(by Dr Emma L Turner, Senior Research Associate, Bristol Medical School – PHS)

I started reading this book as someone who dislikes the writing process, and to be honest I can be quite avoidant when undertaking writing.  It was therefore with some trepidation that I volunteered to do this review.  I fully committed, and decided I would carry out the practical exercises along the way in the hope of kick starting new habits and embracing this part of my academic career.

Joshua Schimel has a very clear conversational style of writing, and I found the book a pleasure to read.  It did however take me longer to read then I anticipated as I kept stopping to note down ideas and thoughts.  The change in perception I mention in the title of this review comes from the statement that “As a scientist you are a professional writer” – this concept is introduced in the first chapter of the book and certainly did give me pause.  Schimel also advocates that we study and develop writing as thoroughly as we develop our other research tools.  I decided it was time to stop my avoidant behaviour, I needed to develop and practice my writing.

The exercises spread throughout the book ask you to analyse published papers to consolidate the principles being described.  He also encourages getting together a writing group to allow you to review each other’s writing, as the second part of the exercises require you to write short articles.  I didn’t form a writing group but can see the benefits.

Throughout, the book focuses on the structure of writing: opening framing an interesting question; challenge presenting the research and results; action the discussion of what it means; and resolution the take home message.  Schimel wants us to embrace the story telling in scientific writing.  The best stories stick, and become papers that get cited or proposals that get funded.  We could even think of data as supporting actors in the story, with questions and the larger issues being addressed as the lead actors.

I suppose the highest praise I can give this book would be that I have decided to buy my own copy so I can refer to it again and again.  The final message from Schimel is to “learn to embrace the pain and enjoy the process” – I can’t say I am there yet, but it is still early days….and I do believe I am now on the road to becoming a scientist-writer.

This month, we’ve published reviews on books on writing by a number of authors. We thought it would be useful to collect their blogs together into a handy reference list. So… here it is:

Margaret Atwood – OK, so she’s not really a writer on writing… more just a writer, but she did write “On writers and writing“, which Bradon reviewed for us, so she’s in the list. Her blog is interesting actually, as it gives an insight into the many and varied things that a writer does – and the way that she organises all of those around, and in addition to, her actually writing!

Paul Silvia‘s blog is… um, nothing to do with writing. He tells us on the ‘about’ page that he’s a college professor, and writer, but that in his spare time, he adjusts watches. And that’s what his blog is about: adjusting vintage watches. I actually kind of like the surprise of this, I think because it challenges our vision of a typical academic who lives, breathes and eats their work. Paul is just a normal person who… adjusts vintage watches.

Joli Jensen is an academic who writes about writing. And country music.

I can’t find a blog for Rowena Murray (perhaps she spends so much time writing for publication that she doesn’t blog… worth a thought!?), but her writing retreat pages are at http://www.anchorage-education.co.uk and she points people to the Research Whisperer’s blog for material on postdoctoral writing.

Pat Thomson‘s blog contains information on her academic work as well as guidance on writing. For an angle into writing content, use the ‘academic writing’ category link, or click here (where I’ve done it for you).

Helen Sword doesn’t really have a blog, but she does have a site. I did also find this blog by her, but it seems to have not been updated for a couple of years.

Finally… Joshua Shimel‘s blog is, in his own words, a “space to follow up on thoughts and topics that didn’t make it into Writing Science.” It’s a heady mix of writing guidance, and general opinions on the state of Science writing, and the state of US Higher Education in his field.

It’s interesting that we’re never really taught to write. We even consider our PhDs (the biggest bit of writing that many of us ever actually do) about the topic we study, and not about writing itself.

So, here are some things that my PhD taught me about how I write best.

I write best, slowly, trusting a small daily target to add up over time.  

I don’t write quickly. I need to get things right – or as right as I can – before I’m happy with them. If I write too much, and go too ‘sh*tty first drafts‘ then I take so long to do anything with that material that I might as well start again. (more…)

(by Dr Bradon Smith, Senior Research Associate, School of Education)

Why write?

