Writer’s Spotlight: Emily Bernhard

“I do a lot of collaborative writing, but I don’t red-pen my graduate students’ writing anymore. Instead, we sit down together and work through whole sections where one of us reads aloud and the other one edits. It’s awesome because you don’t have to over-interpret what someone’s edits mean, you’re just sitting there, together, talking about how to get the point across as clearly and succinctly as possible. Also, before we submit a revised manuscript, we always, always do a read-aloud as part of our final polish. It is amazing how many messy bits you’ll catch! It really does improve the flow of a manuscript. 

I love it and think it has been a major improvement in working with my students as coauthors because when you’re having a conversation about writing, edits and suggestions seem less like attacks and more like improvements. A lot of editing and reviewing can come across as cruel because you were busy or you weren’t clear, which is problematic because writing is so much a part of people’s self-worth. I find that it’s easier to be kind by having a conversation – it’s a pleasant experience as opposed to a painful one!”

Emily S. Bernhardt, Professor of Biology, Duke University


This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2022 at 7:45 pm and is filed under Writer's Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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