For Your Most Productive Writing Sessions, Nine Questions

By Noelle Sterne, PhD

When we’re in the middle of a writing project, scholarly or otherwise, it’s hard enough to start, much less continue. I’ve found that asking ourselves some important questions and acting on the answers helps us more easily sneak up on the current project and get started or continue, and even finish.

The questions and answers are completely between you and you, and you have the best and only answers. Whatever other advice you may have read or heard, or however loudly others swear theirs is the only way, it’s your own answers that matter.

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How You Can Experience Your Best Moments at Work or in Leisure

By Angelica Ribeiro

Have you ever lost track of time at work or in leisure? If so, you were in flow, a feeling you should often experience. Let me explain.

In his book Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi shares that “the best moments in [your life] are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times—although such experiences can also be enjoyable […]. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” You can experience these best moments when you are in flow. According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

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Want to Write a Column? Admonitions and Advantages

By Noelle Sterne, PhD

At barbecues with friends or departmental parties with people you want to impress, you love tossing off, eyes modestly lowered, “Oh, I’m a regular columnist for Extreme Anachronisms.” But if you’ve been invited or want to start a column (or regular blog) and continue basking in such glory, realize what you’ve taken on.

A quality column takes consistent effort, thought, faithfulness, and rewriting. Experienced column writers know this. From my experience writing several columns and the advice of several column writers I interviewed, here are ten of the most challenging and important considerations.

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Writing Your Scholarly Journal Article: Advice on Getting ‘Unstuck’

Important to getting “unstuck” when you’re writing, is to know why you’re stuck, and to recognize how many different ideas or thoughts can contribute to being stuck, says Dave Harris, an editor and writing coach from Thought Clearing.

“A lot of people have little barriers here, and little barriers there, and they pile up and add up,” he said. “Analyze your ‘stuckness’ and recognize the parts that are you being afraid, and the parts that are you not defining your project right, and the parts that are entirely outside of your ability to control but have to negotiate anyway.”

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The Value of Continued Connections

By John Bond

Writing, to many, is solitary work. Research, as well, can connote time by yourself spent interpreting data, not to mention the time spent on the literature review. When it comes time to submit for publication, there are numerous hours of combing over your writing for accuracy and grammar. Then checking proofs prior to publication.

All of this adds up to time alone. Many academics, by nature, are solo people. Not all, but some. They understand the heavy lifting the individual has to do. Don’t get me wrong. I have met some big personalities in writing and publishing that love to talk. But they may not be, hmm, the rule.

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TAA Members Receive Discount on May Writing Retreat

TAA has partnered with TAA member Michelle Rivera-Clonch, Ph.D. to provide members with a discount on her 13th annual Writing in Depth: An Academic Writing Retreat, which will be held Memorial Day Weekend, May 23-26, 2024 at the Hope Springs Institute in Peebles, OH. The primarily self-directed retreat, open to faculty and graduate students, provides an environment for serious academic writing, reflecting on your writing practices, and establishing systems of accountability in regional working groups that will aid in your movement toward completing your writing project.

Gain space and support to reinvigorate your writing process and reconnect with a community of writers.

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