Daily Writing: How Prolific Scholars Do It

I am most productive as a writer on days when I wake up before the crack of dawn and get an hour of writing in before everyone in the house is awake and and, most important, before checking email or social media. I know several highly productive academics – some of them chairs, deans, and provosts – who do the same thing. For people with administrative duties, that is often the only time they have to write.

You don’t have to wake up at 5 a.m. to be a prolific scholar. You do have to write however. And nearly all of the prolific academics I have met are daily writers. Daily writing is one of the most important strategies I can recommend to boost your productivity. Theresa MacPhail calls daily writing a “no-fail secret to writing a dissertation.” That advice is just as crucial for new (and older) faculty.

It’s also backed up by research.

A study by Robert Boice, reported in his book, Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing as well as in this article, provides concrete evidence that daily writing produces both more writing and more ideas. Boice conducted an experiment with 27 faculty members who wanted to improve their productivity. He divided them into three groups and examined their writing progress for 10 weeks.

Boice instructed Group No. 1 – the abstinent writers – not to schedule any writing sessions but to write only if they felt compelled to. He also asked them to keep a log of creative ideas to write about. The thought behind planned abstinence was that these writers would have a list of creative ideas ready when they finally did feel like writing. Result: The abstinent writers produced an average of 0.2 pages a day and had one creative idea a week.

Boice told Group No. 2 – the spontaneous writers – to schedule writing sessions five days a week for 10 weeks, but encouraged them to write in those sessions only when they were in the mood. They also were asked to use part of the scheduled writing time each day to come up with a new idea to write about. Result: The spontaneous writers produced an average of 0.9 pages a day and one creative idea a week.

Group No. 3 – the forced writers – agreed to a strict accountability plan. They scheduled five writing sessions a week for 10 weeks, and kept a log of creative ideas to write about. To ensure they would write every day, whether or not they felt like it, the members of this group each gave Boice a prepaid check for $25, made out to an organization they despised. If they failed to write in any of their planned sessions, Boice would mail the check. Result: The forced writers produced an average of 3.2 pages a day and one creative idea each day.

I first heard about this study in 2006 from Kerry Ann Rockquemore. When I saw the results, I was convinced I wanted to be in Group No. 3. I have been a daily writer ever since, and recently submitted my fifth book manuscript for publication.

If you are not a daily writer, but are producing as much writing as you think you should, then there is no reason to change your habits. However, if you are unhappy with your productivity and would like to write more, my experience as well as the research show that daily writing is very likely to work for you. Here’s how.

Pull out your calendar and schedule writing sessions five or six days a week. Writing experts Patricia Goodson and Wendy Belcher both recommend that you start with 15 minutes a day if you have never tried daily writing before, or if you are overwhelmed with other tasks. Patricia Goodson recommends that you start with 15 minutes and increase your writing time by one minute each day until you reach your desired level.

If you are not sure what counts as daily writing, check out this list of 10 ways to write every day.

Nearly all writing experts agree that you should not schedule more than four hours for a writing session. My colleague Anthony Ocampo says that if you push yourself too far, you might get a “writing hangover.” If you have one day that you can dedicate to a long stretch of time for writing, you may want to schedule four hours for that day. On your busiest days, set aside at least 15 minutes – even if it means waking up 15 minutes earlier in the morning.


Once a writing session is on your calendar, treat it like any other appointment. By that I mean show up for it and schedule your other obligations around it. If you have scheduled a writing session from 10:30 to 11 a.m., and a student emails to ask if she can come by at 10:30, tell her you already have an appointment at that time and to come instead at 11 a.m. It might seem odd at first to be making appointments with yourself, but, over time, you will get used to it. In fact the busier you are, the more crucial it is it schedule your writing time and stick to it.

Once you start writing every day, it becomes a habit. I will admit there are days I don’t get my writing done, but I notice it when I don’t. I notice it so much that I make sure to write the next day.

My preference is to write every morning from Monday to Friday for at least an hour, but usually for two. What about you? Are you already a daily writer? How long have you been at it, and has it made a difference in your productivity?

Re-posted from: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/836-the-trick-to-being-a-prolific-scholar

How to Get in the Writing Zone

I write every weekday, and I think that this is the key to my writing productivity.

People sometimes ask me how I can get in the writing zone every single day. After having written every day for the past several years, writing has become a habit. I no longer need to get in the zone, as writing is habitual for me.

However, it is also true that there are a few strategies that I practice that enhance my clarity and make it easier to get in the writing zone. In this blog post, I will share a few of these strategies with you. I also will challenge you to try these strategies for two weeks to see if you are able to develop a writing habit.



Are you struggling with writing consistently? If so, try and implement these strategies, adjusted for the particularities of your schedule:

• Make a writing plan for the week. Decide exactly what writing projects you will work on this week. For example: Finalize article and submit to journal. Finish literature review for Chapter Three.
• Break your writing plan down by days, and make specific tasks for tomorrow. For example: Monday: Refine methodology section and add sample details from proposal. Tuesday: Add references on neoliberalism to literature review.
• At 8pm tonight, turn off all electronic devices: cellular phone, laptop, tablet, television, etc.
• Find a novel and read it in bed.
• Sleep by 9pm.
• Wake up at 5am or 6am.
• Write for 30 minutes when you first wake up, before checking email or social media accounts.

I know that not everyone has the life circumstances that would permit them to implement this schedule. So, it is not for everybody. However, I will say that having children or a family does not necessarily prevent you from having a similar schedule.

At some point, your children will be old enough to put themselves to bed and to take care of their immediate needs in the mornings. In my house, everyone turns off their electronic devices at 8pm and reads or goes to sleep. My children are old enough to do this on their own. When they were younger, I would read to them, and thus had much less time to read novels that I found interesting.

In these strategies, you will find that I suggest getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep. Nearly everyone needs this amount of sleep in order to function at their highest mental capacity and to have the ability to focus.

I also suggest reading novels, as any writer should read to perfect our craft.

If you think these strategies are feasible for you, I encourage you to try to implement them for two weeks to see if daily writing - and writing before checking your email - can become habits for you.

Let me know how it works for you.

End of Year Check-In … 2013 is nearly over!

There are many ways a writer can stay motivated.

Setting small goals and meeting them is one example. However, setting big goals also can be helpful.

Setting large goals for the year, for example, can help you to think about the big picture. And, once you meet those goals, it can be useful to think about all you have done so that you can develop motivation to move forward.



The trick is to set reasonable goals and reasonable expectations for meeting them.

The end of the year is a great time to go back to your big goals and see all that you have accomplished during the year.

As I was looking over what I did for last month, I was a bit down because most of what I did was to continue to revise works in progress. It can be hard to see the progress I am making when all I have to say for November is that I revised a chapter and an article and they are still unfinished.

To pull myself out of that slump, I decided to look at all I have done over the course of 2013. And, it turns out I have some major accomplishments to report.

I have been working on a fifteen-chapter textbook for just about three years. I wrote the first chapter in early 2011 and have been moving forward slowly ever since. This was the year for the final push and I managed to write the final six chapters this year! That is 48,000 new words. In addition, I returned to the reviews and made final revisions on each of the chapters. The final deadline for the textbook revisions was December 6, so the book is now officially in production. The book will be out in August 2014, and I will certainly celebrate that. (If you are curious, I have details about the book here.)

