Between bouts of hating what we write, we may secretly admire our creations. And we’re entitled to. But there’s a difference between these feelings and excessive love of our own words. Such love blinds us to editorial blunders, judicious cutting, and revision, and reduces the possibilities of publication.
Dear dissertation advisers: Make sure student has defined the research purpose and question
Defining a good research question is crucial to developing a successful research project, and it is no easy task. For some, defining a good question comes easily, but for many, especially doctoral candidates who may have never developed their own research project before, it is a great hurdle. And, as I suggested in the previous post, if the research purpose and question aren’t defined, then there’s no point in your looking at other stuff: if your student hasn’t defined the research purpose clearly, they’ll have trouble making progress.
A good definition of research question or purpose is not only crucial, it’s usually really easy for a reader to find in skimming through a paper. Most drafts have several sentences that say things like “the purpose of this research is…” and “the research question is…”. These sentences need to be clear, and they need to agree with each other (multiple conflicting statements of purpose can often be found in early drafts of research).
19 Reasons to start a journal
A journal is a time-honored writer’s tool to record and develop ideas, work out projects and plots, and save meaningful aphorisms and perfect overheard phrases. We can use a journal for these, other issues, and any aspect of our writing. Whether you’ve kept a journal for decades, or have never started one, consider these tips not only to help you write more but also to make your writing more effective.
Tech tools for the professional writer
In the winter edition of TAA’s newsletter, I shared with you the importance of having the right tools on hand for your career as a writer and provided a list of 32 tools in eight categories to get you started. If you missed that article, you can read it here.
In this article I highlight a few more tech tools with the goal of helping you find the tools that fit best in your belt! In these last weeks of summer, I encourage you to explore some of these tools that you may not have time to experiment with during the school year. You may just find that they can help you free up valuable time as the busy fall semester comes around again.
Authors may be eligible for proposed IRS regulation on 20% deduction for income from pass-through businesses
Based on proposed regulations issued by the IRS and Treasury that would add a new provision of the Internal Revenue Code allowing owners of sole proprietorships, S corporations, LLCs, or partnerships a deduction of up to 20% of the income earned by the business, writers will be eligible for the deduction, said Robert Pesce, an accountant with Marcum LLP.
“I read the 184-page Proposed Regulations,” said Pesce. “There is nothing in the regs that excludes authors from the deduction or indicates an author is a SSTB [Specified Service Trade or Business category, which is excluded from the deduction].
Time and friendship and writing
As I’ve chosen to reduce socializing in favor of more writing time, I’ve chosen to keep up or reconnect with a very few friends and realize an essential characteristic of friendship: time doesn’t matter. However long the moments, weeks, or years between contacts, real friendship knows no steel-banded boundaries of time, distance, erratic mobile phone connections, or sporadic emails.
I recall a friend of twenty years ago who lived nearby and still cherish our many calls and visits. When we both moved, our interests diverged, and contact ended.