Biology Writes

Emily Bernhardt: I start every semester off with good intentions and good habits that tend to unravel by mid semester. When I am following those good intentions I start my day with a ‘cobweb clearing’ writing sprint followed by two 30 minute pomodoros on whatever writing project is top of the list. Cobweb clearing writing is free association writing and I use it to write about what I need to get done, where I’m angsting and things I am starting to think about. By the end of that I’m usually in a good mindset for focused writing. Using pomodoros is a good way to stay focused and it’s good to end a writing session before you lose steam. An added bonus is that if I get an hour of writing in first thing, the day feels like a success no matter what else does (or doesn’t) get done. Looking forward to a hard reset in the New Year.

Paul Manos:  To keep studying writing styles in my field to see the diversity of approaches used in critical sections of a paper (e.g., paragraphs 1-3 and the last paragraph of the intro, and the first paragraph of the discussion). To get more serious about writing for the broader public because it helps me write in a more active tone using shorter sentences with more flexibility, and what I think is an easier to read style.  To keep writing in concentrated blocks of time, and to always check in on my work first thing in the AM and/or late at night. To remember to go to hard copy drafts as a check on flow and overall construction.  And to keep writing with team-oriented colleagues who believe in each other’s strengths.

David Sherwood:  Mine is reading creative writing 🙂 I always find that helps expand my thinking and writing. Reading a book now…“Bewilderment”.

What are your New Year’s writing resolutions?   Join the conversation below!

A writing ritual is simply a routine that prepares you to think creatively and write productively. Many famous writers practice writing rituals to transition from previous activities, to clear their minds, and to set the intention to write.

Natalie Zoe Kerr (postdoc, Morris lab): I try to dedicate 1-2 hours of non-internet time per day to writing tasks alone. If I write one paragraph – great! If I write two pages – also great! The amount written per day doesn’t matter, but consistent allocated time to writing allows me to not push it to the backburner. I also brain dump onto paper, and then pull out ideas and reorganize them into a cohesive story.

Emily Levy (graduate student, Alberts lab): I like to do whatever gives me a clear head, but the actual ‘ritual’ varies depending on where my head’s at. Sometimes I do deep breaths and some stretches. Sometimes it’s chocolate or an extended dog-hug.

Sheila Patek (professor): Pre-pandemic, I had a beloved writing ritual that revolved around the bliss of a regular schedule and that quiet moment when the family is out the door, to school/work/whatever. I would make a perfect cup of premium green tea shipped directly from Kyoto Japan, capture a nugget of morning sunlight coming in through the window, move my chair to sit in that sunbeam, and just be with the writing for at least 30 minutes before the chaos of the workday began. I am looking forward to finding that rhythm again once schools are operating normally – maybe fall 2022?

Julie Reynolds (associate professor of the practice): My favorite writing ritual is to go on a run first thing in the morning to get my blood pumping and clear my mind. Then, with a steamy cup of black coffee, I sit down at my desk, mute my phone, turn email off, and write down specific goals for the writing session before getting started.

Robin Smith (professional science writer and alumni of Rausher Lab): My most productive writing rituals happen when everyone else is asleep. For me that means getting up in the pre-dawn dark, tiptoeing down the hall past my husband and snoring kids, quieting the cat with some extra kibble she’s probably not supposed to be eating, and keeping a keen eye on the tea kettle so I can take it off the burner before the whistling breaks the magic. No emails to answer, no meals to make. For the next hour or so the kitchen table is my happy place. This ritual became even more important during our 16 months of living crammed together at home 24-7 during the pandemic school closures, when quiet time and space for work was so hard to come by. I got better at getting things done no matter what was swirling around me, but let’s just say that if I could hug their teachers now that the kids are back in school, I would.

Do you have any writing rituals? Join the conversation below!

Q: I was planning to be finished with my dissertation by now but I’m nowhere near done. My research is mostly complete and my committee is supportive but I’m just not making  progress with the writing. What are some specific strategies that you can suggest?

Emily Ozdowski:   For me, it was ALL about the setting.  If I tried to write at home, the laundry and dishes would constantly nag at me. If I tried to write in the lab, similar “shoulds” pulled away my focus.  I ended up being the most productive with a coffee at a window seat in the local Barnes and Noble, wearing headphones for background music. As long as it was music I knew inside and out, any lyrics didn’t become a distraction.  Apparently, I needed a subtly entertaining atmosphere to convince my lizard brain I was having fun. Then my more conscious efforts could be put into the work of writing.

Dan McShea:  Standard procedure is to make a detailed outline, but really it could be just a list of bullet point, in order, for each chapter.  Then just fill in the prose around the bullet points.