I also have been working on a book on deportees for a while. I completed the interviews in August 2010. I finished going through the transcriptions, writing memos and doing the preliminary analyses of the interviews in January 2011. I have been writing up the chapters ever since. In 2012, I wrote the Introduction and the first three chapters. In 2013, I wrote chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 – four new chapters or about 40,000 words!

In addition to those two books, I have also been working on articles and book chapters for edited volumes. I wrote and submitted one book chapter and one article based on the interviews with deportees. I also wrote a rough draft of another article. Those three pieces overlap somewhat with the book manuscript, but are not exactly the same.

While writing this, I looked back to see what I did in 2012, and my productivity was similar – five textbook chapters and four chapters of the deportee book in addition to a few shorter pieces. It is good to know that I can maintain a consistent writing pace. It is also remarkable to me that my productivity for 2012 and 2013 were so similar. Perhaps I really have found my writing groove! As I mentioned last year, I have been able to accomplish all of this writing by maintaining a consistent writing habit of two hours a day, five days a week.

I find looking back over my accomplishments to be rewarding. It also gives me energy to move forward and keep up momentum for next year.

Now that I am finished with the race textbook, I can focus all of my energies on revising and submitting the book on deportees. There is no doubt that I can be finished with the revisions by Spring 2014. This is fantastic, as I am ready to be done with it!

Once I finish the deportee manuscript, I can work on the three articles I have drafts of. And, then I can move on to my next project!

What about you? Did you make goals for 2013? Have you met them?

How to Overcome Writer’s Block: Seven Strategies that Work

It happens to the best of us. We wake up. We go to the computer. We intend to write. Two hours later, we have put 0 words on the page. What happened?



You know what happened, so I won’t go into detail. Instead, let’s focus on a few ways to get words on the page (or the screen) even when it seems we’d rather do almost anything else. For many writers, the trick is to get started, because once we get started, there’s no stopping us!

If you are having trouble getting started with your writing, try one (or more) of these seven strategies to overcome your writer's block.

Strategy #1) Meditate for five minutes

As soon as you realize it is your writing time and you are not writing, stop whatever you are doing, set a timer for five minutes and meditate. I am not an expert on meditation, but I can say that you don’t have to be to do a five-minute meditation. Simply set a timer for five minutes, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing for five minutes. Pay attention to the thoughts that come to your mind, and bid them farewell as you focus on your breathing. I find it easy to bid thoughts farewell as I breathe out, as it feels cleansing.

Strategy #2) Cut off the Internet.

Unplug. Open up your Word Processing program. Don’t allow yourself to turn it back on until you have 500 new words on the page. The Internet can be an amazing tool. However, no matter what writing project you are working on, once you have your document in front of you, I am sure there is something you can do to move the document forward without the Internet.

Strategy #3) Call a friend.

Tell her you are having trouble writing, but promise to spend the next 60 minutes writing. Ask her to call you back in 60 minutes to tell her how many words you have written. It is amazing what accountability can do.

Strategy #4) Do some exercise.

Do 100 jumping jacks or 20 pushups. Walk around the block. My personal favorite is to power up my Xbox and put on a zumba song. I rock out to one song, which takes just five minutes (and burns about 100 calories) and then get back to writing.

Strategy #5) Go old school.

Turn off the computer. Pull out a pad of paper and a pen and get to writing. Draw figures to conceptualize your project. Write about why you don’t feel like writing. Write and think through a theoretical puzzle. Write up your methods section. Whatever you do, spend at least 20 minutes with a pen and paper and watch how your writing is reinvigorated.

Strategy #6) Have a healthy snack.

Go to the kitchen. Grab an apple. Do something fancy to it, like peel it and cut it into pieces. Or, taken a mango and cut it restaurant-style. Do something methodical and creative with a healthy snack and then eat it. You will be amazed at how that little bit of left-brain activity and a sweet reward can fuel your writing.

Strategy #7) Change your location.

If you are working on a laptop or with a pen and paper, move yourself to another room. If you work at a university, try going to the library or a study room. If you are at home, try out the dining room table or the living room. If you live in a studio, try facing a different window. Move yourself to a new location and tell yourself that this is your writing spot for the day.

I hope one of these seven strategies works for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found it useful to work one or two of these strategies into your everyday writing routine.

Just imagine yourself getting up, preparing a quick, but artful breakfast, then meditating for five minutes, sitting down and writing for 30 minutes before getting up and doing 25 pushups and writing for another 30 minutes. What a rocking morning that would be!



Best of luck with your writing, and let me know which of these (or other) strategies help you move through writer’s block.

You Got Tenure …. Now What? Five Strategies to Keep Moving Forward

After spending years – sometimes nearly a decade – in the quest for tenure, it can be hard to figure out what to do once you receive that golden letter ensuring you lifetime employment.



I officially received tenure in the spring of 2012. When I received the tenure letter, I was in the middle of a busy semester, so I briefly celebrated and then kept on doing what I needed to do to keep everything afloat. I had a research trip to Peru planned over the summer, so I went to Peru and worked on that project. Then, the fall semester started, and I got back into my teaching and research routines. In sum, after getting tenure, life seemed to go on as usual.

However, now that I have had a few months to reflect, I can share some post-tenure strategies that I have found useful thus far. I provide these strategies with the caveat that these strategies have worked for me because of the path I have chosen. As Kerry Ann Rockquemore points out in this column there are multiple paths you can choose once you achieve tenure.

Here are the post-tenure strategies that I have found useful.

Strategy One: Keep on writing

It is crucial to work to maintain a daily writing practice so that you don’t lose the great habits you cultivated while on the tenure track. Now that you have tenure, you have more flexibility in terms of the kind of writing you do. The important thing is that you continue to cultivate your writing skills and habits.

Over the summer, I wanted to take somewhat of a break from writing, so I maintained my daily writing practice by posting on my family travel blog. Once the semester began again, it was fairly seamless to transition back into daily writing for research.

Strategy Two: Keep on reading

I know I always advise people to write daily, but I have recently learned that many people, in the quest for tenure, find less and less time to read. Now that you have tenure, you have the luxury to also set aside time for reading in and around your field.

This semester, I have been reading a new book about every two weeks. It feels great to read the books I have been meaning to read, and to keep up with the field. I usually try and incorporate something I learn from the books into my writing, but sometimes it can be useful just to absorb the information.

Strategy Three: Experiment with teaching

Now that you have tenure, you can worry less about student evaluations. There is some debate about how useful student evaluations are for assessing your teaching, so, for now, you can worry less about them and focus on trying strategies that you think will work.

I don’t mean that you should totally revamp your classes, but try something new. This semester, I decided to introduce blogging into my classes. I could have done that while on the tenure track, but it was easier to do it once I had tenure and did not have to worry as much about my evaluations taking a dive.

