In this TAA podcast, “The Art of Revising”, Rachael Cayley, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer at the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto, shares strategies to help you revise your academic writing. In particular, Rachael talks about different sorts of revision and the optimal way to sequence the revision process. By developing your overall capacity for revision, you can enhance your experience of writing and improve the eventual reception of your writing. Read Rachael’s article, “The Craft of Revision”, which is based on this podcast, on her blog, Explorations of Style.
TAA PODCAST: The Art of Revising
Use this revising strategy to make your writing flow
Q: What strategies do you use during the revision process?
A: Mike Kennamer: “Before I send the article to an editor, I always read it out loud as part of the editing process. I also try to get colleagues to read it and provide input before I send it off to the editor.
When a section just doesn’t seem to flow as I would like, I will print the article and (literally, with scissors) cut out each paragraph and lay it on the floor in the order that it is in for the article. Then I will start to move certain paragraphs around to see if that helps with flow. I use the floor because it gets me out of the normal place where I write. There is something about sitting on the floor with my work in little paragraph-sized slips of paper that helps [Read more…]
Poll: Do you edit while you write?
In a recent TAA webinar presented by Ashley Sanders, “How to Overcome the Perfectionism, Procrastination & Fatigue That Get in the Way of Your Writing,” a participant asked whether you should wait to edit until after you have completed a first draft, or if you should edit while you write. What do you do? Please use the poll below to record your answer.
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6 Do’s and don’ts of editing your dissertation
Picture this: You’ve just finished up the last paragraph of a section in your dissertation. Now comes the time to read over the whole chapter and edit it, even though you feel that you’ve been over it a million times, so maybe you’ll be fine without editing—right? Wrong. Editing your dissertation is one of the most important things you’ll do before submitting it and earning your doctorate, so here are some do’s and don’ts of editing your dissertation. [Read more…]
6 Tips for a productive summer break
Journal author and editor offer advice for writing articles for scientific journals
Writing journal articles can be demanding for an academic writer in any field, but authors seeking to publish their work in scientific journals face unique challenges.
Elaine Hull, a prolific writer in the fields of psychology and neuroscience, and Ushma Neill, an editor for The Journal of Clinical Investigation, offer the following advice for science writers:
- Find good coauthors. Collaborating with coauthors is often necessary to gain access to the equipment and experimental techniques you need to fully test your hypotheses, so it is very important to develop good relationships with colleagues. Hull urges writers in academia to seek out schools and departments with high levels of collegiality so it is easier to find collaborators.
- Start with your results section. When you’re ready to write, Neill recommends tackling the results section of an article first because what you end up including in the results section of the paper will influence what you need to discuss in the article’s methodology section and introduction. [Read more…]