Academic writing, is this normal?

[daisyjgrey]

Academics, writers, anyone with that kind of experience, help!

Not only am I a professional procrastinator (a different topic entirely), but it genuinely seems take me a good hour or so of sitting in front of a computer flitting between reading reports and scrolling through ASOS/Mumsnet before my brain has warmed up enough to actually get any sense out of it.

Is this a thing?
Am I just maybe a little bit stupid and need to give myself a stern talking to?
Do you do anything similar?

(The irony of starting a MN thread while obviously procrastinating is not lost on me by the way).

I watched all the series of Spooks at least 4 times while writing my thesis. Can't focus with music or other people (hell on Earth writing legal arguments in an open plan office) but TV drama (as long as I've already seen it) is perfect!

neah, we don't write in the sciences. So not an 'actual' writing subject.

I was lead author (ie, wrote virtually every word) in 7 x 4k word (published) articles last year. I guess that wasn't 'actual' writing. Plus the other 6 published articles I coauthored so commented on -- didn't involve 'actual' writing. And all the supplemental files, the protocol, research proposals, email comms, cover letters & job applications I produced. The 14 or so articles I reviewed with extensive comments and the comments I made on student's PhD thesis. Those didn't require 'actual' writing skills, either.

Coz in sciences all we do is spreadsheets & lab work & finding the best pubs near conference venues. Oh, and arranging meetings & complying with publication policy notifications and junking scam emails from fake conferences. No 'actual' writing involved at all.*

*which could all be true since i'm not sure what 'actual' writing is

ps: 65% of my employment was outside academia last year. No wonder I didn't get around to any 'actual' writing

But it is different, isn't it?

I have been a ghost writer for science academics. I don't begin to understand the enormous complexity of what you do. I can't even imagine understanding what you have discovered.

But when it comes to putting things into logical wording, yes, I can do that.

The fact that you are equating writing an article with writing an email rather proves my point. Yes, you have to get words in roughly coherent sequence in both contexts. But it is not the same as writing an article in a discipline where writing is the discipline.

In the same way, today I had to work on the average length of a set of texts, which required me to add up 9 numbers and divide by 9. I would not pretend that this means I have 'done mathematics' in my academic work.

I guess, if you say so. Scientists don't care at all about putting words together elegantly. Never. Rough approximation of correct grammar is all that matters (since you say so).

I’m 200 words into a 2000 word essay
Right move is fascinating

Well, that kind of proves the point, doesn't it?!

A paper that plays silly games about including quotations for the sake of doing so sounds very funny. But clearly, it's not about putting words together elegantly.

If your work has to do with how well and carefully you use words, you don't have time to mess around.

In my discipline, we might play with words, but we'd do it to make a point - it would have to be relevant. And it'd probably have to be less juvenile than quoting something popular.

I am really similar to you op, but one going something that really helps. I’ve got an app called Oak and out has different breathing exercises , some to calm you, some for sleep, and one called energise. It takes less than a minute and it really cuts through the procrastination and putty-brain thing.

I mean, ask yourself: does Bob Dylan have some deep, intrinsic and yet surprising connection to the findings in those papers?

If yes, then that kind of word use is meaningful and justified.

If not, it's just a childish game, and any 12 year old could do the same.

I don't pretend that writing 'boobless' on a calculator by pressing numbers and turning it upside down is the same as doing academic mathematics, so IMO scientists and mathematicians shouldn't pretend juvenile jokes in language are the same as writing papers in an essay-based subject.

I'd never have got through my DPhil without the aid of multiple games of Tetris a day, and this was in the early days of computing where you didn't have your own, but spent all day in the computer room, and now I have my own laptop and there are sooo many more time wasting websites to go to...

I’m a writer (novels) and 4 hours seems to be generally bandied about as the maximum you can write for really productively in a day. I also love cafe noise and will sit in the very silent library playing YouTube cafe chatter through my headphones.
Isn’t procrastinating the most frustrating thing though? You know you’re pissing about, that you’ve made time to sit down and write, and you STILL refresh Instagram or whatever. Bloody annoying.

The thing about academic writing is that it's not like jotting down a shopping list or sending a quick email. I think there is a certain amount of mental "warming up" that has to take place in order to be able to focus on something of that level of complexity.

