Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows once said, “I think you learn more if you’re laughing at the same time.” Right or wrong, it never hurts to laugh and can add to the experience. In fact, emotions of many kinds are essential elements to our learning and academic writing efforts.
In this week’s collection of articles from around the web, we see examples of emotion as it affects word choice, research strategy, racism and social justice issues, and more.
Many textbook and academic authors are recognized as the experts in their field – and for good reason. They have not only taken the time to learn the content in the discipline, but they have added to the knowledge base and published work to help others develop their own level of expertise. But when have we learned enough?
Hopefully our collection of article from around the web this week can help you learn something new to increase your mastery as an author.
As textbook and academic authors, we often know where we want to go, perhaps have some idea of how to get there, but are often caught with feelings of ill-preparedness, lack of knowledge or resources, and a general sense of self-reliance to produce our results. From the outside looking in, we may appear to be working hard with nothing to show for the effort.
Do you ever feel like your writing needs a change of perspective? Do you feel as though your creativity has run short or that you see your own bias in your writing rather than the true results of your research? According to Sydney J. Harris, “The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.”
Abraham Maslow once said, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” In this time of change in academia, catalyst by the past year of adaptations to learning processes as a result of the pandemic, there have been a multitude of problems and challenges. If there is a positive to the situation, however, it is that such problems have invoked creative responses and new tools shaping our future efforts.
In this week’s collection of posts from around the web, we see some new ideas for the future of our academic writing efforts.
How often do we look at the results of our work with frustration, disappointment, or even anger at failed attempts? As another semester of teaching came to a close, I found myself once again with students who were not satisfied with their overall grade in the class, seeking ways to make up for lost time to get better results. The problem, however, is not with the results, but with the effort (or lack thereof) throughout the process.
