The Disadvantages of Irregular Writing Schedules

How many of you were either explicitly taught or learned by imitation (of your adviser or some other mentor) that you should begin writing only after you have all your data in hand?

That was the procedure I was taught.  I was further advised in my current job (government) that the accepted procedure for PIs was to conduct research projects in five year cycles, with the first three to four years devoted to design and conduct of the research followed by a year (or two!) of analysis and writing.  This particular schedule was designed by bureaucrats who don't write or publish themselves.  They were quite adamant that this was the way to do research and publish it.  I ignored this advice.

I give the above example to illustrate an extreme case of putting off writing for years.  This extreme schedule would sound like professional suicide to most scientists.  If you think about it, though, this pattern is is not unlike the schedule students follow in their dissertation work: several years of data gathering and analysis, followed by an intense period of writing--often compressed into a few months at the end of their program.  Writing something every three or four years clearly affects overall productivity.  Less obvious is that irregular writing can have a serious effect on one's ability to write well.  Imagine if you never wrote anything substantive (other than email or minor documents not meant for publication) for three years and then were faced with a large writing project (the product of years of research).  This is a recipe for disaster...or at least a bad case of writer's block.  No wonder that many Ph.D. students find themselves paralyzed at the point they begin writing their dissertations.

The Ph.D. student then goes on to a post-doc position in which they are expected to conduct and publish at a shorter time interval, e.g., two years.  Some succeed, but many fail to publish according to expectations (in my experience).  After this, they (may) find themselves in an academic or research position in which it's expected that they publish three or more papers or reports per year.  Many attempt to continue the writing schedule they learned in graduate school:  spending most of their time conducting the research, then madly writing for a short time at the end of the project, otherwise known as "binge writing". Those who continue the binge writing approach, which worked during graduate school (sort-of), find it increasingly difficult to meet more ambitious writing goals.  Some work never gets published; as these unpublished works pile up, our guilt and frustration mount over time.

If you don't write on a regular schedule, you may find yourself struggling to produce something other than a pedestrian manuscript. Since most of the top-tier science journals reject 80% or more of submitted manuscripts, weakly-written manuscripts don't have a chance (and may even be rejected by mediocre journals that are trying to improve their impact factor rating). Those scientists who who regularly hone their writing skills and put as much (or more) effort into crafting compelling papers as they do in designing and conducting their research are going to take up that limited journal space.

Just as a musician must practice constantly to sustain and improve their skills, so must a writer.  As I'll explore in later posts, good technical writing (or any writing, for that matter) requires constant practice, improvement, and exploration.  

Unfortunately, many scientists fail to recognize how an irregular writing schedule affects their overall productivity, their writing skills, and their self-confidence.  How do we break bad writing habits, especially if such habits are common among your peers and encouraged by your mentors?  Well, we've already started by first recognizing that binge writing is counter-productive.

In the following posts, I'll look more closely at this and other barriers to productive writing and some skills a technical writer must develop to ensure a long career of productive, enjoyable writing.

In the meantime, see this list of books for guidance on writing. The list is designed for students preparing their thesis or dissertation, but contains suggested reading that is useful for anyone at any stage of their career. Interestingly, the list contains two books that I've recommended in this blog: If You Want to Write by Barbara Ueland and How to Write a Lot by Paul Silvia.

Three Easy Steps

We're talking about good writing habits.  In the last post, I emphasized the importance of developing and sticking to a regular writing schedule.  In the next few posts, we'll take a closer look at how scientists learn to write...in particular, how they develop a writing schedule.

As I look back on my science career, my satisfaction over the body of work that I've published is somewhat dampened by the knowledge of all those papers (and books) that were never written.  I've got the data; it's filed away in lab and field notebooks, spreadsheets, and half-finished manuscripts.  In fact, I would estimate that for every paper I've published, there are five more that were never written. Most of my colleagues who are the same age would admit to the same.  A lot of the unpublished data were collected during and just after I finished my Ph.D.  I was bursting with ideas, questions, and energy.  In some cases, these were side-projects that I carried out alongside a primary research goal.  In others, they were stand-alone projects that were separately funded.  All of these studies were completed, but the work was never written up--for various reasons.  Often, it was lack of time--more specifically, lack of a period of time scheduled in the project for writing.  Back then, I thought the writing should take place after all data were collected.  A typical project might have three months set aside at the end of the project, which was designated for writing things up.  However, what usually happened was that I had to spend those three months completing some aspect of the research, redoing some analysis, writing the next grant proposal, and/or initiating the next research project.  There never seemed to be time for writing manuscripts.  

