Writing for ResearchPART THREE: THE BIG PICTURE
1 : WRITING PROGRAMMES
There’s a widely-held belief that writing happens by sudden inspiration. A bolt from the
blue strikes an author, kindling a fever of creativity from which a text surges. And a few
years later, a Nobel Prize looms...
It’s true that emotions matter in writing – I’ll talk about that later. But the rest of this tale
is a myth. In Part One, I showed how writing is a special form of labour. The greatest of
writers work with great care, and often for a long time, to produce a text. And they don’t
sit down at any random time to write about any random topic. They plan ahead, and
work systematically. Researchers should too.
I plan my writing about a year ahead. I make a list of the papers, reports, essays, and
lectures I expect to write in the course of the year. Book chapters also, if I’m working on
a book. I include texts that I am revising, as well as new texts, because revising too is
serious labour. On the same principle, I include major pieces of internal writing such as
case studies or reports.
From Raewyn’s diary: Main writing tasks for a year. I got most of them done.