Robbin Warner, PhD
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The Power of a Word Count Goal – A Lesson from NaNoWriMo
November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. The goal that many people take up is to write a 50,000 word novel in just one month. Sound crazy? Sound impossible? In 2015, 431,626 inspiring writers participated, and this year the number looks to be close to half a million people. As someone who…
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Writing Cover Letters for Academic Positions
The most basic function of cover letters for academic positions is to introduce yourself to the search committee; the most successful way to do so is to craft this introduction as a demonstration of your fit with the search criteria. The first paragraph should introduce yourself, reference where you learned of the position, and explain…
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Carrots and Sticks
How should we approach setting goals to make the most out of them? Setting goals for our work is only helpful insofar as the goals we set are ambitious enough to propel us but realistic enough that we can reasonably meet them without getting discouraged. Sustainability is the key here. If you set a series…
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Find Another Reader for Your Work
You get only one chance to make a first impression with your writing, be that a dissertation, an article, or a book. While mastering your word-processor’s editing and formatting tools can help you to present your work more professionally, a key component of the professional presentation you must strive towards is to avoid letting sloppiness…
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Chocolate Method for Writer’s Block
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Refueling
Sometimes, we have deadlines to meet – defense dates, submission deadlines, departmental review dates. At those times, we simply have to force ourselves to sit down and write. There are other times in the writing process, however, when we have the time and space to give ourselves a break. Refueling is all about waking our…
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BOOK REVIEW – Stylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword
Quick. Name an academic article you’ve recently read that was engaging and well written. One that left you intrigued, delighted, and wanting more. Having a hard time? It’s understandable. Academic writing is full of dry, uninspiring, stilted prose that sucks the life out of a topic. But there are authors in every discipline who write…
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Recovering from Setbacks
Your computer will fail at some point while you’re writing your dissertation. Your schedule will collapse on top of you despite your best intentions. You will receive unexpected and sometimes negative feedback on your work. While you cannot control the world around you, you can control how you react to setbacks and other emergencies that…
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Always Have a Backup!
Who hasn’t been here? You’ve been dissertating for hours, productively making your way through a chapter, presenting your evidence, crafting your arguments, and generally achieving the ideal of dissertation writing. Without warning, the power in your apartment goes out and your computer screen turns black. You let your laptop’s battery run down or you’re working…
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The Conservation of Momentum
In physics, the momentum of a system is said to remain constant so long as there are no outside forces acting on that system. The same law applies in writing – a dissertation, an article, or any other project. Once we begin writing, we can speed through; we’re on a roll, steadily making our way…