[something better here]: using brackets while drafting
Drafting (the part of writing when you're putting words on paper, whether it's the first time, or seventeenth) is really hard work. You're making SO many choices every minute - which word, which thought, who to cite, if you cite, if it's clear, what you mean - and it can be really overwhelming. If you add in a brain that has a few different trains of thought running at the same time, or perfectionism, or any other brain pattern/behavior/emotion that's the least bit distracting, and drafting can be even more overwhelming, if not nearly impossible feeling.
And although academics talk a lot about how to make time for the writing, how to make space for it, how to schedule it - there is so much less discussion about how to actually write. So today, here's a tactic I use with a lot of clients: bracketing.
Now, this isn't something I invented but it is something that I used (and still do use!) extensively when writing up new ideas (or revising old ones.) Basically, it's a way to capture thoughts that you have about the writing while you're writing so that you can keep going.
For example, here is a paragraph in an early (draft 0 or 1) version of one of my dissertation chapters. Everything in ALL CAPS was something I needed to cite, expand on, or clarify, but I kept going so that I could see what I needed to change.
While the stakes of human turned meme are clear (STAR WARS KID, NUMANUMA), the animal also faces risk here. The replicated image changes perception of breeds (in the case of the Persian) and separates the body of the animal from the representation of it. I DONT KNOW WHATEVER - what does it mean to be voiced by a human.
I used ALL CAPS to signal these changes, but I later switched to brackets ( {[ }] ) because they were easier to search for and replace. The important thing was what I was doing - signalling a place I wanted to come back to, capturing the important thought, and then going on so that I could stay in the world of the draft. If I stopped to look up the memes I wanted to cite, or figure out exactly what I wanted to stay, I would usually get distracted, start reading when I was supposed to be done with reading, feel absolutely frustrated and angry when I couldn't figure out what exactly my argument was. In short, I'd stop writing and do something else, instead of noting and then carrying on.
Here are just some of the uses I've found for bracketing text while drafting:
Making note of where to add citations
Capturing thoughts like "is this clear enough" or "do I need more here"
Leaving myself instructions like "come back and write a better transition once you finalize case studies" or "link this back to chapter 2 once you write it"
Noting details I wanted to confirm, like publication year or author name
And the benefits weren't just limited to keeping in the flow of writing while drafting! Brackets also helped me:
Turn some of these tasks (like "find citation" or "add quote from archive here") into the small steps I could put on a list and check off
Ask better questions when readers gave me feedback, because I already knew which areas I worried might be unclear
Note places where I would add other literature or sources - I have a tendency to overcite and bury my voice, so brackets helped me see where I wanted to add citations, and then if people said "This needs more support" I would have some good guesses about where to add. And if they DIDN'T say that, then I didn't spend a lot of time adding in citations and quotes that I just needed to take out.
Not all the thoughts we have while drafting are bad - but some of them can definitely take us out of the task of writing and into places where it's harder to get back in the flow. Hopefully using some brackets can help you stay with your thoughts AND stay in the writing! And if you have other uses for brackets - or other techniques that work in the same way, please share!
Continuous Integration, or How to Be Less Precious and Share More
Continuous Integration, or CI, is a term used in software development, which loosely refers to the idea that everyone working on a project should be committing their work to the shared, public facing version of the product daily, if not multiple times a day. The rationale is that if everyone works on their own parts of the project in isolated silos and only shares that work at the end, the changes that it won't integrate well with other parts of the project are high. It is much easier to make sure that little parts play together well and fix it if they don't than it is to trouble shoot massive integration issues.
As academics, it often feels like we work alone forever, only to turn in huge chunks of completed work to have them ripped apart. How many of us have worked on a chapter draft, conference paper or journal article for months on our own only to have it savaged by some reviewer or reader afterwards? Why not take the core idea of CI and start to share smaller, in progress chunks to head off problems earlier? What follows next is my argument for this kind of a practice, in response to concerns I've heard from clients:
My advisor will only read polished drafts. Of course they will only read polished work! Advisors are the busiest people on the planet, they will have you know - they don't have time to read rough drafts or sketches. This is exactly why you should share work around with a wider net of people before that polished draft is turned in. Here are some people you can try sharing with:
Writing Groups, formal or informal
Writing Workshops - these are sometimes hosted in a departmental setting, sometimes by reading groups, but most students have access to a formal or informal version of workshopping opportunities.
A writing coach - trained coaches can look at a draft, even if they aren't in your specialty (sometimes, this is even better!) and let you know if it makes sense, if the structure is clear, etc.
Your own self. Set aside time to re-read work in progress at the end of the day, or at a regular time during the week. You'll be surprised what you can catch yourself.
My rough drafts are really rough. No one will understand them. My rough drafts are essentially long outlines with some sentences, and of course, those aren't helpful to share with other people. But what I call a Draft 1, or the prose version of my long outline, is helpful to share. I warn people that I am NOT looking for proofreading, just for feedback on the ideas, structure, and sequence. This spares me from people only going through and looking for Oxford commas when I really need them to tell me if it makes sense.
My argument only makes sense in total - it isn't helpful to read less than that. I'd actually counter this and say that if your argument only makes sense when taken as a whole piece, you aren't doing enough to signpost and connect your argument together for your reader. Of course, arguments are nuanced and they build and grow, but if it truly does not make any sense without the supporting pieces, it might be helpful to examine how you're building an argument. Having outside readers read smaller pieces can really help with that.
So much of writing is a lonely process - we research alone (mostly,) we draft alone, we revise alone. Making smaller milestones and sharing your work out more frequently can take some of the pressure off the big check ins with advisors and committees, make you feel less isolated, and improve the quality of the writing overall. It is much easier to fix small problems early than big problems later. Sometimes it is totally frustrating to hear that something isn't working, or to have to redo a whole site that you just spent weeks building. But, better to get the feedback early from a big team of people you trust than to have it come at you in a higher stakes way. Take a page from the software world and continuously integrate small pieces of your work into the bigger whole - it'll pay off.