Why do writers write? And what is writing anyway? These are the central questions in Margaret Atwood’s volume of six essays On Writers and Writing, which mixes autobiographical musings with a wide-ranging scholarship on some of the universal themes taken up by writers.

Atwood considers the idea of the writer, and how writers perceive themselves; she discusses the many ways in which writer are interested in doubles, and are themselves somehow their own doppelgänger; she explores the relationship between art and money, and the social responsibility of the writer. She asks, ‘for whom does the writer write?’ and looks at the three-way relationship between the writer, the text, and the reader; and, finally, she delves into the Underworld, and the idea that all writing is, in some way, motivated by a fascination with mortality.

Atwood draws on a dazzling array of examples to illustrate her themes, and the bibliography would make a fascinating reading list. But her writing is eminently readable, quirky, even conversational: “You may find the subject a little peculiar. It is a little peculiar. Writing itself is a little peculiar”. Perhaps this is because these essays started life as lectures (given in Cambridge in 2000); but writing, as Atwood notes, has an apparent permanence – unlike a dance recital (or a lecture) it ‘survives its own performance’.

This erudite, but often light-hearted book won’t help you become a (better) writer, or not at least in any direct way.  But it does give rise to some interesting questions for academic writers. Atwood, for example, discusses the difference between a writer, and someone who merely writes. Since anyone can write, what makes a writer? Atwood replies with a macabre metaphor: everyone can dig a hole in a cemetery, but not everyone is a grave digger. For a start, the profession of grave-digger requires stamina and persistence. But the comparison also evokes the character in Hamlet: the grave-digger is a ‘deeply symbolic role’, carrying expectations, fears and superstition. So too with the public role of the writer.

In an amusing list spanning three pages of the Introduction, Atwood lists the reasons for writing given by writers, from the highfalutin (‘To serve Art’) to the bathetic (‘Because I hated the idea of having a job’). So, why do we as academics write? Hopefully, it is to shed light on something. Perhaps here is the common ground with the Writer (capital W). As Atwood says, “writing has to do with darkness, and a desire or perhaps a compulsion to enter it, and, with luck, to illuminate it, and to bring something back out to the light”.

(by Dr Shibabrat Naik, Research Associate, School of Mathematics)

To an early career researcher, a well composed scientific article certainly seems like one of those things where “you know it when you see it done” rings true. Joshua Schimel’s Writing Science demystifies this for the uninitiated by presenting actionable steps and breaking down the essential elements of a written scientific communication: maintaining structure and flow in the article, making an idea sticky, knowing the target audience, balancing jargon and technical terms. These steps and elements are illustrated using examples of texts on which appropriate corrective measures are taken which along with exercise problems make Writing Science a standout as a book on writing advice.

Very much like storytelling, the author emphasizes, a compelling scientific narrative’s lead actor is the research question where supporting role is played by the data, and the theme is the phenomena/mechanism under investigation. Schimel points out that the aim of a science writer is to go, and take the reader, from data to information to knowledge to understanding by listening to the data, while also paying close attention to the outliers and limitations of the methodology. In this sense, writing and doing science are complimentary acts, and rarely can deep thinking emerge without clear writing. I have come to see this in my own articles where arguments become crisper as I revise the prose. Of key importance is the author’s emphasis on revision, what he calls “prune the big limbs and then shake the dead leaves” approach, in going from the first draft to the submitted manuscript. Indeed, this happens in multiple rounds of back and forth changes in structure, content, flow, and language. To this end, the author points out, via corrections of example texts, what the revision process looks like.

Schimel goes further to unravel the practices that make an article page turner by keeping the audience engaged. This can be achieved by creating flow of concepts and logic, using active voice where possible, adopting action verbs, avoiding conversion of verb oradjective to noun. I would like to add here that a scientific communication benefits from careful graphics designed to aid the story, be it schematics that elucidate definitions or figures of main results that are intimately annotated and labelled. This is indeed captured in Joseph Pulitzer’s words in the opening of book’s chapter 20. I hope future editions include discussions on well composed graphics as an essential element of writing science.