tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post3713676576945569801..comments2023-05-22T03:04:42.242-05:00Comments on Dame Eleanor Hull: Like it? or lump it?Dame Eleanor Hullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06512884104691200975noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-53267438031379010932011-09-05T15:17:17.275-05:002011-09-05T15:17:17.275-05:00N&M, I think of reading as the English profess...N&M, I think of reading as the English professor's version of lab work.<br /><br />My favorite Boice book is _How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency_, a longer, more complex, more nuanced and thoughtful study of writers, including but not limited to academic writers. The main points (schedules, contingency, etc) are the same, but the greater thoughtfulness about the "journey" makes a big difference in palatability, I think.Dame Eleanor Hullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06512884104691200975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-20240840507920509472011-09-05T13:54:18.630-05:002011-09-05T13:54:18.630-05:00Other half here. I have The Compleat Academic but...Other half here. I have The Compleat Academic but I find it less useful and not in-depth enough where I need it. A lot of the chapters are about stuff I already know or never had trouble with. I actually hated the Silva book, found it way too simplistic. I keep coming back to Boice's Faculty As Writers because it gives me what I need right now. Whatever works for each person is what you should use! (and, to clarify, I'm in an experimental discipline so reading is not as useful to me [though still necessary] as lab research and then writing about it.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-48649121080846892222011-09-04T08:18:32.696-05:002011-09-04T08:18:32.696-05:00Late to the party but . . .
I very much enjoy wri...Late to the party but . . .<br /><br />I very much enjoy writing, and one of the things that bums me out the most about not getting an academic job when I finished my degree is that there's a type of thinking and researching and writing and collaborating that really cannot be done anywhere else, and I miss it, even all these years later. The writing I do for my job just isn't enough.Naryahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05369280617520806983noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-92041250631460372162011-09-02T19:24:24.277-05:002011-09-02T19:24:24.277-05:00I think writing is easy. I do not think publishing...I think writing is easy. I do not think publishing is fun, but that's because I was intentionally given a neurosis about what kind of writing and publishing were "worth it" and which were not. Now that I've abandoned publishing, I've rediscovered what fun writing is. Still working on a way to figure out how to get back to publishing.Servetusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-25937032830488646422011-09-02T11:38:38.654-05:002011-09-02T11:38:38.654-05:00Thanks for the "new" Valian ref, N&M...Thanks for the "new" Valian ref, N&M. Undine, I hope the captcha is a good sign. Mine is "sionsi" so maybe they're just generating -si suffixes today.Dame Eleanor Hullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06512884104691200975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-67375485309636510572011-09-02T00:10:30.558-05:002011-09-02T00:10:30.558-05:00I've done better this week, too, by the simple...I've done better this week, too, by the simple expedient of writing the writing time down in Google Calendar. I know--that's suggestion #1 on every list, but I had never done it. <br /><br />Writing has sometimes been fun in the past, but it hasn't been for about 6 months. I'm hoping that will change.<br /><br />Captcha: "joyeusi"--a coincidence?undinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05589384016564587214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-72618253607137759872011-09-01T18:20:26.331-05:002011-09-01T18:20:26.331-05:00Hm, her website is a gold mine of documents includ...Hm, her website is a gold mine of documents including an essay called "Solving a Work Problem." Which is the denial of tenure one?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-89154791185068686012011-09-01T18:16:05.926-05:002011-09-01T18:16:05.926-05:00I really like the Valian essay. I still like the o...I really like the Valian essay. I still like the older book, The Compleat Academic, for new faculty members better than Boice, it's less concescending, assumes better graduate training and higher levels of maturity, and it's collectively written so authors have direct experience of more kinds of institutions than Boice does.<br /><br />Keep moving forward for me, too, is much better than write write write -- I may be in the minority but I love writing and don't need to be pushed; I do need to cut all my projects down in scope and allot more time for each piece of them than I do.