#AcWriMo: Overcoming Academic Writing Blocks

In the second of our academic writing-themed posts during #AcWriMo this year, Dr Lizzie O’Connor, Postgraduate Community Engagement Manager in the University Graduate School, acknowledges that we all struggle to write at times, and suggests some strategies to overcome this.

Writing is one of the most important parts of our academic lives, but it can also be one of the most fraught. Dorothy Parker’s words that joy comes not in writing, but in having written, can ring very true as we stare at a blank screen or an unedited paper for hours on end, waiting for the motivation to start, continue, or finish our writing.

Photo by Henry & Co. on Pexels.com

Many of us have an ‘ideal’ writing practice in our mind, such as daily writing targets, a fluent style, or time spent writing, and many of us see this ideal defeated by procrastination, lack of confidence, distraction. It can leave us feeling disappointed, frustrated, and even ashamed, which feeds into a cycle of worrying about our writing and – crucially – not fully engaging with our writing practice. What techniques can we employ to overcome these blocks, and build good writing habits? What stops us from writing in the way we’d really like to?

Silencing Our Inner Critic

We all have an inner critic, and for many of us this critic comes out most fiercely when we are trying to write. The inner critic will tell you that your writing is terrible, that none of it is good enough in quality or quantity, and becomes the main culprit for our procrastination. Even great writers struggle with this: when Marlon James won the Booker prize, he attributed his success to getting up earlier than his inner critic.

One of the most powerful techniques to manage the inner critic is to confront and recognise this sabotaging voice, rather than following the impulse to ignore it or stop writing altogether. I like the following suggestion from best-selling author Cathy Rentzenbrink to talk to your inner critic in order to disarm it:

Being curious about it or getting to know it can help. […] Put ‘What do you want?’ at the top of the page and just let your hand move. If you find out the motivation you can offer some reassurance. If we know its intention, we can say, ‘Thank you. My today self no longer needs you to protect me.’ Or you can say, ‘I know you are trying to help, but when you hit me over the head with a stick and tell me I’m rubbish, it paralyses me and then I can’t get stuff done, so could you be a bit nicer?’ Or you can imagine yourself locating the volume switch in your head and turning it down.

Target-setting and Procrastination

We often accuse ourselves of laziness when we procrastinate, but like the inner-critic, procrastination is more often an anxiety-based response: your brain shying away from a task that feels frightening, is overwhelming, or that has high stakes.

You’ve probably heard of target-setting as a technique to overcome procrastination. It’s something the Research Skills Team use in their in-person Shut Up and Work sessions, and that we use in the University Graduate School’s online version.

A method I used in writing my own PhD thesis was setting anti-targets: writing targets so low in effort and ambition they scraped the bare minimum of what I could write each day, such as, say, writing 300 words. It worked because it was so unintimidating: I could write freely, and in my busiest days could always squeeze it in, keeping up a momentum of daily writing. There was no voice in my head berating me for taking a lunch break, or daydreaming, or worrying. It set a positive pattern of self-worth: instead of starting the next day feeling like a failure because I didn’t meet my targets or wasn’t productive enough the day before, I could start it positively, feeling like a success. Feeling as though I could write and could accomplish, I did. And those 300 words added up more than you would think!

Ultimately, the only way to build a writing practice is to write. It’s a vital part of our work as academics, but also a lifelong skill in expression and the process of drafting. The tips above rely wholly on self-compassion: take the pressure off, be kind to yourself, get words (any words! Terrible words!) on the page, and join Dorothy Parker in the joy of having written.

#AcWriMo: Critical Engagement with the Literature

November is #AcWriMo! In the first of our academic writing-themed posts this month, Dr Kate Spencer-Bennett, Academic Skills Advisor in the Academic Skills Centre, considers how we might approach the literature in our field in a critical way.

You’ll often hear it said that good academic writing involves a ‘critical engagement’ with the literature. And you probably know that an effective literature review involves something more than a summary of everything that has been said on the topic. So, if Academic Writing Month (or #AcWriMo) is inspiring you to settle down to your desk, then you might be asking how you can comment on your reading in critical ways.

There are, of course, many ways to talk about your reading, but I often think that comments fall into one of three broad groups – the evaluative comment, the analytical comment, and the connection-making comment. Let’s consider each.

Evaluative comment

This type of comment reveals a critical engagement with the literature because it assesses the value of a piece of research. It asks, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the work? What is interesting, useful, or valuable about this article, book, or report? Where are its limitations? Thinking and reading in these ways might lead you to a more critical approach with your writing.

This kind of comment might begin, ‘This work is valuable because …’

Analytical comment

This type of comment seeks to look carefully at something and offer an interpretation. You might pick out one element of a text for close inspection. Is there an interesting argument being made? Is there a particular point, statistic, or telling phrase which you can point to? What does it suggest about the writer’s position?

