Many academic writers fear that their work is not good enough and not important enough, and also that they themselves are not good enough. Such doubts are well-known in academia, and recognized by the phrase “imposter syndrome.” Trying to write often triggers such doubts and their subsequent anxiety, which interferes with the focus needed for good writing. If you’re thinking “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t have anything worth saying,” your focus is being drawn away from the things that you do have to say, and how to say them effectively to reach your audience.
Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: May 20, 2022
Ray Bradbury once said, “Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.”
The type of career you make for yourself as an academic author is made up of many factors. In our collection of articles from around the web this week, we find posts addressing several of those affecting today’s academic writers including: finding your motivation, establishing an ideal writing space, managing your time, building community, and the future of conferences.
No matter where you are in your career as an academic author, know that you are not a failure as long as you keep working toward your goals. Happy writing!
Is distraction free writing possible in the digital age?
I was intrigued years ago, when I first saw the cell phone feature that replied to a text that I was driving. I wondered where my life feature was “no emails, no phone notifications, no meetings: I am writing.”
While we are masters of where we focus our attention, small housekeeping habits may help our writing, and in fact help us.
Feed your research agenda with Feedly
With the amount of information published daily, it can seem nearly impossible to “stay current” in your field of study and find the time to write, teach, or conduct research. Periodic Internet searches, Google alerts, and scholarly databases make the process a bit easier, but the massive result sets on a single search phrase can be overwhelming.
What if there were a way to stay current on the topics you’re most interested in, from sources you trust and others you hadn’t yet heard of, without the time and effort of endless searching?
The good news is, there is! It’s the Artificial-Intelligence(AI)-driven tool, Feedly.
Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: May 13, 2022
Write. Revise. Repeat. A cycle of productivity for all academic authors, but when does it end? When is the project complete? And, what happens next?
In this week’s collection of articles from around the web, we find advice about making decisions about your writing, what to do after the draft, and how much revising is required. We also have resources on mid-career scholarship and collaboration efforts. Finally, we have some industry news on Creative Commons licensing and the book supply chain.
There’s also the philosophy of Saul Bellow who said, “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” So, I suppose that’s one way to increase productivity and avoid the need to revise. Happy writing!
Tips for anxious writers: Accept uncertainty; trust your practice
Anxiety and uncertainty often go hand in hand. If you’re certain that you’re right, you feel confident; if you have doubts, you feel anxiety. If you’re sure everything will turn out well, you feel confident; if you think you might not succeed, you feel anxiety. Research and research writing are fraught with unavoidable uncertainty that can trigger anxiety and drain confidence. Because uncertainty is unavoidable, it is necessary to be able to act despite uncertainty. In this post, I want to discuss different kinds of uncertainty, why so much uncertainty is inevitable, and how it is sometimes possible to decouple uncertainty and anxiety.