November 4, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
Now that Halloween is over, it hasn’t taken long for me to eat all of the left-over chocolate-covered raisins that the trick-or-treaters rejected in favor of Snickers.
Having all of these tidy little packages of candy in my house once again reminds me of the dangers of home. It’s just tempting fate to stay in your house along with Halloween candy.
It’s also tempting fate to try to write your dissertation at home sweet home.
If you insist on writing at home, write as soon as you get up, just you, your cup of coffee and your computer, but no email.
Where home sweet home often doesn’t work is if you’ve been teaching all morning, and you come home in the early afternoon with the hope of getting some writing done. Then what happens? I know that a select few of you are as disciplined as tigers. You rush in from work or teaching, sit down, bite off a chunk of research, and write ferociously for four hours and produce many pages.
But most people, coming home in the early or late afternoon from work, feel they’ve done their work for the day. If this is you, the couch and TV are likely more compelling than the dissertation.
If you want to write at home, but you can’t start a writing session first thing each day, one of my dissertation coaching clients has two great ideas:
1. Unplug your internet
2. Don’t immediately change out of your professional clothes when you get home from work
Unplugging your internet may sound severe, but eliminating temptation is smart.
And why stay in your uncomfortable work clothes after you get home? If you promise yourself that all you have to do is sit down and work for 45 minutes in those uncomfortable work clothes before changing, you may very well have rescued an otherwise doomed writing session. Isn’t getting started the hardest part?
Good luck!
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.usingyourstrengths.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
Posted in discipline, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, distractions, getting started, perseverance, planning, productivity, self-sabotage, start writing, strategies | Tagged dissertation coaching, make deals with yourself, self-sabotage, write first before getting comfortable, write first each morning, writing the dissertation at home | Leave a Comment »
October 27, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
Have you ever been hit with an urge to write?
I don’t mean the motivation that writers pine for, but the sudden desire that makes you say, “I have to get this down” or “Where is my pen? My laptop?”
It’s quite a different feeling from gritting your teeth and grinding out text. Baring down and gritting and grinding certainly have their place. They can move you from the state of not writing to writing
But the intense urge to write happens when something touches you and you come alive.
One of my incredible coaching clients has just finished her manuscript for a book.
Even though she has a book contract with a good press, she still has had some fallow times over the past year of struggling to give life to her book.
The latest came not so long ago, during the writing of the conclusion. She had written ten pages and just could not generate more text.
But one week, she finally was able to write. She wrote 13 pages, and those were the pages which she had been looking for, the ideas which she felt were crucial before she could say “Now the book is finished.”
How did it happen? She was close to backing off from the conclusion she had wanted since it seemed beyond her. During this restless, uncertain time, when she had moved away from her computer, she happened to come across a book on a related subject– actually a book taking a critical perch opposed to the one she had taken. And that was it. Reading the book stirred a response within her, and she was eager to write.
Sometimes we forget what we know to be true—that we need to be awakened and re-awakened. Reading someone else’s analysis, like hearing a political critique or reading a poem, awakens us, stirs us, and makes the engine go. It can make us long to write.
To come alive, our ideas frequently need to connect with something outside of us.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
—Stanley Kunitz
Until next time,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.usingyourstrengths.com
Posted in academic, creativity, motivation, productivity, resources, write more easily | Tagged a-ha moment, dissertation coach, finishing the writing project, generating ideas, inspiration, writing a book, writing coach | Leave a Comment »
October 24, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
How was your writing today?
You couldn’t get a flow going today during your writing session?
Some writing sessions are like that–you start off more slowly, maybe because you’re tired, it’s the end of the week, or maybe because you didn’t prime the pump, didn’t try to induce a good mood, or didn’t practice resiliency before you began the effort
Or perhaps you’re starting to see some success and you’re just a bit uneasy because you are thinking you may actually meet your deadline?
Once again, it’s time to practice resiliency.
Remind yourself that this time there’s no backsliding—but be playful as well as firm.
Laugh at the time you were so self-congratulatory for how well you were doing on a paper that you barely finished the project under deadline!
Resiliency is a skill that you learn through practice. A great way to increase your resiliency is laugh at your foibles and shenanigans. Use your sense of humor and self-knowledge to fuel your writing session.
Have a good weekend,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
Posted in coaching, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, flow, getting started, laugh, momentum, re-group, re-start, regrouping, resilience, restart writing, restarting, self-sabotage, start writing, using your strengths, write more easily | Tagged dissertation, dissertation coach, keep the writing going, keep your perspective, playfully firm self-discipline, practice resiliency, re-starting dissertation writing, Resiliency, self-sabotage, sense of humor, writing | Leave a Comment »
October 11, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
I’m curious how you learned the conventions you are to use, the voice you should use, the way to argue within your field, or, if you’re learning as you go, now, as you write your dissertation.