I now think that I could have taken most of this research to its logical conclusion--publication--if I had only developed better writing skills and habits early on.  In the last post, I made the point that having a regular writing schedule (e.g., 2 hours per day, every weekday) was essential for sustained productivity.  Part of the problem I had during my early research years was that I believed what I had been taught about how to write up research.  My graduate advisers taught me the following procedure: design the study, conduct the study, write up the study.  In that order.  Only when I had all data in hand should I begin thinking about writing.  Three easy steps, taken in sequential order.  Sounds logical.  It was never suggested to me that I could (or should) begin writing the moment I had an idea for a study.

"I Hate Writing"

...was the emphatic statement made by a young acquaintance recently.  Why do some find writing akin to passing kidney stones, whereas others absolutely love writing? 

I think the answer is that people who abhor writing are people with writing problems, otherwise known as "writer's block".  Contrary to what most people imagine writer's block to be, this affliction encompasses a whole suite of behaviors (and their accompanying thoughts) that many writers will recognize:

"I don't feel like writing [this morning, today, this week, this semester......the rest of my life]!"

"I have no ideas for this writing project."

"Even if I do a good job [writing], the reviewers will criticize it for some picayune reason."

"I write best when I'm under the gun."

"I wish I had never agreed to write this [paper, book chapter, review]."

"My writing will never be as good as my peers."

"I've got too much to do, and not enough time."

"I like to keep revising and perfecting, even after the paper is 'good enough'."

"What if I've made a mistake or left out an important reference?"

"I hate outlines."

"I can't write unless I can set aside large blocks of time when no deadlines are looming."

The above thoughts are from a test for writer's block in a book by R. Boice.  The next series of posts is going to focus on writing problems.  I hope to cover the causes of writing problems and some possible solutions for dealing with them.  Some of this discussion will be based on information in resources such as the book mentioned above.  Other insights will be based on my own experience and that of colleagues. 

But first, a personal story to illustrate the fact that it is possible to go from near paralysis at the thought of writing to adoring writing (technical and non-technical) and everything about writing.

I was entering the home stretch of my master's program, having completed all my field and laboratory research and data analysis.  It was time to write my thesis.  I had not given much thought to this part of the process up to that point because I had been so busy taking classes, working in the lab, and admiring my data.  The memory of the moment I sat down to begin writing is scorched into my brain.  I was in my apartment at my desk, which faced a window overlooking a forested lot.  Outside, the day was somewhat overcast, but still bright enough so that I did not need additional light.  I had a new yellow legal pad and several new pencils sharpened to perfection (this was way before personal computers).  I picked up a pencil, looked at the blank page, and.....froze.  Not my mind though.  It was going 90 miles an hour.  Thoughts of how to start, what should I say, which parts should I include, what did my results mean--all tumbled around in my head.  I could not focus on any single thought.  The harder I tried, the worse it got.  It was like trying to grasp an handful of sand. The more I squeezed, the faster the grains escaped.  

I thought, "Oh, God.  I'm stuck."  

And I was, in more ways than one.  For the next several hours, I sat there, paralyzed.  I could not move.  The longer I sat, the more difficult it was to move...to even imagine moving.  The light grew dimmer as evening approached.  Still I sat, staring at that yellow pad.  My initial shock turned to despair.  I began imagining how I was going to explain to my adviser that I couldn't finish my thesis.  What would happen to me?  Where would I go now?  What about my dreams of becoming a scientist?


"Stop it! Stop thinking.  Just sit and try to relax."  I finally started talking to myself.  I did not know what else to do.  Eventually, I felt the need to go to the bathroom, but I could not move.  I felt that if I moved from my spot that something dreadful would happen.  "You've got to move,"  I said to myself. "Are you just going to sit there and wet your pants?"  That thought galvanized me.  I told myself all I had to do was to go to the bathroom and then I could come back and cower in the chair.  


That was all it took.  Once I started moving, I was able to gradually do other things.  I eventually applied the same tactic to my writing--breaking it into small stages.  I would set a tiny goal for myself in the beginning--write the first paragraph of the methods.  Then another paragraph.  I did not think about anything beyond the next small task.  Before I knew it, I had a rough draft of the Materials and Methods done.  Eventually, I finished my thesis and passed my defense.

That experience put me off writing for a long, long time--years in fact.  In the coming posts, I'll describe how I transformed from that writing-averse person to a well-published author, now approaching my 100th publication.  Along the way, I'll relate my experiences to known causes of writing problems and describe what can be done to resolve them... or avoid them in the first place.

I hope you'll share your writing problems and solutions.