<br /><br />I didn't know Valian was denied tenure and I will have to look that essay up now. Being denied tenure was one of the most validating academic experiences I had since it proved me right -- it really was true you had to make university standards on publication, and I really had been right initially, when I had insisted to my colleagues that it would be true and that I should plan for it to be.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-21052959069538525142011-09-01T10:54:53.702-05:002011-09-01T10:54:53.702-05:00FWIW, I like writing, too. I mean, I have lots of ...FWIW, I like writing, too. I mean, I have lots of ways to put off doing it, but once I get the butt into the chair, I like it. I really like revising. (I'd probably agree that it's often hard, but it's fun hard.)<br /><br />I agree that the "write write write" emphasis does tend to separate the process too much from the "read read read" part. I wonder if this is because psychologists tend to have "experiments" and to actually do things that are not reading as part of their research (labs and whatnot), and therefore tend to follow the more "scientific" method of do stuff from beginning to end, then "write it up." I know that's an oversimplification of how scientists work, but it still seems to me that scientists (and probably psychologists) can make a clear distinction between research and writing. (Sure, once they write they might realize they have to go back and do more experiments, but the processes are still pretty distinct.) <br /><br />For me, though, since research is basically reading stuff, it's a lot harder to separate that from writing, and I'm someone who starts writing very early in a project (as a way of figuring out what I've learned and what else I need to learn). And I agree that it was often harder to make the time to read enough stuff to be able to write, than to write per se.<br /><br />(That said, I do write to organize and work out the argument - I can't do those things without writing - but I know a lot of people who don't work that way.)<br /><br />And about Boice's books - I think that either one of them is helpful, but the new faculty book basically repeats everything he said in the writing book (though a bit more concisely and is a bit better written), so that reading both isn't all that useful. I still need to read Silva, actually (if I decide I want to try to publish any of the various things I wrote for law school).New Kid on the Hallwayhttp://newkidonthehallway.typepad.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-8545813288667755062011-09-01T09:20:27.514-05:002011-09-01T09:20:27.514-05:00I'd read the Working it Out Valian essay befor...I'd read the Working it Out Valian essay before-- and definitely helpful.<br /><br />The one she guided to me most recently is her second stage-- after she got denied tenure, what did she do. http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/docs/1985solvingAWorkProb.pdf<br /><br />Really, I'm matching her third stage that she mentions in her second stage essay (as some of her second stage solutions are no longer helping me), but I don't know that she's written about what her third stage decisions were! So we're working on figuring things out ourselves.<br /><br />We're going to blog about this at some point, but one of my third stage solutions is using leechblock during the day so I can't get to the blog when I most want to procrastinate! In fact, I shouldn't be writing this comment right now... I should be fixing a program. <br /><br />I'm outie! Otherwise I'm gonna have to leechblock more blogs...<br /><br />p.s. Word verification: redlice. EW.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-39229417277868067522011-09-01T07:49:49.695-05:002011-09-01T07:49:49.695-05:00I love that Virginia Valian essay. And I think th...I love that Virginia Valian essay. And I think the emphasis in some quarters on "write write write" helps to lead to work problems: some of us need to "read read read" before we can write, or do other forms of preparation to write. "Keep moving a project forward" is a better mantra than "write write write." And in Silva's favor, he recognizes that, at least. I think the essays in Working It Out are very helpful models of how to move from work-conflicted to work-happy.Dame Eleanor Hullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06512884104691200975noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7188858439852729115.post-14725762370897747802011-09-01T05:57:09.655-05:002011-09-01T05:57:09.655-05:00The other half of our blog is having me read the B...The other half of our blog is having me read the Boice book on writing. Although I found his Advice for New Faculty Members to be incredibly useful, I'm not getting anything out of his writing book.<br /><br />I don't have a writing problem. I have a work problem. I need to be able to sit down and do the difficult parts of research that don't just involve writing. The Virginia Valian essay she had me read describes exactly my problem. That and I need people to stop bothering me with unpredictable last minute beginning of the semester emergencies.<br /><br />I'm working on it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com