If you were at a U.S. university as an undergraduate, you may not have been writing exclusively in your major course of study until late in your 2nd or even until your 3rd year of school. By then, had you learned a bit of flexibility by writing in different discourses for your required courses?
Had you been writing as an art historian one night and the next night as a psychologist? Did that give you insight into what writing conventions are important in each field?
And as you specialized more and more in your own field, did you become clearer about your field’s discourse or writing conventions?
The New York Times (9.6.2009) asks several professors to give advice to students entering college this year.
Stanley Fish advises students to “take a composition course even if they have tested out of it.” He says, “I have taught many students whose SAT scores exempted them from the writing requirement, but a disheartening number of them couldn’t write.”
Gerald Graff, the past president of the Modern Language Association, tells students how to write an argument, seemingly without the help of a writing class or instructor.
Since it’s a little late for those of you who are writing dissertations to take a writing class, Graff’s suggestions on how to take what you know and transform it into an argument might be helpful and definitely would have helped me early on in my student career.
He says:
1. Recognize that knowing a lot of stuff won’t do you much good unless you can do something with what you know by turning it into an argument.
2. Pay close attention to what others are saying and writing and then summarize their arguments and assumptions in a recognizable way. Work especially on summarizing the views that go most against your own.
3. As you summarize, look not only for the thesis of an argument, but for who or what provoked it — the points of controversy.
4. Use these summaries to motivate what you say and to indicate why it needs saying. Don’t be afraid to give your own opinion, especially if you can back it up with reasons and evidence, but don’t disagree with anything without carefully summarizing it first.
Even as the writer of a dissertation, it’s great to remind yourself that you know a lot of stuff. It’s easy to forget that.
Also don’t forget that there’s usually a reason for the writing requirements you run into for your dissertation. Remember that the literature review creates a context for your methodology and findings or for your argument.
As you write your dissertation, your field’s required structure and discourse conventions give you a great clothesline where you can hang your ideas.
Warm regards,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
Posted in Smart Tips, academic, discourse, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, higher education, practice writing, teaching writing, trusting yourself, write more easily, writing | Tagged composition class, dissertation coaching, Learning how to do something you didn’t know how to do, learning to write a dissertation, learning to write an argument, rhetorical conventions, teaching yourself to write, writing instruction | Leave a Comment »
September 27, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
Dissertation writers are largely self-taught academic writers, and the learning process can be a bold and daring adventure.
Over the years many of my dissertation coaching clients talk about the challenges in writing academic discourse. Academic writing is its own special discourse, with its own particular conventions. My dissertation coaching clients largely learn this discourse by doing.
What they are asked to do and the way they feel their way along, trying to put into practice what they think they’re being asked to do, is not unlike underprepared students in their first year or years of college.
Professors and instructors in composition and rhetoric fields are familiar with David Bartholomae’s article “Inventing the University.” Bartholomae defines how beginning college writers must act as if they know what they’re doing, even if they don’t.
The article opens in this way: “Every time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the university for the occasion– . . . or a branch of it, like History or Anthropology or Economics or English. He has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community.”
Bartholomae says that students can’t wait to write academic discourse until after they have learned more or can write comfortably: “they must dare to speak it, or to carry off the bluff, since speaking and writing will most certainly be required long before the skill is ‘learned.’”
Likewise, my dissertation coaching clients have to boldly write and rewrite. Dare to write.
Dare to carry off the bluff.
Warm regards,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.usingyourstrengths.com
Posted in academic, acting as if, brave, courage, creativity, discourse, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, higher education, practice writing, resilience, teaching writing, top strengths, trusting yourself, underprepared students, using your strengths | Tagged bluff, dissertation coach, Learning how to do something you didn’t know how to do, learning to write a dissertation, learning to write an argument, rhetorical conventions, self-taught writer, writing as if you know what you’re doing, writing instruction | Leave a Comment »
September 23, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
When and how do we acquire the skills, voice, critical perspectives, and confidence needed for successful writing? Specifically to write successfully a dissertation and, for that matter, the book that follows the dissertation?
Years ago as a first-year college student, I tested out of composition class, but all students at my university were required to take at least one semester of writing, so I took an advanced writing class. It’s possible that I may have been required to write an argument, but I don’t remember any such formal assignment. Maybe I’ve conveniently forgotten it since it would have been a painful process for me. I came to the university understanding only vaguely what would be required in the demanding, competitive world of a good, large university.
I think I was a decent writer at that time, but not very analytical. I had a lot to learn.
I recall a few assignments from that class–two had to do with describing a place. I suppose I remember those assignments because it was the kind of writing that I had always enjoyed, but I wonder if in that class I was ever assigned to do something I didn’t already know how to do, something that would help me write an extended argument.