This kind of comment might begin, ‘The use of the phrase x suggests …’

Connection-making comment

This type of comment aims to draw connections between different texts. Rather than summarising the research piece by piece, connection-making comments find agreements and disagreements in the literature. When you are reading, you could ask yourself how a particular journal article, for example, responds to what has been said on the topic before. What has been said since?

Or, alternatively, you might look at broader patterns within the research in your field. Can you begin to group what you have read by theme? Where do you see harmony in approach or viewpoint? Where are the tensions? These kinds of questions can lead you to synthesis in your writing. You bring different elements together to make something new.

This kind of comment might begin, ‘This work aligns with …’

When evaluating, analysing, and making connections you demonstrate a close reading of the literature and, in subtle ways, reveal your own perspective. Whether you feel that you are sometimes too descriptive, or just want to make sure that your own voice comes through as you discuss the existing research, perhaps these ideas could get you started next time you sit down to write.

#AcWriMo: The Big Conversation

In our final blog post for #AcWriMo 2022, Kate Spencer-Bennett, an Academic Writing Advisor in the Academic Skills Centre, thinks about how writing fits into the landscape of the literature.

Becoming familiar with the literature in your field can be a daunting task. Where should you begin with your reading? Where should you end? How can you make sense of the connections between the different pieces of research?

I believe that it’s useful to think of the literature on a topic as a big conversation. With #AcWriMo upon us, I’ve been thinking about how this analogy could help us to think about our writing.

‘The Big Conversation’ goes like this. The scholars working in a particular field are sitting around a table having a conversation about a topic. Somebody says something – they write an academic article, a book chapter, or a report. Somebody else hears what they say and joins the conversation to say, ‘yes, good point,’ or, ‘that’s interesting and also…,’ or, ‘but have you thought about?’ In this vein, the conversation continues with a bit of back and forth between the people at the table. People arrive at the table and listen for a while and have a say. And, as in any conversation, there is agreement, disagreement, and everything in between.

Viewed in this way, the literature is a series of ‘turns’, and each new piece of research published represents a new ‘turn’ in the conversation. This has consequences for how we view our own writing. Our thesis chapter, conference presentation, or academic article becomes a response to what we have heard in the conversation. And, like any other scholar, when we plan our writing, we are planning our own turn. If what we are saying is a response to what has come before then some important questions emerge:

• What has been said already?
• What hasn’t been said?

And perhaps most importantly:

• What would I like my turn to be?

So next time you sit down to write, think about what you want to say at the table. How are you responding to what has come before? Which contributions do you want to highlight? What gaps in the conversation are you trying to fill? What do you want others to take from your contribution? Perhaps you’ve heard the debate at another table and want to bring different conversations together.

And, if nothing else, thinking of your writing as a turn in the big conversation means you’ll be ready for that classic viva question – ‘What is your unique contribution?’

#AcWriMo & online writing communities for off-campus PGRs

In this post, Freya Watkins, a PGR in Psychology, shares her thoughts on the value of #AcWriMoatUoB.

Doing a PhD is often an isolating and alienating experience. You’re responsible for creating your own structure, often left to your own devices while you muddle through the ups and downs of research. PGRs with office space may still only see their peers or colleagues occasionally due to our varied individual schedules. Even that minimal in-person interaction on campus disappeared for PGRs for some time when the COVID-19 hit.

But for many of us, not being on campus was the norm long before the pandemic: disabled and chronically ill PGRs, parents and carers, distance learners, and working-class PGRs who must work alongside their research. A lot of PGRs are also part-time, working from home alone, and on a longer journey than the average doctoral candidate. The system is so broken that we end up working for free, writing up on evenings and weekends because PhDs aren’t funded/paid properly. Online events earlier in the pandemic provided off-campus PGRs with unprecedented access to conferences, webinars, workshops, lab meetings and co-working. But as universities rush back to in-person events, showing that lessons about accessibility haven’t been learned from COVID-19, PGRs working off-campus face a return to WFH loneliness.

Screenshot of Freya’s gather.town virtual PGR office

One way that has helped reduce this isolation for me is using online co-working spaces to get a sense of solidarity, community and accountability with other PGRs. Over the past few years I’ve tried various different platforms and groups: regular writing sessions with friends over Zoom, the UGS Shut Up & Work sessions on Teams, and the always-open PhDForum Online Study Room. My cohort even re-created our office space on gather.town to get that communal office feeling during lockdowns. The Monday evening work sessions on the Common Room Discord are still going strong, and PGRs on the UGS Teams channel are increasingly autonomously organising their own ‘drop-in & work’ sessions. Some PGRs who are on campus even join live from the library, but just prefer to have some online company and accountability to work, which is great too! Over the years I’ve met PGRs across different departments who I wouldn’t otherwise have had contact with, whose co-working company is just as important to my progress as my supervisors and lab members.

