long run.

BT

Do you immediately start writing on the computer, or do you have any portion of your writing process that you do longhand?

RR

Uh, no, but occasionally, if I am somewhere away from my computer and an idea comes to me and I have something to write on, I will sketch out ideas, I might jot handwritten notes down.

BT

Are you a marginalia person in your physical books, or no?

RR

Oh yes.

BT

I think you kind of have to be as a scholar. Are you a detailed marginalia person? Because I find I have become less talkative with my books. I do a ton of underlining and starring things and bracketing things, but do you “talk” to your books in the margins?

RR

Occasionally. I more often make brief, one sentence, one word notes to highlight, say, “prophecy” in the margins, so when I go back through….

BT

I think you answered this earlier, but do you read digital books and what are your feelings on digital books?

RR

Yeah, I’ll say this. I read digital books and I listen to digital books using text-to-speech as a way to, A) give my eyes a break, and B) allow me to do other stuff while I’m reading, like washing dishes usually.

BT

Out of personal curiosity, is there a program you use for the text-to-speech, or do a lot of the books just automatically have that feature? How do you get the books to talk to you!?

RR

Well, if it’s a PDF, I’ll just highlight the text and use the program on my Mac, but if you use any books on Archive.org, which is a really great resource and has many books, that has an automatic with your account; you just hit the audio button and it automatically plays, but you do have to watch out because it will read the footnotes to you in unhelpful ways.

BT

That’s helpful. What is some good advice you’ve received on writing?

RR

Keep editing your work. Edit, edit, edit. That’s kind of general.

BT

What stage, do you do the Anne Lamott “sh***y first draft” and then edit, or are you an edit-as-you-go person?

RR

It depends. It depends most on the amount of research and footnotes I’m doing and the section or paragraph. I usually find the more I spend fiddling with footnotes, the more polished that paragraph tends to be, and the more I just plop it out, like it’s the first draft, the more likely I am to cut it entirely.

BT

What do you think is your best piece of written work at this point in your career? What are you most proud of? It also doesn’t have to be academic, I know people write other things.

RR

I mean I have a published article that I like a lot of, and I’m fairly proud of portions of it, especially the introductory framing.

BT

Okay, what was the article on and where was it published?

RR

It’s called “Christ in Yaqui Garb.” It’s about Teresa Urrea, who’s a figure I study. It’s published in an open-access journal called Religions. And then some of my other work, I’ve got a work that I’m presenting at the Conference on Faith and History, again on her [Teresa Urrea], that’s like a gender analysis about perceptions of her in popular U.S. newspapers, and I’m really happy with the analysis of that.

BT

So name a few favorite authors from your field of study. Who are the people who, when you read their stuff, you’re like, “Ugh, I wish I had written this”?

RR

I think Betsy Flowers is a fantastic writer. Theologian Miroslav Volf is a fantastic writer, and he’s someone that edits, edits, edits, and edits. I really like reading Robert Orsi. One of the people who’s written a lot of Teresa Urrea, who I study, is Luis Urrea who is a novelist. And so he writes novels on her.

BT

Is he any relation to her?

RR

He is! He’s like a kinda distant great-grand nephew. He’s just a fantastic writer, so I really enjoy reading him. That’s not really in my discipline, but it’s something I read for my discipline.

BT

That’s great, cool. Okay, finally, what’s a book you should have read by now but haven’t? And you can interpret that as you will. It could be in your field or literature in general or…

RR

Oooh. I don’t know.

BT

The Bible? Just kidding.

RR

I need to think, just then I have to include what books do I say I’ve read, but I haven’t actually read them! Haha.

BT

Haha. Grad-school “read” them?

RR

Yeah. I mean there’s a lot. And the fact that I have comps studying right now doesn’t help.

BT

Is there one you’re most embarrassed to admit? We ask real gritty questions here.

RR

That’s the problem. What would I admit that I haven’t read?

BT

This is a candid interview Ryan, you can be honest here.

RR

I know, I know. I don’t think I ever made it though Mere Christianity.

BT

For the addendum, I understand you took umbrage with BearTrack’s piece on Dichotomy, and we want to give you an opportunity to give a defense of Dichotomy.

RR

Okay. The important thing to know about Dichotomy is that you have to order the right thing.

BT

Okay, getting the good stuff here.

RR

I am well aware that their drip coffee and pour overs are not what they need to be – they don’t dial in their machines well enough to get the right ratios for that, so it ends up being a little watered down. Their espresso, though, is fantastic. You have to order espresso. When I moved here, before moving here I looked on Sprudge; it’s a really hip, weird coffee website. It writes news stories on coffee shops and stuff like that, and Dichotomy was the one featured. And so Dichotomy was a place that I knew about coming in and was excited about and not disappointed with! And the only time i’m ever disappointed there is when I order drip coffee. But anyway. I’ve got a lot of good memories there. Before COVID, our little history of theology cohort would go there. And that’s a place where, when out daughter was born, that’s where Ellie and I went out to get drinks when my mom offered to babysit for two hours. And when my in-laws lived with us for two and a half weeks before Penelope was born, because Pen was ten days late, my father-in-law and I went there do get out of the house, so he could do his crosswords and I could write my papers. So, all that to say, I have lots of good memories there, but the crux of it is you have to order the espresso.

BT

Okay, we will make due notice of this and put an asterisk in the original post and say “Since publishing this, we have heard from readership that…” haha.

RR

That sounds good.

 

This post was originally published on Baylor’s Graduate School blog, BearTracks, and can be read here.