Strategy Four: Be proactive with service

While on the tenure track, you should have been protected from service and hopefully chose the service opportunities that took the least time. Now that you have tenure, it is time for you to take a good look at your service profile and think about what opportunities you would like to pursue. What kind of service are you good at? What kind of service do you enjoy? It is important to keep doing service so that you can feel part of the campus community. So, why not seek out the opportunities that allow you to use your skills and feel valuable?

Since arriving at the University of California, Merced this semester, colleagues have asked me to participate in a wide variety of service activities. I have made a couple of commitments, but mostly have asked for time to consider my options. Looking at my skill set and my passions, it is clear to me that there are some service areas where I would excel – and others that I would find draining. I decided that I would like to do something on campus related to faculty development and retention. Thus, I asked around and found the people who are in charge of that and let them know of my interests.

Strategy Five: Take care of yourself!

Now that you have lifetime employment security, you need to make sure you live a long, healthy life and enjoy it! I am sure you are aware that high stress, lack of physical activity, and an unhealthy diet are linked to health problems and a shortened life expectancy. Thus, if you haven’t been taking care of yourself thus far, now is the time to make your health your number one priority. Find the time to exercise by putting it into your schedule, use meditation or yoga to reduce stress, figure out ways to eat healthier, and find time to spend with people you enjoy.

Here in Merced, I am fortunate to live in a warm, dry climate. Thus, I have been able to ride my bike to my office – which is five miles from my home. I don’t have to go to campus every day, and thus am able to eat at home most days. That makes it easier to eat healthy meals. I have not been making time to meditate or do yoga, but may incorporate that into my life.

In sum, having tenure gives you a renewed freedom to make decisions about how you want to spend your time. Of course, there are consequences to any decision you make. However, you also have the flexibility to decide where you want to focus your energies, and I encourage you to do that.

What post-tenure strategies have worked for you?

Get Inspired: Change Your Writing Location and Spark Creativity

Although few academics think of it this way, writing is a creative process. When you write, you pull words together to make a point or argument, to describe a scenario or a person, to analyze data, or to introduce a phenomenon. Doing this well requires creativity and ingenuity. Thus, it is important to feed your creative side.

Once you think of writing as a creative process, it becomes evident that it takes creative energy and that it requires stimulation and inspiration. This does not mean, of course, that you must wait to be inspired to write. With packed schedules and long to-do lists, inspiration rarely strikes on its own. The good news is that you can train your mind to be more creative on demand, and that there are a few tricks you can use to spark creativity.

The trick I am going to focus on in this blog post is very simple: change location. Many writers dream of having the perfect writing spot. For me, this would be a large, sparsely decorated room with hardwood floors, high ceilings, a sturdy cherry writing desk, and most importantly, an enormous window with a view of the sea. Unfortunately, I have no such luxury. Instead, I do much of my writing on my couch, in my cluttered office, and at various coffee shops around town. And, even if I did have an amazing office, it still would be important to try writing in other spaces. The reason is that a change in location sparks creativity.

If you have a favorite writing location that works for you, that is fabulous. However, if you ever find yourself stuck with your writing, it can be a good idea to try a new location, even if it is just for a day. For example, I know a very productive writer who works in her lovely home office most days, but once a week she meets with friends at a local coffee shop where they write together for two hours. For her, injecting a bit of variety in her writing routine provides just enough stimulation to keep going and to continue to be creative and productive.

I know another writer who resolved to write in her office on campus every morning. This strategy worked out well for the first few weeks of the semester. However, as the semester wore on, and fatigue began to set in, she found it more and more difficult to get her creative engines running, and easier to be distracted by all the tasks (and people) that called her attention in her office. She decided to change location, and to try writing at the campus library. This simple strategy of changing location worked wonders for her.

My own strategy is to write at home three days a week, and to go to a coffee shop two days a week. Usually, writing at home works for me. However, once my mind begins to wander and the disorganization in my living room shouts for my attention, I pack up my laptop and head out for a coffee shop. That change in location seems to work well. Once I am in a new space, I am able to concentrate again.

There are many possible ways of implementing the idea of changing location. For those of you who have a stable writing location that works, it might be a good idea to meet with friends at a coffee shop once a week to write together. If you do not want to leave your house, you can simply try writing in a different room. For those of you who are not getting the writing done in your office that you would hope to get done, it might work for you to try a new location: the campus library, a coffee shop, the public library, your home office, or even a friend’s house. For some people, it will work better to change locations every day. For others, adding a little variety into your regular routine is the trick.

The reason changing location works is that, as you are writing, you are – consciously or unconsciously – taking in all that surrounds you. This background noise or scenery will have an impact on how your brain works. If your environment is nurturing and inspiring, that is great and will work to your advantage. Nevertheless, if it is the exact same environment every single day, you might be missing out on an opportunity for creative inspiration by putting yourself in another space. On the other end of things, if you are writing in a less than ideal space – such as your cluttered office or your unkempt living room – you might be limiting your creativity by allowing your mind to focus on all of the things that demand your attention. In that case, you might be surprised how a simple change in location – one with fewer distractions - leads you to new places in your writing.

If you do decide to change it up, let me know how it goes! Either way, best of luck with your writing this week.

Seek Out Your Writing Inspiration: How to Find the Ideal Writing Spot

Writing requires concentration and lots of mental energy. That is one reason where you write is important. If you are in a location that it not conducive to concentration or is uninspiring, it can be hard to get your writing done.

In an ideal world, I would be writing in a large, clean, sparsely decorated room with inspiring objets d’art, and two huge picture windows. One picture window would have an amazing view of the sea, and the other of snow-capped mountains. Aside from the geographical feasibility of that ideal location, it is simply an ideal, not my reality. But, knowing what my ideal location would be tells me some things about the kind of places I should seek out for writing. It is important for me to be somewhere with something nice to look at. I draw inspiration from my surroundings. It is also best if I am in a quiet place, with few distractions.

What would your ideal writing location look like?

Do you enjoy the quiet or do you like a bit of bustling around you as you write? How important is your view? Do you prefer to write in a warm place or a cool place? Do you want to hear birds chirping, conversation buzzing, classical music, top 40 hits, cars whizzing by, or nothing at all? There is no right or wrong answer to this question, but thinking of your ideal writing spot can help you figure out where is best for you to write and where is simply not conducive.



I know for sure that the most important thing for me is a minimum of distractions. That is why it is sometimes difficult for me to write at home, where there is laundry to be done, clothes to be picked up, plates to be washed, and lots of snacks in the kitchen to be eaten. My office can be a good location sometimes, but only when it is fairly well organized and my door is closed – signaling to potential visitors that I am busy.

My office and home have the advantage of being quiet, for the most part. And, I prefer the quiet for writing. But, I am willing to sacrifice that for the lively energy of a coffee shop. Thus, two days a week, I make my way to a local coffee shop to write. When the next table gets a bit rowdy, I pull out my earphones and put on classical music.

Other people find that quietness is the most important aspect of a writing space. Thus, they seek out library carrels, empty conference rooms, home offices, and secluded cabins in the woods.

Choose a good place to write because writing is important

Choosing a suitable writing spot also has the advantage of signaling to yourself that writing is important enough to you for you to make the effort to find the best place possible to do it. Doing so can be empowering insofar as you are not only writing, but acting like a writer, like someone who writes and takes it seriously.

