I think most people who do writing for a living are well acquainted enough with Anne Lamott and her famous piece, "Shitty First Drafts". I learned about Anne Lamott through one of my favorite professors (and truth be told, at U of I, it's hard to pick just one! I have a long list, each my favorite for their own reasons). Liora (Dr. Bresler), my research methodology professor, made a reference to this in one of our seminars. Over the years, I have learned that SFD are something academic writers need to learn to live with. I don't really talk much about SFD. I prefer to remind myself of what one of my mentors and former adviser used to tell us in our research meetings: Everything always starts with a really bad draft.
And oh, my, did I have to write really, really terrible drafts as I worked on my prelims! I write this tonight because somewhere down the road we seem to forget about this as we work on our writing and we want the whole 200-plus pages of the 4-ton gorilla (that's my loving name for the dissertation!) to be ready and kosher right now! In reality, that's not going to happen. You cannot pull off 200 pages in one sitting, no matter how much (insert favorite energy drink/favorite coffee drink here) you drink. You need to progress through awful drafts until the chapters begin to shape into something you like.
I will use this last sentence to segue (yes, fellas, that's how you spell it!) to the second part of the title.
One thing that helped me navigate my prelims more successfully was the endless blurbs I wrote for the three chapters, especially as I worked on my literature review. The trick is to keep a journal and your laptop with you at all times. Write any and all musings that cross your path (hence the need for the journal!) when you read a paper, a book chapter, etc. Those blurbs are usually exercises in freewriting. Do write a date for those blurbs! Otherwise, you won't be able to find them. Also, label them as "blurb." I have quite a few files with the word 'blurb' in them. The nice thing about this is that once you start consolidating your writing, all those blurbs will have a time and a place. In my case, having those blurbs and notes for all my readings made writing the chapters a more efficient exercise. Blurbs will be one of your best friends as you analyze your data. My experience as a dissertator thus far has showed me that in fact the whole IS the sum of all its tiny parts. Granted, there will be blurbs you won't use for your dissertation (I, for instance, have a 12-page blurb on Pierre Bourdieu that right now rests on my hard drive... but I'm pretty sure that I can turn that into a paper pretty soon!), but as other people have told me, those little pieces of writing are papers waiting to happen.
The final part of the title is one strategy that surely works. We have all heard of the outlines. In fact, if you have taught English (or Language Arts), you have talked about this with your students. I am a big supporter of outlining before writing. It definitely gives you a sense of structure. Just make sure to move past the outline quickly, as this PhD Comics cartoon attests. The outline is useless unless you're actually writing! One additional outlining strategy that I learned from my former adviser was to make an outline at the end of every chapter. Her argument was (and I did notice it when I tried this) that as one writes the chapter, some of the flow is lost in the process. Making the outline at the end ensures that you're delivering the goods. I would suggest writing an outline before you begin to write so that your thesis director can give you initial feedback and then write one at the end so that you can share the present state of your writing with your committee.
Coming soon: Book lists! I will be sharing throughout the semester references to some of the books that are informing my research and my writing.
I'll see you around, hoping our paths will cross again!
Raúl A.
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