Opposite approach, if the standard one no good for you: start writing wherever it’s easiest, wherever you’re most excited by what you have to say. Could be the intro, could be the conclusion, could the middle of chapter 3. Doesn’t matter. Wherever you’re excited to say something. Start on the downslope, as they say in the writing biz.

Sounds easy. It’s not. But as meditation teacher of mine once said, don’t worry about doing it right, don’t worry about doing it well, just (expletive) do it.

Justin Wright:  I like to write inside out.  Start with the figures/analyses you know you want to tell your story – write the results section around those specific topics, write the methods that you need to describe the results – write the last paragraph of your introduction “Here we address the following questions (A,B,C) by taking the following approach.   That gives you the structure for your introduction (you basically have to justify why questions A, B, and C are interesting, then add a paragraph or two at the start to provide some general context.  The discussion comes last, but by know you should know what the intriguing things about your results are that you want to spend more time explaining.

Sheila Patek:  Like Justin, that’s exactly what I do and train my lab to do.  I’ll even add that after the discussion writing, then the abstract, and the very, very last thing is title.

What strategies do you have?   Join the conversation below.

Amy:   Different kinds of writing groups have different benefits. A moderated online side-by-side writing group, such as the London Writers’ Salon writers’ hours, can help you make time for writing and keep you accountable (suggestion: leave that camera on!). Critique groups are a way to share your writing and give and receive feedback.

Or you can create a group with whatever goals and structure you want. A fiction writing group I’m in focuses on critiquing plots for novels. Another group meets weekly in a park, where we catch up, talk about what we’re reading, then about how our writing is going, and we end with 30 minutes of side-by-side writing. ALL groups can be wonderful for helping you feel like part of a writing community.

Jennifer:  I love my writing group. I’ve been in my current writing group for [13] years, and we’ve survived job changes, a marriage, a divorce, two babies, moves, professional ups and downs, and writing that runs the gamut from grants and academic articles to young adult novels, blog posts about Pluto, and news stories on robotic fish and the mating rituals of pea hens. It works for me.

I’ve been in six other writing groups over the past twenty or so years–some worked, and some didn’t. Looking back, I could have saved myself time (and stress) if I’d just recognized these signs: (read Jennifer’s full blog, 7 Signs It’s Time to Break Up with Your Writing Group)

Meet the writers and join the conversation by adding your comments below

Big thanks to these writers who answer your questions in the “Ask a Writer” column.   This post will be updated as we add more writers to our community

Jennifer Ahern-Dodson, Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition, is Director of Outreach in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program and directs the Faculty Write Program. Her current project focuses on metacognition and faculty writers.

Monique Dufour, Ph.D. in History, is an assistant professor at Virginia Tech and Director of graduate student professional development.  She runs the “You Can Write It!” program and podcast and often leads writing and teaching workshops for faculty and graduate students at Duke, where she began her career as a Mellon Writing Fellow. She is currently working on a book, Sustainable Teaching: Time Management for Passionate Educators.

Cary Moskovitz, Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, is Director of Writing in the Disciplines in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program, as well as Director of the Text Recycling Research Project and the Duke Reader Project. He is currently working on a paper entitled: Text recycling policies in STEM author-publisher contracts

Julie Reynolds, Ph.D. in biology, is Director of Biology Writes and was one of the first scientists hired to teach academic writing in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program.  She currently teaches writing-intensive courses for undergraduates and is organizes writing groups for faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and staff.

Amy Sayle, Ph.D. in Epidemiology, was one of the first scientists hired to teach in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program. She is currently a science communicator at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center who, in addition to presenting planetarium shows, writes for their science blog. For fun, she writes Young Adult fiction.

Q:   What technology do you recommend to help me improve my writing? 

Monique:   When I am working on a piece of writing over a period of time, every time I open the document, I make a copy and rename it.  By doing this, I am never afraid of overwriting or losing my work.   It also helps me see patterns in my writing process – I can go back to earlier drafts (which I only do if I am stuck).

Cary:   For the prose parts (this doesn’t work for equations!) try having your computer read your draft aloud to you. (For Macs, you can set up a shortcut in Preferences under Speech.) Highlight a paragraph or so and start. Don’t look at the screen; just listen. Find the places where you have difficulty following the train of thought, where things sound clumsy, and so on—and edit those.

Julie:   I’ve used Endote for years but I prefer Zotero for some projects because it makes collaboration across institutions much easier.  Duke libraries has put together this useful table that compares citation tools (also called bibliographic management tools or citation managers).