Think about it. What would be your ideal writing spot? If you can’t recreate that space in your current environment, what aspects of it can you recreate? Can you find the quiet, the inspiration, the movement, the view, the space you need anywhere close to where you are?

Of course, you probably can write anywhere. However, as a writer, you deserve to treat yourself by finding the best location possible for your writing.

Here are ten ideas for writing locations:

1. A library carrel
2. The public library
3. An empty conference room
4. A coffee shop
5. Your home office
6. Your work office
7. Your backyard
8. Your front porch
9. A local park or arboretum
10. A friend's house

Pick wherever works best for you and let the ideas flow!

How To Concentrate Better and Focus on Your Writing

To write, I need to concentrate. To concentrate, I need to have a clear mind. And, when something is bothering me, it is hard to have a clear mind, and, consequently, to write. So, how do you write when you have too much on your mind?

The simple answer is that you can not write when your mind is preoccupied with other things. To concentrate, you have to get the problem off your mind. The difficulty that clearing your mind involves depends on how big of a problem you have. Some problems can be taken care of fairly easily, whereas others are much bigger and require major steps. Let’s start with the easy kind of problems.

Annoyances with an Easy Fix

Let’s say you can’t write because you cannot stop thinking about an annoying email from a student asking you if they can enroll in your class even though they will miss 75% of the class sessions because of baseball practice and you can’t get it off of your mind. (Of course, you should not have opened your email before writing, but, that’s beside the point.) The best thing to do in this situation is to respond to the email.

Do something about the situation instead of letting it bother you. Tell the student attendance is required in your class, and that you cannot make any exceptions. Then, close the browser window and get back to writing.

If you are having general problems with concentrating, you also might consider doing meditation, which has been shown to enhance concentration.

Respond to What's Bothering You and Get it Out of Your System

This technique – of responding to situations that bother you to get them off of your mind – also can work for more complex problems. If, for example, your chair just asked you to serve on yet another committee even though you are already on five other committees and you are all riled up about what to do about it, the best thing to do is to send a firm email explaining why this is not a good time for you to take on another committee assignment. Again, act, and get it out of your system.

Suppose your problem is that you have just received a rejection letter from a journal and feel depressed about your academic future. The best thing to do is to be pro-active. Take out a pen and make a plan for submitting the article to another journal. Set a firm date as a goal for beginning the revisions and for submission. Having a plan will make it easier to move forward.

Acknowledge Your Emotions and Work with Them

It is essential to acknowledge your emotions and to work with them. If you had an argument with your partner this morning, and can’t get it off of your mind, sometimes it is best to acknowledge that you are upset, and to engage in tasks that do not require much concentration. You can fix the bibliography on your latest manuscript or organize those articles that are piling up on your desk. Who knows, you might even calm yourself down while you are busy looking up citation formats in the Chicago Manual of Style.

Of course, there are some problems that are not going away any time soon. You may be involved in a custody battle with your spouse. Your mother may be dying of cancer. You may be on the brink of divorce. To figure out how to be productive in those very trying circumstances is much less simple.

The first question you have to ask yourself is: how long is this going to last? If your sister has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and will die within the next thirty days, by all means, drop everything and spend every minute you can with her. If, on the other hand, you have a mentally-ill brother who requires long-term care, you have to decide how much of a role you are going to play in his care, and set limits to the amount of time and energy you give him.

Setting limits on what you can do for your loved ones is difficult. But, often, it is for the best. If you depend on your job for your financial solvency, it would be detrimental in the long term for you to spend so much time caring for others that you end up losing your job. Once you have lost your job, you likely will be of much less use to your loved ones who rely on your emotional and financial support. So, be sure to keep the long-term in mind.

Finally, do not hesitate to seek out professional help if you are having trouble dealing with your problems on your own. If you find yourself unable to move forward with your life or your work because of constant emotional setbacks, your best bet is to seek out a qualified therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist who can help you to find the most appropriate solutions for you.

Four Rules for Finding Your Writing Groove… when you’ve lost it.

Have you lost your writing groove? Some of us started the year off with great productivity, but many are seeing the beginning of a mid-semester slump. This post is directed at those of us who have taken a break and are ready to get back on the writing wagon.

Rule # 1: Plan First, Write Second

There are two kinds of writing-related thinking, and they are hard to do at the same time. The first kind revolves around planning what to work on and the second kind is actual execution. Planning ahead makes execution easier.

If I sit down at the computer without a plan, I end up spending the better part of my precious writing time figuring out what I am supposed to work on. This inevitably leads to procrastination, and little productive writing. Instead, when I sit down and my planner tells me I am supposed to be enhancing the data section with additional quotes for my article on transnational networks, then I know exactly what to do.

To get back on the writing track, spend some time before your designated writing time planning out exactly which tasks you need to accomplish. Planning your writing tasks ahead of time facilitates the execution of them.

Rule # 2: Designate a specific time as your starting point

Saying that you will write on Monday morning is a good thing. Deciding you will write on Monday morning from 8am to 10am and putting it in your calendar is even better. When you treat your writing time as an important appointment with yourself, you are much more likely to stick to it. Take a good look at your calendar and decide exactly when and where you will begin your writing.

Rule # 3: Make writing a habit by doing it every day at the same time

When you sit down and plan out your week, try and find a time that you can dedicate each day of the week to writing. If you get into the groove of writing every day from 7am to 8am, it eventually will become a habit and it will be easier to stick to your writing schedule.

If you develop a routine of having coffee every morning and sitting in front of your laptop, eventually, your brain will know that after coffee comes writing. By the same token, if you make your way to a coffeeshop to write after dropping the kids off at school each morning, your brain will begin to recognize this routine.

Rule # 4: Make planning for your week a habit by doing it every week

A weekly plan serves as a roadmap for the week, and it will help you move forward on your writing tasks when you have a better idea as to where you are going and what you have to do to get there. Start this semester off right by making a weekly plan for your first week back at work.

Some people sit down and do their weekly planning meetings on Friday evenings, others on Sunday mornings. It does not matter when you do it, but it does matter that you do it and it helps if you do it at the same time each week.

Taking breaks from writing for holidays, rest, celebration, or any other reason is important and provides much-needed relaxation and renovation. If your break was intentional, congratulate yourself for taking care of your mind and body and preparing yourself for the new year. If your break was unintentional, it likely is the case that your mind and body needed a break and took one for themselves, even as you tried to get them to work. Either way, release yourself from any guilt about what you have not yet accomplished and focus on setting reasonable, achievable writing goals for yourself.

I wish you a productive, happy rest of the semester.

Writing is easy

The past few posts this year have been about daily writing. I have set out the evidence for you that daily writing is a proven strategy for productivity. I have listed ten ways to write every day. I have explained how you can be productive by writing two hours a day. I have explored how to infuse creative energy into your daily writing. And, I have suggested that you just do it: sit down and write.

If you have read all of these posts, my question for you is: have you tried daily writing yet?

If you have started writing every day, that is excellent news. All you have to do now is persevere.

If, after reading all of these posts, you still cannot or have not carved out at least 30 minutes in your day for writing, I assure you, you are not alone.



