General
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Caution: Switchback Curves Ahead!
If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to get there. That would seem like an obvious statement, but with most types of writing there is no way to meet a goal or to complete the project without a well-considered idea of what the project is or what it should look like when…
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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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Avoid Tangents
Avoid tangents. Stay focused on your writing. When you have a big writing project like a dissertation, it’s easy to let yourself get distracted. The best way to keep writing is to keep focused. If something is not a direct connection to what you’re writing now, ignore it. Remember, you’re not writing a manifesto. You’re…
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Write Every Day
Write every day – even if it’s only for an hour broken into smaller segments. Make good writing habits. Once you have established your good writing habits, set realistic goals of writing two double-spaced pages a day. The next day, start where you left off and keep growing the document. If you can write two…
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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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Maintaining Work/Life Balance
When you made the decision to attend Graduate School to pursue an advanced degree, you surely knew that you were taking on an enormous task. Still, you may have been unprepared for the sheer amount of work required and the number of competing interests pulling you in opposite directions. It’s easy to look at other…
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Every Piece of Writing has an Audience. Who is Your Audience?
When you sit down to write, consider for whom you are writing. If it is a scholarly piece of writing, you want to address other scholars. This audience would have a similar background and a knowledge base that allows the reader to come to your writing at a certain level. If you are writing for…
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Beware of Plagiarism
If you’re the kind of person who is reading these blogs on the Defend and Publish website, you’re the kind of person who works hard to write well. You’ve probably struggled to come up with a clever turn of phrase. Maybe you’ve spent weeks alone in your University’s library trying to locate the evidence you…