A great introduction to co-writing community is Academic Writing Month (#AcWriMo), which offers an opportunity for PGRs to set themselves a ‘SMART’ writing target for the month and focus on achieving that goal together with others. Last year, UGS organised three SU&W online sessions a week on the Teams channel, hosted by the UGS Scholars. The particular focus on getting words written rather than just ‘co-working’ helped me to achieve specific writing goals, like drafting sections of a thesis chapter. I remember one particularly inspired session where I got 1,000 words done in four Pomodoro sessions. There was a great sense of community last November, with more faces than at the usual weekly sessions, and knowing everyone had a writing goal helped us motivate each other mutually to achieve that target.

For #AcWriMoAtUoB 2022, UGS have organised a diverse program of writing sessions and workshops. Whether online or in-person, have a go at setting yourself a writing goal, and you might surprise yourself with how much you achieve! You may even discover that the routine, accountability and camaraderie of co-writing sessions are helpful for getting PhD work done beyond November, even if you do most of your work in the library or office. And for those of us off-campus, we’ll keep plugging away in our online writing rooms, organising our own access and community, going at our own pace.

#AcWriMo: why take part and what’s happening?

Natalia Hartono is a PhD student in the Mechanical Engineering Department. This time last year marked the beginning of her third year, and tons of to-do lists! Here, she shares how #AcWriMo 2021 helped her. And read about how you can get involved with #AcWriMo 2022.

Natalia writes

I signed up for AcWriMo in November of 2021. I’ve been a member of PGR Shut up and Work ever since the pandemic, and the first one I attended was conducted online. To me, attending these sessions, whether they are held in person or online, is a fantastic opportunity.

The announcement of AcWriMo 2021 made me happy because I gain a lot from these meetings. Shut up and Work only takes place once a week, but in the month of November, it happened three times a week! I’m glad there were more schedules to join in because November was a busy month for me. I’m trying to balance my time between studying, meeting deadlines, working as a PGTA, and taking care of my child.

Helen writes: #AcWriMo productivity vs procrastination

Writing Skills Advisor Helen Williams continues her occasional series during #AcWriMo with her thoughts on ways to deal with a tendency to procrastinate.

I recently read this column in The Guardian on procrastination – most likely when I should have been doing something else – and started thinking about the relationship between productivity and procrastination. When I speak to students about procrastination, they often seem to think they need to change a lifetime of habits, how they approach their work, and even the type of person that they are. Of course, this in itself becomes a mammoth (and impossible) task. Much more effective, as the article says, is to start changing the smallest possible habits that you can. If you’ve been taking part in Academic Writing Month (#AcWriMo), you may already have started to form a few new habits that can help with productivity, but if not, here are a few suggestions.

Baby steps: start by making small changes to your habits

Taking Part in #AcWriMo: Reflections and Responses

November is Academic Writing Month (#AcWriMo) and in this post, Liam Knight, a PGR in the Department of English Literature and a Westmere Scholar, reflects on his experience of participating in last year’s event.

Back in 2020, I took part in AcWriMo, a month-long writing event in which people working within academia set themselves goals to accomplish over the month of November (e.g. write X000 words, collect X amount of data sets, read X number of papers, etc.) and then use their local and online academic communities to keep themselves accountable and supported and ensure that they reach those goals (or come as close as is reasonably possible)!

Details of this year’s #AcWriMo at UoB, hosted by your Westmere Scholars

Writing productively during #AcWriMo

Image credit: Raul Pacheco-Vega

November is Academic Writing Month or #AcWriMo.  Set an academic writing goal, and work alongside the online #AcWriMo community to achieve your goal.  We have talked about setting an appropriate goal for #AcWriMo in a previous post, so this year, we’re going to look at being a productive writer, to help you reach those carefully set goals.

#AcWriMo – what’s your writerly goal?

November is Academic Writing Month, or #AcWriMo.  Based on the ever-popular National Novel Writing Month (#NaNoWriMo) for writers of novels, #AcWriMo is hosted by PhD2Published and allows you to work towards a stated academic writing goal with the support of a huge online community of academic writers doing exactly the same thing.

Image credit: Raul Pacheco-Vega

I would encourage you to have a look at the #AcWriMo resources following the links above – there’s loads of really great stuff there, and a whole online community for mutual support – but I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about setting goals.  A well-set goal can drive you forwards, focus your activities to get you where you need to be, and keep you motivated and enthusiastic.  A badly-set goal is hard to reach (or even to know if you have reached it), and is, crucially, demotivating, defeating the whole purpose of setting it in the first place.