I have worked as a writing coach, both for individuals, and as part of the New Faculty Success Program. Working as a writing coach, it became clear to me that people have different relationships to their writing, and that not everyone will write every day simply because they know that it is the best way to be productive.

It took me a while to understand that people face resistance to their writing because that was not my experience. Once I became convinced that I should at least try daily writing, I tried it and it worked. I had to work out a few kinks, but was able to implement the strategy immediately. I am not sure why some people face more resistance to their writing than others, nor why I rarely experience resistance to my writing. I just know that some people do and others do not.

I have been at a conference over the past few days, and have been delighted to meet many readers of this blog. When I meet people who read the blog, they often express awe at my ability to write on a consistent basis. I usually am unsure how to respond, as there is not a big secret to my productivity. It is a direct result of my sitting down and writing every day. Each morning, I sit down to write and, slowly but surely, articles and books are the end result.

I do understand that writing is not easy for everyone. However, I did want to share with you that it is easier for some people. I’d also like to make sure you know that people who do face resistance to their writing can be successful. For those who face resistance, being a productive writer requires overcoming that resistance.

I have written about this before. I discuss some strategies for overcoming resistance in this post on moving through your writing block and in this one on getting through your writing resistance.

Here are three more examples of strategies you can implement that may help you find the time to write.

1. Turn off the Internet on your computer before you go to sleep. When you wake up, go straight to your computer and write for at least 30 minutes before switching the Internet back on.
2. Before ending your work day, write down on a note pad exactly what your writing task will be the next day. For example, you could write: “Insert paragraph on strategic essentialism into literature review section of article.” Begin your next day with that task.
3. Find a writing accountability partner. This can be via phone or in person. If it is via phone, you designate a time to call one another and agree to write for a set period of time. Once that time is up, you call back to report. If you do this in person, you simply meet the other person somewhere and write together.

There are countless other strategies that you could implement to overcome your resistance to writing. The important thing to keep in mind is that you do not have to change yourself as a person to become a better and more productive writer. You simply have to change your behavior, and find strategies that work for you that ensure your productivity.

As you work on building time for writing into you day, keep in mind that the majority of writers face some sort of resistance to their writing and that many are able to overcome this resistance and produce scholarly material.

I do not know why some people face resistance to writing and others do not. I simply know that resistance to writing is a common problem in academia. And, I find comfort in the fact that I have witnessed many people overcome that resistance. I hope you do as well.

Start Writing and Don’t Stop

Do you have a writing project that you can’t seem to get moving on? Is there an article you need to finish, a short essay you need to begin, or page proofs you must attend to?

We all have different relationships with our writing, and most people have at least one kind of writing they find harder than other kinds. In this post, I will discuss one strategy that will help you to finish that very project that seems interminable.

The strategy I suggest is to find 20 to 30 minutes a day each weekday to dedicate to the project. (Or, try using a pomodoro timer.) When the time comes to work on it, turn off all distractions. Turn off your phone. Cut off the Internet. Put all of your reading material away. Open the document and work on it for 20 to 30 minutes.


Do not stop before 20 minutes are up for any reason. Well, anything that is not a real emergency, like a fire alarm. If, while writing, you realize you need a reference, or need to double-check a piece of information, or need to go back to your data, do not stop to check anything. Instead, make a note to yourself about that and find something else to do in the document that does not require fact-checking.

If you get stuck on a word choice, put down both words. You can make stylistic and grammatical changes later. There is no need to stop to check the thesaurus.

Don’t stop to check your data or to fix your tables. Just keep going and make a note to yourself.

Don’t stop for anything. It is only 20 to 30 minutes, and nearly all phone calls, emails, visitors, and even bathroom breaks can wait.

If you dedicate just 20 to 30 minutes to your writing project, you will be surprised to see how quickly you are able to move it along.

When you are nearly done, or when you find yourself with more time and less resistance, you may be able to take a longer writing session to tie things up. You can also use longer writing sessions to go back and check your references, make word choice changes, and fix your tables.

Concentrated, short writing sessions are often the best time to produce new prose, as this process takes lots of mental energy. By working on your project every day, with whatever time you have available, the ideas around the project will percolate in the back of your mind throughout the day, making it easier to get back in the saddle and begin to write again when the time comes.

Ready, Set, Write!

How to Be Productive by Writing Two Hours a Day

You can be extraordinarily productive by writing two hours a day, five days a week. I know because I practice daily writing and it works.

Many writers find the suggestion to write for two hours every day ludicrous and instead aim to write eight hours a day. Unable to write for eight hours, they berate themselves and spend lots of time thinking how much less productive they are than other writers.



I have tried many different ways of convincing writers that it is much better to write for two hours a day and move on to other things than to try incessantly to write all day without success. The former leads to feeling accomplished and productive on a daily basis, whereas the latter leads to burnout and less productivity. It may not make sense, but it is true: writing for two hours a day is a much more effective long-term strategy than trying to write for eight.

In 2007, I was lucky enough to have a post-doctoral fellowship that involved very few responsibilities. This seems like an ideal situation for someone who wants to write and be productive. I showed up to my office every day and tried to write for as long as I could. Usually I would burn out by lunch time. Other days, I would intend to write, yet find myself surfing around on the Internet or staring at the wall.

I decided to try to write for just two hours a day. It worked, and my writing projects began to move forward. However, I always had this sneaking feeling that I should be trying to write more. With 24 hours in the day, how could I dedicate just two to writing? One week, I decided to try and write as much as possible. I hammered out a full conference paper in one week by writing four to six hours a day. The next week, I showed up at my office on Monday and had trouble getting started. After a few minutes of writing, my mind began to wander and  I found myself surfing the Internet. That week went much less well than the previous one. My experiment taught me that I need to be mindful of my limits. If I over-extend my brain, it won't work as well the next week. I went back to writing two hours a day, and only try to write for three to four hours on an emergency basis.

Last year - 2011 - I wrote for two hours a day, Monday to Friday, for most of the year. I'd venture a guess that I did this about 46 of the 52 weeks during the year.

During the Spring 2011 semester, I wrote every day, Monday to Friday, for two hours. I did lots of different things during those two hours, but I mostly drafted new text, revised old drafts, and took notes from books and articles. Between January 1 and May 1, in four months, I drafted a total of about 42,000 words of new text. A large chunk of that writing - 25,000 words - was the first draft of my third book: Due Process Denied: Detentions and Deportations in the United States. 

It took me about 80 working days to write 42,000 new words, an average of about 525 words a day. Keep in mind that these 42,000 words were very rough drafts, and that I spent much of the remainder of the year revising these drafts. Nevertheless, by December 2011, my third book was in press and the remainder of those words (an article and a book chapter) were under review. Thus, even if I did not write any new text after May 2011, and only revised what I had written, this would have been a productive year.

During the Summer, I did spend a lot of time revising, and also wrote a small amount of new text. I wrote and/or revised for two hours a day for at least two months during the summer. By the end of the summer, I had written about 8,000 new words. In addition, I finalized and revised the short book that I drafted in the Spring, and completed a "revise and resubmit" from a journal. I also analyzed and coded some of my interviews.

