Dissertation and Academic Writing Resources

For me writing at its best is a tangible, material, sensuous experience. On the best of days my fountain pen, fully inked in pale, petal purple sailor yozakura or deep earthy J. Herbin poussiere de lune, touches the thin, delicate looseleaf of Tomoe River and away I drift into scholarship and analysis. Perhaps there is a stack of books, a stack of notes, but the best is when my desk is clear. Some days I write furiously, scribbling so quickly my single page is over and I’ve inexplicably written halfway down a second. Other days are more ponderous, and I might enjoy the feeling of slowly looping letters and watching the subtle, complex shading of ink as I contemplate my subject at a more leisurely pace. Other days, writing is sheer torture, usually linked to the urgent sense that I should be writing more, that I haven’t published enough, that I have fallen irreparably behind. External pressure is most often the cause of my writer’s block, though there are certainly days where I simply have nothing new to say about a particular subject. It’s possible if I change subjects, I will find new stores of material, but especially if I have been writing for five or six days straight there is always a day where the well runs dry and I struggle between self-flagellation for not being able to meet the strenuous goal of “daily academic writing” that some scholars suggest is the only marker of a successful academic writer. Especially since COVID I am learning to recognize the difference between types of writers block and learning to recognize the needs that must be addressed with each type.

When dissertating (and it is probably the same on the tenure-track, where deadlines and tenure clocks tick with what I hear is an even more insistent and all-consuming pressure than that of graduate school) the most pressing concerns I had were external. I could write entire volumes about my own ongoing battle with imposter syndrome and the toxicity of believing in meritocracies, and I know I am not alone. But today’s post is not going to be about that. It is going to be about the resources I found that kept my pen on the page in spite of the pressures of graduate school and the profession at large because there are academics out there who speak and write beautifully about how to write, when to write, why to write even when you feel your writing is horrible, and today I want to highlight two who have published their mentorship online.

First up is an amazing interview on YouTube with Professor Alan McFarlane, a professor at King’s College Cambridge. I like this interview because Professor McFarlane has a really gentle affect and a humble way of talking about his process. The advice he gives seems very achievable and also always reminds me of exactly what I am always forgetting when I sit down to write. For example, early in the video he advises to begin writing right away. In my own experience, my dissertation chapters were drafted, or at least begun many times while simultaneously doing research. Writing helped me to complicate my own ideas as I expanded my knowledge of the field. I still forget that, so even now I really enjoy rewatching this video and being reminded of both the pleasures of writing and that it’s okay to write.

The other resource that really helped me through my dissertation and that I turn to when I need help writing, is Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s website. Particularly on his blog, where he publicly writes about the advice he gives his graduate students and his own writing process. He also writes effusively about his love of stationary.

Here is his latest post on how he writes his papers one small piece at a time. I’ll be trying to put Pacheco-Vega’s “memoranda” writing into practice in my own writing starting today in order to produce a little bit on multiple projects. The pressures of working linearly don’t work particularly well for me, I find, so I’m looking forward to giving this one a try.

Here is a post on annotated bibliographies and how to use them on the way to absorbing research and eventually turning it into a literature review.

Here is another blog post, titled “Write No Matter What,” which is essentially the same advice dispensed by McFarlane above, which is that it is important to practice writing regularly and to come up with low-stakes ways of writing. One way that I am currently doing that is to keep drafting pages in my notebooks on everything I’m reading about.

Here is a page of links and resources on Pacheco-Vega’s website for graduate students, and, in general, his resources page is a choose your own adventure of writing, research, and reading advice.

Tell me, how do you like to write? I hope this post gives you a little writing inspiration. I know it was a good reminder for me.