This is me. When I was doing my degree I spent more time reading from Facebook than I did reading journals

I found my brain went from being completely blank to working too fast for me to keep up so I would forget ideas before I had time to write them down.
I started to write paragraphs, sentences, ideas - anything - in random places on my document and just keep expanding them when inspiration struck. Then at the end I put them all together to make my essay and added links to make it flow. Then just before submission do my introduction and conclusion. Worked for me

I meant to say, I have an interview for a PhD project on Friday and I've only just started writing the bastard presentation. WHY AM I LIKE THIS?

Argh, I feel your pain. 4000 word essay due in next friday for my MSc and I'm here on mumsnet and emptying the dishwasher!

My grant application is now being replaced by tidying up the central file storage that doesn't really work and is rather out of date anyway.

I also find pomodoro works very well though.

Well, I'm the library I got just under 1000 words out yesterday plus drafting a few informed consent forms and questionnaires for a research project AND applied for ethics clearance. Granted, I procrastinated until about 3pm and did the lot in 2.5hrs but here we are...
It's been sent to my trusty proof reader who will no doubt send it back littered with horror.

Today's approach is hiding in my sisters spare room so I can escape every so often and squish my baby nephew as a reward. She's promised lunch.

Am going to try the green page thing, I'm an artist at the core and blank white pages scare the bejesus out of me!

@SarahAndQuack Surely, unless one is writing fiction or an opinion piece, the purpose of most essays is the dissemination of information which requires the same level of thought and crafting regardless of subject? As an engineering PhD student I used to proofread for extra money as well as teaching engineering labs. Marking the engineering essays was often far more enjoyable than some of the dross the 'essay writing subjects' came out with.

I don't think so, no.

There are subjects where your main aim is to be clear and direct; there are also subjects where you're doing something that is perhaps closer to creative writing, and you want your writing to be emotive and beautiful, too. I think in a lot of Arts subjects (certainly mine) ethnographic writing is getting quite trendy, so there is quite a bit of overlap with creative writing.

My brother is a mathematics academic, and we discuss this sometimes - he says in maths you might write a really elegant proof, and you'd be proud not just of what you proved but how you proved it. I think it's a little like that.

(But I absolutely agree 'essay writing subject' academics can write dross, myself very much included. I'm not suggesting we're any better at it - just that the reason it takes us longer to write than someone in certain sciences may well not be because we're lazy and slow, but because the writing process is a bigger and more substantial aspect of the end result.)

(I also suspect there may be subject-specific ideas about what an 'opinion piece' is. Everything I write would be an 'opinion piece'.)

Just finished a 110k word book project. Took just over 2 years from scratch. Was done at the same time as normal academic duties/responsibilities i.e. teaching, admin, PhD supervision. Book was an academic monograph (humanities) for a strong university press, therefore heavy on the research, as well as the writing,

I don't find lack of focus an issue when it comes researching or the actual writing. The tempo of writing may have differed day to day depending upon the difficulty of the subject at hand, however. Sometimes a solid 8 hours of effort would result in a single paragraph written, due to the way that important aspects of the entire argument may hang upon very subtle emphases in phrasing or terminology, or simply due to the difficulty of the problem I was wrestling with. But the routine was always the same

Begin at 8. Read/Write for two and half hours. Brief break (5 mins) to grab a coffee. Resume writing until 12. Eat lunch at desk (10 mins). Read news/other bollocks for about 20 mins and then, by about 12:30, get back to work. Finish at 3' ish and go to the gym. Rinse and repeat every weekday. If I had marking, I would compress that into entire days (3 or so) so as not to have it hanging over me and distracting me from writing. Would often read relevant research material in the late evening,

If I had teaching, I'd simply follow that same routine with the obvious exception of whatever time was taken away from my desk.

The only distraction is music/radio. Helps me think

This thread is so reassuring and helpful at the same time.

I'm an editor and this thread gives me the opportunity to say what I would LOVE to be able to say to my authors, but never could in real life. On the off chance that any of you ARE indeed my authors...

GET BACK TO WORK! I WANT YOUR FINISHED WORK ON MY DESK BY FRIDAY!!!

Daftodil I can only apologise on behalf of all writers, we are genuinely sorry but it's highly unlikely we'll ever change 😬

Viciousrooster You have an iron will that I can only aspire to.

You're not my editor because my editor would say that to me.

On behalf of us recalcitrant procrastinating nightmares, I'm sorry.

(But, but, but ... if you weren't so good at getting us helpful reviews that will make the eventual publication better, we'd finish a lot sooner, wouldn't we?! )