During the Fall Semester, I also wrote two hours a day, every day, Monday to Friday, most of the time. There were a few exceptions when I was traveling, but I tried to make up for it. The Fall semester was not as productive as the Spring. In all, I wrote about 21,000 new words. I did not write as many new words as in the Spring because I spent quite a bit of time revising, in addition to taking notes, reading, and preparing and delivering ten presentations.

During AY 2011, then, I wrote about 70,000 new words. I almost never wrote more than two hours a day. There were also very few weekdays when I did not write. The major exceptions are during July when I took a two-week vacation and December when I took another two-week vacation from writing. Taking vacations allows me to maintain my equilibrium, renew my creativity, restore my energy, and continue to be productive.

If you focus on writing every day, you can’t help but be productive. Trying to write more than humanly possible will lead only to frustration and burnout. The best way to be productive and stress-free is to write every day for two hours a day on a consistent basis.

For me, the rewards are clear. The short book I drafted during Spring 2011 will be released in Spring 2012: Due Process Denied: Detentions and Deportations in the United States

Ten ways To Write Every Day

If you have been following my advice and writing every day this semester, congratulations! If you haven't, ask yourself "why not?" If you need some ideas on how to actually write every day, then this post is for you!

“Write every day” is fabulous advice. But, how do you actually do it? That was my question for a long time before I convinced myself to give it a try. Now that I have been writing every day for five years, I can share with you a few ways to make that possible, and explain to you why I wake up each weekday morning and write.

Why you need to write every day

I decided I needed to try to write every day when I found out that scholars who write daily and hold themselves accountable write nearly ten times as much as others! In Robert Boice’s article, he explains the virtues of writing every day. Boice describes a study where he divided new faculty into three groups and recorded their writing productivity:

• The first group did not change their writing habits, and continued to write occasionally in big blocks of time; in one year they wrote an average of 17 pages
• The second group wrote daily and kept a record of their writing; they averaged 64 pages
• The third group wrote daily, kept a daily record, and held themselves accountable to someone weekly; this group's average was 157 pages (Boice 1989:609). 

Once I read those findings, I was convinced I should at least try daily writing.

How to write every day

After deciding I needed to write every day, my greatest challenge was to figure out what it meant to write every day. I asked myself, "What counts as daily writing?" To find out, I dove in and tried to write every day. I joined an online writing accountability group where I could record my writing progress and talk to other daily writers about the practice.

Eventually, I came to realize that writing means a lot of things and that there are lots of ways to write every day. Daily writing works for two reasons: 1) It ensures you are moving forward with your writing projects. 2) It keeps you engaged with your writing. Thus, any activity that accomplishes these two goals counts as daily writing.

Here are ten ways you can write every day:

1. Write on a blank page
2. Line-edit something you have already written
3. Restructure a paper that you have been working on
4. Pull together pieces of older documents you have written into a new paper
5. Check references and footnotes for accuracy
6. Outline or mind-map a new project
7. Summarize or take notes on something you have read recently that might be relevant to present or future research projects
8. Make a revision plan for a rejected article or a “revise and resubmit”
9. Make tables, figures, graphs, or images to represent visually concepts or trends in a paper
10. Create an After-the-fact or Reverse Outline

If you think of writing as only #1): Write on a blank page, it will be hard to do that every single day. However, it you are open to other kinds of writing, it will be possible to do at least one of these kinds of writing every day.

I try to do at least two kinds of writing each day, starting with the blank page in the morning. I am at my best early in the morning. That is my prime time. I use those early, fresh moments of the day to free-write and to create new material. Once I run out of steam, I might turn to editing something I have written or to checking references. If I get stuck, I will pull out a mind map and brainstorm ideas.

My routine each weekday, then, is to begin the day with writing or writing-related tasks. On a good day, I can concentrate for two hours. Usually, however, my mind drifts after an hour, so I take a break to check email or have some coffee, and put in another hour after my break. I keep track of the time I have spent working on writing so that I can be proud of my accomplishments, and so that I know when I need to stop.

I know that many academics reject as ridiculous the idea that one could or should write every day. To them, I would gently ask if they have ever tried it. And, I would add that it is not only important to try writing every day, but to commit to trying it for at least a month to see if it works for you. It is also important to have others to whom you are accountable and with whom you can share your struggles.

If you do try writing every day, let me know how it goes! If you are a seasoned daily writer, let me know why you keep it up!

Want to Become a Prolific Scholar? Try Daily Writing!

Daily writing is the best way to ensure consistent and amazing productivity.

Are you waiting for a strike of inspiration for you to write? Do you keep reading and thinking, hoping that the muse will visit you, and when she does, that you will produce pages and pages of prose? Or, do you wait until the weekend or the break to write, with the idea that you will have long blocks of uninterrupted time? If any of those questions resonate with you, you are not alone. Many writers think that they write best when they are inspired.

The truth is that inspiration is most likely to come when you sit down and begin to write.



A study by Robert Boice, reported in his book, Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing, provides concrete evidence for two concepts: 1) writing daily produces more writing and more ideas and 2) writing accountability works.

The Test: Does Writing Accountability Work?

To find out if daily writing and accountability can be effective, Robert Boice conducted a test with 27 faculty members who desired help with improving their writing productivity. He put the 27 faculty into three groups and examined their writing productivity for ten weeks.

The first group was instructed to write only if they had to write, but asked to keep a log of creative ideas for writing. The idea behind this group was that planned abstinence would lead to the production of creative ideas for writing when the time came.

The second group scheduled writing sessions five days a week for ten weeks, but was encouraged to write only when they were in the mood. They also were asked to take the time they had scheduled for writing to log a new creative idea for writing each day. The idea behind this group was that writing only when they were in the mood would be favorable for creativity.

The third group agreed to a strict accountability plan. They scheduled five writing sessions a week for ten weeks, and kept a log of creative ideas for writing. To ensure that they would write every day, the members of this group gave Boice a pre-paid check for $25, made out to a hated organization. If they failed to write in any of their planned sessions, Boice would mail the check. The idea behind this group was that forced writing would require the group to come up with creative ideas for writing. This group was based on the Clockwork Muse theory - the idea that if you write on a regular basis, your muse will show up each time you sit down to write.

The Results: Daily Writing and Accountability Work

Boice’s study revealed:

• Abstinent writers produced an average of 0.2 pages per day, and only one idea per week.
• Spontaneous writers produced an average of 0.9 pages per day, and one creative idea every two days.
• Forced writers produced an average of 3.2 pages and one creative idea each day.

These results show that, contrary to what one might think, creativity can be forced. Sitting down and making yourself write every day is a great way to make those creative juices flow.

How to Write Every Day

The lesson here for writers is to not wait until you feel like writing to write – as that might not happen very often – but to schedule your writing every day, show up to your writing session, and keep track of when you do and do not write.

This week, I suggest you try this method of becoming a prolific writer by scheduling in 15 to 120 minutes of writing in each weekday, and keeping track of how much you write each day.

I look forward to hearing how this strategy works for you.

Another Secret to Success: Hiring a Professional Editor

One of the secrets of academic success is that many academics use professional editors to help them move towards publication. This may come as a surprise if you are not aware of this common practice, but it is a strategy worth trying for many academic writers.