Meet the Writers

Monique Dufour, Ph.D. in History, is an assistant professor at Virginia Tech and Director of graduate student professional development.  She runs the “You Can Write It!” program and podcast and often leads writing and teaching workshops for faculty and graduate students at Duke, where she began her career as a Mellon Writing Fellow. She is currently working on a book, Sustainable Teaching: Time Management for Passionate Educators.

Cary Moskovitz, Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, is Director of Writing in the Disciplines in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program, as well as Director of the Text Recycling Research Project and the Duke Reader Project. He is currently working on a paper entitled: Text recycling policies in STEM author-publisher contracts

Julie Reynolds, Ph.D. in biology, is Director of Biology Writes and was one of the first scientists hired to teach academic writing in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program.  She currently teaches writing-intensive courses for undergraduates and is organizes writing groups for faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and staff.   Interested in joining a writing group?   Email Julie.a.reynolds@duke.edu

Join the conversation: What technology helps your writing? Leave a comment below!

Q:  Why is it so hard to FINISH a paper? I find that final step of polishing all the paragraphs incredibly difficult.

Monique: The things that most interest you in the project, as a biologist, are probably not at play at the end of writing a paper. It is likely that what interests you is asking the research questions, designing the study, analyzing the data – those are the exciting parts of doing biology. What is left at the end of the writing process is probably not tapping into the biologist in you – it is tapping into the writer in you. Some people find those writing issues interesting, but they are not biology. By that point in the process, you may feel done with the idea and have probably moved on to new ideas that are competing for your attention. That’s probably why it feels so hard.

Amy: It is so hard to banish those perfectionist tendencies!   It helps me to step away from my writing and come back to it with fresh eyes – I often realize it is better than I thought.

Jennifer: Finishing a paper can be a challenge for me because I don’t enjoy the editing stage of writing. What I find most helpful for the final push is the Pomodoro method.  First, I make a list of the remaining tasks I need to complete (ex: “review footnotes on page 3”; “add reviewer 2’s suggestion for a reference to X source”; “revise conclusion for clarity and conciseness”). Then I choose 1 task from the list, set a timer (for me, it’s 25 minutes), and work on that one task during the allotted time. This strategy helps me stay focused on each individual task remaining to get the project submitted, stay motivated because the final edits are in short bursts, and allows me to make progress step by step.

Meet the Writers

Jennifer Ahern-Dodson, Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition, is Director of Outreach in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program and directs the Faculty Write Program. Her current project focuses on metacognition and faculty writers.

Monique Dufour, Ph.D. in History, is an assistant professor at Virginia Tech and Director of graduate student professional development.  She runs the “You Can Write It!” program and podcast and often leads writing and teaching workshops for faculty and graduate students at Duke, where she began her career as a Mellon Writing Fellow. She is currently working on a book, Sustainable Teaching: Time Management for Passionate Educators.

Amy Sayle, Ph.D. in Epidemiology, was one of the first scientists hired to teach in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program. She is currently a science communicator at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center who, in addition to presenting planetarium shows, writes for their science blog. For fun, she writes Young Adult fiction.

Join the conversation: What helps you finish up your writing projects? Leave a comment below!

Q:  So many things in my life have deadlines – grades are due, committee meetings are scheduled, conferences are planned.   How do you make time for writing when there are so many other things competing for your attention?

Amy:  I have discovered that it works best for me if I put the writing first in the day, especially if it doesn’t have a deadline attached.  I have it on my schedule, with a specific start time and an end time.   Accountability also helps – I always let someone else know what I am planning to do and then I check in with them at the end of my scheduled writing time to let them know how it went.

 Jennifer:  Since writing is a required part of my job, but less visible than committee work or teaching, I plan my semester with writing in mind rather than trying to fit it in after everything else gets done. What I find helpful is scheduling writing into my weekly schedule and protecting that time the same way I would other meetings and class time.

For example, I’m in a weekly “write-on-site” group, and so I have a two hour block each Friday just for writing alongside others who are doing the same. I’ve also found that I’m better at protecting writing time if it’s at the beginning of the day, before I’ve checked email, and when I have the most creative energy. With that in mind, I schedule a short writing session (25-30 minutes) at least three mornings a week during the semester.

In addition, each Sunday night I review the week ahead and make adjustments to my writing schedule as needed so I can keep my writing goals realistic. If it’s a busy teaching week (midterm grading or student meetings), I might write only on Friday. If I have a pressing writing deadline (a co-author needs my feedback), I might block more writing time and see what else can be pushed to another week.

Meet the Writers

Jennifer Ahern-Dodson, Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition, is Director of Outreach in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program and directs the Faculty Write Program. Her current project focuses on metacognition and faculty writers.

Amy Sayle, Ph.D. in Epidemiology, was one of the first scientists hired to teach in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program. She is currently a science communicator at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center who, in addition to presenting planetarium shows, writes for their science blog. For fun, she writes Young Adult fiction.