Throughout my undergraduate years, I never felt confident as a writer, and years later, when I was ready to write my master’s thesis, I recall being very unsure about what I was supposed to do. And that feeling was magnified even more by the time I began my dissertation.
I remember being afraid, but my strengths of curiosity, love of learning, and perseverance were helpful… at times…when I remembered to call on them.
Student writers in undergraduate school and graduate school, dissertators, academicians, and professional writers all need to know how to use different rhetorical strategies and how to write in specific discourses.
Learning those skills is hard work, and teaching those skills and the type of writing in which those skills are learned is a bear, especially in terms of the paper load.
Is it a student’s responsibility to teach herself? Maybe, but when is she or he told that it’s her job or how does she pick up on the cues of what kind of writing will serve her best?
How did you become a good writer? I’d love to hear from you!
Warm regards,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
Posted in academic, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, fears, higher education, memories, practice writing, teaching writing, underprepared students, using your strengths, write more easily, writing | Tagged composition class, dissertation coaching, Learning how to do something you didn’t know how to do, learning to write a dissertation, learning to write an argument, rhetorical conventions, teaching yourself to write, writing instruction | 1 Comment »
September 20, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
For sundry reasons, several dissertation coaching clients are now looking around and saying, “What happened to the last three months of my life, how can September be nearly over, and what do I do now?”
Bemoaning the lack of progress you’ve made on your dissertation doesn’t help. Starting again is the key. And not just starting, but forming a daily writing habit.
If you’ve been reading my blog on most any given day, you know that I advocate forming a daily writing habit as the best way to produce text and to finish your dissertation.
Practicing that habit is critical.
Just as musicians have to practice in order to play well, writers have to practice their writing habit in order to produce a finished document.
I came across The Practice Notebook, a blog designed to help professional musicians and music students alike to develop good practice habits. And even better, it’s to help musicians “make the most of limited practice time, by making your practice as efficient as possible.”
The tips are all good. With apologies and thanks to the practice notebook blogger, I have rewritten three tips particularly applicable to dissertation writers who are restarting their dissertations after time off.
The initial goal in restarting your writing is to wake up your brain, tame your space, and tame yourself.
1. When you make your plan to restart, go light on those first few writing sessions. Short is good when you’re just re-starting. If you can last through 15 minutes the first day, you’re on your way.
2. If you are a bit out of practice with your dissertation writing and can’t detect any signals between your brain and fingers, do some warm ups. Start by making a list. Do some free writing. Write a haiku.
3. When you’re restarting your dissertation writing with the intention of getting your dissertation writing habit up and running, it’s o.k. to write in your monkey jammies. What? You don’t have monkey jammies? O.k., then, how about writing in your knit sleep pants? They’re good, too. Make yourself comfortable and reward yourself for showing up.
Go gently, but firmly and keep coming back.
Dissertation coaching can help you restart your dissertation, too.
All good wishes,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
Posted in coaching, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, getting started, practice writing, re-group, re-start, restart writing, showing up, write more easily, writing habit | Tagged dissertation coaching, form a writing habit, overcome inertia, prewriting, restart your dissertation, start moving on your dissertation, wake up your brain, warm-ups | Leave a Comment »
September 14, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
Have you wondered how a dissertation coach could be of help to you?
A week ago, I received an email from a person who had almost given up on her dissertation. She said, “There is so much baggage that arises whenever I even think about finishing (I’m stupid, my massive debts, fear of the future . . . ) that the notion itself magnetically repels me into a state of serial procrastination.”
I frequently receive email of this kind. Many ABD’s who contact me feel isolated and have started to catastrophize.
Based on my experience, Dissertation Boot Camp and Dissertation Coaching give strategically focused approaches that lead to finished dissertations.
To people who are stuck and not working on their dissertations, I say: “As awful as you feel and as dreadful as I feel for you, I know that writing each day for a two-week period will go a long way toward your establishing a writing habit. And regular coaching will be of critical help.”
• Dissertation Boot Camp and Dissertation Coaching are the quickest and most effective ways of helping you form a daily writing habit.
• Forming a daily writing habit is essential to your success.
• Dissertation Boot Camp and Dissertation Coaching will help you to establish daily, manageable goals for your writing sessions.
• After establishing daily goals, take the next step and break your goals into daily plans with specifics. Having a plan with specifics will make showing up and actually writing something each day easier than it has ever been before for you.
• To continue to solidify your writing habit, set a specific time for when you will start your writing session.
• Write into your plan how long your writing session will be, how long your breaks will be, and when you will take a day off. Plan to take time off to relax and to be with other people.
• If you have committed to the Dissertation Boot Camp approach, you will be accountable for each writing session. Did you do what you said you would do? What worked? What didn’t work? What needs fixing?