When I was in graduate school, I met with one of my mentors – a new Assistant Professor – and asked her if she planned to submit an article based on a recent talk she had given. She told me that the manuscript was too long and she was considering hiring a professional editor to get it from 10,000 to 8,000 words. I was astonished.

I had no idea that academics used professional editors, and something about it did not seem right. The idea that an intellectual would pay someone to do their intellectual labor did not sit well with me.

It was not until many years later, after I finished graduate school and had a job of my own, that I came to see the benefits of using a professional editor. Moreover, I began to use one myself. In this post, I will discuss three of the benefits to using a professional editor. 1) Many academics do not have the skills to edit their own work. Using a professional editor is one way to teach yourself those skills. 2) Professional editors are just that, professionals. This means that they can edit your work quickly and professionally and save you time. 3) Using a professional editor can help get your work accepted at top journals.

Using a professional editor will improve your writing

Most graduate programs do not include writing training. As a consequence, many academics are not very good writers. We split verbs, dangle modifiers, use too many adjectives, use long and convoluted sentences, mis-use words, and misplace punctuation marks. Using a professional editor will help you to see which errors you commit most frequently, and to correct them. The first time I used an editor, I learned grammar and style rules I never had known before and realized that I repeated the same errors over and over again. The best way to find out which errors you make most frequently is to have a professional edit your text and tell you.

Using a professional editor will save you time

For those of you on the tenure clock, time is of the essence. The less time you spend poring over every detail of your article, the quicker you can get it under review and accepted. Paying a professional editor a couple of hundred dollars to turn your almost-finished article into a well-polished piece of work can be a fantastic investment. It is no secret that many academics are perfectionists. Paying someone to do the final editing can take off some of that pressure to be perfect and save you a lot of time. It may seem like a lot of money to pay for an editor, but, sometimes, you have to ask yourself: "What is the cost of not hiring an editor?" Additionally, if you have research funds, this is a perfectly legitimate use of them.

Using a professional editor will help you get more articles accepted

A well-written paper gives you an edge in the peer review process. When reviewers receive papers that have grammatical errors, it turns them off. Many think that your grammatical carelessness could be indicative of carelessness in other areas. If you write “loose” instead of “lose,” perhaps you coded a variable incorrectly or did not transcribe your interview quotes or archival documents with precision. On the other hand, having an article free of grammatical and stylistic errors allows reviewers to focus exclusively on the quality of your work, and not on your minor errors. Even if your article is not accepted, the feedback you receive will be more useful as the reviewers’ critiques will not be influenced by their negative opinions of your writing.

Have a nearly finished article on your desk that you are nervous about sending out? Consider sending it to a professional editor to help you get to that last hurdle of finishing and submitting it.

Looking for a professional editor?

As people often ask me to recommend professional editors, I keep a list of active professional editors. Hopefully one of these editors will work out for you. Like writers, editors have different styles, and it can be hard to find one whose style matches your own.


KATE EPSTEIN
Kate Epstein's helped many writers bring their books into the world. She'll point out the weaknesses in your arguments, show you how to use structure to make your writing easier to read, and all the while cheerlead for your work. Assistant Professor of Sociology Joan Maya Mazelis at Rutgers University wrote, "Whether early or late in your writing process, whether you need help hashing out ideas and figuring out what you want to say or you need line-by-line editing services to make your arguments clearer and stronger, Kate is an excellent developmental editor!" You can find her at www.epsteinwords.com or email her at kate@epsteinwords.com.

Here are Kate's 2015 prices:

$75/hour for substantive editing (10% off for students and post-docs)
$85/hour for coaching (10% off for students and post-docs)
query critique and feedback $90 (flat fee)
publishing consultation for folks dealing with trade publishers $125/hour
literary contract review $200 (flat)
copyediting $0.02/word (see website for some additional fees that apply for extra checking)
thesis prep (making a dissertation conform to official guidelines) $45/hour

rush fee 10%, typically only if a client’s schedule absolutely requires working at night/on the weekend/on a holiday

DEIRDRE GOLASH
Contact info: https://www.elance.com/s/deirdreg/ or esperata@gmail.com

Analytical thinker (J.D., Ph.D.) with a fine eye for style, grammar, and punctuation (top 1% on several skills tests). Send me your your rough draft or your completed manuscript, and let me massage your logic, smooth your style, and nit-pick your grammar and punctuation. You'll be glad you did.

Understanding the structure of arguments is the foundation of analytic philosophy, my core discipline. I will make sure that your article -- whatever the discipline -- provides a well-structured, conceptually sound argument for its conclusion.

I've been a university professor in an interdisciplinary department (Justice, Law and Society) for the last twenty years. I teach courses on theories of justice, legal theory, Western legal tradition and social ethics (as well as a doctoral-level class on writing for publication). I've published two scholarly books and a number of articles in philosophy of law. I look forward to sharing my expertise with you.

I specialize in what I know best: academic writing. I can provide any level of writing help from simple proofreading for grammar, punctuation and word usage to substantive editing for conceptual and logical soundness. I can help you get your piece from ideas to outline, from outline to rough draft, from rough draft to final version, or from substantively complete to publishable. I am available for phone conversations to discuss the work where appropriate.

(Disclaimer: Deirdre Golash is my mother.)


KRISTY JOHNSON
I've really enjoyed working with Kristy Johnson: she's fast, knows her stuff, has an eagle eye, and brings what I have found to be very useful insights to my writing (in other words, she's not afraid to tell me when I make no sense). So the next time you find yourself in the final stages of writing a manuscript you've read one too many times, let Kristy give it a fresh look, clean up your mess, and get you one step closer to publication! I no longer send out an article without passing it by Kristy first, and my nerves are the better for it. You can email her at poet300@msn.com.

Kristy S. Johnson –MFA in creative writing, Freelance Editor for 10 years.
Focuses: Dissertations/Thesis, Academic Articles/Book Chapters, Newsletters, Annual Reports, CVS/Resumes, Fiction and Non- Fiction Books, etc. Field focuses: Humanities, Social Sciences and Education. Services & Fees: Proofreading/Copy Editing, $2/page, Content Editing, $4/page (non-book length), Content/Copy Editing for books negotiable.

KATHLEEN WOOD
Kathleen (Sarah) Wood, an editor in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has provided editing and transcription services for academics and other professionals throughout the country since 1989. She has edited dissertations, proposals, papers, and books for professors and students in a broad range of fields. She has extensive experience in transcription of interviews and focus groups for qualitative researchers. Her business sector experience includes report editing and research assistance for marketing companies, transcription of oral histories, newsletter formatting and editing, and more. For more information on her services, she can be contacted at sarahchava@aol.com, or 734-929-2866

MORELIA RIVAS
Morelia is an English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English translator who specializes in producing thorough, high-quality media and academic translations. She also offers editing and proofreading services and takes great care to provide quality work for your media and academic needs.

