Day 27: Straighten your zigzags
from Marialuisa Aliotta, author of Mastering Academic Writing in the Sciences
Some days it feels like we’re writing in zigzags! (Photo by Marialuisa Aliotta)
Imagine the following: You realise the time has finally come for you to sit down and write up (your thesis, paper, book, whatever). So, you open your editor and finally make a start.
You write the first sentence, then you pause, you read it, and you decide you don’t like it. So what do you do next? You delete it… and start again. You write a sentence, you pause, you read it… and guess what? you still don’t like it! and so you delete it. Again. You think to yourself, let’s try again… you write a sentence, you read it, you don’t like it…
Does it sound familiar? I must confess it happens to me lots of times. I guess this is because I am a perfectionist and I would want to write a perfect sentence straight away. Unfortunately, this type of writing (I once heard a colleague calling is zigzag writing) can be a recipe for disaster.
You may end up spending a lot of time just to find yourself with two or three sentences at the end of the day.
If zigzag writing is a problem for you, a better approach may be to draft quickly and ... edit slowly.
Drafting quickly involves going with the flow of thoughts, ideas, and concepts that come to mind. Fix them down on paper (or on your computer) without worrying about structure, grammar, punctuation. If you realize you need to add a reference or a figure, just use a place holder ([ref], [insert figure]), but do not stop your train of thought (or your thoughts may be gone forever).
Then, once you have produced some content, take a step back. Look at your text and take the time to make sure your content is presented in a meaningful order; group together similar ideas and concepts, re-arrange some text if needed and generate new one to create better links between paragraphs or sections.
Iterate until you feel your text flows.
Separating out drafting from editing is sometimes necessary because these actions involve different parts of our brains: drafting requires *creative* skills, while editing requires *analytical* skills. This is also the best way to make progress with your writing.
Interested in trying it out? Here is what to do:
Identify a specific topic you want to write about and briefly plan what you want to say.
Set a timer for 15 minutes and write without stopping (it’s a lot harder than you think!) or re-reading what you have just written (in fact, you can reduce your editor window to one or two lines only).
When the time is up, stop writing, take a few minutes' break, then repeat step 2.
At the end of these two bursts of writing, you should have enough material to start working with it. Now spend time (in fact as long as you need) to critically revisit your text.
If you wish to go deeper into the different steps of academic writing, check out my book and my blog for more tips and tools:
Mastering Academic Writing in the Sciences: A Step-by-Step Guide by Marialuisa Aliotta
And if you need more support, feel free to get in touch to explore ways in which I can help:
Marialuisa Aliotta, author of Mastering Academic Writing in the Sciences
This reminds me of the concept of Morning Pages from _The Artist’s Way_ -- the idea that just letting our words pour out onto the page unimpeded can help us gain momentum and generate more and more, and reveal ideas that otherwise may have remained locked up inside our heads. Thanks, Marialuisa!
The Zig Zag. This is such a delightful image--I have this picture in my mind of a quarterbag zipping down the field with the ball, weaving in and out of all the obstacles. The idea of a zig zag that you go with makes it feel like progress instead of a problem! Thanks for this idea Marialuisa!