• Put in writing what you will work on during the next writing session. Be specific– give yourself key words or bullet points to work from.
•If you, too, want to find a way into your dissertation, consider dissertation coaching.
All good wishes,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
Posted in Smart Tips, accountability, coaching, dissertation boot camp, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, finishing the dissertation, planning, productivity, showing up, time management | Tagged daily writing habit, dissertation boot camp, dissertation coaching, finished dissertation, productivity, strategic approaches | Leave a Comment »
September 13, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
I have had the same piano tuner for years. Each time he comes for the yearly tuning, he grumbles that he really should come twice a year but, nevertheless, my Yamaha, he proudly says, continues to hold its tune. When he finishes, he triumphantly plays several measures and then grandly declares, “Your piano is now ready for your morning practice.”
When I urge my dissertation coaching clients to write daily, I often think of my piano tuner’s charming call to daily piano practice.
I encourage my clients to establish a writing habit, one that you do routinely as if it were any other kind of job, and to look at it as a practice that you do each day. Recently a dissertation coaching client said, “I’ve found it useful to take your idea of a ‘writing practice (or daily writing habit)’ and think about it quite literally as a practice, that is, like practicing an instrument. Thinking about writing in this way has helped me to release my perfectionist tendencies a bit, allowing me to see my mistakes as small things that will improve the more I ‘practice.’”
My dissertation coaching client has put into “practice” exactly what I had hoped she would, adopting a perspective that I think would help most writers.
When you revise, you can work at making better word choices or fixing problems, but during most writing sessions, the goal should be to follow a thought, expand an idea, and keep the writing going. For now, produce text. Everything is fixable later on.
Practicing your writing is like practicing the piano. Put in the time each day, and before long, you’ll start to see (hear) the difference.
Have you had your morning practice yet today?
Nancy
P.S. Are you attempting to tame your perfectionist inner critic? You can change your way of thinking by changing your perspective. I’d love to hear from you.
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
Posted in Smart Tips, coaching, discipline, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, getting started, habit, perseverance, practice writing, restart writing, start writing | Tagged develop a writing habit, dissertation coach, fight perfectionism with practice, practice your writing, writing improves with practice | Leave a Comment »
September 7, 2009 by Nancy Whichard
Georgetown University Professor Deborah Tannen writes about the supportive relationship she has with her two sisters.
In the Sept. 6, 2009 Washington Post, Tannen says that she sends them her manuscripts for their comments and once a book is published, she waits eagerly, yet nervously, for their response.
After reading a draft and sending Deborah Tannen some comments, one of her sisters also followed up with an email saying, “Stop reading this, and go back to writing your book. Love, Mim.”
Professor Tannen says that she has posted that email over her writing desk, and the words continue to support her and help keep her on task.
I’ve always missed having a sister, but I know there are many other ways to have that same kind of support.
A client told me recently how anxious she had been about sending a draft to her advisor, but the kind, encouraging words as well as the constructive comments that accompanied the draft when the advisor sent it back buoyed my client and gave her the will to jump back into her work.
My dissertation coaching convinces me of the support writers need. Often, in coaching I ask my clients to talk through what they are going to write when they get off of the phone with me. Rehearsing the writing clarifies my client’s ideas and also engages my clients, reminding them of why they wanted to write about this particular idea and reassuring them that they do know what they will do next.
Frequently, clients also give me something in return. After asking questions that helped a client become enthusiastic and self-confident about the immediate task ahead, she said, “I’m so glad I work with you.”
I may not have a sister who sends me emails that I can post on my coaching table, but I did write down that comment and I put it where I can see it every day.
A blog post entitled “Instant mood lifter: thank someone for a job well done” (June 24, 2009) by the very successful Escape from Cubicle Nation blogger Pamela Slim revealed that she was moved to tears by receiving kind, thoughtful praise via a tweet. Just goes to show you, doesn’t it?
She said, “Kindness is not a little thing. It is not fluffy, unicorn and rainbow coachy stuff. Kindness heals.”
Have you told anyone recently that you appreciate their help or sent someone hard at work on a big and stressful project a supportive email? It’s a wonderful thing to do.
Have a great week.
All good wishes,
Nancy
P.S. I appreciate your reading my blog. It means a great deal to me. And I always appreciate your comments.
P.S.S. Smart Tips for Writers, my online newsletter, goes out this week. Register today at my website: www.nancywhichard.com.
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
Posted in Blogs, Smart Tips, advisor, coaching, dissertation advisors, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, hope, positive psychology, using your strengths | Tagged coaching. Smart Tips, dissertation coach, kindness, kindness and support increase hope and enthusiasm, momentum, support, will to work | Leave a Comment »
Older Posts »