Contact info:
mprtranslation@gmail.com
miprivas@gmail.com
mprtranslation.com

Five Steps to Writing a Stellar Introduction to an Academic Paper

An introduction is the most important part of an academic article. Thus, in academic writing, as in all writing, you want to make your introduction as clear and compelling as possible. Your introduction should motivate the reader to turn the page.

The introduction is your chance to make it clear why your paper is important. I find Wendy Belcher’s advice on writing introductions to be quite useful, and provide my own, slightly modified, version of it in this post.



An introduction to an academic paper needs to accomplish five things:

1. Draw your reader in and convince them they should care about your topic
2. State your argument clearly
3. Render evident your contribution to scholarship
4. Establish your expertise.
5. Define your terms

It’s a lot to do in two to four paragraphs, but a quick perusal through journal articles will make it clear that it is feasible.

Step 1: Draw the Reader in

My two favorite ways of beginning academic articles are with anecdotes or shocking statistics. For an article on deportees, I may begin with “In 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported 387,242 people—thirteen times as many as in 1991.” Alternatively, I could start the paper with “Leroy moved with his parents to the United States as a legal permanent resident in 1978 when he was seven years old. He did not return to Jamaica until 1999, when he was deported for drug possession.”

Another effective opening involves beginning with an argumentative statement such as “The deportation of the adopted children of U.S. citizens represents one of the most egregious violations of human rights in contemporary America.” Alternatively, you can go straight to theory: “Scholars of transnationalism focus on the diminishing meaning of national borders. Deportation, however, solidifies these borders.” Finally, you can start with a question such as: “Once forcibly returned to their countries of birth, why and how do deportees participate in transnational relationships?”

There are many ways to draw the reader in. If you are having trouble figuring out how to begin your article, consider trying each of these approaches and seeing which one you find most effective.

Step 2: State your argument clearly

An academic article should not be written like a mystery novel. Instead, you need to state your argument clearly and early on.

One of my favorite definitions for what constitutes an argument comes from Wendy Belcher, who writes: “an argument is a statement to which you can coherently respond “I agree” or “I disagree”.” In my article on Jamaican deportees, my argument is as follows: “Jamaican deportees use transnational ties as coping strategies, and face a gendered stigma because of this.” This is a statement with which one could agree or disagree.

In contrast, it would not be a viable for me to state “I contend that Jamaican deportees are people forcibly returned to their countries of birth.” That is just stating the obvious.

Step 3: Render Evident Your Contribution to Scholarship

Scholarly writing is not just about making a good argument; you also must make it clear how you are contributing to scholarly knowledge. Even if it is true that most Americans think that undocumented workers don’t pay taxes, you can’t publish an academic article solely on the basis that it demonstrates that undocumented workers do pay taxes, because specialists in this field already know this. Your research must contribute to current literature in your field, and your introduction has to make it clear what your contribution is.

In my article on deportees, then, in addition to arguing that Jamaican deportees use transnational ties as coping strategies, and that they face a gendered stigma because of this, I had to explain how this contributes to the literature in this subfield. I accomplished this by pointing out that although transnationalism has been studied extensively, we know relatively little about 1) why migrants choose to participate in transnational practices; 2) how the uniquely stressful experience of deportation might affect these practices; and 3) how gender affects reliance on transnational affective ties. Because my research is qualitative, I had to be sure that the kinds of contributions I was planning to make were congruent with the sorts of questions I could ask as a qualitative researcher.

Step 4: Establish Your Expertise

At some point in your introduction, it is crucial to point out the basis on which you are making your claims. For social scientists, this generally means your data, whether you completed statistical analysis of a national data set, qualitative interviews, ethnography, content analysis, or comparative historical work. You do not need to go into detail with regard to your methodology – that goes in the methods section. However, you should state the basis of your expertise at some point in your introduction. For folks in the humanities, make some mention of the texts, documents, music, or other media you have analyzed to show readers the basis upon which you are making your arguments.

Step 5: Define Your Terms

Your article likely deals with concepts with which the general public might not be familiar. The introduction is a good place to define these terms. In my paper on the transnational ties of Jamaican deportees, for example, it seemed pertinent to define both deportation and transnationalism.

As I was writing this blog post, I edited my introduction on the paper I am currently editing to ensure that I followed my own advice. I paste it below, not as an example of an ideal introduction, but as a demonstration of my attempt to follow my own advice. Here it is:

TITLE: Forced Transnationalism: Transnational Coping Strategies and Gendered Stigma among Jamaican Deportees

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported 387,242 people—thirteen times as many as in 1991. Deportation is the forced removal of a non-citizen from a host country to one’s country of citizenship, a form of state-sponsored forced migration. The high and increasing rate of deportation has important consequences for the study of migration; however, deportation has yet to receive the attention of migration scholars. With more than one thousand people deported every day from the United States, it is safe to say we are in an era of mass deportation. How do deportees fit into our understanding of migration? What sorts of ties do people legally barred from traveling to the United States maintain with that country? This article addresses these questions by asking how and why Jamaican deportees maintain transnational ties.

The question of why people engage in transnational exchanges is important because not all migrants participate in these exchanges. Transnational migrants are a subset of international migrants who retain significant ties to their country of origin while settling into the host country (Parreñas 2010; Wiles 2008). Guarnizo, Portes and Haller (2003), for example, found that only 10 to 15 percent of the Salvadoran and Dominican migrants in their survey regularly participated in transnational exchanges. The relative rarity of habitual transnationalism raises the question of why only some migrants use transnational strategies. Transnational practices refer to cross-border activities, and include activities that literally and symbolically cross national borders, meaning that migrants need not travel to participate in these practices (De Bree, Davids, and de Haas 2010). This is pertinent for deportees, whose international travel is often greatly restricted.

Analyses of the cross-border engagements of Jamaican deportees shed light on how the forced, shameful, and physically and emotionally stressful experience of deportation affects how and why deportees participate in transnational practices. My analyses of 37 interviews with Jamaican deportees render it evident that deportees use transnational practices as coping strategies to deal with financial and emotional hardship. This argument builds on research about the transnational material and affective ties of voluntary labor migrants. Other scholars have found that transnational ties provide female migrants with social connections and support networks (Domínguez and Lubitow 2008), emotional support (Viruell-Fuentes 2006), and affective connections (Burman 2002). Although the deportees I studied were primarily male not female, I found they also relied heavily on transnational material and affective ties. Scholars have found that return migrants use transnational strategies to gain social status (Goldring 1998) and to create a sense of belonging upon return home (De Bree, Davids, and de Haas 2010). The shame associated with deportation means that transnational ties do not bring social status to deportees. In addition, the notion of “home” is complicated for those deportees who have spent most of their lives in the United States.

Deportation creates economic hardship as well as a sense of alienation, shame and isolation. The shame of dependence is exacerbated by gendered expectations that men should be able not only to take care of themselves, but also to provide for others (Lewis 2007). Due to a gendered stigma of men unable to provide for themselves and their children and incapable of controlling their emotions, many deportees found their newfound material and emotional dependence to be shameful. Deportees face a paradoxical situation: they use transnational coping strategies to relieve their financial and emotional hardships. Because of gendered expectations of themselves and others, these same strategies remind them of their isolation and inability to provide for themselves, thereby reinforcing their sense of shame and isolation.