Want more tips?

This recent article  in the Chronicle of Higher Ed  (this link gets you access through the Duke Library) shows how one writer makes decisions about writing time (what / when/ how much) in the midst of everything else. TLDR:

Here are two systems to manage multiple writing projects – which one best suits you?   Consider trying each of them for a week, keeping track of what you got done and how you felt doing it.

Option No. 1: The Daily Juggle. This one can be daunting but the ability to switch between projects on a single day — even in the same work session — is a skill you can develop with practice and (just a little bit of) discipline. Here’s how I’d recommend you schedule your first week, devoting three hours a day to your writing and research:

• • Monday. Grant application: 45 minutes. Monograph: 75 minutes. Talk No. 1: 60 minutes.
  • Tuesday. Edited volume: 45 minutes. Monograph: 75 minutes. Talk No. 1: 60 minutes.
  • Wednesday. Grant application: 45 minutes. Monograph: 75 minutes. Talk No. 2: 60 minutes.
  • Thursday. Edited volume: 45 minutes. Monograph: 75 minutes. Talk No. 2: 60 minutes.
  • Friday. Monograph: the full three hours.

Option No. 2: Dedicated Days. In this approach, you spend each weekday doing a specific thing — mostly — but you don’t spend long enough away from any one thing to forget what you were doing with it before. A Dedicated Days schedule might look like this:

• • Monday. Grant application: 2 hours, 30 minutes. Final half hour: Review the last work you did on the monograph to refamiliarize yourself with it in preparation for the next day; maybe add a few sentences.
  • Tuesday. Monograph: 2 hours, 30 minutes. Final half hour: Refamiliarize yourself with the edited volume to prep for tomorrow.
  • Wednesday. Edited volume: 2 hours, 30 minutes. Final half hour: Refamiliarize yourself with Talk No. 1.
  • Thursday. Talk No. 1: 2 hours, 30 minutes. Final half hour: Refamiliarize yourself with Talk No. 2.
  • Friday. Talk 2: all three hours.

Join the conversation: How do you prioritize your writing? Leave a comment below!

Q:  I am a good scientist, but I don’t really think I am a good writer.   What’s the easiest thing I can do to make my writing better?  

Jennifer: I have three main strategies. First, I read a lot of articles in the journals where I want to publish to familiarize myself with the style. I also read writing that inspires me or makes me think. I once collaborated with a scientist writing an NSF grant who loved to read The New Yorker for inspiration!

Second, I write a lot, but I don’t expect everything to be published. Sometimes I need to write a lot to figure out what I have to say and to have material to work with. I used to think it was terribly inefficient to write 5 pages to get maybe 3 paragraphs in the end, but I had to write those 5 to get those 3 to advance the project. I’ve found Paul Silva’s book How to Write a Lot particularly useful for this strategy.

Last, I share my writing while I’m working on it. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what’s good in all that writing. I’ve found participating in a monthly writing group and giving each other feedback on our works-in-progress an invaluable way to improve my writing. My group helps me see what’s working, what’s not, and to make a plan for next steps. I also learn from reading their writing and hearing about their writing process.

Cary: Think carefully about who you are really writing for; then write in a way that makes the most sense for them: Do your readers really need that extensive lit review? Are you choosing the words that communicate most clearly to them? Have you carefully designed your visuals (figures and tables) with your readers in mind?

Amy: Do more of it! You get better with practice. Also, find a model that is roughly similar to what you are trying to write and analyze it to figure out what makes it good. Study the structure and the writing techniques. Get critique partners and have a supportive writing community.

Meet the Writers

Jennifer Ahern-Dodson, Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition, is Director of Outreach in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program and directs the Faculty Write Program. Her current project focuses on metacognition and faculty writers.

Cary Moskovitz, Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, is Director of Writing in the Disciplines in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program, as well as Director of the Text Recycling Research Project and the Duke Reader Project. He is currently working on a paper entitled: Text recycling policies in STEM author-publisher contracts

Amy Sayle, Ph.D. in Epidemiology, was one of the first scientists hired to teach in Duke’s Thompson Writing Program. She is currently a science communicator at Morehead Planetarium and Science Center who, in addition to presenting planetarium shows, writes for their science blog. For fun, she writes Young Adult fiction.

Join the conversation: What are some things that you do to make your writing better? Leave a comment below!

Got questions?  We have answers! “Ask a writer” is a periodic column in which I will pose your questions to successful authors (in our department and beyond) and publish their responses.  Ask your questions in the comments section below or by emailing Julie.A.Reynolds@duke.edu and check back here to read what the experts have to say!