Writing for Research

Raewyn Connell

think cheap “hot desking” is good enough for doctoral students and research staff are
making a really bad calculation.

A regular time to write is also a great help. That’s made more difficult by the turbulence
of casual employment. But even one fixed session a week is worth having.

Whether it’s regular or occasional, once you have time and place cleared for writing,
make sure they stay clear! Close Twitter, Facebook and E-mail. Send the kids to the
beach, lock the door and put the mobile phone in the refrigerator. Be ruthless! Let the
world look after itself for a space. It will probably still be there when you come out of
your writing time.

My second prescription is a little less obvious. Intellectual work is not just technical
labour. I once wrote a book based on research with high school teachers, in which I
emphasised the emotional character of their work - in creating human relations with
kids, in handling pressure, and in the core process of classroom teaching itself. The
perceptive sociologist Arlie Hochschild named “emotion work”, and I think the idea
applies to writing too.

Producing a text is partly a matter of mood, focus, and excitement. Being depressed or
anxious makes it harder. What’s called “writer’s block”, I think, is often an effect of such
emotions getting stuck in a repetitive pattern.

The answer is not a state of emotionless, lotus-pond calm – I couldn’t write at all in a
lotus pond! A writer needs productive emotions, perhaps a productive sequence of
emotions. In my writing sessions I use lighting, music, drugs (overworking the espresso
machine!) and anything else that helps to generate a mood of engagement and a
controlled tension that carries the writing forward.

This is highly individual, I’m sure. I play Bach and you may prefer Beethoven. But
whatever your musical tastes, recognize the emotional dimension in writing, and that
may help you use it productively.

2 : WHY DO IT? WHAT MAKES IT WORTHWHILE?

Writing for research isn’t easy, and isn’t quick. Good writing can’t be done on the spur of
the moment. It’s a true proverb that what is easy to write will be hard to read. As I have
emphasised, writing is labour that involves the writer’s emotions, and it can be a
grinding, nerve-shredding business. It takes years to learn how to write well. I’ve been
practising for five decades and I still don’t find it easy.

There are special difficulties about writing for research. Texts must survive a series of
technical judgments – by yourself, your colleagues, journal reviewers, and ultimate
readers. The texts that researchers write (and neoliberal managers dehumanize as